Stan Grenz' Memorial Service

On Sunday I went to First Baptist Church in Vancouver BC for the memorial service of Stan. It was awesome! His kids spoke and showed a video montage of his life - that was emotional. The preacher Bruce Milne spoke on the resurrection and you could tell he loved Jesus so much by the way he spoke the Word. The service closed with the Hallelujah chorus directed by Stan's wife, who is the Music Minister at FBC Vancouver - that was cool, too.

Afterwards, there was a reception in a nearby hotel banquet room. This memorial service was a who's-who of postmodern evangelical thought! Brian McLaren, Bob Pine, John Frankie, Robert Webber, Leonard Sweet, Dan Allen were all there to pay tribute to Stan. These guys are all big on the postmodern publication scene.

I got to go out to dinner with Jay (my pastor who was Stan's research assistant for 5 years) and some of these guys. McLaren, Pine, Frankie, Roger Olson, and Myron Penner were all there. It was cool just to get to know these guys on a more personal level and hear about their families and jobs. Of course, they were talking about academic stuff, too, but it was interesting. They all shared stories of how they met Stan and different experiences they had with him. Robert Webber was at a table behind us, and so I got a chance to say hello to him and tell him that I was coming to his conference in May at Regent. He is a nice guy.