Tag: men

Driving in reverse

For the past 4 months, our pastor, Brian (aka Brother Treadaway, Brother Brian, Pastor Treadaway, Rev. Pastor Brother Brian Treadaway :-)) has been challenging the men of encounter with the encounter 9. You’ve probably heard me mention it here or on twitter more than a couple times.

Each month we’re given GPS coordinates to an undisclosed location and a set time to meet there. The location varies from month to month. The first month we met at a boat dock and were carried out by john boats to an island in the middle of the lake. The next month we met next to a stock pond while Brian talked about growing spiritually and Scott grilled fish on a nearby fire — illustrating the progress from a baby drinking milk, to fixing our own meals and then fixing meals for others (physically and spiritually). Another month we did a “prayer/Q&A walk.” And this last month we met at a local cometary and talked about our legacy and identity and how Jesus called the disciples out of their known identity — their careers as fishermen or tax collectors, etc — and into a new identity with Christ — as fishers of men.
Continue reading Driving in reverse

Help Wanted: Man seeking adventure in life. Tired of ho-hum working conditions.

I thought this was a very interesting Meta thread: How do I get over my laziness, procrastination, and foot-dragging in my office job?

I have fallen into an embarrassingly lazy state. I turn things in at the last minute or late. I have come to regard almost all deadlines as fuzzy. I still make the major deadlines, and I’m still doing my job, but I tend not to complete non-essential job duties unless someone chases me.
I’ve always been an over achiever in the past I am horrified to realize that I’ve become mediocre in my job rather than excellent. It’s making me feel awful about myself, and I really don’t want to be the slacker everybody hates working with.

There are lots of interesting ideas in the responses — from setting a 15-20 minute timer to keeping a personal journal.
One of the challenges we discussed Wednesday morning at our men’s breakfast was “overcoming the mundane or the routine.”
John Eldredge writes a lot about that in wild at heart and suggests that men really need adventure in their life. Men need a battle to fight, a beauty to rescue and an adventure to love.
I wish I had underlined more points that stood out to me in the book. For some reason the only one I did underline really doesn’t have much to do with this topic. But the more I think about the book after reading it the more the truths seem to resonate within me.
“The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.” – Albert Schweitzer
Eldredge talks a lot about our “inner man” that we all strive to be as young boys and how somewhere along the way we lose that. We end up working an 8 to 5 job in a cubicle dreaming of the world outside.
I think about Wilson and how he’s 150% boy at almost the age of 3. He’s got his trucks, tractors, Star Wars toys and he’s always out seeking adventure.
He’s constantly flipping over the couch, running through the house, jumping on the trampoline, or maybe even climbing ladders on to the roof of his second story home.
I think most boys are like that. Maybe not to that extreme but we all dream of being John Wayne, Wyatt Earp, the Lone Ranger or Buzz Lightyear. We want to be the hero.

Yet somewhere along the line we lose that.
Somewhere we lose our desire to be William Wallace and take the “safe alternative.”
Eldredge suggests we’re wired to take on a fight and be a hero because we’re made in the image of God.

Now — is Jesus more like Mother Teresa or William Wallace? The answer is… it depends. If you’re a leper, an outcast, a pariah of society whom no one has ever touched because you are “unclean,” if all you ever longed for was just one kind word, then Christ is the incarnation of tender mercy. He reaches out and touches you. On the other hand, if you’re a Pharisee, one of those self-appointed doctrine police… watch out. On more than one occasion Jesus “picks a fight” with those notorious hypocrites.

Look at Luke 13. The Pharisees try to accuse Jesus of being sinful because he healed a leper on the Sabbath.
Does Jesus simply turn the other cheek? No — Jesus doesn’t walk away.

But Jesus shot back, “You frauds! Each Sabbath every one of you regularly unties your cow or donkey from its stall, leads it out for water, and thinks nothing of it. So why isn’t it all right for me to untie this daughter of Abraham and lead her from the stall where Satan has had her tied these eighteen years?”
When he put it that way, his critics were left looking quite silly and redfaced. The congregation was delighted and cheered him on. (Luke 13:15-17)

Jesus draws the enemy out, exposes him and then shames him. He puts up a fight.
Eldredge also suggests that if you doubt God loves wildness, spend a night in the wilderness… alone.

Take a walk out in a thunderstorm. Go for a swim with a pod of killer whales. Get a bull moose mad at you. Whose idea was this, anyway? Most of the earth is not safe, but it’s good.

God made all of this and pronounced it good. Eldredge says it’s His way of letting us know He prefers adventure, danger, risk, the element of surprise.
I think I’ve written long enough — for now.
But here’s to adventure and here’s to finding your passion groove in life.
What are you doing to find your passion groove?