Beat me up......bonus post.

It's a heart issue. I am adding this as a stand alone post. It is from "The Life of a God-made man".  It is a simple analogy, but really made me step back and evaluate why I do what I do. On the first night of ManUp I had each man there evaluate which runner they most resemble in regards to their Christian life. Which are you??

Suppose 3 men go running 5 days a week. Suppose, further, that we ask each one why he is so dedicated to running.

Man #1 answers...."I run because my father died of a heart attack at fifty-one, and I want to live long enough to retire and to see my grandchildren grow up."

Man #2 answers...."I run so I can eat anything I want and still not gain weight. Running also makes me tired enough to sleep soundly at night."

Man #3 answers....."When I run, my legs soar over the ground, the wind brushes my face, my heart beats like slow, heavy thunder in my chest, and I feel alive."

WHY do the men run????

Man #1 runs out of fear. He is afraid of what will happen if he stops.

Man #2 runs for its benefits. He runs because it enhances the quality of his life, he eats and sleeps better.

Man #3 runs because he loves running, running is its own reward.

WHAT do they love??

Man #1 & #2 love health, and food, and sleep. Running is the instrument they use to gain what they desire.

Man #3 loves running itself.

The obedience of many Christians resembles the first 2 runners.They obey in order to avoid what they fear (hell) or to gain what they desire (friends, power, influence, title's). Only a few serve God seeking, above all else,  God himself. Ideally, the man after God's own heart loves the Lord for His sake!!!

Why do you run????? If you asked someone else to evaluate you, what would they say??

They Beat me up. ManUp......Books that inspired me.

I have always found it strangely fun to find conviction in something you read. Even more so when you know that you are seriously lacking in an aspect of your life. My somewhat innocent dive into reading some books regarding biblical manhood, well........really beat me up!! I am going to give some summary and quotes from the first three books that God led me to.

The first book is "The Life of a God-made Man" becoming a Man after God's Heart by Dan Doriani.

The Focus of this book is the heart of the man. The root of his being. The Man's life being about a response to God's grace, mercy, and love. Not being about following commands to earn God's favor. Seems pretty simple, and honestly things I had already believed. The difference being, really focusing on the Heart, the place that our words and actions flow from, and why I choose what I choose. What is my real motivation.  This book talks about the Man and his marriage, his children, his friends, at work, as a leader in church, and at play. Basically every aspect of life, and in challenging detail. I was forced to evaluate who I was, in light of what Scripture called me to be.

"...the relentless stress on what men should do misses the most basic issue: THE HEART ISSUE. "

"Men fail to take the steps to do what they should because they don't want to take those steps. Pray regularly?? some men know that they should but fail because they have no desire to be alone with God in prayer..........Seek accountability?? Many men avoid accountability because they prefer to answer to themselves alone. They don't want to guard their eye or mind to closely. They want to indulge the eye's lusts for women and the minds fantasies of wealth and dominance."

"Men after God's heart return to the Gospel because they know they forget the Gospel........we know the Gospel, but we need to grasp it more deeply, more truly"

"To live as men after God's heart, we need more than just good advice. We need deliverance. We need God to change us.......We need God to remake us in his image."

"So the man after God's heart lives by grace, not laws; by character, not techniques; in short by the pattern of the living God."

"Friendships can degenerate into mutual admiration societies. But friends also have the capacity to cause creative discomfort......but true friends also inflict constructive misery on each other."

"Friends correct each other, and they listen when the correction comes."

"The Bible stresses character based leadership. The key text is 1 Timothy 3...........notice that Paul's list first describes the character of elder, not his work........he emphasizes the leader's character more than his skills."

"Good leaders are strongest in times of severe testing."

"You must know, love, and serve one woman, your wife, working to understand her and to use your knowledge in order to love her in every way."

"Good leaders never shirk leadership, nor use it for selfish advantage."

WOW..... That is such a super small sample of this book, and honestly it doesn't even do it justice.
This book was in my face, and gave me a Biblical perspective on Godly Manhood that I had never been exposed to previously. Given a lack of knowledge on the subject and a lack of role models, this book was a big pivot point for me. It was allowing me to grow in ways I know the Holy Spirit was prompting.

One book down.....a few more to share!!

