I got an advanced review copy from NetGalley for this book in exchange for an honest review. A Bigger Table was just the refreshing, honest book I needed to get me through the last few months of 2017. It's been a tough year in so many respects, but especially spiritually for me. In a time where so many spiritual leaders seem to be doubling down on bigotry and happily allowing anyone who disagrees with them to "leave the fold", I appreciate Pavlovitz's call to pastors, Christians, and the "spiritually curious" to come together in vulnerable, loving, and open community. This book is a necessary call to unity in a time of great division. Thank you for giving me the chance to read it early.

I am really grateful for this book. It warms my heart to see a pastor speak out against the exclusive of the modern Christian church. A Bigger Table looks at how, we can build an inclusive congregation and help "nontraditional" Christians come back into the fold. Jo0hn Pavlovitz gives an insiders look at being a pastor and the people he has encountered. He has felt the betrayal of a church pushing him out. he shares stories of family members and other who have changed his mind about the rigid line so sin and which sinners are allowed or not allowed in the church. But it's more than just personal. Pavlovitz Also discusses Bibles passage and the philosophy of Jesus and how thee call for an inclusive table. He also includes a pastor's guide at the end to help other make their table a little better.
Many people will read this with anger as it will push their beliefs. And it does take several chapters before the author gets into the Bible stories that promote his ideals. Many a reader will be lost by then. I just hope that those with an open mind and heart, check out this book and see that Jesus loves us all.

I wanted to like this book more than I ended up doing. Pavlovitz has an important message, and my copy of the book is full of highlighted passages. The central message of expanding our tables/communities to include those who aren't like us is vital. Pavlovitz provides enough of a background of his own story at the start and scattered throughout to keep his argument grounded and personal.

The book, while short, unfolds a little slowly. The sequencing of ideas is right, but it seems like there are many more places and nuances to go here.

Where he loses me is in the latter third. Pavlovitz strays so far from traditional Christian ideas that I have to ask the question he says I will: What makes his community “Christian?” I don't think he ever successfully answers that. As a book about community-building and even entering into thoughts of justice and shalom, it works, but he doesn't get to how this functions as a Christian community.

He could have done a few more pieces of work to help: First, he could rely on the Bible more. There's a general approach of “Jesus was like this; we should be like this,” but I could have used more exegesis to support some of his side points (not his main one – the reach to a diverse and disagreeing community seems to be fundamental to the gospel). Related, he didn't address some of the tougher New Testament issues, particularly the hints of ecclesiology in Paul, or of the question of sanctification. The approach of “everyone's okay, so let's be fine with that” doesn't seem Biblical. What he's arguing could be, but given his unorthodoxy, it's hard to see how his claims make for a Christian community (and I'm fine with thinking in terms apart from contemporary church structures, etc, just not in the utter delimiting what counts as Christian).

Second, and this isn't unrelated, he could have included more practical tips. How do you get Baptist with conservative views to take communion with an LGBTQ Christian? How do nonbelievers fit into a worship service? How, if at all, does church discipline or discipling take place.

The central message here is essential, particularly in our times, and since it reads as a corrective there isn't a whole lot of space for nuance. However, in a challenging issue, I don't know that something polemical is going to reach people who don't already agree.

I'm a fan of John Pavlovitz's social media presence. I agree with his politics, I slow-clap for his professions of faith and his desire to see biblical justice achieved through love and acceptance. For those reasons I was very excited to read A Bigger Table. Sadly, I found myself turned off by what I interpreted to be a self-congratulatory tone. Faith and love and acceptance should be done humbly, in my opinion and it just rubbed me the wrong way. I'm still giving this book 3 stars for it's message, which I agree with, I just couldn't get past the tone.

This book speaks to me. I've been on a journey out of and away from traditional/conservative/fundamentalist Christianity for a number of years now. I can relate to the hurts and fear this kind of Christianity causes and feeds on. I grew up in an environment and culture of identifying boundaries and fences, erecting them, policing them, and judging people by them. I grew up in a religious culture where evangelism was very important, and converting evangelism targets into church members who thought exactly alike were regular occurrences.

The big table John argues is the more authentic Christianity resonates. It is a table where differences are honestly discussed, but no one is out there to force someone else to change their views. It is a table where all are genuinely welcome, because all are accepted for who they are with no prerequisites or expectations for future change in order to continue to belong. The big table is where all are equal, where there is no "power over" another.

As I read the book, a large and significantly visible portion of American Evangelicalism was signing on to yet another exercise in wall building, boundary enforcing, and reducing the size of the table: the Nashville Statement put out through the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. John's book speaks out against precisely this kind of activity and theology. It may be done with good intent, but they are like the Pharisees with which Christians are so familiar. Ironically, many among modern evangelicals are operating along the very same lines as the Pharisees: creating rules, boundaries; casting judgments on all who would go outside the lines; and all in the name of "defending the faith" and "God's holiness."

