Rev. Debbie Bennett Reynolds comes to Ithaca after 13 years as Associate Pastor at Lake Avenue Baptist Church in Rochester, NY, another progressive and Welcoming and Affirming congregation. During Debbie’s time there, the church helped to welcome several hundred refugees to Rochester and became a much more multicultural congregation.
Before coming to Rochester, Debbie served as Minister of Education, Youth, and Missions for Oakhurst Baptist Church in Decatur, Georgia for 8 years and as a social worker in a ministry with very poor and homeless people in downtown Atlanta for 2 years. She has also worked in hospice social work, a battered women’s program, and youth and campus ministries.
Debbie grew up as a missionary kid in Bangladesh, Thailand, and Lebanon. She is a graduate of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Wake Forest University. She is married to Bill Reynolds who is a chaplain, Supervisor of Clinical Pastoral Education, and American Baptist minister. They have two young adult children, Anna and Luke. Luke is a fitness trainer in Syracuse and Anna is a teacher in Saudi Arabia.