I attended a men’s retreat this past weekend with some 80 men from the congregation I currently serve, the Eastridge Church of Christ. The retreat was held in Scottsville, TX which is right near Marshall. The country out there in East Texas is wild with tall pine trees and the retreat we stayed at had a quiet pond. Some of the men at the retreat fished there in our free time. The pond reflected the tall trees and blue sky and had a small island near its center that featured a large wooden cross. The air smelled sweeter with our distance from any large metros and I found myself breathing deeply and filling my lungs with its freshness. This was a great place to have a men’s retreat.

It was at this retreat where we spent much of our time unpacking some of the thoughts written by John Eldredge in his book, Wild at Heart. Eldridge has written every several other books such as Walking with God, Moving Mountains, and the feminine counterpart to this masculine work that he and his wife, Stasi Eldredge, wrote together. Wild at Heart was a book I had actually read before in my early 20’s and I had enjoyed the book. I recalled thinking when I had read the book originally that it was good and it stirred me a little to want to go camping more but I didn’t get much more out of it. Now in my early 30’s, with the upcoming men’s retreat that was going to be going over much of Eldredge’s book, I thought I’d give it another pass.

Wild at Heart starts by addressing the identity of mankind and how we were made in God’s image. He pinpoints some of the tendencies that boys have in the ways that they play and behave and talks about how many boys grow up to be men who are unfulfilled and bored. Eldredge asserts that every man has the innate desire to have “A Battle to Fight”, “A Beauty to Rescue”, and an “Adventure to Live”. He cites examples of some of our favorite “manly men” films where the hero will likely undertake all three of these tasks. I’m very much a movie guy so I enjoyed these parts of the book where he refers back to movies like Braveheart, Gladiator, or even Indiana Jones. Eldredge talks about how we as men gravitate towards these films because we long to have a battle worth fighting for, a beauty we are longing to rescue, or an adventure that we are courageous enough to live.

This book may have something very positive to say in a climate where masculinity has often been labeled as “wholly toxic.” I think most people would agree that there are parts of masculinity that can be twisted into something very toxic, even dangerous. However, it seems to me that God created the masculine and feminine and since we are all made in his image, neither quality is inherently evil. I think Eldredge does much to redeem the goodness that masculinity can have on a man’s heart. He writes how sometimes we want to be the William Wallace or Maximus of our own stories but we often live our lives as if we are the more timid Robert the Bruce or the cowardly Commodus of the story.

I do have some qualms with the book as far Eldredge having a firm Biblical foundation in the redemption of what’s defined as “masculine” but that definition changes so often that it would likely be very difficult to do. The stories from the Bible he does use are utilized well. He certainly doesn’t go overboard advocating that we as men should punch anyone in the face who looks at us funny. He does hold up some few examples of how Jesus handled himself as a man. The book definitely was not as scripture-based as I would’ve liked but nonetheless has many Biblical truths for the “man of God”.

There were other times in the book where he addresses “the wound” which is how all men were damaged in some way by their father which I very much doubt applies to everyone. Despite this, I think the book is good for men who are either insecure or quite secure with their masculinity. Eldredge has good things to say to both parties.

Eldredge encourages the reader to embrace their masculine heart and to utilize it to become a warrior and a champion for the Kingdom of God. I enjoyed taking in Wild at Heart a 2nd time and truthfully probably got more out of it reading again at an older age. I bet the same will be true the next time I revisit it.

Next time I review the books Lead Small by Reggie Joiner and Tom Shefchunas and Creating a Lead Small Culture by Reggie Joiner, Kristen Ivy, and Elle Campbell.

The third book I decided to read this year is Deep & Wide: Creating Churches Unchurched People Love to Attend by Andy Stanley.

This is a book I admittedly put off reading for a couple of reasons. For one, it’s kind of long. Being new to books I’ve been content with a 200-page book but Deep & Wide extends past 300. Another thing is that I had heard others talk about this book and what it discusses. There were many topics spoken of that resonated with my thoughts on the church as a minister and I bought the book with enthusiasm, about a year ago. I wanted to be endowed with the knowledge to help the church I was serving in to develop into the church I thought it should be. Before I cracked the book I started to see through my naivety and considered how little I’d actually be able to change on my own and as a youth minister. I was fearful that Andy would nail us with the obvious changes we needed to make as a church and that I’d be powerless to do anything with that knowledge. I have since recanted and decided that putting off reading this book based on those fears was foolish. So I read it and I’m glad I did.

In case you don’t know, the title “Deep & Wide” refers to the fact that Andy believes the church is a place that contains deep truths for transforming and restoring lives (“deep”) and that they’d also be places where truly anyone feels welcome to attend (“wide”). Andy begins his book by recounting his own story. He tells of his upbringing in the church, being the son of a preacher at a large church in Atlanta, growing up to be a minister at that same church, the conflict between his father and him, and the eventual planting of the North Pointe Community Church. In fact, he dedicates his book to those 708 charter members of that church. While I think all of this storytelling eventually pays off in providing context for his perspective on the church in the rest of the book, it did seem to take up an inordinate amount of space and was tough to get through at times.

