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Welcome to Slipstream a suite of leadership resources from the Evangelical Alliance.
Our prayer is that this site will help to encourage, equip and network leaders across the denominations and generations.
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Slipstream Podcast 6 - Brian McLaren |
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Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, pastor, and networker among Christian leaders. From 1978 to 1986, McLaren taught college English, and in 1982, he helped form Cedar Ridge Community Church, a nondenominational church in the Baltimore-Washington region. He served as its pastor until 2006 and is now a popular conference speaker and a frequent guest lecturer at seminaries and denominational gatherings, nationally and internationally. He is the author of several books including A New Kind of Christian (2001), A Generous Orthodoxy (2004), and The Secret Message of Jesus (2006).
Here's a taster of Brian's podcast interview:
What are some of the challenges and temptations of being on the road that younger leaders need to be aware of?
"I think that to be a pastor of a local church - and not just a pastor but a layperson part of a local community - and to be living your faith in a neighbourhood is really where the action is. What happens to some people is that they get this celebrity mindset - people who write books, people who speak at conferences. I used to feel this way. I would feel that those are the important people, and I’m not important. And then the people on the road, they can start to think: “I’m the important person, and they’re not.” And all of that is insanity, it’s stupidity, it’s dangerous, it’s destructive.
"In my mind, the most important people in the kingdom of God are the people who are working among the poor, the people who are taking care of those who are mentally ill, the people who are serving the least of these. We have to turn the whole importance pyramid upside down. That’s what happens in the kingdom of God. It’s not the most famous, it’s the humblest – the last are first. We’ve actually got to believe that. I would say that would be really important.
"I’m so grateful that God did not allow me to get any notoriety at a younger age. It would have been so bad for my soul. And I think that’s another thing that we ought to help people to do - to really be suspicious of all of our definitions of success..."
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Slipstream Extra
For more from Brian Mclaren, listen to an extended conversation recorded on 19 June 2008.
Listen ... A Conversation with Brian McLaren
Defining the Emerging Church | |
 | Andrew Perriman gives his thoughts on defining the emerging church. Read ... Defining the Emerging Church |
A Generous Orthodoxy | |
 | A sample chapter from Brian McLaren's book "A Generous Orthodoxy". Read ... A Generous Orthodoxy |
We’re not singing anymore… or are we? | |
 | We’re not singing anymore… or are we? Paul Mayers explores worship and the emerging church |
