Lawrence
Matthews, D. Min.
Lawrence
(Larry) Matthews is founder and coordinator of Leadership
In Ministry Workshops. While serving as pastor of Vienna
Baptist Church, a suburban Northern Virginia
congregation, he met monthly from 1987 until 1992 for
ministry supervision with Dr. Edwin Friedman. He also
participated in theory sessions each month with other
ministers, marriage and family therapists and business
consultants who were in supervision with Dr. Friedman. In
1990 he was invited by Friedman to join the faculty of
his Post Graduate Seminars for Ministers in Family
Emotional Process, a training program involving ministers
of many denominations from across the United States. He
was the only clergy faculty member and taught with
Friedman until his death in October, 1996.
In
1991 Larry founded Leadership In Ministry
Workshops to provide a more affordable training
program for ministers, rabbis, counselors and
congregational leaders unable to participate in the
Friedman seminars. The format of residential workshops,
case study and genogram work in small groups,
supplemented by lectures and video presentations, has
proved to be an effective educational model. The workshop
faculty includes ministers and marriage and family
therapists who have trained in family systems (Bowen)
theory.
Throughout
his ministry, Larry has been interested in the interface
between pastoral counseling, theology and pastoral
ministry. His major professor during his Doctor of
Ministry program at Princeton Seminary (1982) was Seward
Hiltner, who supervised his project-thesis on the
subject: "Helping Lay Church Leaders Do Theological
Reflection On Pastoral Care Ministry". In seminary he
began his clinical training at the School of Pastoral
Care of the Bowman Gray Medical Center in Winston Salem,
North Carolina and Dix Hill Hospital in Raleigh, North
Carolina. In the early 1970's he trained with the
Institute of Pastoral Psychotherapy of the Pastoral
Counseling and Consultation Centers of Greater
Washington. Dr. Friedman was his American Association of
Pastoral Counselors supervisor.
After
serving for 42 years in pastoral ministry, Larry retired
in 1998. In addition to his leadership of the LIM
Workshops, he continues his teaching in other training
programs and leads seminars throughout the country
relating family systems theory to ministry. He has been a
guest lecturer at universities and seminaries and has led
workshops at pastors' schools, denominational meetings
and the national conference of the American Association
of Pastoral Counselors. He also does individual coaching
with ministers and rabbis and congregational and
denominational leaders.
He
and his wife, Jean, are parents of two daughters and two
sons and thoroughly enjoy their seven grandsons and one
granddaughter.
As
Larry continues this new direction in ministry, his goal
is to help assure that long-term, in-depth training in
Friedman's application of family systems theory to
congregations and leadership continues to be available to
lay and clergy leaders.