Peter Edward Matthews (Founder & Chief Executive Officer) is an Itinerant Elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and currently serves as the founder/CEO of Holistic, Inc. In this position his primary responsibilities include, but are not limited to, fund raising, life coaching, think-tank organizer, capacity building, and strategic business development.

Matthews received his Bachelor of Arts Degree from Denison University where he had the opportunity to study abroad in both South Africa during the fall of 1993 and France during the spring of 1998. He received his Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary in the spring of 1999. During his formal education, Peter obtained practical administrative experience from working in the 3000 member St. James AME Church (Newark, NJ), the 6000-member Bright Hope Baptist Church (Philadelphia, PA), and the 18,000-member First AME Church (Los Angeles, CA) as youth pastor, Executive Minister, and Director of Youth Services & Programs respectively. Each experience would later come to serve Matthews well as he began his trek as Senior Minister of two congregations.

Peter’s first appointment as Senior Minister came in November of 1999 in Oxford, Ohio (home of Miami of Ohio University) at the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Fifteen new programs during his tenure were added including the construction of administrative office to transform the church into a seven-day a week institution. He was installed as first the chaplain in the history of Miami University Men’s Basketball program, and he was also frequently called upon by the city’s newspaper to be an op-ed journalist. During his tenure, the church completed $30,000 in renovations and grew by over 500%. Finally, it should be duly noted that Rev. Matthews also taught African American History at the nationally acclaimed Seven Hills Upper School and was the founding Executive Director of the Love Foundation for the legendary urban radio personality Walt Baby Love. The primary mission of the Love Foundation is to heighten awareness in the African American community on the perils of Cancer and Lupus. During his tenure as Executive Director, Matthews arranged a number of concerts with celebrated gospels artists in some of America’s premier churches.

In September of 2001 Peter was appointed to his 2nd church at, St. Stephen African Methodist Episcopal in Cincinnati, Ohio. There he continued to pursue his passions of civic engagement and innovative programming by initiating over 20 programs during his tenure. With the support of his church leadership he oversaw phenomenal spiritual and numerical growth in the church. During his tenure, the numerical growth of the church grew from 22 to 350 members. Matthews was selected as the only religious leader on Cincinnati’s Free Store/Food Bank Board of Trustees during the spring of 2003. His weekly column Confessions was read by more than 125,000 people weekly in the state of Ohio’s largest African-American newspaper The Herald. To date he has published three books including; Confessions: Inside The Soul of A Complex Pastor (2004), and Passin’ The Plate: Offerings of Hope and Healing for Humanity (2005). His current work Envision: Experiencing the World from the Inside Out (2006) is a guided academic meditation of his participation in the first half of the joint MA/PhD program in Ecumenical Studies at the University of Geneva with the Bossey Ecumenical Institute. Envision attempts to introduce the ethic globalization spirituality to “everyday people”.

Peter has written several articles including his latest articles recently published in the Amsterdam and Switzerland press, (Splendid Imperfection (Geneva Tribune) & The Relevance of Audacity (Das Helling of Amsterdam, Holland). Following is a summary of Peter's two books, titled, “Envision” and “Passin the Plate”.

Envision

While presenting an analysis of the role of Rev. Martin L. King, Jr. in the strengthening of global spirituality, Peter E. Matthews unearths a series of steps that encourages the citizens of the world to conceive of change, to imagine a better world. ‘Envision: experiencing the world from the inside out’ sheds lights on the struggles of everyday man and woman, along with notable 21st century heavy hitters, to create change in the midst of the struggle. Matthews outlines how King set a standard for religious leaders as they attempted to change the world, and calls on readers to reclaim our African-American leadership role in unifying the religions of the globe.

Penned as he pursues a doctoral degree at the Bossey Institute in Geneva, Switzerland, Matthews sweeps across strikingly different venues – from the pain of Richard Pryor to the strength of the Biblical giant, David – and calls us to continue to move towards a better world. The book not only includes reflections from different corners of the planet, but also includes a guideline for those persons who seek to become the individuals of the world so desperately in need. Envision...read it and change the world from the inside out. 
Passin’ The Plate

In his debut work, Rev. Peter Matthews takes on the current question of male/female relationships and presents innovative solutions to the gender-bashing that troubles the African-American community.

Dr. Frank M. Reid III, Chief Spiritual Officer of the Bethel A.M.E. Church, Baltimore, MD describes Peter Matthews as an “authentic revolutionary voice”. In his foreword, Dr. Reid prophesies that PASSIN’ THE PLATE “should be read by pastors, teachers, business people, community leaders and the brother and sister who are committed to keeping it real.”

Passin' The Plate is a non-fiction series of essays designed to equip, enrich, and empower. Written with style and wit by Rev. Peter E. Matthews, an urban, intellectual man of God with a Hip-Hop point of view, no aspect of American society is left untouched. Politicians, pastors, actors, every woman, every man is examined through the lens of this urban-bred revolutionary.

In his unique voice, Rev. Matthews prays that God would “remind your daughters that love may be freely given but that the ... mantle of respect must be earned”. For the brothers, he pleads, “Lord, we are castrating each other on street corners over craps, and in corner offices over scraps. Lord, please save us from ourselves”. The dialogue is like that!

If you are interested in Peter bringing his vision of inspired inspiration to your organization or business today, e-mail us at: info@holisticinc.org.