Paul Young and Some Renegade Canadian Pastors

Hi folks,

Life has been crazy busy. For one thing, our upcoming Ultimate Compassion Conference has added a lot of things on a lot of plates at Woodland Hills Church the last few weeks. I’ve also been absolutely obsessed with writing Jesus Versus Jehovah. When I get into a “zone” of writing and reflection like this, I find it hard to think about much else. I also don’t sleep much. Anyway, the book is coming along great (the first draft of 12 of the planned 14 chapters are now done).

On top of this, I just spent the weekend participating in the Why Everything Must Change conference in Toronto.  This was a marvelous conference stressing the need for followers of Jesus (and others) to wake up and respond to the massive suffering caused by injustice around the world. I felt honored to be a part of this and came in contact with some amazing people engaged in some marvelous ministries that confront injustice.

During and after this conference I had a wonderful time hanging out with Paul Young, author of The Shack. Paul is a wonderful, humble and insightful human being who really knows Abba’s heart and has a remarkable ability to communicate it in fresh ways. (If you haven’t read The Shack, I strongly encourage you to do so).

I also spent some time with Bruxy Cavey, Teaching Pastor of The Meeting House in Toronto and author of The End of Religion. I love this guy! It’s SO refreshing to meet a pastor of a megachurch (I’m told The Meeting House is second largest church in Canada) who is so humble and who obviously doesn’t give a crap about opinion polls. Bruxy also totally gets the outrageous loving heart of Abba, the centrality of non-violence for Jesus-followers and the utterly anti-religious nature of the Kingdom. Do you know how incredibly rare it is to find pastors who hold and teach these convictions — especially pastors of large churches? To say I felt a kinship with this brother is a massive understatement.

Finally, I also had a chance to wine and dine a bit with Baxter Kruger whose theological work I’ve long admired. His Jesus and the Undoing of Adam is a great little work that (among other things) brilliantly articulates the view (which I share) that the Incarnation was not God’s “Plan’s B”: it was rather the focal point of creation from the start. This has massive and marvelous theological implications. Anyway, my evening with this wild man from Mississippi, together with a host of fun-loving and slightly renegade Canadian pastors and theologians, is not one I will soon forget.

Later,

Greg