Pastor with B’ville roots to hold talk April 14 in Syracuse

By Ashley M. Casey

Staff Writer

John Pavlovitz misses the snow, and he knows it might be waiting for him this weekend.

“For someone growing up in B’ville, that’s like rolling out the red carpet for you. We’re a hardy stock,” said Pavlovitz.

Pavlovitz, a pastor and author who now lives in Wake Forest, North Carolina, is returning to Central New York on Saturday, April 14, to give a talk based on his book “A Bigger Table: Building Messy, Authentic, and Hopeful Spiritual Community.”

“Here, spring creeps in, and in Central New York, spring arrives triumphantly, so that’s a nice part of the change,” he said. “I’m really looking forward to being back home because it’s still home for me.”

The idea of home is part of the premise of “A Bigger Table.” The book invites the Christian community to consider how they can make space in their spiritual community for people who have historically been ostracized and ignored — people of color, those in poverty, LGBTQ individuals and survivors of sexual assault, to name a few groups.

Pavlovitz has taken his book on the road this spring throughout the United States and Canada to share his message of inclusion and healing relationships.

“The talk centers around the ideas of can we create communities where disparate groups of people feel like they can belong? Can we give everyone a voice? Can we find a place to gather where there aren’t dealbreakers, whether those are social or political?” Pavlovitz said.

The values Pavlovitz espouses in his writing — respect for humanity, appreciating other people and helping those who are struggling — are rooted in his hometown. He said he didn’t realize it as a child, but those tenets were “sewn into me by my family and my teachers and the world around me.”

“Baldwinsville taught me how to be a decent human being,” he said. “Maybe it’s the small town aspect. Maybe people have an accountability toward each other because they knew one another.”

Pavlovitz said he had “a pretty idyllic childhood” in Baldwinsville. His father owned a shoe store in the Four Corners, and Pavlovitz still craves the B’ville Diner’s fries and gravy.

Pavlovitz was raised Catholic and attended St. Mary’s Academy.

“The worth of every person was important in our school at St. Mary’s and in our family,” he said.

Healing the nation

It wasn’t always Pavlovitz’ goal to become a minister. He studied graphic design at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia — “I had wanted to be an artist my whole life,” he said — but his life’s trajectory changed when he was asked to be a youth pastor at his church in Pennsylvania. He realized he wanted to be an anchor for those going through the turbulence of adolescence.

“I call myself a storm chaser,” he said.

Pavlovitz went on to work in megachurches in North Carolina. He grew disillusioned with the megachurch mentality of conformity and prioritizing packing thousands of people into the pews over truly helping people. In 2013, he was fired from his job and was told, “You don’t fit here.”

So, Pavlovitz started writing about people who don’t “fit” into modern spiritual communities either. He created a blog called “Stuff That Needs to Be Said,” where he focuses on his faith in conjunction with social issues.

The popularity of his work went full tilt after the 2016 presidential election, when he wrote about the fear and disillusionment many Americans were feeling.

“We’re angry because our candidate’s losing means this country will be less safe, less kind and less available to a huge segment of its population, and that’s just the truth,” he wrote. “Those who have always felt vulnerable are now left more so. Those whose voices have been silenced will be further quieted. Those who always felt marginalized will be pushed further to the periphery.”

Pavlovitz said his work isn’t meant to stoke the fire of controversy, but to use his platform to encourage hope, compassion and conversation across religious and political lines.

“As someone who ministers, your pastoral heart is to help people who seem in distress,” he said. “There is a similarity in what’s happening in our nation — there’s a wounding.”

The goal of “A Bigger Table” is to heal that wound and extend a hand to those whose politics, worldview and circumstances may not necessarily line up with one’s own.

“This life is difficult for all of us. We’re all doing the best we can, but there are people … who are in a more difficult place than you are,” Pavlovitz said. “We all have things to figure out while we’re here, so let’s try to make it easier on each other.”

To learn more about John Pavlovitz and his work, visit johnpavlovitz.com. “A Bigger Table: Building Messy, Authentic, and Hopeful Spiritual Community” is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, The Thoughtful Christian and Cokesbury.