“There are some things that only time can do. Dynamite can't touch them.”
– Dwight D. Eisenhower
In The Scandals of the Kingdom, Dallas Willard names a profound tension between the person of Jesus and the dilemma of modern American Christianity. We spend vast sums of money and energy trying to get people into church. Meanwhile, in the Gospels, people tore the roofs off buildings just to get to Jesus. So much so, He often withdrew from the crowds—not to perform, but to be with His Father and to invest in a few trusted apprentices.
Jesus was the most consecrated King who ever lived. And yet, while we strive to build platforms and leverage influence, He chose obscurity and intimacy and consented to the slow and steady work of His Father in the lives entrusted to his care.
So we must ask ourselves: Why do we find Him hiding from crowds in places where we keep striving to be seen?
If we are willing to be honest with both this longing to be seen and the desire to see immediate results for the fruit of our labors, we can access a precious part of us that becomes a fresh doorway to return home to the heart of God.
This episode concludes a deeper cut series—an excavation of the foundational ideas unearthed through Becoming a King. At its core, we’ve been exploring a central, piercing question: How do we become the kind of men to whom God can entrust His power?
Let me remind you—this path was never promised to be easy. But I can assure you: it is profoundly worth it.
Over time, a compelling pattern emerges. Through the consent by day and by decade to the narrow road of deep apprenticeship, transformation is no longer just a hope—it becomes a lived reality. I see it in the stories, again and again, from men being led by God into deeper wholeness and restoration through Becoming a King.
What once felt like a headwind—marked by adversity, resistance, and battle—in time becomes a tailwind. The strength and care of a good Father, ever present, begins to nourish and sustain us.
A Father who is for us, not against us. Having committed Himself to our well-being, He relentlessly pours Himself into our shepherding and our apprenticeship.
He is our tailwind. And even in our trials, in the end, we will encounter His exceeding kindness.
In this episode, we conclude this conversation with some compelling ideas, questions, and stories from Outposts of Eden around the globe, thanks to the strength lent by allies John Scott Mooring, Pablo Ceron, Ryan Ruebsahm, and Chris Rice.
Together, we’re looking deeper into the kind of King that Jesus is, and I want you to join us.
It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.
For the Kingdom,
Morgan and Cherie
“We are wounded in isolation and we are healed in community.”
— Tim Keller
What does it mean to be made in the image of a Triune God-in-Relationship?
What if relational connection is the heartbeat of the with God life?
What is a relational model for becoming a king or a queen, one who can steward from wholehearted maturity?
We must begin by recovering our hidden life in God—the joyful intimacy available with the Father, Jesus, and Holy Spirit. Drawing our life from the Life of God, we move into relationships with our spouse, children, peers, and families—both our biological and kingdom families.
Right where we find ourselves. On this day. In these circumstances. Perhaps even through these circumstances, God offers a creative invitation to shepherd us in such a way that the things which matter most are no longer at the mercy of the things which matter least.
Join Cherie and me as we take a deeper cut into a relational rule of life and explore generative steps toward arranging our days so that more and more of us can be reattached to the Vine of Life.
It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.
For the Kingdom,
Morgan and Cherie
“Karl Barth, a devoted apprentice of the Kingdom of God, emphasized the lived reality of the Christian life. He listened attentively as God revealed Himself—not by dissecting the Christian life in a laboratory, but by entering into God’s action, creation, and ongoing work of salvation. He chose to participate. He wasn’t indifferent to getting it right, but his passion was getting it lived.”
—Eugene Petersen
“First, God. God is the subject of life. God is foundational for living. If we don't have a sense of the primacy of God, we will never get it right, get life right, get our lives right. Not God at the margins; not God as an option; not God on the weekends. God at center and circumference; God first and last; God, God, God.”
These are the opening words of Petersen’s evocative invitation to consider how we might begin to enter into the sacred scriptures.
As we find ourselves today in a Story already in motion—being invited to play an essential role—we must begin afresh with God, we are being invited to turn our affections and our attention back to Him.
It is from that posture that we can revisit this operational question: What are you practicing that is helping to consistently re-align your soul to this reality amid the precarious circumstances in which you find yourself?
We must lean into compassion, remembering Dallas’s reminder that there are, indeed, no ordinary days. With that in mind, what we choose to do shapes the days given to us. Our days shape our decades, and our practices shape our days.
