The Rev. Matthew Best serves as pastor of Christ Lutheran Church on Allison Hill in Harrisburg, PA as well as the Director of Health Ministries of the Christ Lutheran Church. He resides in Carlisle, PA with his family and has a blog – www.pastormatthewbest.com – where he writes prayers, posts on theology and politics, and more.
Book Review: Disruption: Repurposing the Church to the Redeem the Community by Mark DeYmaz
June/July 2023: Book Review Issue (Volume 23 Issue 2)
[1] Disruption by Mark DeYmaz was a book written for me. The summary on the back of the volume says it all: “We must become disruptive.” The author is talking about how we think about church. Amen. [2] In defining a disruptor, DeYmaz turns to an opinion piece by Mel Robbins, an expert on human […]
Book Review: Fight Like Jesus: How Jesus Waged Peace Throughout Holy Week by Jason Porterfield
I read this book during Lent, which was the perfect time to read such a book. And let me just say – WOW! Great book. I highly recommend it. For our purposes here, I’m going to break down the review of the book in a manner similar to the structure of the book itself, which […]
The Church’s Faithful Responses to Conspiracy Theories – The Modern Gnosticism
October/November 2022: What Does It Mean To Be Church Now? (Volume 22 Issue 5)
[1] Over 20 years ago I worked on Capitol Hill for a Member of Congress. We would receive letters, phone calls, and emails about an assortment of issues. And we were required to send a response to every correspondence we received. Most of the time, those responses contained information or a constituent’s opinions about up-coming […]
Review: White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity by Robert P. Jones
December 2021/January 2022: 2020-2021, A Retrospective (Volume 21 Issue 7)
[1] As a white male middle-aged pastor with a beautiful family and photogenic dog, I couldn’t possibly be more of the image of white privilege in the church. Which is why it was important for me to read White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity. [2] The book White Too Long […]