Lenten Luncheon with Rev. Brian Erickson

Entrée: Michelle's Homemade Chicken Fingers | Rev. Brian Erickson is the senior pastor at Trinity United Methodist Church in Birmingham, a dynamic congregation of 3,500 members with an average age of 36. During his time at Trinity, the congregation has grown in professions of faith and worship attendance, established a second campus, and created a thriving outreach ministry that feeds more than 300 households every week and has become one of the leading providers of refugee resettlement support in the state of Alabama. Brian is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Birmingham-Southern College and was a Woodruff Fellow at Emory’s Candler School of Theology. For the first decade of his ordained ministry, he served as a college chaplain to BSC and then the University of Evansville, where his responsibilities included service-learning, mentoring a record number of pre-ministerial students, and teaching in Christian theology, worship, and Methodist history. In June of 2009 he was appointed as the Senior Pastor to the First United Methodist Church of Alabaster, where he oversaw five years of dramatic growth in worship attendance, community involvement, and people accepting Christ. He currently serves as the Co-Chairperson for the North Alabama Conference NAC3 team and as a trustee for both the Appalachia Service Project and Birmingham-Southern. Brian is married to the former Mollie Lane Jackson, and they have three awesome kids they do not deserve. In his spare time, Brian enjoys woodworking, restoring vintage campers, playing the banjo, and driving his 1974 Bronco that he and his kids restored during the pandemic. He is the author of “The Theological Implications of Climate Control: Reflections on the Seasons of Faith,” which is exactly what it sounds like: a really long-winded book destined for clearance racks everywhere. Brian passionately believes in the transformational power of the gospel, the connectional impact of The United Methodist Church, and the critical need for churches not defined by their differences, but bound together by their Savior.