The title of this post is a book by Brian McLaren, who I was pleased to meet night before last (Thursday).

Thurday night at Old Saint George (where I am right now), Brian McLaren sat with Larry and I here in Larry’s office and talked with Brian about “Emerging Church”, and how different groups have received him. He has attracted several diverse groups who have invited and ARE inviting him to speak to them. I learned a lot about all of this. I had also read just about all of “Adventures in Missing the Point” thathe wrote with Tony Campolo, an all-time favorite writer-speaker of mine.

Then a group of about 15 people sat around a table in the dining hall at OSG (known around here as “The George”, kind of like Bank One Ball Park is called “The Bob” over in Arizona or wherever that is). Brian was asked to give us a little autobiography. It was interesting to learn how his Church where he is now pastor was started by a person as a calling of theirs as a member of the Church of the Saviour down the road from his church in Washington D.C. I was also interested to know that Brian has always been “into science”, and had difficulty early on reconciling some of the tenets of evolution that seemed to be good explanations, and the fact that his faith heritage condemned acceptance of any truth in evolution. This gave me the idea that I could tell him about the Steven Johnson book I am reading, “Emergence“. When I held it up to start to say something, he pointed to it and said “Really good book”. He also said that a book he had mentioned to the group earlier that night, God After Darwin is a good campanion in the emergence discussion. (I’m just getting to the software exploration pice of the Emergence book, which I ‘m sure will have me abuzz with parallels and dialogue between emergent theories of life, and the life of online communications, and beyond that, how all this will affect the theological institutions and evangelism.

I was emailing Larry the other day about how Brian reminds me of the lay renewal movement when I was in college (1974-78). He is not simply echoing the same kind of ideas, except that the call to authenticity and psychological/sociological relevance seems to be a strong theme. Both the lay renewal and the emergent church movement seem to be calling for a closer look at our language in communicating the gospel. it seems as if the exploration of questions like “What does the “Kingom of God look like for today?” is a pivotal and energizing quesiton for the Emergent Church (and for a lot of “Church” I have sought after)

There may be a few people to meet when Larry gets through eating some lunch with some people getting out of the Mayhem event up in tri-county (northwest Cincinnati). Brain McLaren has just wrapped up the event up there at the Vineyard, a nd I ‘ll be interested to hear how “the Vineyard people” reacted. I’m sure there will be a wide range of reactions.

I also hope that through my association with Old Saint George, and Brian McLaren’s enthusiasm about our book store here, that there will be some ongoing contact between OSG and “The Emergent Village”. There definitely seems to be some synergy between the kind of theoplogical diversity OSG reaches, hosts, and provides a Great Good Place for dialogue. Brian really liked the OSG line: “Where divisive issues become shared concerns”.

It was great meeting Brian. He’s a wondefully warm and intelligent, articulate guy.