Session 5: Rick McKinley & Donald Miller

Rick McKinley is pastor of Imago Dei in Portland, OR. Donald Miller is the author of Blue Like Jazz and is a member of Imago Dei. This session was really just a laid back conversation between these two friends. A few things I came away with…

Imago has two values:

1. Their primary identity is that of a sent people
2. The church is for the world, not for us

Donald has started the Belmont Foundation, which connects teenage guys with older mentors. Here’s a staggering statistic: “85% of men in prison grew up without their dad around.”

Here are a couple of quotes I found here. Both are from Rick.

“When we started, we thought that the city would be against us. When we began to care about the things they cared about, they had open arms.”

“When the church is on mission, there is nothing more transformational for the world. We are the leaders of the church, and if we don’t lead our people into mission, then the church gets misrepresented to the culture. It’s not size or programs – it’s just disciples on mission. It is our job to lead them out to get messy. Discipleship happens when we lead people out into the streets where God is.”