Imagination + Organizing = Healing

Reverend Michael-Ray Mathews is the director of clergy organizing for PICO National Network, a faith-based network of more than 1,200 congregations engaged in community organizing in more than 200 cities in the United States. He is the lead organizer of PICO’s Prophetic Voices Initiative, which is organizing a prophetic faith voice leading the struggle for racial and economic inclusion in the U.S. He joined the PICO senior leadership team in January 2008. An ordained American Baptist minister, he served churches throughout California, most recently as the senior pastor of Grace Baptist Church of San José from 2000-2008. A native of California, Mathews celebrates 26 years of pastoral ministry this year. Mathews is a candidate for the Doctor of Ministry degree at the San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo, California. His dissertation project is an introductory pastoral theology for pastors engaged in faith-based community organizing.