Become Good Soil

Answers before questions do harm to the soul. – Henri Nouwen Friends, For the heart of a boy, questions come quite naturally... for a time.  Then, slowly, like the tide, the questions ebb and become fewer and fewer. The false self takes root, and we increasingly operate under pressure to have life figured out. Curiosity atrophies, and we trade childlike dependency and whole-hearted questions for t...

We’re lost males, all of us, cast adrift from the community of men, cut off from our masculine heritage—abandoned to machines, organizations, fantasies, drugs. – Gordon Dalbey, Healing the Masculine Soul From this central abandonment, we men often find ourselves, consciously and unconsciously, painfully fulfilling the plot line of an isolated and individualized story. It's all up to me. I’m way be...

In fiction, we should have no agenda except to be truthful. – Winn Collier, Love Big, Be Well: Letters to a Small-Town Church Friends, it was Wendell Berry who, after seven decades of apprenticeship, penned these words: I can remember those early years when it seemed to me I was cut completely adrift, and times when, looking back at earlier times, it seemed I had been wandering in the dark woods o...

We become what we behold. – Eugene Peterson, A Burning in My Bones Known primarily for rendering the Message paraphrase of the Scriptures, Eugene Peterson was intimately faithful to the extensive range of his vocation.  Not only was he the most influential pastor of our time, he was a son, husband, father, student, writer, and sage.  Though all these titles surely mark waypoints along the geograph...

Discipleship to Jesus is the greatest opportunity individual human beings have in life and the only hope corporate mankind has at solving its insurmountable problems. – Dallas Willard What is discipleship?  What is salvation? And what relevance do these sometimes abstract concepts have for sharpening our ordinary, everyday lives?  What if salvation is both an individual and communal process that i...

Churches are not the kingdom of God…but they are primary and inevitable expressions, outposts, and instrumentalities of the presence of the kingdom among us. They are "societies" of Jesus. – Dallas Willard Friends, Thousands of years ago, St. Paul invited us to participate in the mysterious nature of the Church. Writing to the Corinthians, he penned, You can easily enough see how this kind of thin...

"Tell me your story" is the most revolutionary phrase you can ever say to a man. – John Eldredge Friends, The revolution ignited by Wild at Heart and Become Good Soil is well under way. Though hidden from many, it is irrevocably life-changing for the men who have risked their lives to enter in.  Bryan Byrd of Wild Courage and Jay Heck of Being Sons are two of our Kingdom allies at the fore of Wild...

Life is our resume. It is our story to tell, and the choices we make write the chapters. Can we live in a way where we look forward to looking back? – Matthew McConaughey, Greenlights Friends, In some ways, much of my public mission in the world began with inviting men to recover the deepest questions of their masculine souls. And in that recovery, to risk giving God a decade. Choosing to enter in...

Christ is before all things, and in him all things hold together. – Colossians 1:17 Friends, What vision of the human person and the way of restoration do our Scriptures offer? Consider these verses: So many times I have longed to gather your wayward children together around me… (Luke 13:34 TPT) Like a city that is broken down and without walls [leaving it unprotected] is a man who has no self-con...

I will not leave you as orphans. – Jesus of Nazareth Friends, We’re deep in this series exploring a path and process to integrate a man's soul under the care and direction of the Triune God. In Part 5, I’m inviting you to put this process into practice. Through the help of a trusted guide, Grant Leitheiser, this episode offers a personal experience of care for the fragmented parts of your soul.  W...

In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established     as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,   to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways so that we may walk in his paths.” – Isaiah 2:2-4 Friends, So often we skill...

Life is not about you. – Adam's Return Brothers, I want to suggest that our lives, our stories, our maturity are not finally about us. The aim of this Parts Work series is not to achieve a new spiritual height. Nor is it to create yet another template for the self-life.  Rather, the aim is Christ. To love him with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. And to engage our world for the well-bei...

