Rev. McLaren left academia in 1986 to become founding pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church, an innovative, nondenominational church in the Baltimore-Washington region. The church has grown to involve several hundred people, over half of whom were previously unchurched. He has been active in networking church planters and pastors since the mid 1980's, and regularly speaks at religious and university gatherings. His public speaking covers a broad range of topics including postmodernism, Biblical studies, evangelism, apologetics, leadership, global mission, church growth, church planting, art and music, pastoral survival and burnout, inter-religious dialogue, and ecology and faith.

His books include The Church on the Other Side: Doing Ministry in the Postmodern Matrix, Finding Faith, and A New Kind of Christian. He holds bachelor and masters degrees from the University of Maryland.

• "Scared to Talk Politics in Church? You don't need to be partisan to be prophetic", Sojourners
  Read More


• "Bless This House? Why efforts to renew the church are often misguided ", Christianity Today
  Read More