Gavin Rogers has been a pastor at Travis Park church for many years. He has been actively involved in serving immigrant communities, the homeless community and bringing attention to many other social issues in our city. He also runs the very successful Pub Theology that was once an in person meeting but has moved online. We did a joint podcast and it was great fun.

Transcript:

[silence]

Gavin: Good evening friends on Facebook. We are having a special Pub Theology with our good friend Justin Hill with the Alamo Hour Podcast. Welcome, Justin.

Justin Hill: Hey man. Thanks for having me.

Gavin: If you're confused, what this is going on, Justin Hill runs a podcast called the Alamo Hour. It's a destination podcast for those who want to take an in-depth look at different people, places, events, and happenings in San Antonio, Texas. He's a local attorney and this podcast is going to dive deep into the city that we all love so much. He hosts that about every week. You can listen to his podcast on YouTube or various podcast channels like Apple and SoundCloud and all those things. Justin is a graduate of Texas A&M University graduated in 2004, we just learned that we're the same age. We have merged platforms today. The Alamo Hour and Pub Theology are of the same broadcast. Welcome, Justin.

Justin: Hey man. Thanks for having me. Since we're kind of co-host, I will [inaudible 00:03:58] Gavin is associate minister at Travis park church. To me, I always like to have people on that I think a little bit more about than the resume. To me, you've always run a really good live as you speak way of life with all of your social justice stuff. I look up to you in terms of you put your money where your mouth is, but really your time where your heart is. I appreciate that.

I think you do so much for people, but you're also the host of Pub Theology. Pub Theology is a dialogue group that usually meets at The Friendly Spot, but because of COVID we're meeting online, you talk about faith, the community in San Antonio, creating common good and I love the slogan, “Different brews and different views. All perspectives welcome.”

Gavin: What are you drinking today, Justin?

Justin: Well, I've got a sparkling water from Kirkland, but I also have a Saint Arnold's art car, IPA.

Gavin: Good Texas beer. Right now-- I've never had this one, the Freetail Bat Outta Helles. Pub Theology themes, so there's a hell theme there, but it has a San Antonio scene there.

Justin: [unintelligible 00:05:01] Dortch Law and I drank other people's beer the whole time and he seemed offended, but he didn't bring me any beer to drink so I did [unintelligible 00:05:11]

Gavin: That’s fair. It’s good. Now, I really respect you, Justin, you've been serving in around town at various events and been supporting political candidates you are involved in everything I know about. You're also good friends with my good friend, Phil Walkins, who goes to our church and a great local attorneys in town. The stuff that you promote it always connects with me. I think a lot of the people who listen to Pub Theology and probably Alamo Hour. You started this Alamo Hour maybe at the start of 2020?

Justin: At the start of the shutdown. I didn't want to do it, and all of a sudden I had time on my hands, so I was able to do it. I had started buying the equipment, troubleshooting, but then once the shutdown happened, I didn't have an excuse anymore.

Gavin: Wow. That's great. Who has been your favorite guest so far? Now I've had maybe like 20, maybe 15, 20 episodes.

Justin: This is 25.

Gavin: Oh, wow. That's great. Yes.

Justin: I like the meaty dense stuff. I've had some really interesting-- These epidemiologists, including Dr. Rohr-Allegrini from here in San Antonio, Dr. Lesch is a Syrian expert. Some of those things have been really interesting. A surprise one is I had a guy who was the Texas League Commissioner of baseball for 27 years and wrote books on it. I thought it was dry and boring and really it was just super interesting to hear the story of Texas League AA Baseball.

I've had some really great storytellers and I walk away from him and feel one way, but then I get a whole bunch of people responding about what they think about him. It's just been fun. It's been fun to get to know new people and kind of share their stories.

Gavin: I want to remind our listeners that as you listen today, if you're listening through the Pub Theology live Facebook stream, I know we share this with different watch parties and different groups, but if you're watching it on our Pub Theology live page, you can post comments and we will see those, Justin and I will see those. We'll answer any of your questions. Justin believes that any topic is up for discussion. So do we at Pub Theology, we talk about everything. That's why it's different views and different brews.

You can go to his website, thealamohour.com to learn more about all the different podcasts that he has had 25, including Mayor Ron Nierenberg and great doctors during COVID. Go to there. If you can always follow us at Pub Theology SA, on our Facebook page or YouTube channel. He's been going online for 25 episodes. I think we started right after the pandemic and we never have been online. We've always promoted our events live at The Friendly Spot. I think we live in a new world now. We live in a new world where all this is going to become a new reality for years to come.

Justin: It's a new deal. It's funny, I started a podcast and you're doing a podcast about San Antonio essentially with this, and I joked that if this was in any other city, I would be way behind the curve, but San Antonio we're slow to adopt technology and new things. We're both at the forefront of this. Good for us.

Gavin: No, that's great. I really enjoyed your episodes. I did listen to the COVID doctor recently. The epidemiologist, I believe, right?

