Influential Evangelicals?

Probably get in trouble with some for this one, but . . .

Earlier last year, as I was channel surfing through some television, I ran across the Larry King show on Time Magazine's Top 25 Influential Evangelicals and watched the better part of it. They had Tim and Bev LeHaye, Franklin Graham, Brian McLaren and TD Jakes on a panel discussion.

I have to say that I was a somewhat embarrassed to see Tim/Bev LeHaye and Franklin Graham representing the broad-based "evangelical" community. Though they bring strong and solid views of faith and practice, they often reinforce the stereotypes of American evangelicals as being relatively unthoughtful, uncaring and narrowly focused in their political and social engagement. It was a pleasure to see TD and Brian bring at least *some* reasonable thoughts (to the degree they were allowed). It seems like Larry likes the stereotypical rather than the outside the box person.

I would encourage people to look through the list of Time's most influential evangelicals (see www.time.com). Having interacted with many of them in my days in Washington, DC (and since), I can honestly say the list is more a commentary on the perception evangelicals have in American culture (elsewhere around the world, too, I guess). Still, they are those who are exercising political influence, but not necessarily cultural influence.

Fortunately, I believe that God continues to use the people of apparent insignificance -- those who are under the radar -- to accomplish His greatest purposes. It is rarely the ruler and more often the minion that God flows through most easily. I wonder why some of us want to be more significant then?

Perhaps there needs to be a parallel list of those types of folks; people having grassroots impact that most of the church don't have a clue about. The "Under the Radar List of Influential People." I would like to start a list of those folks. Any ideas for me?