Man Up Anthem

How about a fun break! I am working on quotes from the books that led me to create Man Up. My schedule at work changed this week, I now have Sunday and Mondays off, which means I can finally be at church with my family!! That is a huge praise!! The down side is less "free time" on my work days. So I am working on the quotes, I just don't get a a lot of time to blog them!

We recently went to a Jimmy Needham/Trip Lee concert. We were familiar with Jimmy Needham but not Trip Lee. So while the boys and I were playing board games we were YouTubing Trip Lee. While doing that we ran across 116 clique. A compilation of Christian rappers who put together an album for a Men's conference. This is the Anthem song. There are two video's, the first is the official video, the second has the lyrics (mostly accurate) for those who are challenged in understanding their lyrics!!
It is ironic that it is titled Man Up, perfect for a post!! Enjoy!!

Pivot point #4..........ManUp

Over time we can look back and see how God has been working, one thing allowing another to transpire. We usually do not understand God's hand in our lives, while we are are in the middle of it. But God allows things in our lives for two reasons. (OK, there are more reasons, but I will mention two). One, to give us the opportunity to Glorify Him. And Two, to prepare us for what is to come in the future.

May of 2004, little did I know that a simple visit to a Sunday school class would lead to daily devotions, that daily devotions would lead to an accountability partner, that an accountability partner would lead to transparency, that all of those would lead to co-leading an adult Sunday school class. God was using each of these pivot points to prepare me for the next pivot point. All part of the Metamorphoo process. Taking you as you are, providing a pivot point, and being transformed into something new. Well, to be clear, just because there is a pivot point doesn't mean that you will take advantage of it. Obviously we can make extremely poor decisions. When we allow ourselves to ignore the Holy Spirit, and follow our own desires over our character and testimony, well, metamorphoo is being stopped by us. That is another post for a later date!

So, what was God preparing me for? God was using this time to prepare me for the aspect of ministry that I needed the most, and that would provide the toughest personal challenge. I was a Christian, a husband, a father, a friend, an employee, a son, a brother, a brother in law.....etc. Despite the fact that I knew which role I was in, I wouldn't say that I fulfilled or even knew how to fulfill the most important roles. God was working on me, showing me clearly that I didn't know my biblical role very well. I never had a Godly man in my life to lead me, or mentor me. Too many people believe that you just throw open the Bible and figure it out. I didn't find it to be that simple. So, along with Scripture, I started to buy books geared towards men. Leading them towards Godliness. I have never been a real avid reader. Usually forgetting what I just read fairly quickly. So it was quite an adventure trying to sort through the "christian" books that I needed and was looking for. I found a few that really began to challenge me. So much so that it turned into a ministry!!

Pivot point #4.....ManUp. The Holy Spirit was really pressing me. I was reading books that had more in them highlighted than not! It took about 5 months of the Holy Spirit pounding on me before I gave in and advertised a new ministry for the Men of our adult Sunday school class. ManUp. I knew I wasn't a veteran of a Godly life, and didn't even really think anyone would show up. After all, who I am to lead something like this!! ManUp was advertised for about a month. I didn't ask anyone if they were going, other than my two accountability partners. I didn't want to know!

ManUp was about the heart and character of a man. It was about knowing and understanding our God given roles. It was about accountability with other men, who have the same calling.

I had my power point all ready to go. I couldn't eat a thing. I was barely sleeping. I spent a lot of time in prayer, giving over to the Holy Spirit the whole ministry.
I showed up an hour early, set up my laptop and projector, and I set up 8 chairs. I figured that out of a possible 40 guys maybe 1 out of 5 would come. After all, this was accountability we were talking about!! Men are not exactly beating down the doors for that!

ManUp started at 7:00 pm. At 6:45 I was still by myself. By 6:50 my accountability partners were there. So there were 3 of us. By 6:55 there were some guys coming in one by one. Now there were 8. All the "chairs" were full. By 7:00pm, there were 25 guys there. Yikes!! There ended up being 27 men there!! A huge testimony to need of this ministry, and the readiness for these men to go deeper with Christ. For the first year of ManUp there were 22 regular guys in attendance and in accountability groups. The second year averaged about 20. It was a huge challenge for me, and it proved to be a huge challenge for the men. Some fairing better than others. It was a great pivot point for me. In obedience to what God was calling me to. Do I answer the call, or ignore it? My Biblical convictions grew leaps and bounds from where they were before.

