Philip K. Brockett is a caring pastor, a creative leader, who possesses an entrepreneurial spirit. He is currently pastor of Central St. Matthew United Church of Christ, New Orleans.
A graduate of North Park Theological Seminary, he began his ministerial career in Lincoln, Nebraska, as an associate pastor where he shared in all aspects of ministry with Rev. Ralph Sturdy. Ralph is Phil’s friend and mentor.
From there Phil moved to Denver Colorado where he served as a church planter in Broomfield Colorado. Together with a group of 20 people he founded a church which grew to 175 over the course of 5 years.
In 1986 Phil became Senior Pastor of Bethany Covenant church in New Britain, CT. A declining downtown church, Bethany, had struggled with relocation for 20 years prior. During Phil’s stay the church developed a Long Term Strategic Plan, raised over 5 million dollars, purchased property, and constructed a 35,000 square foot building in two phases.
Over the course of time Phil came to realize that his own theological journey had taken him to a place where he was no longer within the mainstream of the Evangelical Covenant Church in which he served. This was a difficult realization and created both a sense of personal and theological crisis. In 2011 along with Andrew Freeman, a young man who had grown up at Bethany Covenant and who was a seminary student at the time, Phil launched a blog comingoutcovenant.com to advocate for a more inclusive attitude toward gay and lesbian people within the Evangelical Covenant Church. Doing so eventually led Phil to leave the ECC and become part of the United Church of Christ. He served as interim minister at Center Congregational Church in Meridan, CT until his call to become pastor in New Orleans in 2015.