pat loughery

There’s a good interview with Brian McLaren here at Homiletics Online magazine. It wraps up this way:

HOMILETICS: If you could really turn pastors on to some big idea, what would it be?

McLAREN: Our job is to make disciples. Our job is to actually make people who are followers of Jesus and who have a role in this world similar to the role that Jesus had in this world. Jesus said, “As the Father sent me, so send I you.” We’re actually preparing people to be sent into the world.

Every Sunday when we say the benediction, we’re sending them into the world as representatives of Jesus. And so what did Jesus do? Jesus taught, Jesus asked questions. Jesus loved people. Jesus healed. Jesus spoke up about injustice and exposed hypocrisy. If we had a sense that what the Christian project is all about is actually about sending people a little better prepared week after week to represent Jesus, I think that would be a tremendously exciting thing. And in many ways this is really what this whole emergent conversation is about. How we can actually rise to that mission of making disciples.