Justin: Yes. Dr. Slutkin has been advising with governors and mayors, including Ron Nuremberg. A million things you could talk about with that guy, but he was really interesting and very gracious to agree to do my lowly little podcast.

Gavin: That's great.

Justin: I want to start with you Gavin. I do this on all of-- I see Phil reaching out. I do this on all of my podcasts, since this is joint, I'm going to go through at least my general top 10. This is supposed to be kind of short and pithy. When and why did you move to San Antonio?

Gavin: I moved to San Antonio after I graduated grad school. I think we probably went-- Did you go to law school right after A&M? Did you jump into it? Yes, three-year degrees. I graduated at Duke Divinity School, after I went to Baylor and I had a few jobs lined up after at various churches, one in Houston, I remember one was in Tyler Texas, and one was in San Antonio. My sister still lives in San Antonio, after graduating from A&M she became a teacher and a principal here.

It was like, “Oh, my sister is here.” I thought it was a great city to live in that I hadn't really experienced much other than vacations. It felt like a different story I could create than moving back to Houston where I'm from or the Woodlands, or I didn't really want to go to Tyler, Texas. I landed in San Antonio. My first church was a University Methodist Church on days of De Zavala Road.

Justin: Tyler is beautiful. I have a [crosstalk] I’m surprised how petty it is.

Gavin: I didn't want to probably move there as a 26, seven, eight. I can't remember how old I was. You’re able to--

Justin: [unintelligible 00:09:47] I think we met through Jody Newman who's been on I'm sure your show, my show. I met her when she was first Queen Anchovy. Next question, what was your favourite [unintelligible 00:09:59] character that you played?

Gavin: Well, I played only three. Two of them have been the same. I played Ozzy Osborne and two of those-- The first time we played Ozzy, obviously I didn't really want to play Ozzy the third time, but it was just the skit Lean that we had to do it. The first time I played Ozzy probably got the most rousing laughter when we made fun of the downtown loo that was put in by Roberto Treviño. Jody, and I wrote that skit along with the [unintelligible 00:10:33] we just had a blast with that. I think the next character was the Confederate statue that was removed. I had to play a Confederate soldier. That was fun in a way, but Ozzy Osborne for sure.

Justin: I was wondering how Ozzy is still relevant. My next question you already answered, which was what beer were you drinking? We talked about-- This is the only one I gave you the heads up on. I was going to be asking you is what are your favorite hidden gems in the city and you said a restaurant. I want to know restaurant, but also, non restaurant location or a thing in the city?

Gavin: Good. My favorite restaurant is Maria Cafe South of Southtown I think it's not Nogalitos. I believe that I love that place. The family run restaurant there is a blast, you can get brisket nachos and you could really make anything you want there. I think they have a name for everything. Justin, if you order something different, they'll make it the Justin Hill enchilada special. I love that. I love Maria's.

Justin: Do you have a dish named after you?

Gavin: I don't. I know John Berrera does. He's part of our- [unintelligible 00:11:32] group too, but I just love the family that works there and runs that operation.

Justin: The first time I really hung out with John other than meeting him was watching Obama's first inauguration speech in 2008. That's my history with John Berrera.

Gavin: Mine is [unintelligible 00:11:50] through Jody as well. By the way, we really want to support The Friendly Spot it's back open and social distancing we really want to support that. Please support local, support places like The Friendly Spot and all things around San Antonio that are open during this Covid crisis.

Justin: Favorite hidden gem that's not a restaurant or a bar?

Gavin: This is going to be a tough one. My favorite hidden gem is probably the trail that's right behind King William, that crosses into Blue Star and you cross the river on those rocks. I love that rock and I love walking around that part of the Mission Reach and down into, obviously now you can always go all the way down, but I've always really cherished that one strip, especially when it was more not known. It's known now, but 10 years ago when I lived by Brackenridge High School, I loved that spot.

Justin: I've never done it. You drive by and you see it and it's got the little weird carve out there and I've still never done it.

Gavin: There's Alamo Street, then you go toward the mission just by probably 200 yards and you can crawl down me stairs off of Blue Star and you cross the river and some stones and you get into the King William. It's like a back way to get into King William. I love that little area.

Justin: I'm going to do it. You meet with a bunch of leaders, you talk about a lot of social justice issues day-to-day. What do you think the biggest issue facing the city is right now? Outside of COVID?

Gavin: Well, that's good. We don't have to talk about COVID. We've talked about COVID so much. I only speak to certain leaders about certain topics. I don't speak to everyone about everything. Mainly, I think generational poverty is probably the number one thing. The report that came out that said San Antonio does not do very well. We're top on the list depending on what you looking at?

Justin: The most stratified financially or economically of all major cities. Right?

Gavin: That’s right. I think that the way we need to tackle that is difficult. Especially when it comes to issues of race and redlining in the past, and the skeletons in the closet there that really keep us from moving forward. I'm guilty of it. We're all guilty of it. We’re people of privilege even in this gentrification movement and I'm learning where I'm at fault. I think that we just have to have honest conversations about that and really how to work with the homeless situation in downtown too. Obviously, that's something that I'm passionate about, but I think homelessness is part of that discussion of the overall poverty in San Antonio.

