Guess Who Came to Dinner?

Brian McLaren

As part of our fellowship ritual, most of my recent get-togethers at Solomon's Porch seem to end up at Chipotle's Restaurant. I usually order a naked steak burrito with black beans. In that respect, tonight was no different. What was different was what happened afterward.

My pastor - Doug Pagitt - knows Brian McLaren (another pastor and author well known in the Emergent movement) personally and invited me and a few friends to meet him at TGI Fridays after a lecture that Brian gave tonight at a local Presbyterian church. I'm not a "Christian Speaker Groupie", but I was refreshingly pleased to hear someone as well known as he speak candidly and frankly about a realm of issues. There were no "sunday school answers". Instead there was recognition of the complexity of issues and the challenge to engage both the culture and the Church in constructive dialogue.

As you know, I typically don't read many books (my attention span is more like a magazine article), but after tonight I think that I may have to break down and get the "books on tape" version of some of Brian's books to listen to on my ipod. Who knows, maybe I'll become "A New Kind of Christian"...