Mark Martin

Guest Host, Martin's Must-Reads

Mark Martin (also known as Mr. Betty Martin) was born in Midland, Texas. In 1979, after graduating from Texas Tech University, he worked as a financial analyst for Conoco. Upon graduating from Concordia Seminary with a Masters of Divinity degree in 1993, he began his ministry at Trinity Lutheran Church in Egypt Mills and later moved to the Associate Pastor position at St. Andrew Lutheran Church. In November of 2019, he began a new career as an Intentional Interim Pastor, currently for Concordia Lutheran Church in Sikeston. When he's not pastoring, he's watching sports, reading, or riding his BMW motorcycle. His reading tastes gravitate to nonfiction: history, sports, science, biographies, and the human condition. As a monthly guest reviewer, he adds another dimension to Martin's Must-Reads.

Martin's Must Reads: 'Ballpark: Baseball in American City'

By • Aug 4, 2020

“The first baseball games were played in open fields, but the first baseball park—the first place constructed specifically for the game, with places for paying customers and surrounded by walls to keep non-paying customers out—was constructed in Brooklyn, New York.” 

I’m Mark Martin with "Martin’s Must Reads" and so begins a book that every baseball fan should read, Ballpark: Baseball in the American City by Paul Goldberger.

Martin's Must Reads: 'Mission at Nuremberg'

By • Jun 30, 2020

'"Do you know something?" he [Rev. Henry Gerecke] asked brightly, "I got the idea today I’d like to join the Chaplains Corps."  More silence.  Henry kept eating.  Still nothing from his wife.  "I have asked you something," he said.  "I heard you," Alma said finally."'

I’m Mark Martin with Martin’s Must Reads.  Tim Townsend, in his marvelous book Mission at Nuremberg: An American Army Chaplain and the Trial of the Nazis, tells us the story of one man’s humble service in a horrible situation.

Martin's Must Reads: 'The Splendid and the Vile'

By • Jun 16, 2020

“On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium.  Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away.  For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons.  It was up to Churchill to hold the country together.”

Martin's Must Reads: 'Leadership in Turbulent Times'

By • Mar 3, 2020

“Are leaders born or made? Where does ambition come from?  How does adversity affect growth of leadership?  Do the times make the leader or does the leader shape the times?...What is the difference between power, title, and leadership?”

I’m Mark Martin with "Martin’s Must Reads."  These are some of the questions that Doris Kearns Goodwin explores in her book Leadership in Turbulent Times.

Martin's Must Reads: 'Midnight at Chernobyl'

By • Feb 4, 2020

“Early in the morning of April 26, 1986, Reactor Number four of the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station exploded, triggering history’s worst nuclear accident. In the more than thirty years since then, Chernobyl has become lodged in the collective nightmares of the world.”

I’m Mark Martin with "Martin’s Must Reads" with a quote from the dust cover of the book Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster” by Adam Higginbotham.