Saint Matthew's Lutheran Church stands at 225 Center Street in New Milford, a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey. The congregation identifies itself as Lutheran in the classic, confessional tradition, rooted in the Small Catechism of Martin Luther, the Augsburg Confession, and the historic liturgical forms of the Western church. Visitors approaching the building find a parish that gathers twice each weekend for worship, meets at noon on Thursdays for Bible study, operates a community food pantry, and publishes a daily devotional meditation written by its pastor. The church office can be reached by phone at (201) 262-5092 or by email at office@smlcnewmilford.org.
Two Weekend Services: Saturday Evening and Sunday Morning
Saint Matthew's holds two regular weekend services each week. On Saturday evening, the congregation gathers for Evening Worship at 5:00 PM. On Sunday morning, the service begins at 9:30 AM. The two-service rhythm gives the parish room to welcome people whose work schedules, family commitments, or personal preference make either day more suitable, and members and visitors are invited to receive the Sacrament of the Altar in either service.
The Sunday morning gathering is preceded by a Coffee Half-Hour that begins at 9:00 AM and followed by a Coffee Hour that runs from 10:30 AM until noon, when members and visitors continue the conversation over refreshments. The Saturday service has traditionally been the smaller and quieter of the two, while the Sunday morning service gathers the largest number of the week. The current Saturday bulletin and the current Sunday bulletin are both posted for download each week, so anyone who wants to follow along at home or prepare for a visit can read ahead.
A Traditional Lutheran Liturgy
Worship at Saint Matthew's is described in the church's calendar as a traditional church service. The liturgy follows the historic Lutheran pattern: an opening confession of sins and the absolution that follows, the appointed readings from the Old Testament, the Psalms, the Epistle, and the Gospel, a sermon on those texts, the Apostles' Creed, the prayers of the church including the Lord's Prayer, and the celebration of the Lord's Supper on most Sundays. The church's bulletins are written out theologically, making clear what the liturgy gives.
The bulletin for the First Sunday in Advent is characteristic. It proclaims the beginning of a new church year and the commemoration of St. Andrew, then unfolds the day's Gospel: "We will echo the words of John the Baptist, heralding Christ's coming. We will join in the chant of the crowd: 'Hosanna to the Son of David!' (Matthew 21:9). We will hear Him speak to us through the voice of His Word. We will feast upon His flesh for the life of the world and His blood that cleanses us from all sin." The sermon applies Law and Gospel to the day, and the congregation responds with prayers and praise.
Worship at the parish moves through the seasons of the church year: Advent and Christmas, Epiphany, Lent and Easter, Pentecost, and the long green season of Trinity. Reformation Sunday and All Saints' Day appear on the calendar as occasions for the sermon, and Thanksgiving Eve brings both a daytime and an evening service each November.
Thursday Bible Class at Noon
On Thursdays from 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM, Saint Matthew's gathers at the church for a Bible Class that studies the Scriptures and the Lutheran confessions verse by verse. Recent classes have walked through the Nicene Creed line by line, taken up the deeper meaning of the Ten Commandments (including the Fifth Commandment), and entered the Advent and Lenten seasons with study handouts prepared by the pastor. The Thursday sessions are open to anyone in the community who wants to dig deeper into the text, and the handouts are posted for download on the church's calendar page so that those who cannot attend in person can follow along at home.
The midweek noon hour makes the class accessible to retirees, parents with school-age children, and those whose work schedules permit a midday break. Before and after the class, the pastor keeps office hours at the church for pastoral conversation, confession, and counsel.
The Saint Matthew's Food Pantry
In addition to its worship and educational life, Saint Matthew's operates a community food pantry that serves households in and around New Milford. The pantry maintains a published list of items it regularly needs and a roster of categories where supplies are currently adequate, so that donors can give what is most useful rather than what is easiest to buy.
