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My sisters Wedding Day and Legoland.

25 Ways To Be A Servant-Leader

This is an excerpt from session 21 from Men's Fraternity. I struggle with the majority of these but when I read them my spirit just leaps in agreement that this is my calling in my home.

1. A servant-leader includes his wife in envisioning the future.
2. A servant-leader accepts spiritual responsibility for his family.
3. A servant-leader is willing to say “I’m sorry” and “Forgive me” to his family.
4. A servant-leader discusses household responsibilities with his wife and makes sure they are fairly distributed.
5. A servant-leader seeks the consultation of his wife on all major financial decisions.
6. A servant-leader follows through with commitments he has made to his wife.
7. A servant-leader anticipates the different seasons his marriage will pass through.
8. A servant-leader anticipates the different stages his children will pass through.
9. A servant-leader frequently tells his wife what he likes about her.
10. A servant-leader provides financially for his family’s basic living expenses.
11. A servant-leader deals with distractions so he can talk with his wife and family.
12. A servant-leader prays with his wife on a regular basis.
13. A servant-leader initiates meaningful family traditions.
14. A servant-leader plans fun outings for the family on a regular basis.
15. A servant-leader takes the time to give his children practical instruction about life, which in turn gives them confidence with their peers.
16. A servant-leader manages the schedule of the home and anticipates any pressure points.
17. A servant-leader keeps his family financially sound and out of harmful debt.
18. A servant-leader makes sure he and his wife have drawn up a will and arranged a well-conceived plan for their children in case of death.
19. A servant-leader lets his wife and children into the interior of his life.
20. A servant-leader honors his wife often in public.
21. A servant-leader explains sex to each child in a way that gives them a whole-some perspective.
22. A servant-leader encourages his wife to grow as an individual.
23. A servant-leader takes the lead in establishing with his wife sound, biblically-supportable family values.
24. A servant-leader joins a small group of men who are dedicated to improving their skills as a man, husband, and father.
25. A servant-leader provides time for his wife to pursue her own personal interests.

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Some Great Quotes

There is a "tear" in the masculine soul-a gaping hole or wound and into this hole demons have fled- demons of insecurity, selfishness and despair. Consequently men do not know who they are as men. Rather they define themselves by what they do, who they know or what they own.

As we bring our insecurity, unforgiven and immature thought/behavior patterns to the Lord honestly and vulnerably, He can free us from our pain and weakness and both lead and empower us to live a new way.

Unfortunately for themselves, their families, and their communities (men) have been satisfied with surface definitions of their masculinity, and have not probed the wonders of their deep masculine selves. Were they to choose to do so, our word would be a much different place, for men would be able once again to truly lead, guide, and direct their own lives and others. They would be able to carry their fair share of the burdens of our human and Christian communities. They would once again be truly able to enjoy their lives, not in selfishness, but in the wonder of contributing their strength for the well being of others.

Ted Dobson
Catholic Priest

Masculinity in a Feminized World

It is hard to speak about feminism, because from a man's perspective there are some things that are just not right. And I am not sure our feminized society is willing to receive it.
Before we get too far into that we need to acknowledge the wrongs that men inflicted on women, wrongs that gave a need for the feminist movement in the first place. Men crossed barriers when they took a God given role of leadership and used it to dominate and rule over the wife and family with cruelty. If men had treated women with the respect and honor they deserved there likely would not have been a feminist movement. But here is the problem, it seems as though we swung the pendulum too far the other direction.

Was the "Masculinity Movement" ready to abdicate power?

Of course there has not been a "Masculinity Movement" (although at times I think if we keep the direction we are going we will have one) but it did seem like men gave up without a fight. It makes me think of the strategy that the English had to get rid of the Scottish during the time of William Wallace. The right of "prima noctes" was the right of the English lord to bed the bride of a Scotsman on her wedding night, in as such "breeding" them out.
It seems like it only took one generation to turn the tides of the genders, as it was only in the early 60's that feminism really caught on. Feminism in itself is alright and was\is possibly needed, but it goes too far when it crosses the equality line and starts to take war against masculinity and the attributes of manhood.
The battle is not only in the Human Rights tribunals, or in the media. It has creeped into our churches across North America

I read on a blog recently the following:

"I work at helping my children see the manhood of Christ. But, I’m afraid that I don’t get a lot of help in this regard. As I observe the typical church, listening to sermons and Bible studies I often hear only the softer side of Christ presented. As a matter of fact, I recently asked participants in two seminars to list characteristics of Christ. In both the women’s seminar and the men’s seminar, the descriptors were words like, loving, forgiving, kind, compassionate, gentle. There were very few words that would have been compelling to men."