John focuses much of his attention on how the LGBTQ community and individuals are treated. For many who might otherwise agree with many of his points in the book, this particular emphasis could be a significant barrier. Yet in the larger picture, LGBTQ has been defined as that "line" which "genuine Christians" cannot accept (c.f., Nashville Statement). As John repeats many times, Jesus was always crossing the line of what was taught as acceptable to maintain holiness and purity. Jesus was not concerned with doctrinal perfection, but he was very concerned with respecting and affirming every person. He was there with the marginalized, the oppressed: the ones the larger community shunned and cast out. As the analysis of the Nashville Statement has shown, LGBTQ is not a separate topic from other forms of inequality and oppression. And Christianity has a long history of being oppressors based on race, gender, and social class. So LGBTQ acceptance and affirmation is impossible to separate when it comes to addressing whether or not a Christian community is truly egalitarian and accepting.

John talks about creating a bigger table. The difficulty is how to actually do that. John has had the "fortune" of being fired and really, starting from the ground up. He has been able to reverse the usual church planting process and begin with a community where accepting people of all walks of life, beliefs, traditions, origins, etc. are foundational. But what do you do with an established church congregation? Is it even possible to change course on such an entrenched institution? He gives an example of a large church that has begun such a move. This church has become smaller in number and faces challenges. But what if the church is already small? I think what I would have liked to see more in the book is how (for example) a 100-year old congregation, aging members, maybe 30-50 in attendance on any given week, could begin a journey toward a bigger table and what that might look like.

(This review based on ARC supplied by the publisher through NetGalley.)

In the introduction to A Bigger Table: Building Messy, Authentic, and Hopeful Spiritual Community, John Pavlovitz writes, “This book is about humanity, about the one flawed family that we belong to and the singular, odd, staggeringly beautiful story we all share. It’s about trying to excavate those priceless truths from beneath the layers of far less important things that we’ve pile on top of them since we’ve been here. It’s about jettisoning everything in and around us that would shrink our tables.” (xiii) What it’s really about is tolerance and inclusion of LGBTQ in Christ’s church with no reservation. While I concur with Pavlovitz that we need to love people and be willing to sit at the same table, his use of Scripture and Jesus’ example leads the reader to believe that exclusivity is the only sin, that we are only unwilling to allow people into the Christ’s church because of our prejudices and biased upbringings, and that Jesus was a happy hippy who had no agenda and didn’t try to change people (except to make them tolerant of all other people). Much of this stems from some personal and unpleasant experiences with the church, with which many of us can certainly relate and understand. He rightly pushes back against business- and attraction-model churches, but argues for something that may appear virtually and functionally the same to those on the outside (108–110). Much of what Pavlovitz believes and writes is based on emotion what has felt good to him (even if they be difficult to deal with) rather than from a good wrestling with the whole of the Bible.

While likely intended to be a book about mercy and grace, it is really about loving people as they are and leaving them that way “because we are full image bearers of God and beloved as we are, without alteration.” (164) After reading Pavlovitz’s own words about his upbringing and current faith, I am not convinced he believes he has ever sinned (164–165) or that there is such a thing as sin (he encourages the reader to see suffering instead of sin [124], but this ought to be both-and, not either-or). Heaven on earth for him is simply diversity for the sake of diversity with open conversations where there is absolutely no pushback or accountability—where churches people can curse and say anything from pulpits like they do at his because that’s “real.” (81–82) While I’m certain there are many who will find this and the embedded universalism appealing, it’s not the image of ultimate redemption I find in Scripture.

*I received a temporary digital copy for review from Westminster John Knox Press via NetGalley.

What a book and badly needed and worth taking time to read, but if you are easy offended I dare you to read it all you may struggle but the effort is well worth the pain. Paul wrote that He who has began a good work will continue hence a good reminder none of us are perfect yet, so everyone we meet is in the same boat a work in progress.
We are all invited to the bigger table that John shares about and we are all equal drug addict or bank manager, same JESUS same price for us all. John will put this so much better and obviously in a lot more detail, it won't matter what our theology our views or our possible pig headedness this is a book that challenges you if your like me to sit down with others and become real Church part of the body of Christ, HIS Bride. This book helped to remind me I am responsible for my relationship with GOD not anyone else's my job is to love everyone not judge, and what better way than to sit down and eat together as, John says if JESUS can sit down and share His last supper with Judas what excuse have we. I can't recommend this book highly enough.
I have been given a free copy of this book from NetGalley in return for a honest review