Items most needed at any given time include syrup, canned carrots, olive oil, vegetable oil, cookies, crackers, cake frosting, and muffin mix. The pantry also maintains a more comprehensive list, organized by category. Vegetables typically requested include carrots, corn, mixed vegetables, and potatoes. Soups and meats include beef stew, chili, corned beef, corned beef hash, other canned meats, tuna, and sardines. Rice varieties include white rice, brown rice, Uncle Ben's, and Rice-a-Roni. Fruit requests include pineapple, fruit cocktail, peaches, and mandarin oranges. Salad fixings include olive oil, vegetable oil, vinegar, and salad dressings.
Paper products and toiletries are also in short supply. Toilet paper in individually wrapped rolls or four-packs, tissues, and paper towels are listed as items with ongoing supply chain shortages. Toiletries include regular-sized hypoallergenic bar soap and hypoallergenic hand soap. Food storage items such as plastic wrap and aluminum foil round out the list.
The pantry page draws attention to the scope of food insecurity in New Jersey, noting that nearly 775,000 people in the state struggle with food insecurity every month, a number that has grown by more than 75% since the start of the pandemic, with one in nine New Jersey children struggling with hunger. The pantry invites donations and links to several statewide organizations working on hunger relief, including Feeding America, End Hunger NJ, Hunger Free NJ, the Community Food Bank of New Jersey, and America's Health Rankings.
Pastor Anthony Iovine and the Morning Devotional
Saint Matthew's is served by Pastor Anthony Iovine, who writes the church's Morning Devotional, a daily meditation published on the church's devotional blog. Each post is dated and signed by Pastor Iovine and follows a consistent shape: a verse from Scripture for the day, a pastoral reflection on that verse, a prayer for the day, the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, Luther's Morning Prayer, and a closing hymn suggestion. The devotional runs nearly every day of the year and has been the steady pastoral voice of the parish through seasons both ordinary and extraordinary.
The subjects of the devotions range widely across the Christian life and the church year. Recent entries have taken up the Lord's Prayer as a pattern for all prayer, the cost of forgiveness, the Noahic covenant and Baptism, the call to be peacemakers in a time of war, the relationship between Christians and the new technologies of artificial intelligence, the Office of the Keys given to the Church, the work of reconciliation among Christians, the meaning of Labor Day and the rest that Christ gives to the weary, and the gospel warnings of the watchmen of Ezekiel 33. Other devotions take up the daily anxieties of paying bills, the loss of memory and the consolation of the Gospel, and the meaning of the cross when tragedy strikes a community.
A September 11 devotional reflects on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the 2001 attacks. Pastor Iovine writes of his personal memory of that morning as a seminarian in Indiana, of seeing the towers collapse while standing outside the chapel, of friends who worked at the World Trade Center, and of his remembrance of FDNY Chaplain Father Mychal Judge. The meditation moves from the haunting images of that day to the comfort of the Psalmist: "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." The devotional concludes, "Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. Even in deep sorrow, we do not grieve as those who have no hope."
The devotional's theological vocabulary is unmistakably confessional Lutheran. It draws on the Augsburg Confession and the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, the Large and Small Catechisms, and the Formula of Concord, quoting them and the Book of Concord more broadly. The Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and Luther's Morning Prayer appear at the foot of each post, anchoring the daily meditation in the prayer life of the universal church.
Lutheran Beliefs in the Church's Own Words
The Morning Devotional offers a clear window into the teaching Saint Matthew's asks its members to receive. The church confesses that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, and that no human work or technology can replace the Gospel of Jesus Christ. "Lutherans know our salvation isn't dependent on what we create or accomplish. We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone," Pastor Iovine writes in a meditation on artificial intelligence, adding that "no algorithm can outperform or amplify the grace of God poured out for us in Jesus Christ. And no technological advance can replace the Gospel of Jesus Christ proclaimed, the waters of Baptism, the body and blood of Christ given to us in the Lord's Supper, or the Church itself."