The question isn’t whether we are apprentices, but whose apprentice we are. Make no mistake: we are being formed by our daily practices. Whether chosen with care or dangerously shaped by the current of culture, whether life-giving or quietly corrosive, these practices are not neutral. They are the sculptors of our souls. The real question is, how is that formation going, and how is it being led? What shifts might the Spirit be inviting us to make—shifts that, over time, could bear dramatically different fruit?
Living the Christian life—right where we are—is both our intended place and the primary way we access God. Let us take a fresh look at the ancient practice of a rule of life—a framework that helps us arrange our everyday rhythms around practices we can trust to lead us toward greater wholeheartedness and deeper union with God.
Join me for a deeper dive and a conversation with like-hearted allies Ryan Ruebsahm and Chris Rice, as we recover more of the ancient path together as a global community.
It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.
For the Kingdom,
Morgan and Cherie
“If we believe that God made the world, then the world is important as a revelation of God, as a sacred text. If we believe that Jesus is the Son of God, then we must believe that he is the Son of God made flesh, made a human being—and therefore that the life of the human body in this world is important.”
— Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community by Wendell Berry
Take a moment to breathe. Slow your pace.
Another breath.
Perhaps another. Allow your soul to catch up with your life—even in this very moment.
Another breath.
Enjoy this brilliant poem by Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things. Read it as slowly as you are able:
“When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
The first sacred text given to all of humanity is God’s creation itself. In many ways, the created world was intended to be a sacred container for the Kingdom of God—a primary expression of His presence and love.
What if, just as the Creator crafted this redemptive backdrop for the story of mankind, you were invited to partner with Him in creating your life as a continually expanding spiritual refuge? A place where you are known, loved, perfectly safe, and deeply nourished—affording you an ever-increasing capacity to engage the battles God invites you to fight on behalf of your own heart and those entrusted to your care?
Just as every creature is designed to flourish within a particular habitat, every soul is also meant to thrive in a specific environment. This is our destiny, and this is God’s invitation. A soul planted in good soil has little choice but to grow into the full expression of all it was created to become—since before the foundation of the world.
Even a cursory immersion in the sacred text of nature reveals a profound truth: the health of any living thing is directly tied to the quality of its habitat. When the environment is whole, life flourishes. When it becomes toxic, life withers.
Day by day, decade by decade, we hold far more power than we’ve believed to shape our lives in ways that increase our joy, confidence, and contentment in daily life with God.
It was the prophetic voice of God through Isaiah that offered this invitation:
“My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest.” — Isaiah 32:18
Make no mistake: this restoration is fiercely opposed. And yet, there is One who is greater. Even now, a perfect invitation is being extended—for you to take the next brave step, the next twenty seconds of courage, to partner with God in restoring a habitat where your soul can truly thrive.
What if the restoration of the masculine soul depends on our willingness to humbly embrace the formative power of our context? What would it look like to recover a way of life that positions us to receive the revitalizing power of God's own life?
Join me as we explore the power and hope of cultivating a habitat where our souls can flourish.
As part of the journey of Becoming a King, this podcast offers a deeper exploration into creating that sacred habitat where this dream can be realized.
It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.
For the Kingdom,
Morgan & Cherie
"Several of our young people were formerly brought up at the colleges of the northern provinces; they were instructed in all your sciences; but, when they came back to us, they were bad runners, ignorant of every means of living in the woods, unable to bear either cold or hunger, knew neither how to build a cabin, take a deer, or kill an enemy, spoke our language imperfectly, were therefore neither fit for hunters, warriors, nor counselors; they were totally good for nothing. We are however not the less obliged by your kind offer, though we decline accepting it; and, to show our grateful sense of it, if the gentlemen of Virginia will send us a dozen of their sons, we will take great care of their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them."
— Native American Leader to Benjamin Franklin, 1759
Of all the responses I’ve received regarding the encounters and process through which God has fathered souls through Becoming a King over the past five years, none have been as impactful as the invitation to become a generalist.
In many ways, this big idea in masculine initiation is a prologue to a deeper question: How do we become honest about our relationship with fear, risk, and failure?