Justin: I always talk to people about what they're passionate about. That's what got me going on the Alamo Hour, and the sort of check myself on what really I'm passionate about. Homelessness has always been one of those things since I was a little kid. That's one of the questions I had for you. You're really involved with Corazon ministries. What is the best way the average person like myself who is not embedded with the ministries or the homelessness outreach, what's the best way they can help?

Gavin: I think this is always important. I just actually spoke to the Alamo Heights Rotary Club. I speak to Rotary Club. I'm in the Downtown Rotary Club. I've been a member of the Downtown Rotary Club for, I think 12 years now. I'll sit at the table at Rotary still and they'll be like, “Sir, did you just join? “ I'm like, “No, I've been a member for 12 years,” because they think everybody is old there. When I speak at those places they always ask the question, “What can we do? What can we do to serve the homeless?”

I think a lot of people want me to respond in a way like, “Go volunteer at a soup kitchen, go volunteer at Haven For Hope. Serve food on a plate.” All that requirement of serving food on a plate is a risk turn. If you risk and turn and put the mashed potatoes on a plate, you qualify to volunteer, it's a very low bar. I really want people to start volunteering with the homeless differently.

I would actually love instead of the Rotary Club coming down to volunteer and fold clothes or serve food, I'd want them to actually eat meals with them once a week. They're like, “We don't want to eat food. That's the homeless food.” I'm like, “No, that's cheap. Food is very, very cheap. Cook.” Having conversations with people to be vulnerable with one another. That's the hard part. I think those are when relationships can be formed because you start learning what you have in common. You can start learning where you can provide opportunities. They can teach you things that you don't know.

I think that's where transformation happened. Homelessness is really about trauma care. Trinity Universities freshmen, did a study years ago with Edwin Blanton. I don’t know if you know him, he's a Chair around town. I don't know where he is now, maybe Texas in San Antonio, but he led his freshmen group to talk about trauma care. They said, there's different levels of trauma care Haven For Hope with a state level two or three. There's advanced counseling, there's religious groups.

Those are advanced levels of trauma care. What San Antonio does poorly on and a lot of cities do poorly on is level one trauma care and that's just interactions between me and you. Interactions with anybody that we can treat normal areas of trauma by just conversations the way we look people in the eyes if we say their name or not. I think we need to better understand how to treat level one trauma care because that's not the responsibility of the doctors. That's not responsibilities of the caseworkers, that's responsibility of all citizens in the community. That makes sense.

Justin: Being human.

Gavin: Yes, being human.

Justin: I wanted to do that. Do I come down to one of the kitchens or a feeding opportunity and just [crosstalk]

Gavin: You can reach out to Corazon Ministries or Travis Park Church, or probably even Haven For Hope and say, “I really want to mentor people.” They have mentor programs. I got to give a shout out to my favorite nonprofit that works for the homeless and I’m not going to say Corazon, it's the SA Hope Center run by Meghan Legacy and team. On the Westside and now they have a downtown location at First Presbyterian Church. They do counseling, job training.

They just got a huge grant to house about 80 people in apartments during COVID. They really do a holistic look. They don't do the bandaid operations that we often serve in homeless work. They're pushing us to be more holistic in our homeless services and they do a wonderful job so check them out SA Hope Center, our San Antonio Hope Center.

Justin: Two more questions, Duke or Baylor, those are your two Alma maters.

Gavin: Yes.

Justin: Which one? Who do you pull forward? Which one is [crosstalk]

Gavin: I hadn't really have to worry about this too much until Baylor played Duke in the elite eight. When Duke won the National Championship in 2010 and they played in Houston and I wore a Baylor shirt in the sweet 16 game and I wore a duke short, and then they had to play each other and I wore a Duke shirt. I was actually in charge of the basketball committee at Duke, you could run for it. It's like being a yell leader at A&M. I managed the Cameron Crazies for one year.

Justin: While you were in seminary?

Gavin: [unintelligible 00:18:43] in seminary, yes. It was the coolest thing I did in seminary. I met the best friends because all those people in that basketball committee were like chemists, lawyers, doctors, undergrads. I had a blast and now my heart bleeds blue. Now, if it comes to football and they played Duke, I'd probably go for sure. I would root for Baylor in football.

Justin: Duke has been coming up in that too though.

Gavin: Duke has gotten better because the coach. People were like, “What are y’all talking about?” Yes.

Justin: Last question. People always ask me, why did you become a lawyer? What brought you to the ministry?

Gavin: I grew up in the Churches of Christ, which is a denomination that-- Max Lucado is a Church of Christ Minister. Both my grandfathers were Church of Christ Ministers. So both my parents are preachers’ kids. I really loved my granddads. One of them was very, very progressive, went to Southern Methodist for seminary, which is totally unusual for a church of Christ Pastor in the 1940s. That influenced my life and I really wanted to do what they did.

The more progressive pastor died when I was 10. Then the other one died when I was like 21 and I knew him better and when I was growing up, he would allow me to go to his