A Great Weekend at “The Meeting House”

Hi folks,

Just got back from an incredible weekend up in Toronto at The Meeting House where I was asked to deliver a message on how to reconcile the warrior portrait of God in the Old Testament with the non-violent God revealed in Jesus. It was part of a brilliant series on non-violence that they’re doing called “Inglorious Pastors” (what a title!). You can listen to the whole series here. This is a remarkable Anabaptist congregation with an outstanding teaching pastor, Bruxy Cavey. To be honest, their whole leadership team rocks. The Meeting House averages about 5,500 attenders each week (at 9 different sites), but it fits the stereotype of a megachurch about as well as Woodland Hills Church. (For example, Bruxy and I tried to think of any other megachurches in America or Canada that teach non-violence as a central aspect of discipleship, and we couldn’t come up with any. If you can, please e-mail me and let me know. We’d like to get in touch with them.)

If you met Bruxy without knowing anything about him, you would never suspect what he does for a living!

And never in my life have I met someone (let alone another pastor) whose theological passions and beliefs were so closely aligned with my own. We honestly couldn’t find anything to fight over — and believe me, we tried! As I hung out with Bruxy and his hilarious and turbo-charged leadership team, we all sensed God was doing something in our midst in terms of forging an alliance. I came home stoked!

Also, Bruxy Tweets. Check him out! Though I don’t quite get the point of the whole thing, I’ve already tweeted a few times myself. For example, yesterday I tweeted, “Just had a nice talk with someone at my front door. I now discovered the wad of gum I stuck in the middle of my glasses during an earlier nap. Classy.”

I can’t believe this person didn’t break out laughing talking to a guy with a wad of blue gum stuck between his eyes on his glasses!!

Have a great day.