No one likes to eat alone; to approach a table filled with people, only to be told that despite the open chairs there isn’t room for you. The rejection stings. It leaves a mark. Yet this is exactly what the church has been saying to far too many people for far too long: “You’re not welcome here. Find someplace else to sit.” How can we extend unconditional welcome and acceptance in a world increasingly marked by bigotry, fear, and exclusion?
Pastor John Pavlovitz invites readers to join him on the journey to find–or build–a church that is big enough for everyone. He speaks clearly into the heart of the issues the Christian community has been earnestly wrestling with: LGBT inclusion, gender equality, racial tensions, and global concerns. A Bigger Table: Building Messy, Authentic, Hopeful Spiritual Community asks if organized Christianity can find a new way of faithfully continuing the work Jesus began two thousand years ago, where everyone gets a seat.
Pavlovitz shares moving personal stories and his careful observations as a pastor to set the table for a new, more loving conversation on these and other important matters of faith. He invites us to build the bigger table Jesus imagined, practicing radical hospitality, total authenticity, messy diversity, and agenda-free community.
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Summary
I can’t recall exactly how or when John Pavlovitz came to my attention, but I’ve been following his blog for a while now. His posts usually always speak to me, so when I saw that he’d written a book, I immediately put it on my TBR list. As luck would have it, A Bigger Table also happened to be on my pastor’s reading list, and since she also leads our church book club, it was agreed that it would become our latest read. For those who might be familiar with the author’s blog, the tone of the book is a little different. In his blog posts, he usually addresses timely and topical issues, while this book covers a broader spectrum. In it he discusses the need for Christians to expand their table to be more inclusive of people from varied backgrounds and life experiences, rather than shrinking it to exclude them. Far too many people, particularly from the LGBTQ community, have been left behind by Christian worship services, if not outright driven away, so the author advocates that it’s time we change that. And I couldn’t agree more.
Throughout A Bigger Table, Mr. Pavlovitz sheds light on this topic by relating stories from his own life and the lives of those he’s pastored or mentored along the way. He expresses very eloquently how he went from being a smaller table kind of Christian to his coming to believe in the more expansive table. I felt this added a very personal element to the book that solidifies the humanity of his stance in a way that perhaps simply stating his convictions might not. There are many people along the way who’ve helped to shape his beliefs and bring him to the conclusions he’s come to. His message that Jesus’ table is one that is big enough for all of us is a very welcome and much-needed one. I really liked the way that he framed the four marks of a bigger table as being radical hospitality, total authenticity, true diversity, and agenda-free community. Total authenticity is one aspect that really speaks to me, because I’ve often not felt this when in Christian community. Sometimes I think it’s OK to admit to having doubts or struggles, but many times, the church isn’t a safe place to express those things, when it should be. That’s where the agenda-free community comes in as well, because in my experience when those doubts are expressed, oftentimes the person expressing them is fed nothing but platitudes or bludgeoned with scripture (basically being fed an agenda) when more constructive dialogue is called for. It’s all a very fine line and one that I felt was extremely well articulated in this book.
As I read A Bigger Table, I heard echoes of a couple of past books we’ve read for our book club that might be of help to readers of this one who want to expand upon what Mr. Pavlovitz discusses. For starters, his chapter titled “Earthquakes and Aftershocks” talks about how we often think of our faith as relatively solid and compartmentalized when “in reality belief is more like a Jenga tower, a series of interconnected pieces that moves and shifts…,” where when one thing is shaken up, everything is, even though we may think otherwise. This part of the book reminds me of Peter Enns’ The Sin of Certainty, in which he explores what he terms the “uh-oh moment” in much more depth. Then there’s the overall message of the book about the Lord’s table and how it’s big enough for everyone that reminds me in some ways of Sarah Miles’ Take This Bread.
Overall, A Bigger Table was a very good book with an excellent message that I think more Christians should take to heart. I enjoyed reading it and agreed with what the author had to say. The only reason I marked off a star is because when reading Mr. Pavlovitz’s blog posts, they tend to be pretty succinct and easy to read, but this book tended to drag a little for me. His penchant for writing in exceedingly long block paragraphs didn’t help that. If anything it made the narrative feel much longer than it was. As a writer myself, I could see places where he could have broken them up and given the reader more white space, so that it wouldn’t have seemed so long, while still getting his point across in a more encapsulated way. IMHO, the editor should have done this, but it doesn’t really change the strong message the book contains. I keep coming back to the word authentic, which for me, was the takeaway buzz-word here. I think if people see us as being authentic in our faith then we’ll draw them in to that bigger table if we’re making room. I believe Jesus’ table is always big enough, but is ours?
Review provided by The Hope Chest Reviews (http://www.thcreviews.com)