Next post.......Books that lead to ManUp. I was just going to list the books, but after skimming them quickly, I was reminded of why they weighed so heavy on me, and why I was lead to start ManUp. So....next post will be the books I read, and some of my favorite quotes from them. And the basic theme of each book, along with how they beat me up! (in a good way)

Pivot Points........Put up or Shut up!!

Metamorphoo......Metamorphisis.....the process of transformation.

For the Caterpillar, to prepare for the cocoon, it eats constantly. That readies it for the Metamorphoo that will occur.

My Pivot Points revolved primarily around taking in God's word. Reading has never been one of my favorite things to do. But God's word was hitting me in ways that it never had before. Reading God's word was reforming what I believed. Pivot points #1 and #2 were direct result of God's word.

Pivot Point #3 was a time of a big decision. We had been part of a Sunday school class for 3 years. The "leader" of the class was deciding to step down. The class had some structure, but overall wasn't really intentional in any way. I had talked to leadership about some ideas that I had, but they weren't received very warmly. It was time that I needed to decide....put up or shut up. The Holy Spirit was already working on my heart and mind, and I knew that the vision I had for the class was way too big to implement on my own. After much prayer I decided to talk to one of the previous leaders. He had been a co-leader my first year in the class. To make a long story.....shorter.......we talked a lot. My ideas and thoughts, with his ideas and thoughts, became a vision that we shared. We were very different in skill set, but we shared a common desire for the class. We threw our names into the hat. The "leadership" went from one overworked individual to co-leadership(me and Todd), with a team of seven other volunteers who were responsible for implementing the vision of the class. This was a huge endeavor. Metamorphoo was in full speed. It wasn't very easy, actually it was very tiring!!! There were many times that I had to really focus on being obedient to God. As we all know, we can't please everyone. Some are very vocal with their thoughts, others are passive aggressive, neither are much fun to deal with. God was really working in me, I had to choose to be humble, loving, confident, obedient, and persevere different types of "storms" to realize the vision that we had for our brothers and sisters in our class.

As a Youth pastor, I was very familiar with having a philosophy,mission, vision, and goals for a ministry. At this church, I didn't want to change theirs, just find out what they were and be intentional and specific in trying to meet them. I was somewhat surprised to find that no adult Sunday school class knew what the purpose of the classes were. They just kind of did their own thing, depending on who the leaders were. This was an important time of growth for me.

Leadership isn't for wimps. God was using this as a Pivot point in my life. What was God doing with me and in me? I went from Youth ministry, to not going to church at all, back into church, and now co-leading an adult Sunday school class. What was next?...........pivot point #4, ManUp.

Pivot points...A real Godly man and real accountability

Metamorphoo.......transformation.

Context.......the before, during, and after.

Pivot points.............specific events that provide the opportunity for transformation

There are several pivot points in my past that have provided the biggest time of growth and transformation.

I will try to briefly summarize my first 33 years of life. Before the pivot point....the before in the process of transformation. I grew up in church. I went to Bible school for 4 years. I was a Youth Pastor/Director for 2 1/2 years. Then spent about 8 years not attending any church at all.
In late 2003, Katrina, Samuel (5), Micah (3) started attending Church in Lynnwood. For me it was my last "try" at church (long and numerous back story!!). By May of 2004, we were attending service, and then joined an Adult Sunday school class. This was my first pivot point.

Pivot Point #1. On our first visit to the sunday school class, my spiritual life was going to begin metamorphoo. For 4 weeks, a man (Mark) stood in front of 60 adults in sunday school, sharing a devotional style that he had been using for the majority of his life. At the end of this first class, I told Katrina......'THAT IS A MAN OF GOD!!!" And for me, that was the first man that I had ever been so ridiculously moved by. He shared from his devotions, real heart issues that stunned me . I had never heard a man being so vulnerable and honest. I took up the challenge of following his devotional style for 4 weeks. And at the end of that 4 weeks I could already tell the diffence in my approach to scripture and how it did or did not effect my life. For the first time I saw a Man that I would follow. And for the first time, I was daily in scripture with a purpose. My first Pivot Point.

