In his book, “The Return of the Prodigal Son:” Henri J.M. Nouwen, writes a segment called “A Story of Homecoming.” He writes this about the characteristics of his Sonship. See if you can relate! ~ “Although claiming my true identity as a child of God, I still live as though the God to whom I am returning demands an explanation. I still think about his love as conditional and about home as a place I am not yet fully sure of. While walking home, I keep entertaining doubts about whether I will be truly welcome when I get there. As I look at my spiritual journey, (I see it as) my long and fatiguing trip home, I see how full it is of guilt about the past and worries about the future. I realize my failures and know that I have lost the dignity of my sonship, (and still…) I am not yet able to fully believe that where my failings are great, 'grace is always greater.' Still clinging to my sense of worthlessness, I project for myself a place far below that which belongs to the son.”

Here is what we want you to understand about Fireside Challenges. These are not opportunities for sanctimonious advice from someone who has never suffered from the blows from their own depravity, or pontification from men who have never gotten their hands dirty, or had their heart broken. They will always be offered for you as an encouragement to go where most men do not go. It is an invitation to embark on a new journey and a call to courageously pursue the things that are real, honest, and true.
It is for the hungry soul who is daring enough to go against the cultural facades of Christianity and religiosity to actually pursue the heart of God with voracity and the intent of finding our true calling.
If you are in the process of determining if this is for you and you do choose to embark on this journey, I want you to know up front that it is not another bible study but what it really is will require a trip into the cellar of your own dark soul and then turning on the light switch. You will have to turn over the skeletal lies, scars, and fears that you have buried deep within, and begin to discipline yourself to ignore the accusations of others who would leave you bound in darkness. You will be presented with the opportunity of embarking on a new journey in the light, as you see yourself through the lens of Jesus. This is where Sonship redeems your ugly narrative and brings beauty into it.

So, ask yourself if you can allow the scars of your story to become the proof that you have embarked on a rescue mission to steal back from the enemy, your own heart and replacing it with a heart after God.
Will you allow the paradigm of yourself to be shattered into His Image? Will you trade up for the restoration of the image your Heavenly Father has hardwired you for, written on your heart, and redeemed for you?
I want to challenge everyone here to awaken their hunger for moving forward in life with hope, to live true, and to become the person that God can entrust with so much more! The things that pertain to life and Godliness.
My prayer during these challenges is that you will enter the quiet, unvisited places of your soul and then exit having redeemed the most radical reorientations of you lifetime. This is the life of Sonship! Here’s the good news... It’s for every kind of man that has been hardwired by our Creator to thrive as His children. Everyone!
Sooo… Get ready to explore the way that God has hardwired us as well as understanding the desires that He places on our hearts. You are about to see the simplistic plan of God through the Word of God.

Hardwired for Greatness

As we look at The Map of Sonship. (Scriptures) You will see how God made us along with the desires He has placed on our hearts. Sonship is the path to fullness, and the fulfillment of all those desires that He places on our heart. 
Side Note! (Cartography is a system of information which is used to communicate something of the real world to other people; the map is a model, to be decoded by the map reader).

The cartography of the Map of Sonship lays out the contour lines of a healthy, vibrant soul that has a heart after God. It is not the pursuit of power but a path of freedom that is only fully provided or realized through the grace of the only begotten Son of God, the wonder working power of His shed blood, and the hardwiring that came through the finished work on the Cross of Calvary. 

You Have the Map?

As a child, Did you ever follow a special treasure map? A map that marks the location of a buried treasure? Have you ever searched for a lost place, or something of value that is made secret or hidden. Perhaps it was hidden from you, by your enemy, or by personal a choice to not believe that there is actually any treasure on the map. 

This is the common narrative of fictional stories but, what if I were to tell you that there was a real map breathed and designed by the very Spirit of God Himself and that it leads us on a path called Sonship?
What if I told you that this map provided everything you needed for your journey and that as you embarked on this path of discovery you would find more treasure than you could ever imagine?
The map we are about to discuss will provide you with everything you need to start your journey on that path and give you the coordinates to the place of Sonship.

Now... Spoiler alert! You can enjoy your treasure before the start of the journey, enjoy your treasure in the journey, and share your treasure with everyone else on the journey without any fear of never finding it, running out, or loosing it!     

In our Map it all Starts in the Garden!

There is a quote that I love! It says… “As a giant oak is hidden in the seed of an acorn, the intention of God is seeded in the heart of man to rule with power and authority from Him and not of ourselves”.

The First Waypoint

In Genesis, God takes the lid off of his intentions for us and lets us in on one of the most outrageous plans. We’ll call this the first waypoint! In this plan, and after the creation of all things, He hands it all over to non other than the original Adam Bomb and His wife Eve, as a gift that would give them full authority and power to be the rulers of the earth. It is this portion of the map that the true heart of God for mankind (You and Me) is found. Good news! It all starts with a little nut!

So… Let’s Hover on the First Waypoint Together!

Because this is the single most foundational aspect to enjoying the journey and enjoying our sonship we want to give you the opportunity to understand the directions provided In this Map of Sonship.
We are going to read and study the cartography of our map 3 times • The first time we will ask the Holy Spirit to reveal something from the Map • The second time will ask the Lord from our heart what He might requiring of us as He reveals his direction for us individually. • The last time we read through prayerfully thanking the Lord for revealing the next steps, get excited about your journey, and then share your some of your personal findings were with the rest of your tribe!

Genesis 1:26-28 MSG.
God spoke: “Let us make human beings in our image, make them, reflecting our nature, So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the cattle, And, yes, Earth itself, and every animal that moves on the face of Earth.”God created human beings; He created them godlike, reflecting God’s nature. He created them male and female. God blessed them: “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge! Thrive! Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.

