For Immediate Release

Princeton Seminary to Host Emergent Leader in Public Lecture

Princeton, NJ, October 19, 2005– Brian D. McLaren, founder of Cedar Ridge Community Church in Spencerville, Maryland, and a member of the board of directors of Emergent, will present a lecture in Miller Chapel on the Princeton Seminary campus, Wednesday, November 2, at 3:45 p.m., titled “The Emerging Church and Mainline Theological Education.” Preceding the talk will be a free reception for the public held in the Main Lounge of the Mackay Campus Center at 3:00 p.m.

McLaren, who graduated from the University of Maryland with two English degrees, began with ten friends a small, nondenominational church in 1982 in his living room near the university. He left academia in 1986 in order to devote himself to what would become the Cedar Ridge Community Church, seeking to draw in unchurched members of the surrounding area rather than drawing Christians from other churches. Today, Cedar Ridge is a thriving community with McLaren as the senior pastor. He spends much of his time writing and in public speaking engagements. Some of his books include The Church on the Other Side: Doing Ministry in the Postmodern Matrix (Zondervan, 1998), A New Kind of Christian (Jossey-Bass/Leadership Network, 2001), and, most recently, A Generous Orthodoxy (Emergent/YS/Zondervan, 2004). Besides other books, he has also contributed to numerous periodicals, among them Sojourners, Worship Leader, and Conversations.

Emergent, a growing generative friendship among Christian missional leaders, seeks to address the new challenges facing the church in today’s world. It seeks to foster conversation among members of many different communities as to the best ways to be followers of Jesus.

For more information, contact Dr. Kenda Creasy Dean at kenda.dean@ptsem.edu or Louise Johnson at 609-497-7912.