Dr. Matt Cook serves as the Assistant Director of the Center for Healthy Churches. He joined the Center after serving local congregations for thirty years, with twenty years as Senior Pastor in churches in Texas, Arkansas, and North Carolina.

Matt is a sought-after preacher, teacher, and workshop leader across the country and in various denominational settings. In addition to his work at the Center, he has served as Interim Pastor in multiple congregations across the country. Matt holds a bachelor’s degree from Samford University and completed both his M.Div. and Ph.D. in Church History at Baylor University. He has also taught on the undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral level at Belmont University, Baylor University’s Truett Seminary, and Central Baptist Theological Seminary.

According to Matt, “we are in the midst of the most challenging but also most dynamic period of change that congregations in North America have ever seen. We can either drown in those waves of change or surf them. But amazing things can happen when a congregation decides to do the work of gaining missional clarity and creatively engaging its community.”