Become Good Soil

Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download Live at Home. Love at Home. Thrive at Home. Family First. – Morgan Snyder “All of life is a coming home. Salesman, secretaries, coal miners, beekeepers, sword swallowers—all of us. All the restless hearts of the world, all trying to find our way home….Home: the dictionary defines it as both a place of origin and a destination.” – Patch Adams Where and when do you have the sense of being “home"? What does that feel like? How would your family describe the atmosphere of your home? What’s it like to live with you, in the atmosphere you have knowingly or unknowingly created? And what do these questions have to do with your work in the world? What if maturity looks like blurring the lines between vocation and family? What if culture has baited you into surrendering the greatest treasure entrusted to your care? What if you could come home? And what if it changed everything? Come join a fellowship of rare and remarkable men from across the globe as we dive deep into some of the most foundational questions of becoming. For the Kingdom, Morgan

Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download Sometimes we have to leave what we know to find out what we know. – Greenlights, Matthew McConaughey A modern-day parable, The Company Men depicts one man’s journey along the ancient path and process of masculine initiation. Like most initiation stories, the process begins with a man who finds himself at the end of his rope.  A. W. Tozer once said, “It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until he has hurt him deeply.” Where does a man take his heart when he has been crushed, when the achievements he has pursued crumble around him? What does he do when failure forces him to face one of life’s most important questions: Who am I?  If a man is willing to consent to his initiation, he will indeed pass through a death into a larger, indestructible life. Though death is inevitably excruciating, the ancient path assures us that the new life will be infinitely richer.  Join me for this conversation with Paul McDonald and Men at the Movies, drawing on The Company Men to prompt our self-interrogation and connect us afresh with the God who embraces and engages us at the precipice of the impossible.  For the Kingdom, Morgan

Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least. – Goethe If the primary expression of God, his Kingdom, and his story happens through the recovery of family, why is it often so difficult to experience breakthrough? What's with the regular boredom, monotony, or discouragement? What if engaging these challenges is not a distraction from our Kingdom calling, but rather precisely the path to its fulfillment? What if the holy constraint of pursuing and cultivating wholehearted relationships with those under our care is a holy invitation back into the garden of simplicity with God?  Jane is a woman consented to the slow and steady process of maturation, responding with her feminine heart to the invitation from God to become whole.   Join me as she invites us back into the Garden to participate in a beautifully inefficient and joy-inducing life in God.  For the Kingdom, Morgan

Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it's having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness; it's our greatest measure of courage. – Brené Brown The Father is a wild one, undivided in his commitment to meet us where we are and father every uninitiated place in us.  This podcast is one of the many privileged opportunities the Father provided this year to reach the many to find the few. Midway through, our conversation took an unanticipated turn and finished with an encounter that embodies what we are after for every man with the message of Becoming a King.  Join me in this podcast, originally hosted by John Walz, as he courageously enters the unpredictable waters of vulnerability and accesses the sacred place every man must go to recover his strength. Come along as we consent to our Father-initiated masculine journey.  For the Kingdom, Morgan P.S. You can find an ever-expanding list of other podcasts featuring the mission and message of Become Good Soil here.

Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours… It is precisely through these stories in all their particularity, as I have long believed and often said, that God makes himself known to each of us more powerfully and personally. If this is true, it means that to lose track of our stories is to be profoundly impoverished not only humanly but also spiritually. – Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets How do we become the kind of kings God had in mind before the creation of the world? One year ago we launched a mission to reach the many to find the few with the message of Becoming a King. Thanks to your partnership and Jesus’ power, we have been able to steward this mission for the sake of many hearts and kingdoms around the world.  In the Revelation, the apostle John reminds us that the stories of the saints weave with the blood of Jesus to accomplish the breakthrough we desperately seek. To mark this one-year anniversary, we share these heartfelt stories from Becoming a King allies around the globe in that spirit: may the words of these men who are risking it all on God and his Kingdom connect with the blood of Jesus in each of our lives in order that we might overcome as one. May these stories strengthen you and fuel you for what’s ahead. We’re just getting started… For the Kingdom, Morgan

Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download A king does not abide within his tent while his men bleed and die upon the field. A king does not dine while his men go hungry, nor sleep when they stand at watch upon the wall. A king does not command his men's loyalty through fear nor purchase it with gold; he earns their love by the sweat of his own back and the pains he endures for their sake. That which comprises the harshest burden, a king lifts first and sets down last. A king does not require service of those he leads but provides it to them. A king does not expand his substance to enslave men, but by his conduct and example makes them free. – Xeones, Battle of Thermopylae, Gates of Fire In an age of immediate answers and an overabundance of information, our souls’ questions often get buried, denied, or forgotten.  At times, we abandon them for fear of where they might lead. Often, we give up on them entirely, too ashamed to reveal the depth of our thirst and ache.  But Jesus has not changed, nor has his Kingdom. He is always inviting us to rediscover and hold fast to our questions as his particular way of guiding us back to the path of Life.   What are your questions? Who are you asking?  If the goal is success, we will in the end lose heart. If the goal is having the right answer, we will often be disappointed.  But if the goal is to become true and wholehearted, nothing can kill us. If the goal is more of us belonging to more of God, our questions are vital.  Over the past year I’ve had the honor to share campfires with like-hearted allies to connect and hear stories of the men bravely working through the Becoming a King video series and study guide. The campfire I got to share with Pablo Ceron of Wildsons and the behind-the-scenes glimpse of the courage and strength of the men with whom he walks and the Father who pursues us all is a highlight of this series.  Join me around this Becoming a King campfire and be strengthened.   For the Kingdom, Morgan

Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success. – Ad placed by Sir Ernest Shackleton, 1915 He would never tell you that he was the one who connected Eugene Peterson, author of The Message paraphrase of the Bible, with U2’s Bono and helped cultivate their enduring friendship. It’s reasonable to say that he has fostered more connections between leaders of leaders across the global Christian community than any other man in modern history. Peb Jackson is a living legend. Incurably positive, uncommonly attracted to risk, the core of Peb’s heart is wild and unfettered. His life inspires my curiosity: how does a man recover and fuel this quality of consecrated masculine strength over such a length of time?   Peb is slow to share about his extraordinary life because he is a man who listens far more than he talks. Through the practice of cultivating questions, he has recovered a disproportionate share of the map that leads to life for the masculine soul. And he shares this map with others with magnificent generosity.   Yet Peb’s most distinguishable and attractive quality is his practice of spending extended time with God his Father. With nothing else. No book, no phone, no people. Just God himself. His life embodies these words of A. W. Tozer: "The man who would know God must give time to him. He must count no time wasted which is spent in the cultivation of his acquaintance. He must give himself to meditation and prayer hours on end." This is Peb Jackson. Friends, slow down and receive with me the treasure of an intimate conversation with a man who has consented to becoming a king to whom God has entrusted much of his Kingdom. For the Kingdom, Morgan

Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download In 70-year-old men, the number one factor in shaping who they had become was the presence or lack of strong emotional bonds with a single consistent feminine caregiver. – Robert Karen, Becoming Attached Where have you taken your soul’s need for feminine love? Have you ever considered your relationship with food and how that story has played out in your life over decades? How are you receiving daily feminine nourishment from the heart of God?  I am persuaded that our nagging experience of lack, our unsatisfied experiences in our bodies, our complex relationship with food, our addictions and commitments to feel good no matter the cost to ourselves or others, our dysfunctional relating in relationships with females, and our unshakable sense of disconnection from God are rooted at least in part to one core wound: maternal deprivation. If, as George MacDonald suggests, our central misery is our inability to turn to God for masculine validation, then our central anguish is our incapacity to receive feminine love from the heart of God.  But our woundedness need not have the final word. There is provision and promise in the rescuing, restoring love of the Trinity. We are invited to risk turning toward God as Mother to receive the maternal care, secure attachment, and feminine love we so desperately need.  Trusting Jesus’ leadership and authority over our lives, let’s take a closer look at the theme of maternal deprivation and explore how we can regularly receive feminine love and maternal care from the heart of God. Join me as we dive deep together. It’ll change everything. For the Kingdom, Morgan This podcast opens with a beautiful poem written and read by Rob Porter. Rob serves as a facilitator at the Become Good Soil Intensives and has been a faithful ally in this path and process of becoming for years. He is now offering what he has received to allies in New Zealand, the UK, and beyond. My deepest thanks for his contribution to this mission.

Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download You speak often of my drinking, but little of my thirst. – Scottish Proverb In seven years of crafting the Become Good Soil podcast for you, no episode has infused me with more JOY than my time with Winton Nicholson as we explored Slow Is Pro. Winton is a fiery, full-hearted Joy-Bringer who has found the treasure in the field and sold everything to possess it. He looks back to us from further down the narrow road and, with a wink and sparkle in his eye, says, “Buckle up…we’re in for a ride!” Winton’s is a story of a thirsty man who sought to slake his thirst in countless ways until God revealed that his real thirst was for the radical, unconditional Love of his Pursuing Father. Through his story, Winton guides us to deep and daring waters, inviting us to reconnect with our true thirst and dive in with reckless abandon. It was Brennan Manning who boldly asked, “Do you believe that the God of Jesus loves you beyond worthiness and unworthiness? Beyond fidelity and infidelity...that he loves you in the morning sun and in the evening rain...that he loves you when your intellect denies it, your emotions refuse it, when your whole being rejects it? Do you believe that God loves you without condition and reservation and loves you in this moment as you are and not as you should be?” Both Brennan’s and Winton’s stories bring us to a point of decision. Will we risk believing and receiving more and more of the utterly unconditional and intense affection of our Father? And will we risk loving God and loving ourselves?  How we respond to this invitation will dramatically shape our decade of becoming the kind of kings to whom God gladly entrusts his Kingdom.  Winton’s story reminds us that we mustn’t minimize our sin nature that attempts in myriad ways to distance us from our pain and inhibit our transformation yet fails to satisfy our true thirst. Below our compulsive reaching for another drink, our overeating, our constancy of activity, or any other medicating behavior is an unmet need. Noticing these compulsions and becoming curious about what is underneath can reveal the next layer ready for excavation in our process of becoming wholehearted. Here is the good news: our medicators and their grip are not the truest thing about us. Our hidden self-hatred need not get the final word. There is a Father who is fiercely pursuing us, who loves us right now as we are and not as we should be. And none of the messes we have made in portions and seasons of our lives, nor the harm we have caused ourselves and others, are beyond the Love of our Father and his path forward to irrepressible joy and indestructible wholeness.  Join me and Winton in this episode of the Become Good Soil podcast as we courageously acknowledge the strategies of our sin—yet upend them, receiving the truth that the truest thing about us all is this: we are dearly loved sons.  You don’t want to miss this.  For the Kingdom, Morgan

Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download Jesus's resurrection is the beginning of God's new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. That, after all, is what the Lord's Prayer is about. – N. T. Wright In The Second Mountain, David Brooks observes the inescapable fact that we all grow up in one moral ecology or another. Our moral ecology is the system of beliefs and behaviors that are often based in collective responses to big problems in a specific cultural moment. Recovering what is good, true, and beautiful often depends on identifying our current moral ecology and courageously asking, “Where have we gone astray, and how might we uncover the path forward to recover life in our age?” Brooks describes the pattern like this: “It usually starts with a subculture. A small group of creative individuals finds the current moral ecology oppressive and alienating. So they go back in history and update an old moral ecology that seems to provide a better way to live...” Were we to allow Jesus’ words to interrogate us, we may find ourselves asking courageous but uncomfortable questions: What do I need to unlearn? How is my current moral ecology getting in the way of seeing Jesus and his Kingdom as it really is? And how can I see Jesus and his Kingdom more clearly?  Often at first pass we see things not as they truly are, but only as we are. However, if we are willing, our distorted vision need not be the final verdict. If we will give our consent, Jesus and his disruptive Word can address and heal our blindness. His words and teaching can liberate us from our inherited, unconscious, or entrenched perspectives and deliver us into a new life and expanded vision. By his grace and transformative power, we can, in time, begin to see things more and more as they really are.  Join Cherie and me as we risk questioning our current moral ecology in light of the way of Jesus, opening ourselves to his interrogation so that our impoverished vision of his gospel of the Kingdom may be exchanged for a greater vision ablaze in Resurrection Light. For the Kingdom, Morgan I recommend a deep dive into these books we referenced: