Dr. Wesley Avram (Wes) is pastor/head of staff at Pinnacle Presbyterian Church and Director of the Fran Park Center for Faith and Life in Scottsdale, Arizona. Avram has served as pastor in Presbyterian congregations in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and Wilmette, Illinois, as college chaplain and member of the faculty at Bates College, as the Clement–Muehl Assistant Professor of Communication at Yale Divinity School, and assistant professor in Yale’s Institute for Sacred Music. He earned a bachelor’s degree and a PhD from Northwestern University and a Master of Divinity from Princeton Seminary. He has also studied at the University of Sussex, The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, The Tantur Ecumenical Institute, and the University of Chicago. Avram is the author of Where the Light Shines Through (Brazos, 2005) and Anxious About Empire (Brazos, 2004).

Avram grew up in Michigan and has spent most of his life in the Midwest or Northeast.  “I still catch myself, at least once a week, with the beauty of our sunsets and how goofy the cactus look,” he says about living in the Southwest. Avram is married to Lynne, who grew up near Philadelphia. They have two sons, Andrew and Paul. When not following one’s soccer team or the other’s music, Avram enjoys movies, running, travel, and friends.

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