This is how you were Created!
This is how you were Hardwired!
This is where you Thrive as Men!

”Application Question: How has your the image of yourself, as men, changed since we began this challenge?
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You may have heard all of this before! You may have never heard it at all! Whatever the case… we want to welcome you on a Wild Journey, on the Path of Jesus, and to enjoy your Sonship…. Son’s!

An Invitation to Live Wild and Engaged

All too often when inevitable pain comes it’s too late to consider how we will allow ourselves to be shaped by it. If we as men fail to thoroughly anticipate how we will respond to the harm of living in a fallen world, the pain may be for not. It will either numb us or destroy us rather than refine and even bless us. Suffering, pain, failure, and setbacks, need not destroy the heart of anyone God loves! In fact, all of these experiences have the potential to lead to life but very few people I know suffer deeply and profit from it.  
 
In Men, pain is seldom expected or embraced when it comes so, it is often denied or swept under the spiritual rug of Gods sovereignty. The apostle Paul tells us that, as we grown inwardly, we wait eagerly for our final redemption. But few of us, enter the tragedy of living in a fallen world, and simultaneously struggle with God perpetually until we finally surrender and our heart is renewed with hope.

Men often settle for an artificial resolution to our pain or we will ignore and disassociate ourselves with it altogether. We roll under the old cliche’ of (No blood, No Sympathy!) We must understand that God‘s perspective on suffering is very different. He loves us so much that He invites us on a healing journey through the valleys, and over the cliffs of an evil world, but we often miss out on his redemptive, and restorative path so, many of us suffer for no reason.

The core of what makes us human beings in Gods image is our capacity for Faith Hope and Love yet we live in a culture that has spends unprecedented time and energy, wallowing in our pain. Can you relate presently? It becomes clear that many of us are carrying , deep hurt simply because whether intentionally or unintentionally provoked or unprovoked, we opt to carry our own burdens instead of casting our burdens and pain on Him.

It has become clear to me what the evil in this world is doing to harm all of our hearts and to darken our love for God and others. No matter who we are, we all need the good news of the healing power of redemption and the freedom to receive restoration and renovation: right now, where we are at, without judgment from each other and the work around us.

Good healing in this life of being men is not the resolution of our past. It is a simple yoke with Jesus! It is only there that we can receive a new understanding of how to deal with past hurts, the damage to the human spirit, while charting a path toward the wild, robust, abundant, thriving, life that God promises those He loves! That is you, right now, just the way you are! No prequalification.

The only One who can make perfect sense of the pain we endure is the One who endured the pain of the Cross, the One who bore our sorrows and the pain that we have caused. He took it all upon Himself for me and you so that we could live life a life of abundance, resilience, and redemption. Cast your pain on Him!

Jesus was a Wild Man!

The Unforced Rhythms of Grace and The Wild Rhythms of Jesus.
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Matthew 11:20-30 
Next Jesus unleashed on the cities where he had worked the hardest but whose people had responded the least, shrugging their shoulders and going their own way.

21-24 “Doom to you, Chorazin! Doom, Bethsaida! If Tyre and Sidon had seen half of the powerful miracles you have seen, they would have been on their knees in a minute. At Judgment Day they’ll get off easy compared to you. And Capernaum! With all your peacock strutting, you are going to end up in the abyss. If the people of Sodom had had your chances, the city would still be around. At Judgment Day they’ll get off easy compared to you.”

I get the impression that as a man Jesus on occasion could get really ticked off at  some folks. Does this ring true for you?

25-26 Abruptly Jesus broke into prayer: “Thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth. You’ve concealed your ways from sophisticates and know-it-alls, but spelled them out clearly to ordinary people. Yes, Father, that’s the way you like to work.”

Evidently Jesus had developed a mechanism that when He was really upset with those who didn’t get it, He would default to conversation with His Father. (Go Figure!)

27a. Jesus resumed talking to the people, but now tenderly. “The Father has given me all these things to do and say. This is a unique Father-Son operation, coming out of Father and Son intimacies and knowledge. No one knows the Son the way the Father does, nor the Father the way the Son does…..

It’s safe to draw the correlation that Jesus as a man experienced all of the pain, anger, and disappointments that we do as men but that He was governed by His Father in such a relational way that even though He could unleash on folks there was a rhythm at work that allowed him to also communicate with the Father, and be tender towards others at the same time.

Are you ready for a Wild Invitation?

Jesus continues with an invitation to Yolk with Him on a Wild Path by saying…
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27b… But I’m not keeping it to myself; I’m ready to go over it line by line with anyone willing to listen. And then He says this…

28-30 “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

Challenge: Live Wild, Yoke with Jesus!

If you are thinking of accepting this challenge, you are in the right place, with the right men, right now! Our heart for you is that as we come together to “Keep Company” with Jesus that this wild way of living on the Path of Jesus will spread like wildfire. That you will take it with you into your own life, your families, and communities, because you are accepting an invitation to the rhythms  that Jesus chooses to manifest his glory though. Are you daring enough to allow those around you to see radical change in your life as you go deep with Jesus! It’s risky! It’s even a little scary because your wife, or your kids, your grandchildren, your community may not have seen the wild side of Jesus being lived out in your life.

So… If you are looking for a community of misfits who are committed to taking very deep dives into our relationship with Jesus. If you are willing to confront the fears, failures, and set backs in your life by casting your cares on Him, and If you are interested in becoming a more thriving, vibrant, robust, man and leader, Then we hope that you will walk with us into an Easy Yolk with Jesus and join with this group of men who intend to walk Wild on the Path, and extend the invitation to all of the other misfit men you come in contact with.
We believe that the most timely thing we can do in our culture is to lead other men into a deep relationship and Wild walk with Jesus on His Path.
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We look forward to what He will do in us as Men.