“I have come to heal the broken hearted….I have come to set the captives free and release prisoners from darkness.” – Isaiah 61 In the confusion of your life, have you ever found yourself having one of these internal conflicts? I am overtired but under-rested. I am overworked, yet I feel unproductive. I am overweight but undernourished. I am overstimulated yet under-engaged.  I am working to make...

Spiritual transformation in Christ is the process of all of the essential parts of the human self being effectively organized around God, as they are restored and sustained by him. Its result is love of God with all of the heart, soul, mind, and strength, and of the neighbor as oneself. – Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart Friends,  The most important thing you can ever know about a person is...

We are made in the image of God; we carry within us the desire for our true life of intimacy and adventure. To say we want less than that is to lie. – The Journey of Desire Friends,  It started with an ocean lifeguard dory boat race. Two-man teams set to row from the coast of Catalina Island across the twenty-two-mile open-water channel back to the mainland near San Pedro. To add to the adventure,...

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the path that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the path that leads to life, and only a few find it. – Jesus of Nazareth Eugene Peterson phrased Jesus’ words this way: “Don’t look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that ca...

We don't believe something by merely saying we believe it, or even when we believe that we believe it. We believe something when we act as if it were true. – Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart  In Part 2 of this conversation, we hear another fresh batch of stories from the frontlines of our newest mission: the Becoming a King Retreat .   Constructing a four-day context that shepherds men into...

Rule with the heart of a servant. Serve with the heart of a king. Friends, we’re pulling back 50 yards from the frontline to hear fresh stories from the field.  The Becoming a King Retreat is slowly and steadily building an irreversible revolution in the hearts of men all over the world. We’re hoping the stories of men like you taking risks all around the globe will inspire you to do the same. Wha...

“Where are you, Adam?” – Genesis 3:9 A disruptive phrase in Isaiah 44 has grabbed my attention and refused to let go. Notably grieved, the prophet utters these words: “They know nothing, they understand nothing. Their eyes are plastered over so they can’t see, and their minds closed so they cannot understand….No one stops to think...” (44:18-19 NIV) The prophet was urgently inviting the people of...

Each human soul has to enact for itself the gigantic humility of the Incarnation. Every man must descend into the flesh to meet mankind. – G.K. Chesterton Friends, We have a gift for you.  Take up a childlike heart again and be swept up into the awe and beauty of Immanuel—God with us.  Join us for this special BGS Christmas podcast.  Through the generosity of Penguin Random House Publishing, it’s...

The difference is not in what people suffer, but in the way they suffer. In the same fire, gold glows and straw smokes. – St. Augustine Suffering is brutal.  Suffering is lonely.  And suffering is a sacred space of masculine initiation.  As we mature, we are made ready to walk through suffering redemptively, allowing it to transform us rather than destroy us. In The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis wr...

In the larger-than-life, spiritually transformed people I have met, I always find one common denominator: in some sense, they have all died before they died. They have followed in the footsteps of Jesus, a path from death to life. – Adam’s Return In his account of the Larger Story, Matthew writes, “Those who were apprenticed to him, the committed, climbed with him. Arriving at a quiet place, he sa...

However quickly or slowly the call of God comes, it is always accompanied with an undercurrent of the supernatural….If a man or woman is called of God, it doesn’t matter how difficult the circumstances may be. God orchestrates every force at work for his purpose in the end. If you will agree with God’s purpose, he will bring not only your conscious level but also all the deeper levels of your life...

Get into the habit of saying, “Speak, Lord,” and life will become a romance. (1 Samuel 3:9) – Oswald Chambers  Friends, Jonathan David Helser teaches, “In the Garden, it all began with a kiss. God’s first moment with us is…messy." And though we started out as dirt in the cherishing hands of the Trinity, our God invites us into more. Over a lifetime of maturing, we are intended to become the childr...

He opened the door of the birdcage to let the eagle fly to freedom. But the eagle had been in captivity for so long it no longer believed it could fly, and it chose not to fly. It was then he realized the bird was not in the cage. The cage was in the bird. – Jonathan Helser Friends, Jonathan David and Melissa Helser have become the kind of people who bring with them, wherever they find themselves,...