Once he gets to the establishing of North Pointe Community Church, he speaks on how from the very beginning the goal was not to create a carbon copy of the church he was familiar with but instead wanted to ensure that their church would be one that would unapologetically be geared towards unchurched people. How can you argue with that? I will say that part of that basic premise upsets me on some level because I’ve always thought of the church as the communing, edifying, educating, worshipping, safe place for believers. It’s not that I believed that non-believers weren’t invited, I just didn’t view evangelism as one of the main focuses of what takes place on Sunday mornings. I kinda thought that’s what the members of the church were supposed to be doing on every day of the week. I don’t want to start pulling out scriptures or anything but I do think it’s worth considering what the Biblical purpose of the church (as in the assembled community of believers) is compared to the purpose given to the individual Christ-followers who make up the church. Are they the same? I think there are probably some important differences.

Andy goes on to talk about the plethora of tactics his church uses to be guest friendly. Many of them I thought were just genius. Of course our buildings should have good signage that helps those who have never been before. Of course we should look at our classrooms and meeting spaces the way a guest would. What are we communicating by the way we decorate, clean, organize, and take care of our facilities? Does each room communicate it’s purpose by how it’s arranged? It should. Of course it’s important to consider your order of worship and accomplish what is important in the best possible fashion for your church. Of course the church website should be updated more than once a leap year. There were so many things like this that Andy mentions that I think honor our members, our guests, and most importantly, honor God. Andy offers so many helpful guidelines for how we should put serious thought into how we do Sunday church that I do find myself wishing every minister, elder, ministry leader, small group leader, really any kind of church leader would pick up this book, if only to give thought to the intentionality we put into what occurs when we meet.

All that being said, I also believe that there are some dangers going too far down the “Deep & Wide” line of thinking. It seems obvious, but I don’t want to attend a church that focuses solely on “the show” and is empty in the content on Sunday mornings. Andy covers this concern at times in his book. But I can’t help feeling that authenticity will always trump what looks shiny. Andy doesn’t downplay authenticity at all, I’m just fearful that’d be tricky to make sure authenticity doesn’t get left behind.

Deep & Wide is a good book to keep on the shelf. As a youth minister I do have some control over the environments I create for our youth group and that fact alone has made this book a great benefit to me. I highly recommend that if you lead in any capacity at your church that you read this book and digest it with others at your church.

Have you read Deep & Wide? What did you think? Next time I’ll be reviewing the fourth book I read this year, Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul by John Eldredge.

So I finished my first two books of the year last month. As stated in my last post, I decided to start the year off with something optimistic and not too difficult to read. After I attended my youth ministry conference at the beginning of the year (NCYM) I got to hear and meet Bob Goff and decided I’d give his two popular books a try. Because I read them back to back and because of their similar content, I’ll review them as if they were one book.

These books are both the most whimsical and idealistic pieces of literature I’ve ever read.  No joke. Now, be sure to take into account that I’m trying to read 52 books this year because I’m not very well read at all. Even still, I was taken back by his unapologetically positive tone throughout both books. At times I felt something that might be referred to as optimism fatigue. But, for the most part, I felt encouraged and inspired by much of what Bob has to say in these books.

Bob tells some incredible stories throughout these two works. In fact, most of his chapters are collections of stories and anecdotes from his own life or someone else’s who is close to him. It seemed like most of these stories are aimed at disarming what our usual responses would be in the mundane with a response that is fueled and informed by love. While some of those stories could seem trite, many of them were pleasantly surprising and inspiring. Now, there was no shortage of “Bob Goff leads a very different life than me” extreme stories that were pretty tough to relate to as well. But by and large, Bob writes in a way that is accessible, inspirational, and with a kind of whimsy, that had me grinning without my even realizing I was doing it. The tone is reminiscent of Donald Miller (who wrote the foreword to Love Does and helped Bob write both), especially for those of you who have read his book A Millian Miles in a Thousand Years.

There were several stories that would seem to come to a very normal and unsatisfying end given the typical person’s reaction. But Bob is certainly not your typical kind of guy. He’s a “be awesome” and “just say yea” kind of guy. Many of his stories felt like they could be gripping scenes in a movie. Bob was set to tell stories that would thrill or at least make you feel like anything was possible. I laughed to myself when I realized I had read about 5 separate stories between his two books that included the phrase, “So I tossed him/her the keys.” And I think that’s a good example of what these books are about. The letting go of the expected in lieu of something that has the potential to be greater, better, more loving, riskier.

In these collections of Goff parables, Bob seems to be aiming at the typical churched person who has only been able to view the act of loving others through the lens of ordinary and comfortable. Loving others is so much more than a sentiment, it’s an indiscriminate and bold action. His subtitle for Love Does is “Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World”. For Everybody Always, its subtitle read, “Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks and Difficult People”. While the books are different, they both seem to be aimed at the same concept. That concept is that love is capable of more than we think and that it’s for more people than we’d think.

Are these books important for youth ministers to read? Probably not. Who is this book for? If you’re currently in a dark place or in need of some encouragement to be freer with yourself, with your interactions with people, I’d definitely refer these books to you. All in all these books are fun, joyful, and have earned a place on my bookshelf. Have you read Bob’s books already? What did you think?

Next time I’ll be writing on the book I’ve most recently finished, Andy Stanley’s Deep and Wide.