Pivot Point #2. That lead me to my first adventure into an accountability group. Meeting weekly with another brother (Aaron) who wanted to be in the word and accountable with another man. We started going through books of the Bible, first sharing our thoughts, then it grew into reading a bible commentary along with scripture. We meet weekly for two years. Then our group added one more guy (Chuck). The three of us meet weekly for another year and a half. The man who I first started the accountability with then accepted a job in another state, bringing 3 1/2 years of accountability to a close. We talked about the deepest darkest "secrets" of our hearts and minds. We shared every aspect of our lives. We knew how to joke with each other, we knew when to encourage one another, we knew when to push each other, we knew when we were giving excuses, we knew we were fully committed to hold each other accountable. And to do that, we were extremely transparent. Being fake was pointless, and it is stupid. That would only hold us back from real metamorphoo. For the first time, I had real accountability. My second Pivot Point.

Next post......Pivot Point #3 and #4. Put your money where your mouth is. Put up or shut up!!

Context

In order to know how someone or something has changed, you have to know context. The name of my blog is metamorphoo, the greek word for transformed. For there to be a real appreciation for transformation, there has to be an understanding of context. Context is defined as a set of circumstances or facts that occur surrounding a given event or situation. If you consider a cocoon all by itself, you are not aware of what it was or what brought it to that point, or what it will be. I am purposefully using the middle stage here. Because Context is best understood as us looking at something where it is currently, without regard to what it was or what it will be. If you witness a caterpillar by itself, you are only witnessing one plain aspect of its life. If you see a butterfly, you might marvel at its beauty, but have no appreciation of what it took for it to get to this point in its life. When you are able to witness the life of a caterpillar to the point of cocoon, cocoon to the point of butterfly, the process of metamorphoo (transformation), can be fully appreciated.

Christians also go through a process of metamorphoo. Romans 12:2 uses the word metamorphoo when it says, "Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,....." Simply, we can literally see the growth of the Christian through the transformation of their mind. And with that we see Context.

Sometimes in this Christian life, we look at each other without considering what brought us to the point in life that we are currently in. Too often we do not take interest in what has brought us to the point we are in life. What events, circumstances, situations have already occurred? What has made you who you are now? What is your Context? Obviously, we can't know what comes in the future, but knowing the past and present help us to really appreciate what that future will be.

I love to hear other Christian's share their testimony. It is simply metamorphoo. How God has taken what someone was and transformed them into something new. Not all transformation is night and day kind of drastic, some transformation is in little things in life. Regardless of the "size" or dramatic difference, it is metamorphoo. Too often Christians are afraid to share their testimony. It is not what we can creatively make dramatic, it is the simple knowing and communicating of how God is working in our lives and transforming us.

I will be sharing how God is working in my life. The metamorphoo that has taken place, the metamorphoo that is taking place, and what the goal of that process is. The Context is important. It is what allows us to fully appreciate God's work.

It is too easy for us to not be at all interested in each other. We are too often so wrapped up in ourselves, that we do not take the time know each other. When I say that, I do not mean, know things about each other, but truly know the context of each other. Otherwise we are continually missing the beauty of the process of metamorphoo. Sadly we can often be so wrapped up in our own life events that we even miss that metamorphoo for ourselves too!!

So, how is God working in my life? How am I being transformed by the renewing of my mind?

What is your context? What about the context of those around you? Take some time to invest in and know both.

Seriously!!!!??????

I know!!! What in the world am I doing with a blog!!!??? If you are reading this, you are just as interested and intrigued by this as me!! It comes down to one simple thing. Transformation. The title of the blog is "metamorphoo". It is a greek word that the english word metamorphosis comes from. A perfect example is the metamorphosis, or transformation, of a caterpillar into a butterfly. Being transformed from one thing into something else. And most importantly the process that happens in midst of that transformation. This will be the place where I will be sharing how God is transforming me. It is a process that will continue until my last breath. Seeking to Glorify God with my life, and sharing with you how God is doing that.

Even now, I am not quite sure what this is going to look like! But hey, that is part of the process with which God is using to refine me as a man, a Christ follower, a husband, a father, a friend.

And so........here it begins!