Become Good Soil

Reflect on the past year and uncover its treasures while seeking divine guidance. Embrace mental and spiritual preparation for what's ahead, shifting from self-reliance to divine direction. Explore masculine initiation as a path for personal growth and leadership. Engage in introspective reflections to recognize both successes and challenges, fostering a deeper understanding of your relationship with God. Evaluate your relationships for growth potential and embrace transformation through self-reflection. Set clear intentions for the new year to align with divine purpose.

Each human soul has to enact for itself the gigantic humility of the Incarnation. Every man must descend into the flesh to meet mankind. – G.K. Chesterton Friends, We have a gift for you.  Take up a childlike heart again and be swept up into the awe and beauty of Immanuel—God with us.  Join us for this special BGS Christmas podcast.  Through the generosity of Penguin Random House Publishing, it’s our joy to take you into a generous portion of The Carpenter’s Gift. Written by David Rubel and whimsically illustrated by Jim LaMarche, this modern-day parable and timeless classic is sure to access the childlike place in your soul. This Christmas season, we invite you to revel at the miracle of God pursuing us and forever joining us in the fullness and limitations of our humanity. For the Kingdom, Morgan We encourage you to bless someone this Christmas season with The Carpenter’s Gift.

The podcast explores the importance of surrendering to God and relying on His presence in masculine initiation. It delves into reflections on parenthood and faith, discussing the challenges faced while caring for a handicapped daughter and the struggle with identity and masculinity. The podcast also emphasizes the mission of becoming whole through embracing pain and healing. Additionally, it touches on the transformative journey of settling into God's plan and the impact of personal growth and fatherhood. The speaker expresses gratitude for the vulnerability of the men sharing their stories and invites listeners to reflect on God's invitation.

Exploring the challenges and rewards of masculine initiation, embracing transformation, finding true identity, healing and positive change, unveiling the false self, and the impact of deep friendship on personal growth.

However quickly or slowly the call of God comes, it is always accompanied with an undercurrent of the supernatural….If a man or woman is called of God, it doesn’t matter how difficult the circumstances may be. God orchestrates every force at work for his purpose in the end. If you will agree with God’s purpose, he will bring not only your conscious level but also all the deeper levels of your life, which you yourself cannot reach, into perfect harmony. – Oswald Chambers How do we steward the kingdoms God has entrusted to our care?  What do we do when things go sideways? What can we do now so that we will be thriving a decade from now? The Helsers entice us to plunge deep into mature sonship and daughtership. As Melissa beautifully teaches, “Our lives are one percent talent and gifting, but 99 percent trust and dependence in friendship with the Lord.” We get to choose, friends.  We get to choose to be with God, rather than impress him.  In the hidden parts of our lives, in time and over time, we can experience friendship with God that far outweighs the fleeting nature of talents.  Join us for the fourth and final episode of this series as the Helsers blaze yet another Kingdom trail that leads to Life.  For the Kingdom, Morgan

Get into the habit of saying, “Speak, Lord,” and life will become a romance. (1 Samuel 3:9) – Oswald Chambers  Friends, Jonathan David Helser teaches, “In the Garden, it all began with a kiss. God’s first moment with us is…messy." And though we started out as dirt in the cherishing hands of the Trinity, our God invites us into more. Over a lifetime of maturing, we are intended to become the children, the friends, and, finally, the lovers of God. The Helsers have consented for decades to the movement and invitation of God in their lives.  It hasn’t been easy.  It hasn’t been cheap.  It hasn’t been quick. But through them, God is blazing a path for generations of disciples to become the friends and lovers of God.  In time and over time, they’ve practiced trusting the affection of God rather than trusting their gifting. A thousand times a thousand, they’ve chosen to receive and rest in the bottom-line reality that God’s love is better than life itself—and they’re inviting us to do the same.  Come along into Part 3 of this series as we follow the Helsers on the path and process of becoming the sons, daughters, and lovers of God.  For the Kingdom, Morgan "I will take delight in you. As a groom rejoices over his bride, so will I rejoice over you." – Isaiah 62

He opened the door of the birdcage to let the eagle fly to freedom. But the eagle had been in captivity for so long it no longer believed it could fly, and it chose not to fly. It was then he realized the bird was not in the cage. The cage was in the bird. – Jonathan Helser Friends, Jonathan David and Melissa Helser have become the kind of people who bring with them, wherever they find themselves, the atmosphere of the Kingdom of God.  Through their pain, they’ve grown into their possibility. Their suffering has given way to an even greater desire. They have seen the goodness of God in the land of the living.  And they are inviting us to come along, courageously following the Father anywhere. We rise by bowing We live by dying When we give what we could never keep We gain what we will never lose Join us for Part 2 of this series as we weave together story and song to shepherd our hearts ever deeper into the hope and heart of a God unbound by death.  For the Kingdom, Morgan

God loves you unconditionally, exactly as you are and not as you "should be.” – Brennan Manning, All Is Grace The best teachers are foremost, always and forever, committed students.  Jonathan David and Melissa Helser are unapologetically committed, life-long students of Jesus and his Kingdom. Risk-takers, worship leaders, and courageous parents, the Helsers blaze a path for people to encounter God—exactly as they are. For decades, they’ve invited generations of God’s sons and daughters to come as they are, authentically and intimately, into the presence of God.  From that place, they’ve discovered a secret of the Kingdom: The one who knows us best is the one who loves us most.  Friends, God is the one who knows us best.  And from that place of deep knowing, he is the one who chooses us and loves us most.  Come along as we discover afresh that we truly are the dearly loved sons and daughters of God.  For the Kingdom, Morgan [Here are some ways to go deeper with the work entrusted to the Helsers' care: Explore their worship ministry, which has traveled the globe to offer live opportunities to encounter our Father together, at JonathanHelser.com and CagelessBirds.com. Check out their small-batch deep discipleship school for young adults through 18InchJourney.com, one of the premier contexts for apprenticeship in this hour on the globe.]

Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am. – Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation Our stories do not define us; the Author of them does.  It’s a profound truth and reality that takes many tears, much blood, and many years to fully participate in.  Tommy Colwell is one of the men heroically participating in this reality. Through the ups and downs, the triumphs and tragedies, the breakthroughs and dead ends, he has discovered, looking back, that throughout his story he has been led.  Deeply. Strongly. Abundantly.  By a Father who is far more kind and loving than we dared to believe.  How does a man abandoned and abused in childhood, suffering a profound lack of attachment, become a conduit of the Father-heart of God to not only offer to a family what he never had, but also shepherd the hearts of over a thousand individual fallen pastors into restoration and repair? Come along to witness and participate in a living miracle as we dive into Part 2 of this rich story of God fathering a boy, initiating a man, and raising up a seasoned sage.  For the Kingdom, Morgan

So take seriously the story that God has given you to live. It's time to read your own life, because your story is the one that could set us all ablaze. – To Be Told, Dan Allender As we share our stories, engage our stories, and begin to partner with God in the restoration of our stories, we experience an increasing measure of what Saint Paul scandalously discloses in Romans 8: None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us. (8:38-39 MSG) Though beautiful promises of the Father’s heart saturate the Scriptures, there is perhaps no promise greater than the bottom-line reality that his affection wins.  His love gets the last word.  And all will be made new in the light of this love. Tommy Colwell is 81 years old—and still courageously consenting to his masculine initiation. He has become an elder, a son, and a sage. Come along into Part 1 of this series and receive Tommy’s story as nourishment and validation, as it mirrors the narrative arc of our own initiation. For the Kingdom, Morgan