The church teaches that Baptism is God's work, not ours. "In Baptism, God declares we are joined to Jesus. He washes away our sin and gives us the promise of belonging to Him." Baptism joins the Christian to Christ's death and resurrection, and the flood of Noah is read as a picture of the saving waters that now mark God's people as His own. The waters that once flooded the world as a judgment on sin now remind the baptized of the covenant God has secured for them in Christ.
The church teaches that the Lord's Supper is the true body and blood of Christ, given and shed for the forgiveness of sins. The bulletins proclaim, "We will feast upon His flesh for the life of the world and His blood that cleanses us from all sin," and the devotions reaffirm that the Sacrament is the means by which the Holy Spirit delivers the forgiveness purchased at the cross.
The church teaches the Office of the Keys: that Christ has given His Church the authority to forgive the sins of repentant sinners and to withhold forgiveness from the unrepentant until they repent. "When the pastor says, 'I forgive you all your sins,' he speaks Christ's own promise into a sinner's ears. Faith does not rest on the worthiness of the pastor or the emotional strength of the penitent, but on Jesus' unshakable Word." Discipline seeks repentance, repentance receives forgiveness, and forgiveness restores the sinner to fellowship.
The church also teaches the importance of mutual admonition and reconciliation among Christians. "Christians are not left to exercise judgment according to private opinion, resentment, or personal preference. The Lord gathers His people around His Word. There, in mutual accountability and humble repentance, Christ Himself is present." When conflict arises in the congregation, family, or Christian community, the parish brings the matter under Christ's Word, prays for humility, speaks truthfully and lovingly, and seeks peace.
A Sister Congregation at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church
Saint Matthew's identifies Holy Trinity Lutheran Church as its sister congregation. The two congregations cooperate closely: their joint Community Prayer Page lists those for whom members of both congregations pray in church each week, with an updated prayer sheet available for download each Sunday. The worship bulletins posted on Saint Matthew's calendar page include Holy Trinity bulletins alongside its own, and the bulletin for the First Sunday in Trinity appears under the Holy Trinity name on the Saint Matthew's calendar. The two parishes appear to share pastoral and educational work and to welcome members of either into the life of both.
Sermons, Pastoral Care, and the Calendar
Saint Matthew's publishes audio of recent sermons through an embedded sermon player on its Sermons page. Sermons are listed by date, with the most recent weeks at the top. Each entry typically corresponds to a Sunday or feast day on the church calendar, including All Saints' Day, Reformation Sunday, and the seasons of Advent and Lent. Sermon notes and handouts are also available for download.
The pastor maintains regular office hours at the church during the week, with time set aside for pastoral conversation, confession, and counsel before and after the midweek Bible class. Members and visitors can also contact the church office by phone or email.
The full schedule of services, Bible classes, and special observances is published on the church's Calendar, which includes Google Calendar and ICS download options for adding events to a personal calendar.
How to Get Involved
Saint Matthew's welcomes visitors at both the Saturday Evening Worship at 5:00 PM and the Sunday Morning Church Service at 9:30 AM. The Sunday morning service is preceded by a Coffee Half-Hour at 9:00 AM and followed by a Coffee Hour from 10:30 AM to 12:00 PM. Those who wish to dig into the Christian faith can attend the Thursday Bible Class at noon, with handouts posted for those who want to follow along at home. Those who wish to support the food pantry can drop off items from the published list of regular needs at the church at 225 Center Street.
Donations to support the church's ministry, including the food pantry, can be made online through the Donate page. The church is also active on Facebook and on Twitter at @SaintMatthewsNJ. The church's sermons are available on its Sermons page, and the daily Morning Devotional is available at the devotional blog.
Saint Matthew's Lutheran Church sits at 225 Center Street in New Milford, a confessional Lutheran congregation committed to the historic liturgy, the preaching of the Gospel, the catechesis of children and adults, the care of those in material need, and the daily prayer and Bible study that mark the Christian's life. Whether one comes on a Saturday evening, a Sunday morning, a Thursday noon, or simply to drop off a bag of groceries for the food pantry, the welcome is the same: Christ has come to seek and save the lost, and His people gather here to receive Him.