dan kimball and brian mclaren

Dan Kimball spoke yesterday session 3, mostly summarizing his new book, They Like Jesus but Not the Church: Insights from Emerging Generations. I appreciated his thoughts, but they weren't new to my "young evangelical" ears. Comments about people being interested in Jesus, but thinking Christian tradition has distorted him; that the church is hypocritical. I guess this is already the way I think. (perhaps it's a good message though. one big surprise of mine: the average age here seems like 45 years old...)

Right before he started, there was a sketch by the Willow team on a conversation between two old friends from bible college meeting up after 15 years of not talking. One had come out as gay. His best friend had simply stopped calling. I sorta sat tense in my seat waiting for bad stereo-typing, preaching, or oversimplification... but remarkably the dialog was both complex and genuine. It wasn't a theological statement: more emotional. I liked it.

Dan only spoke for 25 minutes, in order to make time for a panel discussion including Brian McLaren, Sally Moregenthaler, Efram Smith, David Loveless, and Shauna Niequist. It was a great panel in theory, but I felt they were somewhat undirected, and aside from a few pull quotes, the conversation didn't move anywhere worth writing home about. A little disappointing.