Even our churches are infected with it.

"I agree Christ was all of these things. He was the most incredible example of each of these characteristics, but that’s not all he was. He was also the most worthwhile example of courage, tenacity, service, assertiveness, righteousness, leadership, determination and Godliness. These are characteristics that are more likely to get a man’s attention. But we don’t hear about these things often enough from our pulpits or in our Bible studies."

I love to think about Jesus, when he enters the temple and sees the money changers defiling his father's house. I like how in John 2:15 it says Jesus made a whip from some ropes and chased them out. This is such a beautiful picture because Jesus is angry, yet he does not sin. I love picturing my savior running around this temple with fire in his eyes and lashing a whip. That's my man!

In Christina Hoff-Sommers book The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men we see how even secular culture is seeing the potential for damage. In a review of the book, the reviewer states:

"This book tells the story of how it has become fashionable to attribute pathology to millions of healthy male children. It is a story of how we are turning against boys and forgetting a simple truth: that the energy, competitiveness, and corporal daring of normal, decent males is responsible for much of what is right in the world. No one denies that boys’ aggressive tendencies must be checked and channeled in constructive ways. Boys need discipline, respect, and moral guidance. Boys need love and tolerant understanding. They do not need to be pathologized."

And my favorite quote:

"it’s a bad time to be a boy in America. . . ."

I believe that there is an all out war on men (though very subtle), we are trying to smudge the lines in the name of equality but damaging the goods in the process. We need to realized that when a man rises up is not at the expense of a woman. Not only that, but if men do not rise up, there will not be any men left.

Wounded Heros

It is annoying how your ideals can change when new information is added. I think of how Halloween was such a fun day growing up. I never got into the scariness of it, but I did enjoy dressing up and getting candy. There was never a question as to if you were going to go out trick or treating, that is just what you did. Fast forward to adulthood and you find out its horrible roots, and the spiritual implications and all of a sudden as a Christian father you are wondering if you even want to participate in such a horrible festivity.

Another example somewhat similar would be from the movie "The Matrix". At one point Morpheus confronts Neo with a choice, red pill or blue pill. Red pill everything stays the same and life continues as you know it, blue pill you find out the truth of your existence.

I have had few male role models in my life, and growing up I really had no one that was willing to really invest in me. To spend quality time with me and showing me what it meant to be a man. At some point in my childhood I attached to my Grandpa. Even though I cannot remember him ever really investing into me, one on one, I saw some traits in him that I admired. And at some point I decided I wanted to model my life after his.

As a man I now ask myself what it was that I saw in him. First and foremost I knew he was respected and considered wise by those that were close to him. Second he was a man of faith. While he still had his eyesight he was constantly reading the bible and his daily bread devotional was always on that days date, having been read that very morning. We were always blessed to have him ask the family get-together's meal because when he prayed he prayed as a man who knew the God whom he was praying to. I knew he was a gentle man, soft spoken and slow to anger. Compared to my own father my Grandpa was his opposite, and as painful as it is to admit I was looking for my father's opposite.

Going through my masculine healing journey I have come to some realizations that in many ways caused me to build my foundations on sand. Grandpa was a wonderful man, and I do not want anyone to hear anything other than my admiration for who he was, because I loved him very much. But I have realized the he was not that different than me. He was wounded.

He grew up in an alcoholic home and I can only assume his way of dealing with his alcoholic father was to just get quiet. He married my Grandma and from everything I can gather she was very similar to his own Dad in her harshness and controlling of him. My Mom had recounted many memories from her childhood of my Grandma verbally beating my Grandpa into submission. Grandma also had the gift of gab which took the pressure off Grandpa to be the conversationalist. And so he fell into the background which is where he seem content to be.

Both my Mom and my Uncle have recounted to me how even though Grandpa was there in body during their childhood he wasn't really there emotionally. And in may ways he cheated his children from any emotion, positive or negative. He met the Lord when he was a young man and through his many years of reading the word had much wisdom, but to tap into his wisdom you had to almost force it out of him. I can appreciate how he would have felt beat down by my Grandma, but what was it in him that was okay with his passivity?

