Wild at Heart Weekend

A little off topic, but last week I spent a wonderful couple of days at Crooked Creek Ranch with John Eldridge and crew as part of a Wild at Heart Boot Camp ("a four-day quest into the recovery of your masculine soul"). I was invited by an old friend whose life has been dramatically changed through this ministry. It was a fantastic time.

To be honest, I am not well versed in John 's books and teaching, but I found it to be a fascinating experience. I filled about 10 pages of my journal - it was great to be in a conference setting and simply focus on what the Lord wanted me to hear.

Here are a couple of takeaways for me from that weekend.

• Investigating how I have (or have not) been validated as a man . What lies do I believe about myself? How am I speaking into my son to move him ahead in his journey?
• The reality and intensity of the spiritual battle (that I tend to so easily ignore or pass over as the mild frustrations of life).
• There are more, but I am not about to put them on some stupid blog.
  

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All weekend I could not help thinking about missional aspect of this time. If men (tons of them) were unleashed to live the desires that God has laid upon their hearts, the world would be dramatically changed. It seems that we are a masculine force dreaming of being dangerous but simply acting in the status quo. Our Christianity lists towards being good, safe and trivial rather than dangerously combative on all the right issues. Even when we do fight, it seems we are fighting about the wrong things (intramural theological debates) with all the wrong people (ourselves). And when we do take the battle to the world around us, we bring self righteous condemnation rather than gracious and sacrificial solutions (like . . . . .what if we could say no baby should be aborted because every baby born is guaranteed a worthy home - not by the govt, but by the body).

The world awaits rescued men to rescue man, and yet we are somehow content with plodding along waiting for the world to stop bothering us.