My wife (who has never written a single blog BTW) complained that I started a couple entries with the word "so"…so I won’t be doing that this time. 🙂
I’ve been reading with a group of men from my neighborhood called Wild at Heart by John Eldredge. Its a book about the masculine heart and how many of us have lost ours through the warfare within our lives, with our friends, our enemies, brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers. Its a great toolkit for building a better understanding of the attack our hearts are under, and how we can fight to get our hearts back. Once we do that it gives us tips and tools to fight for the hearts of our spouses, children and others.
I know it sounds a bit out there (and I think that the author uses biblical references more as spice than the meat) I have to say that many of the men in our group, including myself, have taken the essence of the book to heart and are working to see what positive effect it can have in our lives. And in my mind that is all this book should aspire to, motivating men to take action rather than live in fear and self doubt from the wounds of their past.
During our exploration of the book, we have been meeting weekly with an awesome guide, Michael Thompson from Priority Associates. His leadership, experience and sharing have been inspiring and have driven many of us to begin planning to take action on what we have learned…a tough thing when your talking about a bunch of guys with wives, kids and way too little free time.
Another sign that his leadership must be working within a lot of us is that this group of about 15 men has been spreading the word about the reading and learning we are doing, and there has been a lot of interest from others in the area. Both in running through this book again and/or developing other men’s gatherings…beyond the "golf tournament" and "YoYo bar trips", and with a deeper focus on our spirituality and relationships with God and our families.
Recently we set up a meeting to share what we had learned with others and discuss our next steps. We had about 40 new people attend with about 75% filling out cards saying they wanted to join a platoon such as ours. Pretty impressive response rate for you marketing types out there.
FInally, as I went through the class I spoke with Cheryl about the insight I was gaining and the direction it was taking me. It must have had some impact as she just signed up for a study group on the new women’s version of the book called Captivating, by John and his wife Staci. This book just came out a couple weeks ago and the class is being led by Michael’s wife. Even after the first two classes for Cheryl, I think the books have given us a basis for discussions we have never had before and opened us up to more.
As we move into the last chapter of the book and the next in our lives, we’ll see how much impact it can have on our group. I’ll keep you informed and hopefully we’ll see some great changes take shape.
-Brian