Toronto Megachurch 'Meeting House' Announces Pastor Resignation

The Banner has a subscription to republish articles from Religion News Service. This story by Yonat Shimron was published on religionnews.com March 8. It has been edited with an update about the church’s public statement.

The Meeting House, a 19-campus megachurch in the larger Toronto metropolitan area, announced March 8 the resignation of its pastor, Bruxy Cavey. The resignation, tendered March 3, was requested by the church’s Overseers after an independent investigation found evidence of his sexual misconduct.

Cavey was accused of sexual misconduct by a woman who reported it to the church’s Overseers Board, or board of directors, in December.

“Having carefully reviewed the investigator’s report, our board unanimously decided to ask Bruxy to resign from his role at The Meeting House effective immediately,” Maggie John, chair of the Overseers Board, wrote in an email to church members Monday (March 7). “Bruxy then submitted his resignation on March 3rd, which the Overseers accepted.”

Also on Monday, a teaching pastor at the church, Danielle Strickland, tweeted that she was resigning “in solidarity with the victim of abuse.”

The church invited members to a town hall meeting Tuesday evening. 

“It’s important for us to communicate with our church family first,” said spokesperson Katie Double. Later a statement on The Meeting House’s website said, “The investigator determined that Bruxy had maintained a sexual relationship with the Victim, an adult woman, in violation of The Meeting House policy and the Handbook of Faith and Life of Be in Christ Church of Canada. … Due to the seriousness of the investigator’s findings, our board unanimously decided to ask Bruxy to resign.”

With his long hair and tattoos, Cavey is one of Canada’s most recognizable church leaders. He became the senior pastor of Upper Oaks Community Church in 1997, later changing its name to The Meeting House. The church grew exponentially as it sought to appeal to people alienated from Christianity and church traditions.

Cavey has taught widely at U.S. seminaries and universities, including Messiah University and Fresno Pacific University Biblical Seminary. He is the author of a popular book, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus.

In 2019, he became the subject of a book, The Subversive Evangelical: The Ironic Charisma of an Irreligious Megachurch by Peter J. Schuurman.

Related: Mixed Media review of The Subversive Evangelical (Nov. 22, 2019)

In the book, Schuurman writes that Cavey cultivates an identity as leading an “irreligious” megachurch and provides followers with “a more culturally acceptable way to practice their faith in a secular age.”

The Meeting House affiliates with Be In Christ, a small Anabaptist denomination, formerly known as Brethren in Christ Canada, which is committed to peace and nonviolence. The denomination is evangelical in its teachings.

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