A few years ago, a friend of ours lent a book to Ethan by an author named Brian McLaren entitled, "A New Kind of Christian". That book, and many consecutive ones has had a great impact on both Ethan and my faith; so much so, that we decided to start attending the church Brian helped to found back in Maryland, called Cedar Ridge Community Church. We attended Cedar Ridge for about 9 months before we came to England.
Well, a few months ago, we were speaking to our pastor here, who told us that Brian McLaren was coming to town. I checked out his website, and sure enough, he was scheduled to come here to Harrogate to speak. Of all the places in Europe, he was coming here... a 15 minute drive from our house! We were thrilled.
We bought tickets and made babysitting arrangements, and went to hear Brian both yesterday afternoon, and last night. His seminar was called "A Tale of Two Gospels," and he spoke about how the modern evangelical church puts so much weight on Paul's gospel, that they forget what Jesus said the good news is. He suggested that we look at Paul's gospel in the framework of Jesus' gospel, as it was intended. He also spoke a lot about social justice and mercy, and what that can look like for modern-day Christians trying to bring God's kingdom here to Earth. I'm sure that I've done a poor job summarizing all that he spoke of, but believe me, it was really intriguing, challenging, and refreshing to hear.
Brian has a lot of good books out there. We'd love to suggest some if you're interested. And, if you have just a few minutes, you can watch this short clip of Brian speaking about Jesus and the Kingdom from You-Tube. I think it's really worth-while.
I Am.
6 months ago
3 comments:
Sounds like a very intriguing speaker with alot of timely challenges! Makes me grateful for those aspects of my Mennonite upbringing that placed high emphasis on service/missions and peacekeeping.
Rebecca, I am currently reading "A New Kind of Christiam" which I borrowed from a couple in my church who attended some "pub ministry" discussions with McLaren. They visited his church for a time as well.
I first read about Brian McLaren and his work in D.A. Carson's book "Becoming Conversant with the Emergent Church"--I highly recommend it. I hope to have a review of McLaren's book on my blog at some time in the future. You'll have to check it out!
McLaren has had an indirect impact on my thinking in the last few years. Hopefully I'll get over to England sometime in the next couple of years and Ethan and I can have a nice chat over a pint at the local pub
Brian
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