Becoming a generalist is the process of engaging in a maturing relationship with risk, and failure through the recovery of repairing our relationship with fear by doing and in time, mastering real things. It’s about becoming the kind of man who, more and more, can handle himself in any situation—whether it’s fixing a broken toilet or helping mend a broken heart.
It’s a process of identifying where we overreact and under react, what we avoid, and where we feel exposed; where we even hide behind our gifting, our competence, and our training, allowing precious and essential parts of our soul to remain uninitiated.
None of us becomes a generalist overnight. It’s a slow and steady process of healing our relationship with risk. It’s the practice of stepping onto our frontier instead of avoiding it. It’s learning, little by little, how to do real things in the real world.
Where are you on your journey of becoming a generalist?
Join me as we take a deeper cut at exploring what it means to become the kind of man who brings skill and harnessed strength to meet the world’s needs.
Every man has a place where he feels weak, incompetent, or intimidated. Perhaps that place of avoidance is actually the place of our greatest opportunity—for maturity, integration, and ultimately, peace.
If you dare to risk more and more, you’ll love this conversation—and this invitation.
It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.
For the Kingdom,
Morgan and Cherie
“It is not about the greatness of the giant. It is about the greatness of God.” — King David
“Can one stone change the course of history?”
It is the question we reflect on when considering the life of David.
In his youth, he was an outcast—rejected by his father and older brothers, exiled to wild places to perform the demeaning task of tending sheep rather than the noble work of training as a warrior. Yet it was there, in the lonely hills—not with sword or shield, but with slingshot and harp—that God trained the warrior heart of David.
Through direct confrontations with both lion and bear, his courage and identity as a warrior for God’s people were forged, not in royal courts, but in the fields, watching over a flock totally dependent upon his protection and care. There was no audience to cheer him on, only the solitude of his own conscience and the friendship with the Creator of Creation. David’s heart was shaped—not for conquest or acclaim, but purely out of love for what had been entrusted to his care.
The wild beasts he faced were not only threats but also gifts from God—tools in David’s apprenticeship as a warrior king in training for God’s Kingdom. So when he would later rise to lead Israel, it was not as a tyrant adorned with crowns, but as a servant after God’s own heart.
How do we become the kind of kings who spend ourselves on a worthy cause, willing to die a thousand deaths for those entrusted to our care?
How do we become, as Chesterton put it, the warrior who fights “not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him”?
How do we engage in the slow and steady process that trains us, like David, to become one of skillful hands and integrity of heart?
What does it look like for the warrior heart to be fully deployed in the exact context where our souls are invited to thrive—even in these modern and precarious times?
How do we become men who move toward healthy risk rather than avoid it?
How do we grow in courage and in our capacity to offer strength in ways that bring goodness and not harm?
What place does a warrior ethic have in the Kingdom of God?
What is the path and process for maturing the warrior heart within?
Join me along with another round of conversation with Grant and Nathan, as we take a deeper dive into the way of the Warrior—as apprentices of the truest warrior who ever lived…
It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.
For the Kingdom,
Morgan and Cherie
“We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are.” — G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 1908
In his essay The New Name, George MacDonald reflects on the mystery of each man’s unrepeatable uniqueness before God:
“As the fir-tree lifts up itself with a far different need from the need of the palm-tree, so does each man stand before God, and lift up a different humanity to the common Father. And for each God has a different response. With every man he has a secret—the secret of the new name. In every man there is a loneliness, an inner chamber of peculiar life into which God only can enter.
From this it follows that there is a chamber also (O God, humble and accept my speech) a chamber in God himself, into which none can enter but the one, the individual, the peculiar man—out of which chamber that man has to bring revelation and strength for his brethren. This is that for which he was made—to reveal the secret things of the Father.”
Who are you? What is your true name?
What dimension of the Father do you reveal in a way no one else can—or ever will?
How is this mysterious, life-saving, and life-sustaining revelation being made known to you?
How is it meant not only to grow in depth and breadth over the decades, but also to become a kind of revelatory light—guiding you ever deeper into a life of faith, hope, and love?
It takes profound courage to become who we truly are.
Join me and brave allies Chris Rice and Ryan Ruebsahm as we take a deeper cut into the mystery and manna of our true name before God.
It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.
For the Kingdom,
Morgan and Cherie Snyder
“Your real, new self will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him.”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
How have fear and shame shaped the person you’ve become?
