Restoring the Shack

Author Paul Young invites the audience to join him on an adventure into the power of story and the themes, metaphors and theology that shaped his phenomenal best-seller, "The Shack."  He also introduces the concept of how understanding relationship the relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the key to understanding God's desire for relationship with us.

Paul takes us on a journey into how his relationship with his missionary father, coupled with his abuse in boarding school, shaped his theology of a distant, angry God, leading to a life of perfectionist performance and the construction of a fake persona to hide the battered "shack" that was his soul.

Paul reveals not only how he met and married his wife Kim, but how he dragged all his secrets and addictions into their marriage, ultimately leading to a disastrous affair and an 11 year process through which God rebuilt not only their relationship but Paul's very soul.

Paul shares the story of how "The Shack" went from beginning as 15 xeroxed copies of a story written solely for his children as an expression of how God had changed his life to the phenomenon it is today, and how it was only possible due to discovery of joy in the midst of having every material thing stripped of him.

Paul shares how learning to live inside the grace of just one day by taking on a child-like perspective and trust in God helped to transform his life and allow for joy to show up as a constant companion.

Paul further explores the metaphor of the Shack as the heart and soul of a human being that is broken, and how despite what many of us have been taught, God doesn't sit up on high waiting for us to get our lives together, but comes from within our own brokenness to heal us and draw us closer to him.

Paul teaches about the transformative concept of wholeness and how by learning to live in the identity of Christ so that the "way of our being matches the truth of our being" removes the struggle of performance and having to live "rightly" under own efforts.

Paul delves deep into Psalm 22, exploring the question of who originated the cross and challenging the assertion that God the Father turned his face from Jesus on the cross, using the scriptures themselves to prove that the Father was present with Jesus the whole time, just as He is with us during our darkest moments.

Paul tells four inspiring, though often heart-wrenching, stories meant to tie up all that's been talked about before, highlighting the activity of a God who is good and is involved in the details of our lives.

Paul tackles questions of "loss," sharing the incredible story of how, through a crazy set of "coincidences," a struggling couple who had lost a teenage daughter to suicide found themselves on the movie set of "The Shack" watching a key scene minister to the heart of their pain.

Paul delves into another important metaphor in "The Shack," - the garden - where the work of God is to expose our hearts which may have become overgrown with the brambles, thistles and thorns of brokenness and pain, transforming it into the place of beauty and wonder it was always meant to be.

Paul illustrates how God is involved in the intimate details of our lives, by exploring the incredible events in lives of people who have cross paths with "The Shack" and how God will use anything and everything to transform lives.

Paul brings a new perspective to the story of Abraham and Isaac to help us to understand how God will meet us where we're at and how we can move from just knowing the Bible to knowing Jesus intimately.

Paul takes us deep into one of the most challenging and profound sections of "The Shack" - Mack's encounter with Sophia, the wisdom of God - exploring our own misconceptions behind the concepts of Hell, judgment and eternity.

Embracing something not done in the West, lamenting; scriptures are filled with references of God himself grieving.

Paul takes on critics who have mislabeled him as a "universalist'' and defends why he believes Jesus will go down any road to find to us and draw us back to him.

Paul uses a particular chapter of ``The Shack'' to illuminate how living in the flow of God's living water empowers us to be all that God created us to be.

Exploring the impact of words in our lives; the interpretation of scripture and how it sharpens concepts of God.

Paul examines the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation and how liberating it is to embrace the former while letting go of the burden of the latter.

Paul wraps up the series, tying everything together and focusing on the idea that despite much of what we've been taught, it is we who have turned our face from God because of our shame and brokenness, not God turning his face from us.  Despite this, however, God has always been in a relentless, never-ending pursuit for our hearts.