It has only been through revelation in my healing that I have been able to recognize the same wound in both of us. I hypothesize that my Grandpa struggled with the question of what it means to be a man as well. I think the fact that I looked to my Grandpa as a masculine role model really communicates how mixed up I was. One of my favorite books (Raising a Modern Day Knight) has the best definition of manhood. author Robert Lewis defines it as:

"....someone who rejects passivity, accepts responsibility, leads courageously, and expects the greater reward; God's reward".

That is the awesome thing about God, realizing this does not bring resentment. Actually the opposite, I see my Grandpa as a fellow wounded man and it brings me much compassion for him. I wish Grandpa could have been the man God created him to be, I wish he could have been a courageous leader, but regardless I know he was a man after God's heart and I will see him again someday.

The Quest for Authentic Manhood

This has been a long journey for me. It started when our first son was born, I was newly married and working a minimum wage job. I was confronted with the fact that I could no longer sluff off my responsibilities in life, it was time to be a man. The scary thing was that I had no idea what that meant. I started to make some small steps in my life that I thought would fulfill that need, like going back to school. It helped for a bit, but still left me empty. For three years I tried to ignore the calling while comforting myself with my vices. In 2000 my world came crashing down and I was violently confronted with my ignorance towards this subject. I was left even more confused and heaped a whole pile of hurt on top of it.

I sought out other men, surely I am not the only one feeling like this. The first couple of guys I shared my questions with more or less ran from me as if I were diseased. I now realize that for them, even though they may have appeared to have masculinity cased on the outside really didn't know any more than me. They were just able to fake it better. And they really didn't want to confront something that was that "deep", after all we are men, we are self sufficient. When you are hurting and somebody tells you just to "buck up" and continue on and actually shames you for acknowledging your hurt, that can be really damaging to a man psyche.

Eventually I did find some companions for my journey, but there is a danger in just healing enough that the hurt goes away, but not really dealing with the wound. For me, to deal with the wound I have had to dig deep, deep inside and confront some ugly things that I really don't want to admit are there. I have had to dig back to my childhood and recognize some of the things that were missing and other areas that were overdone. Its sounds like a long process and in some ways it is, but the healing is so worth it. I have dealt with this all my married life and have cheated my wife and children from having the real me. My wife says that deep down she has always been able to see the man I now am, but the "log jams" in my life have stopped me from reaching my potential.

Where do I go next? The journey of healing is really just beginning. A friend encouraged me when I was sharing with him that the healing, freedom and empowerment that I am now experiencing is only a drop in the bucket compared to the total healing, freedom and empowerment that He will bestow on me. Very exciting. I have not arrived, and I am very aware of this, but at least I know where I am going and am embracing the journey.

Update

Time to blow some dust off my blog. I have desired to blog all the amazing things God is showing me and new things I am learning but it seems that I the time is not quite right.

I have been blessed by many things lately, but mostly by my amazing wife. She is so amazing how she carries the heart of God to me time and time again. God is doing so many amazing things in her and I get to be front row and center.

God has led me to some amazing books, the first was "Healing the Masculine Soul" by Gordon Dalby. This was the perfect book for me, so much insight into myself, my pain and understanding why I have done some of the stupid things I have. I highly recommend this book for any man that is struggling with masculinity, and how to become a man after God's heart.





"Wild at Heart" by John Eldredge has been a huge blessing to me. I find that He doesn't write at quite as technical a level as Gordon Dalbey does, but manages to hit the heart issues even deeper. I find that the two books compliment each other very well and have just kept me trucking down the healing journey.





Men's Fraternity (www.mensfraternity.com) has been a wonderful nugget that God helped me to stumble across while I was looking through podcasts on iTunes. After listening to the first 6 sessions I quickly downloaded the other 18 (24 sessions total in the "Quest for Authentic Manhood"). These audio sessions basically take the same message from the books previously mentioned and expand it into a 24 week journey of healing. I have had to do it individually but the ultimate goal would be to do it in a small group with other men. It has been so healing to me and maybe one day when I am healed I could bring it to the men of our church or even city.

