Blog - Brian McLaren

Discovering Renewal – for clergy and … everyone need renewal.

January 23, 2025

Several years ago, my friends at Montreat Conference Center contacted me to talk about an idea. (I may have proposed it to them, or not ... I can't remember.)

The weeks leading up to Easter are full of meaning for clergy ... along with a lot of hard work. What if we had a week in the North Carolina mountains for church leaders to gather for rest and renewal. I would offer a reflection each morning to encourage spiritual renewal and rest, and the rest of the day would be free, with a variety of options for activities that would help people unwind and simply enjoy being alive, being human.

But then we thought, Why restrict this to clergy? Why not have a week where everyone is welcome, just being people, human beings, normal folks, relaxing and enjoying life together?

Each year has been a delight, one of a few events that shape my year.

This year (April 22-25, 2025), there will be eight activity tracks:

Larry "Grey" Mitchell and Daniel Rogers will lead Contemplative Hiking ... enjoying the beautiful spring flora and fauna in the mountains that surround Montreat.
Mary Carroll Dodd will lead Yoga, inviting people of all levels to find their inner smile.
Tanner Pickett will lead Fly Fishing, enjoying the areas beautiful streams (that are rebounding with resilience the floods of last year).*
Sue Dolamore will lead Plein Air Sketching, helping you see and explore your artistic side.
Rev. Thomas Wesley Moore (T. Wes) and Dora Rowe will lead Tabletop Gaming ... a great way to socialize and enjoy a wide array of challenges.
Kelley Weber and Greg Durham will lead the new Contemplative Track, helping you learn and actually practice contemplative practices.
Jessica Vazquez Torres will lead the new baking track. What is more renewing and enjoyable (and delicious) than creating culinary delights?
Sarah Akin will lead the new Mixed Track, where you'll sample yoga, hiking, and contemplative practice.

And of course, if you'd rather create your own solo track (bring some books or simply watch the creek flow by), you're welcome to do that too. It's a no-lose situation: there are very few if any more beautiful places in Spring than Western North Carolina.

Want to learn more? Check out https://montreat.org/events/renewal-2025.

*If you're a newbie, you're welcome too, and we'll have loaner equipment available and a patient veteran to help you learn.

by Brian McLaren

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Grief and Relief

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January 15, 2025

These are two words I hear again and again from people who have read Life After Doom. Here is a recent email that came in (as always, lightly edited for anonymity) ...

Last year, I attended an event where you spoke in the midwest. I exchanged only a brief mumbled greeting with you, because I didn’t quite realize who you were until after I had continued on my way to my seat, and I was so disoriented and heavy with grief that I had none of my usual tools for connecting with new people in a sociable way readily available.

As you spoke that evening, I remember feeling like I could breathe - nervous, tenuous breaths, not yet the full belly-breaths that can calm our nervous systems, but enough breath to keep me alive for a bit longer, then a bit longer. I came into the event shattered; as I witnessed your unflinching look at reality, both the steadiness with which you faced a truly terrible situation and the refusal to offer quick or easy answers, I felt the pieces of myself stop their fractured swirling and come to enough stillness that I could begin to imagine putting them back together.

Fast forward a few months, and I am sitting now with your book, Life After Doom. I have found myself in tears a number of times - from grief, yes, and also from some kind of relief. Relief to hear from someone who shares a similar religious background, and can name the harm that has been done in the name of that tradition while also not throwing the whole tradition out entirely. Relief to be in the spiritual presence of someone who is, at least on paper, unflinching, while not denying the hard road ahead. Relief to feel the sanity that exists in acknowledging the dangerous stupidity of the world without needing to get into a gaslighting argument with anyone about whether or not that is real (“try not to be too surprised,” you said. I will try.)

For many years I worked in ministry. I left a few years ago - both the vocational work and the institution of the church - when I could no longer stand in that space with integrity without doing or saying something that could cost me my job (introducing the concept of the feminine image of God, for example - the horror!)

It has been a lonely road since then, as I am hungry for the sort of community, meaningful conversation, and supportive action that can be experienced through church, but have struggled to find or create something new. As I spent time with you, in Holland and through your book, I have felt less alone. And I will keep trying.

The divine in me sees and honors the divine in you.

by Brian McLaren

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A lot of people are feeling the relevance of my newest book …

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January 8, 2025

I just got this email from a reader of Life After Doom: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart:

Thank you so much for writing this book! It helped boost me over the line to finally DO SOMETHING! It was good medicine to have to look at that ominous title every time I opened the book. Spelling out possible scenarios we face makes it concrete, no longer a theory, something imaginary. I felt guarded when you first mentioned yourself as a former pastor, but later I so appreciated your ability to reframe Bible characters and stories in terms of environmental change in ancient earth history and ancient indigenous struggles.

As a Buddhist in worldview and practice I easily relate to your framing: Letting go, letting be, letting come and “maybe it’s good, maybe it’s not”.

Your AA analogies are insightful.

You include so many and diverse quotes that enrich understanding and insight.

I’m in process of rereading it.

Thanks again for sharing your journey and your wisdom!

You can find the book here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250893277/lifeafterdoom/

by Brian McLaren

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A few Christmas gifts from me to you

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December 24, 2024

I have been unusually quiet on social media lately. For me, this has been a time of reflection, rest, recollection, realization, and preparation for what comes next. It has also been a time of quiet gratitude ... gratitude for the gift of life, of a loving family, of peace where I live, of enough to eat, of a beautiful home, of health, of meaningful work, of rich memories. None of these can be taken for granted, and while it is foolish to be in denial about all that is in peril in our world, it is even more foolish to let all that is wrong in our world overshadow all that is good, beautiful, and so worth celebrating.

I'm especially grateful for you, all my friends -- old an new ... for all my colleagues (at the CAC and elsewhere) ... for all readers of any and all of my books (especially Life After Doom, which came out this year) and listeners to my podcasts ... for my students and parishioners across the years ... and for my own teachers and mentors.

I've also been thinking of my parents and grandparents a lot lately, and feeling deep gratitude for them, and for all my ancestors.

And, of course, each morning I awaken in a majestic and beautiful living Earth, a web of life that continues to give generously even though our species has done it so much harm.

I want to share a few simple gifts that I have enjoyed recently ... in hopes that they will bring you some extra joy too.

First, one of my favorite Christmas pieces, something I return to each Christmas season:

(Here's a translation of the Latin into English, with some background: https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/o-magnum-mysterium-lyrics-composers/)

Second, this song from a group of children in Ramallah. It reminds us that the original Christmas story itself occurred against a backdrop of violence and agony (Matthew 2:16-18), and that (as Howard Thurman said) the work of Christmas continues each day.

Third, not directly related to Christmas, but a testament to human creativity ... and what can happen when we come together under wise leadership, in the creative Spirit, to give ourselves to beauty and harmony: