Glorious Mud

This last week, Trailhead Church in Edwardville had our first Fight Club big group meeting.  We talked about why it is vital that we fight with each other for the right things.  So, I am going to post the notes from that meeting here in case you were not able to join us.  Read this and fight with us.  (Special thanks to Darrin Patrick for writing his great book Church Planter and to John Bryson for posting his fight club material online!) The Crisis of Manhood Welcome – and good morning Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. (1 Corinthians 16:13) Trailhead’s vision is to create a culture that encourages manhood, not to start another men’s program.  We don't need  – one more thing to do. We need a men’s culture – where men are expected to be men – where we have high standards for ourselves and for each other. This is going to be a huge challenge because we are facing a crisis of manhood in our culture. ...

I was reading Scott Thomas's blog on The Ten Qualifications of a Church Planter over at Acts29 blogs - and wanted to pass it along to you as an excellent resource. A few sentences in his opening paragraphs caught me: Every church leader should be able to spot a church planter and then send him to plant as soon as he is ready. The problem I am seeing is that we are so desperate for good men that we are not sending them into the field. We take warriors and make them into administrative clerks. He followed up later with this: We prefer the men in our church to be mules. A mule does not act like a jackass and they are able to carry larger loads and endure longer than a horse. They are tamer than a jackass but do not seem to want to run like a stallion. I think many pastors prefer a mule to a stallion. Stallions are designed to run and not be penned up in a stable. We are generally afraid of stallions because we are afraid of our own masculinity, our leadership, and our "importanc...

I was listening to a report on NPR about Army recruitment. They are having difficulty keeping recruitment up. I know. No Duh. The reasons they cited, though, were not the ones I expected. I figured that the 100% chance of going to war might put a dent in their efforts. But the reason the Army recruiter cited was (are you ready for this) obesity. Too many of the young men coming and inquiring about becoming part of The One were too fat to be able to handle the physical rigors of the army life. Now I know some of these guys are the victims of bad genes - but not all of them. In fact, not most of them. One of the guys interviewed said he knew he was overweight when he applied. He was 5'10" and 280 pounds. The army has somewhat lenient rules concerning obesity, but he was still over the limit by 70 pounds. Why was he overweight? In his own words: beer and the X-Box. He said that he worked all day in a sedentary job, then came home and consumed two six-packs and played vi...