Originally broadcast at 9:15 a.m. ET Friday, July 15, 2022.

Morning Worship Service with Rev. Michael-Ray Mathews (he/him/his) brings over 30 years of leadership experience – as a senior pastor, grassroots leader, psalmist, and community organizer – to his work as Deputy Director for Faith in Action (formerly PICO National Network). He is the host of the Prophetic Resistance Podcast, where he engages multi-faith leaders in conversations about cultivating communities of belonging and sacred resistance to injustice. Rev. Mathews is president of the Alliance of Baptists, a progressive movement for justice and healing, and co-editor of Trouble the Waters: A Christian Resource for the Work of Racial Justice. A visiting professor of public theology at Berkeley School of Theology, he is also a senior fellow at Auburn Seminary in New York. Michael-Ray is co-founder of and public theologian-in-residence with Sympara, a multifaith/Interspiritual community of practice, repurposing spiritual assets for the common good. A native of Compton, California, Michael-Ray earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Sciences and Communications from the University of Southern California and a Master of Divinity degree from the American Baptist Seminary of the West and the Graduate Theological Union.

About Chautauqua Institution: Chautauqua Institution is a community on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York state that comes alive each summer with a unique mix of fine and performing arts, lectures, interfaith worship and programs, and recreational activities. As a community, we celebrate, encourage and study the arts and treat them as integral to all of learning, and we convene the critical conversations of the day to advance understanding through civil dialogue. CHQ Assembly is the online expression of Chautauqua Institution's mission.