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The Latest on "The Shack" Phenomenon

Posted Aug 2, 07:36 PM | 3 comments | by Editor | Link

Bob Hyatt, pastor at Evergreen Community in Portland, was on the radio yesterday talking about The Shack and the emerging church. He also got a chance to talk with Paul Young, the author of The Shack, and has posted this news about the continuing success of the book:


  • 2.5 million copies sold

  • 9 weeks at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list

  • Oprah is reading it right now

  • a movie adaptation is in the works

  • Young has retained creative control to the film so that “Jesus stays in the picture”

  • eight movie studios had been vying for the rights and already $100 million has been committed to make the film

  • contrary to what Mark Driscoll says, the book does not promote modalism (see pg. 101) or goddess worship (see the end of the book)

  • in fact, Gerry Breshears (Driscoll’s writing partner) “said he loved [The Shack]”

Listen to the radio interview

Listen to a sample from the new audio book version of The Shack

Related: Paul Young is one of the featured speakers at this year’s House2Harvest National House Church conference in Dallas, Texas, August 29-31. (Note: The conference is almost full, so register now if you want to go.)

Also, you know you’ve made it “big” when Jay Leno mentions your book on The Tonight Show:

I’m hoping to catch up with Paul Young when he comes through North Carolina in a couple of weeks. If you have questions you’d like me to ask him, please post them in the comments.

UPDATE 8/4/2008: Paul Young will be in Charlotte, NC, on Friday (8/8), and I plan to meetup with him then. Send me your questions in the comments, and I’ll try to get a short interview with him to post here over the weekend. Thanks!

Steve Knight is local organizer for the Charlotte Emergent Cohort and a member of the Coordinating Group for Emergent Village.

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Welcome to the Reader's Forum

1Bob Aug 3, 06:31 AM

Hey! Thanks for the shout-out! I’ll be posting more on my time with Paul soon… one correction- Evergreen and I are in Portland, not Seattle :)

2Steve K. Aug 3, 06:35 AM

D’oh! Thanks for the gentle correction, Bob. I’ve made the change above ;-)

3Joseph A. Christian Aug 4, 06:00 PM

Thank you, Paul. God has brought you through the veil from a paradigm of “right and wrong” to The Paradigm of “Life and Death”. How refreshing to find someone who has broken the code… Thanks again.

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