What patterns have you developed to avoid exposing the parts of yourself that feel afraid, uncertain, ashamed, or weak?
How do you reach for aggression or withdrawal as a way to protect yourself from the risk of being hurt or being known?
And beneath all the posing and self-protection, what do we truly long for? Who are you meant to be?
Join me and brave allies Nathan Jameson and Grant Leitheiser, as we explore what it means to become the kind of man or woman who has nothing to hide, nothing to fear, and nothing to prove.
What might a man look like—and what could his impact become, day by day and decade by decade—if he were strong and at peace in and through the God who created and sustains him?
In this episode, we take a deeper dive into a central idea of initiation: Becoming True.
It has all been prologue. The best is yet to come.
For the Kingdom,
Morgan and Cherie
“(For God) is our father all the time, for he is true; but until we respond with the truth of children, he cannot let all the father out to us; there is no place for the dove of his tenderness to alight. He is our father, but we are not his children. Because we are his children, we must become his sons and daughters. Nothing will satisfy him, or do for us, but that we be one with our father! What else could serve? How else should life ever be good? Because we are the sons of God, we must become the sons of God.” — George MacDonald
George MacDonald’s reflections on receiving God as Father offer profound guidance for the encounters and process of becoming a daughter or son of God. While Becoming a King offers a trailhead largely on receiving the masculine love of God, have you considered the role of feminine love in your story and your walk with God?
What if your relationship (or lack thereof) with the feminine love of God is shaping every moment of your life?
Consider these words from Isaiah 55:
Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and you will delight in the richest of fare.
Give ear and come to me;
listen, that you may live.
What if God’s love holds both the strength, protection, and companionship of masculine love and the overflowing, satisfying, and soothing nurture of feminine love?
If God is indeed the headwaters of all that is both masculine and feminine, what feminine nourishment might be available for the human soul, nourishment we’ve been searching for all our lives?
Come, drink, and feast. There is more.
It has all been prologue. The best is yet to come.
For the Kingdom,
Morgan and Cherie
“How proud we often are of the victories in the war with nature, proud of the multitude of instruments we have succeeded in inventing, of the abundance of commodities we have been able to produce. Yet our victories have come to resemble defeats. In spite of our triumphs, we have fallen victims to the work of our hands; it is as if the forces we had conquered have conquered us.”
— Abraham Joshua Heschel
What does a soul do with power entrusted to him by the living God?
What is its lasting legacy in the souls and spaces he inhabits?
How is a man or woman remembered long after they’ve passed from this world?
What is the formation—or lack thereof—that shapes these outcomes?
These questions and others lie at the heart of the message of Becoming a King. How do we become people whose relationship with power leads to the flourishing of others rather than their suffering? How do we respond to our deep desire to be powerful, confront what has gone wrong, and become the kind of Image-Bearers whose strength helps heal and restore the world?
Join me for Episode One of A Deeper Cut Series. As we mark the fifth anniversary of the release of Becoming a King, it feels both fitting and honoring to invite each member of our community, women and men alike, into more. Through interviews with like-hearted allies, teaching, conversations, and stories of how God has worked through this message, this ten-part series serves as a collection of trailheads—each centered on a deeper immersion through core ideas from Becoming a King.
There is more and more of God and His Kingdom available. Much of Him, a breath away. Let’s pursue it together.
It has all been prologue. The best is yet to come.
For the Kingdom,
Morgan and Cherie Snyder
“What is hard about marriage is what is hard also about facing the Christian God: It is the strain of living continually in the light of a conscience other than our own, being under the intimate scrutiny of another pair of eyes.”
— Mike Mason, The Mystery of Marriage
What is the fruit of a decade given over to apprenticeship, to the slow work of excavation, and to the painful but promising transformation within the Kingdom of God? More precisely, what is the fruit born from the tender soil of our closest relationships?
Over twenty-five years spent investing in the shaping of leaders, I have found one of the deepest and most gladdening sources of confirmation to be the voices of the wives of Become Good Soil men. It is one thing, after all, for a man to speak of his own progress—but it is quite another, and perhaps of far greater weight, when a spouse dares to offer her own candid reflections on what it is to share life with one who has set his whole heart upon the precarious path of becoming.
