Pastor's Bio	St. Matthew's Word on their Pastor

By the grace of God I am pleased and excited to bring you greetings on behalf of the people of God called St. Matthew African Methodist Episcopal Church. God has blessed the church to continue to grow not only mumerically, but spiritually, through the ministries of the church to be able to touch and change lives in the metropolian area, to assist in the ongoing efforts to assist Katrina victims, support the work of the church in Africa and a host of other causes.

God has continued to keep a burden on my heart, that I pray this congregation will embrace to make "Christ First" in their lives. Nowhere in the Word of God is the church commanded to make members, but to make disciples. This I believe should be the ongoing burden and priority for the church.

In an effort to move and empower the congregation to put "Christ First" last year we began a ministry called "No D's", (no debts, no deficits, no delinquencies). Christ is not first in the lives of so many people because we are in bondage to debt, deficits and delinquencies. It is not possible for Christ to be first in our lives if we are in financial bondage. This is why the Word of God speaks more about our management of money than it does anything els; love, joy, peace, forgivesness, heaven, sin, even the cross. God in His infinite wisdom knew that our failure to be good stewards of money more than anything else, would keep us from living the lives and having the relationship He desires to have with us. Through this ministry, I believe many will come to know and be obedient to God's Word and be enabled to live victorious lives in Christ.

This has been another good year in the life of this congregation and I say to "God be the glory for the great things He has done."

God enables me to see so much more that can be done in His name. Together and by faith, let us go forward.

Yours and His, Reginald T. Jackson Pastor