Brian McLaren

Surely when we think of individuals closely tied with the emerging / emergent church, Brian McLaren is at the top of the list. Since we began our conversation, I subscribed to his blog feed. Recently he posted a sort of Q&A on the question of 'Why do evangelicals dislike you?' If you are interested in his take on why evangelicals are critical of him and his description of the people that should be disagreeing with him, check it out HERE.

This are the folks he says should dislike him. He gives fuller descriptions of why on the post.

1. Religious Right Evangelicals

2. Strict 5-point Calvinists

3. Other kinds of fundamentalists


In this post, Brian suggests that those who criticize him should read one of the books he wrote. I agree and so I am going to begin reading the book he suggests we start with, The Secret Message of Jesus. Look for some quotes and reflections to come.

Evangelical Options in Preaching

I just looked up an interview that I felt was interesting on the preaching subject we've been discussing. It is on the 9Marks blog. A pastor/church planter named Mike McKinley is asking Steve Timmis, one of the authors of the book Total Church, about his claim that preaching need not always be 'monologue.'

I think it will be worth your time to read it.

Check it out HERE.


Here is one quote from the interview:

"What we are doing is challenging the privileged status of the extended monologue. At one level, it's a pragmatic argument: different contexts call for different approaches. But it's a principled pragmatism. The principle is the centrality of God's Word in the corporate life of God's people. How that is secured and sustained depends on the context. If you're in someone's front room, then you have opportunity to invite questions, respond to comments and explore issues 'on the hoof'. But all the time, the Bible is your reference point. You're bringing people under the gospel and showing them Christ. Here's the thing Mike: being Word-centred is not the same as being preaching-centered, and I want our churches to be the former. Now that will always involve formal teaching, and by someone gifted as a teacher, and it may involve preaching as extended monologue, but not necessarily. It might be worth your readers knowing that even if someone is teaching dialogically in a household context, the preparation required is equal to, and probably greater than that for a 30-40 minute monologue. Why? Because you have absolutely no idea what questions you're going to be asked as you are teaching! Someone can ask a doozy of a left-field question and you've got to make sure that your answer takes them right back into the passage your teaching. Dialogical teaching is not the same as a 'pooling of ignorance' where everyone has an equal say. Sometimes, you just have to tell people they are wrong, plain wrong."