As we prepare to launch into an extended BGS Podcast series—a deeper dive into the central truths of Becoming a King—it seems only fitting, indeed right and good, and more than a little risky, to let this voyage begin with the voices of women. These are women who generously offer their honest and loving observations from a deep well of intimate relationships.
This episode features the voices of four remarkable women whose husbands have been engaged with the message of Become Good Soil for a decade or more. Join me as they share about the joyous, transformative effects they’ve witnessed in every dimension of their husbands’ lives, their marriages, and their families.
For the Kingdom,
Morgan and Cherie
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given to you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.
—Rainer Maria Rilke
Friends,
On our unique paths of initiation as women and men, we often encounter the severe mercy—the painful hope—of having our illusion of control shattered by the rebellious parts of our own souls.
The infant, longing for nourishment. The toddler, yearning for eye contact and the smile of an attentive parent. The boyish hope and daring of a third-grade cowboy. The angry teenager, thirsting for a strength both within and beyond himself. The older man, carrying an unsung song in his heart.
When we finally summon the courage to face the collective of young men within us, what do we do?
To whom do we turn?
I suggest that the invitation and intention of Jesus Christ is to welcome, see, love, know, sustain, restore, and champion all the uninitiated men within us—bringing them into an effectively organized community, fully held together and integrated by Him.
With permission, this episode offers a behind-the-scenes look at an authentic, real-time mentoring call with a courageous apprentice. He is noticing the parts within and creating a safe space for each one to embark on the journey ever closer to Home.
Join me as his story unfolds, opening access to our own stories in ways beyond what we can yet imagine.
For the Kingdom,
Morgan & Cherie
“Questions are the tools of transformation. They disturb our certainty and awaken our longing.”
— James K. A. Smith
The power of questions is central to the path of an apprentice—especially the questions we don’t realize we are asking and the unconscious answers that shape our every moment. What questions have you recovered along the way of your initiation? And how are you allowing these questions to shape your apprenticeship as kings and queens in God’s Kingdom?
In this episode, we seek to recover core questions of the human experience and explore how reflecting on questions helps interrupt disintegrating patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving—and connects us in fresh ways to Jesus and His Kingdom.
Join us as we continue to risk together in this deeper exploration of the big ideas explored in Becoming a King. To access the free and recently released second edition of the companion retreat, go to Becomingakingretreat.com.
For the Kingdom,
Morgan and Cherie
For the eyes of the Lord search throughout the earth
to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.
-2 Chronicles 16:9
Friends,
As our fellow apprentice Matthew McConaughey once observed—albeit in delightful colorful terms:
"We all step in shit from time to time. We hit roadblocks, we get sick, we don’t get what we want. We cross thousands of ‘could have done better’s and ‘wish that wouldn’t have happened’s in life. Stepping in shit is inevitable, so let’s either see it as good luck or figure out how to do it less often. … I’m not perfect; no, I step in shit all the time and recognize it when I do. I’ve just learned how to scrape it off my boots and carry on."
One could scarcely find truer words to describe my dear and like-hearted brother, Dave Robison.
Dave’s story is unvarnished and arresting - unorthodox, raw, at times heartbreaking, and yet - ever more radiant with the passing years. It is unique in its details and yet unmistakably universal, bearing the signs and waymarks of the initiation into wholehearted maturity every man and every woman must take. His tale is, in truth, echoes an immersion in God’s Larger Story.
It is through this ancient, sweeping narrative in which his story and our own must recover its meaning. As the psalmist reminds us:
“God is the country in which we live. He is our beginning and our end. He is where we are from, and where we are going. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit alone are the inheritance of our lives. God is the prize, our supreme delight, our everlasting portion. Our destiny, and its hour, rest secure in His strong hands.” - Psalm 16:5, BGST
So come—walk a little farther down this ancient path. Allow Dave’s story of redemption to be another narrow gate to recover more of your heart. Join us in the laughter and the ache, as we enter another Spirit-breathed chapter of masculine initiation.
