Matt Rissler is the longest serving Bridgefolk board member, mostly because no one else wants to be treasurer, he suspects, and the office does not have term limits. Matt (a Mennonite) and his future wife, Angie Kohlhass (a Catholic), first attended Bridgefolk events while they were graduate students at the University of Notre Dame in the middle aughts. The final report from the historic international dialogue between Catholics and Mennonites from 1998-2003, “Called Together to be Peacemakers,” had just been released. Matt and Angie have been hooked on Bridgefolk ever since.
Matt was born in Front Royal, Virginia, to a pair of former Eastern Mennonite Missions workers who had transitioned to raising kids and teaching in the local public school after returning from a couple of terms in East Africa. When Matt was four, the family headed back to Somalia for a couple years, before returning to Front Royal. His home congregation is Big Spring Mennonite Church where he grew up under the mentorship of many other public-school teachers.
Leaving the Shenandoah Valley, Matt went to Goshen College where he studied Math and Physics before heading to Notre Dame for graduate school. At Notre Dame, he met Angie and took learning about Catholicism more seriously. He was intrigued by the embodiment of sacramentalism and Angie’s commitment to simplicity. Almost two decades later, he reports, their relationship is going strong. After receiving his PhD in Mathematical Biology, Matt went to teach Applied Math at Loras College, a Catholic diocesan college in Dubuque, Iowa. Angie joined him teaching there when she finished her PhD two years later. Noah was born in 2013 and Miriam followed in 2015.
During his dozen years at Loras, Matt was engaged with multiple aspects of the college’s Catholic nature, from aiding in liturgy to serving on committees related to faith and service. Sometimes he brought an outsider’s view of Catholicism, and sometimes the view of a fellow disciple of Christ. While he enjoyed his years of teaching, students’ emotional needs had increased as they came out of the pandemic lockdown, so Matt stepped away from Loras to have more energy for his children. He now works for Bound, a youth sports management software company based in Iowa.
Matt worships with his family at the Cathedral of St. Raphael in Dubuque. Though still staunchly Mennonite, he is one of the most involved members of the parish through lectoring, cantoring, and singing in the choir. The family regularly attends Wild Church worship services that happen around Dubuque and are often organized by friends from the nearby Catholic Worker farms. He also occasionally organizes gatherings of the few Mennonites in Dubuque, something he would like to do more frequently. He is an active participant in the organizing committee for Honor Native Land Fund, a Iowa-centered clearinghouse for indigenous land-back donations. Matt, Angie, Noah, and Miriam all try to walk lightly on the earth by gardening, upgrading their century-old house, and rewilding their yard.