One of the things I appreciate about this conference is the beautiful blend of worship and compassion, evangelism and justice, love for the church and love for a broken world. The Catalyst culture promotes so much talk and action around huge issues like solving global poverty, protecting and adopting orphans, walking with the poor, feeding the hungry, and clothing the naked. This isn't supposed to minimize the call to preach salvation in Christ alone (although I'll let readers decide if that has happened or not). And most of this passion and energy is coming from a new wave of younger leaders.

But there's also an interesting (and I think deeply biblical) twist to one aspect to this emphasis. It's a better way to do justice and avoid "toxic mercy." Here's an example of toxic mercy: Bob Lupton told a story about a fairly typical suburban church program that brought gifts to a poor inner-city family at Christmas time. Of course the children in these inner-city families were always happy ...