Rev. Patrick Chandler is the Senior Pastor of St. Peter’s United Church of Christ in Ferguson, where he has served in leadership since 2015. Patrick has served on the CRB since January of 2019 as an At-Large member. He resides within Ward 2 of the City of Ferguson.
In addition to his service on the CRB and St. Peter’s, Patrick is heavily involved within Ferguson and St. Louis, seeking to help create more just communities. He is a co-founder of the Ferguson Warming Center, has served on the Board (treasurer) of the Ferguson Youth Initiative, and currently serves as Board Chair for Unleashing Potential, a 109-year-old organization, whose mission is “to close the opportunity gap for children and youth by building on their strengths [by] creating educational and empowering experiences through early childhood education, after school programs, youth development, and enrichment camps.”
Patrick is a graduate of Barton College (BA in Religion and Philosophy) in Wilson, NC and The Candler School of Theology at Emory University (MDiv) in Atlanta, Georgia. Currently, Patrick is a Doctor of Ministry candidate in Transformational Leadership at Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts. His Doctoral Dissertation is on the role trauma from the events of Ferguson in 2014-15 has played as a barrier to embodying Dr. King’s Beloved Community.
Patrick is the father of four children: Collin, a senior at the University of Missouri (Columbia), Payton (deceased), Liam, a current 8th grader, and Liliann, a current 2nd grader.
It is Patrick’s deep commitment to social justice and the social Gospel - a belief that the most important voices in need of being heard and honored in the world are those voices often silenced, marginalized, or disenfranchised - that has led him to serve on the Ferguson Civilian Review Board.