McLean Bible Church is a megachurch with several locations in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Lon Solomon, a Jewish convert to Christianity, was MBC's Senior Pastor from 1980 to 2017. Solomon also serves on the board of directors of Jews for Jesus and was appointed by President George W. Bush to the President's Committee for Intellectual Disabilities. David Platt is now the Senior Pastor. An average of 13,000 adults attend each weekend at the church's five campus locations: Arlington County, Loudoun County, Prince William County, and Tyson's Corner, plus Montgomery County, Maryland.
History
Founding
McLean Bible Church was founded in 1961 by five families in Northern Virginia. Its first service was held on Easter Sunday at Chesterbook Elementary School in McLean with Pastor J. Albert Ford.
Pastor Lon Solomon
Senior Pastor Lon Solomon was born and raised in a Jewish home in Portsmouth, Virginia, before converting to Christianity in the spring of 1971. He graduated from the University of North Carolina with a B.S. in Chemistry (1971). He then completed a Th.M. degree in Hebrew and Old Testament at Capital Bible Seminary (1975, summa cum laude). He completed graduate work at Johns Hopkins University, receiving a master's degree in Near Eastern Studies in 1979.
Solomon taught Hebrew and Old Testament at Capital Bible Seminary from 1975 to 1980. In 1980, he became the senior pastor at McLean Bible Church. Solomon has been on the board of Jews for Jesus since 1987, where he now serves as chairman of the board's executive committee.
In September 2002, Solomon was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve in his administration as a member of the President's Committee on Intellectual Disabilities. He received a Doctorate of Divinity degree from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary in 2005. Solomon is the author of the books Brokenness: How God Redeems Pain and Suffering and The 23rd Psalm for the 21st Century.
In February 2017, Solomon announced a process for finding a new Senior Pastor.
Pastor David Platt
In September 2017, David Platt, President of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, was confirmed as the Pastor Teacher.
References
External links
- McLean Bible Church - official website