For the Kingdom,
Morgan
Friends,
Jean Giono, author of The Man Who Planted Trees, penned these breathtaking and invitational lines - words that draw us back to the path of Christ’s Kingdom Simplicity and Generous Love:
“Creation seemed to come about in a sort of chain reaction. But the man who planted trees did not worry about it; he was determinedly pursuing his task in all its simplicity... For a human character to reveal truly exceptional qualities, one must have the good fortune to observe its performance over many years. If this performance is devoid of all egoism, if its guiding motive is unparalleled generosity, if it is absolutely certain there is no thought of recompense, and that, in addition, it has left its visible mark upon the earth, then there can be no mistake… This was the most impressive visible mark of his work: as we went back toward the village, I saw water flowing in brooks that had been dry since the memory of man. These dry streams had once, long ago, run with water…”
Friends, take a moment to ask yourself:
What would it be like to receive this invitation?
To become this kind of person?
To return to simplicity?
To see dry stream beds run with water once more?
To give most of our attention and affection to God and to a few things and a few others, in a way that is deeply affecting and outrageously good?
To receive the freedom from our Father to engage only what is essential?
It would change the world.
Join me for a hidden conversation originally shared among a handful of Become Good Soil Intensive alumni. For other thirsty, like-hearted women and men among us, we’d love to welcome you to explore simplicity, essentialism, and generous love—together.
For the Kingdom,
Morgan & Cherie
Friends,
Jean Giono, author of The Man Who Planted Trees, penned these breathtaking and invitational lines - words that draw us back to the path of Christ’s Kingdom Simplicity and Generous Love:
“Creation seemed to come about in a sort of chain reaction. But the man who planted trees did not worry about it; he was determinedly pursuing his task in all its simplicity... For a human character to reveal truly exceptional qualities, one must have the good fortune to observe its performance over many years. If this performance is devoid of all egoism, if its guiding motive is unparalleled generosity, if it is absolutely certain there is no thought of recompense, and that, in addition, it has left its visible mark upon the earth, then there can be no mistake… This was the most impressive visible mark of his work: as we went back toward the village, I saw water flowing in brooks that had been dry since the memory of man. These dry streams had once, long ago, run with water…”
Friends, take a moment to ask yourself:
What would it be like to receive this invitation?
To become this kind of person?
To return to simplicity?
To see dry stream beds run with water once more?
To give most of our attention and affection to God and to a few things and a few others, in a way that is deeply affecting and outrageously good?
To receive the freedom from our Father to engage only what is essential?
It would change the world.
Join me for a hidden conversation originally shared among a handful of Become Good Soil Intensive alumni. For other thirsty, like-hearted women and men among us, we’d love to welcome you to explore simplicity, essentialism, and generous love—together.
For the Kingdom,
Morgan & Cherie
"You shall consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you shall return to your property, and each of you shall return to your family." — Leviticus 25:10
Consider these provocative words by Walter Brueggeman from Sabbath as Resistance.
“Sabbath is not only resistance; it is an alternative. Sabbath offers both the awareness and practice of the claim that we are on the receiving end of the gifts of God.... To be so situated is a staggering option because we are accustomed to initiating all things. I have come to believe that the fourth commandment on the Sabbath is the most difficult and urgent commandment in our society because it calls us to an intent and conduct that defy the fundamental demands of a commodity-driven society - one that thrives on control, entertainment, bread, and circuses, and requires 24/7 multitasking to achieve, accomplish, perform, and possess.”
Pause with me for a moment and try on this reality. The joyous restoration of land to its original owners. Debts canceled—forever. Slaves released from bondage. Relationships healed. Even the land recovers its vitality with extended rest from sowing and reaping. Spiritual renewal and re-creation as the community shifts from striving and acquiring to pausing, noticing, receiving, forgiving, reconciling, celebrating, and resting.
In The Year of Jubilee, biblical scholar John Bergsma invites readers to consider how God is calling His people to a collective, life-saving practice - one that preserves freedom, family, and the fullness of God in a fallen world that has lost its ability to rest and to heal.
What lies behind Yahweh’s profound directive and promise of Jubilee, first given to the people of Israel to reform them? How was it ultimately fulfilled in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the Messianic King?
Given to the people of God 3,500 years ago, this ancient rhythm feels like a long-lost key to life’s riddle. How can we participate in this biblical pattern of stopping and settling in, of forgiveness and renewal?
And what might we say to the curious—or to those who think we are out of our minds?
Join us as we explore The Sabbath of Sabbaths, inviting you more intimately into our story and walking alongside you as you discern what God may be calling you into in yours.
For the Kingdom,
Morgan & Cherie
What I’m trying to do here is get you to relax, not be so preoccupied with getting so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep yourself in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Don’t be afraid of missing out. You’re my dearest friends! The Father wants to give you the very kingdom itself.
Luke 12:19-32 MSG
Friends,
Our initiation into wholehearted maturity and deeper union with Christ unfolds over decades of learning to practice without pressure.
Perhaps nowhere is this invitation more hopeful than in parenting.
Of all the questions I receive, none are more common than questions about fathering—and none consistently carry within them more weight of pressure and fear or confusion.
Pause and consider for a moment: What would it be like to shift from a posture of performance into a posture of practicing without pressure? What would it be like not only to understand but also to accept the reality that our children’s lives are held in the hands of a present, caring, and beautifully winsome Father? In the ordinary rhythms of daily life as a dad, what would it be like to encounter God, recognize His presence, feast on His goodness, and, from that nourished place, carry His very essence into the sacred journey of fathering our children?
It would change the world.
Dare I say, it is changing the world.
We are men choosing to become the kind of fathers to whom God is glad to entrust His Kingdom—His rule, His presence—that we might generously reveal His unrelenting affection to our children.
Moms and dads, join us for Part 2 as we explore together the hope and promise of participating in the story of our becoming—the story God is authoring in and through our journey of fatherhood.
For the Kingdom,
Morgan
P.S. For more parenting resources, explore more with the free Becoming a King Parenting Devotional and this blog, Celebration of Boyhood.
Here is a simple, rule-of-thumb guide for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them.
Matthew 7:12 MSG
Friends,
Few questions come my way as consistently and sincerely as questions about the desire and dilemma of initiating children—particularly sons—into wholehearted maturity. And few aspects of my own initiation have received more of my attention.
On behalf of the boys in our world—and the boy within every man (myself included)—I want to invite both men and women to join this roundtable on Initiating Sons.
Often beneath our questions about parenting lay fear, shame, or a nagging sense of lack, fueling a persistent apprehension that we are blowing it royally both in what we do and what we leave undone as parents.
But if we pause long enough—choosing curiosity over fear and consent over control—we may discover that below our fear lies one of the Gospel’s most profound invitations: the invitation to become what we did not have. And as we become, we will naturally offer and initiate from our transformation.
Our role as fathers will eventually evolve into an unbreakable bond of siblinghood with our children in the Kingdom of God—where each of us is deeply loved and securely rooted in the heart of our Common Father.
Join us for Part 1 of a conversation exploring both the pain and possibility of being initiated—and of offering initiation to our sons.
For the Kingdom,
Morgan
P.S. For more on initiating boys, check out these blogs: An Arsenal, a Library, and a Tool Collection and The Gospel as Initiation.
In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects.
Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity.
Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.
– Matthew 5:48 MSG
The invitation of the Gospel is stark and unrelenting: Come and die in order to live. It is strange and compelling that Jesus, who healed so many, never once chose to heal his own disciples instantaneously. Instead, he continually beckoned them to the weightiest of challenges, probing the very depths of their souls—both the masculine and the feminine within them—daring them to come and die at the deepest levels of their human experience:
Pick up your cross and follow me.
If you want to save your life, you must lose it.
You cannot serve God and money. You cannot serve God and power.
Leave everything you’ve ever known, and follow me.
Unless you surrender all to me—giving up everything, father, mother, sister, brother—you cannot be my disciple.
Jesus’ language to his disciples is a language of initiation. He shaped and implemented a culture where men and women can realize their God-given identities. And from generation to generation, he guides his followers into a lifestyle of ever-increasing maturity through loving challenge.
If we allow our lives to speak, we will hear Reality inviting us to pass through a death and experience rebirth. At every moment, Jesus is freshly inviting us onto the ancient path of initiation. It is the center of his brilliant and loving work.
You cannot discipline your way out of woundedness and brokenness. At the same time, you cannot heal your way out of immaturity. Jesus’ way with the disciples is both: to heal and mature. By day and by decade, he not only heals what is lame in us but trains us to join him in walking on the water.
Join me and Conrad Schottel for a conversation as we dare to let Jesus lovingly challenge us.
For the Kingdom,