It is amazing how God loves to give us a heart of reconciliation. In 2 Corinthians 5:18 it says "And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him." And so it should come as little surprise to us that when we ask for this, he is ready to give it to us and wants to.
I have felt led to pray for several couples whose marriages are facing a similar similar battle to the one we faced in ours. As I have gone to God praying for these couples he has used that same spirit to walk in bringing unity between my Sister and Dad.

God is good, thats all I can say. He has brought me men to speak into my life, to be accountable to and has given me a boldness I have never experienced in my faith.

As wonderful as that sounds the battles are still raging and the pain of redemption and purification continues.

Update

Hey all, I am not sure if anybody ever comes here anymore but I wanted to give an update since my last two posts were a bit....well how do you say...depressing. I almost don't want to come back here and remind myself as to how I was feeling at that time. I would say without a doubt that was one of the darkest times of my life.
I am very happy that our lives are seasons and that that season is over. A wise woman once said to me that we all have down times, but we need to get to a point in our lives where down doesn't also mean out.


Life has been pretty even keel for the last month and a half. I have been taking much joy in leading our life group, even though I feel I have a lot to learn as a leader I know that I am called to lead this group and to endure and mature in the process.


I have been privileged to watch Sarah struggle and bounce back as well. I am so thankful that God is leading us down the same path and even though we may hit our own ruts in the road, we are at the same place, together when the road is smooth again. Watching Sarah's journey is like watching a rose in bloom, from bud to flower, getting more beautiful every day. I love her heart and am so blessed that I have her in my life.


I have been getting back into biking, the battle of bulge (my waistline) continues. I have the strangest metabolism, I can bounce from 195 to 185 within a couple days. But the time has come and I need to loose weight. Biking to work with my father in-law has helped tremendously, he keep me motivated and getting up each morning.


I am playing with the idea of joining Tae Kwon Do with Noah, we'll see where that goes.


Much of my time lately has been spent on Facebook. I have really put it down in the past and at one point had signed up and then stopped using it. The second time around here I am really enjoying it. I can't tell you how many friendships I have been able to reconnect with thanks to Facebook, as a result my perspective has changed greatly. Blessings!!

Grieving Caleb

Grieving is a terribly confusing thing. I don't know why this is coming up a year and a half later but it is along with all this other stuff. My feelings are so jumbled I don't know where to start. One thing I know is that I have a lot of unresolved anger towards "the system". Which kind of sucks because the system is a nameless, faceless thing that has no emotion and certainly no remorse.
For nine years of our lives with Caleb the system was there for us with Caleb, we are honestly so lucky how we live in a province that has so much support for those with a disability or a disabled child. But I was not prepared for how we would get treated once Caleb was no longer with us. It was like a band aid getting ripped off in one stroke, taking the hair and scab with it. I was nice to have those agencies to support us, the thing about support though is that when you have somebody rely on it the removal needs to be gradual. Sarah and I have talked about how we felt like Caleb looked after our family and I think that this is why we felt like that.
This last week Sarah brought home Caleb's wheel chair and had it in our living room. She never told me that she did this and I came home from work and there is was, it actually scared me to the point of having a small anxiety attack. I was stunned for a short amount of time and asked her why. Honestly I was angry, not so much at Sarah from bringing it home but for the rush of emotions and memories that flooded in. The kids see it like a toy and they have all taken turns sitting in Caleb's chair, it scares me to see them in the chair, especially if they sit still like Caleb did.

Where have I been?

Good question, I don't know myself. Currently I find myself in a crisis of faith and I don't know what to do about it. I don't know exactly what has changed, I know there are issues that I have relating to Caleb's death that I have not dealt with but the more I search myself the more I find ugliness in my life that I really don't want to deal with. I'm tired.
One of reason things have come to a head verus staying hidden in the recesses of my mind have to do with taking on the task of leadership in our church. For most of my adult life I wanted somebody to have faith in me, to trust me in a leadership role. I am more than willing to admit that I had some very ugly motives that even I didn't recognize at the time but thankfully I had good leaders that saw through my facade and encouraged me to grow more before taking on that responsibility. Then I finally got to a place in life where I really didn't care anymore about leadership and realized the responsibility and spiritual maturity it required. And it was then that I was asked to lead a small group with Sarah. Well I have done my best at putting on the strong leader face these last couple months, and now I find my brittle mask crumbling before me. All of a sudden I feel bare, because all of my covering up has pushed my problems to the surface. Not unlike the plumber who keeps patching the water line each time it leaks, before long there is no longer a pipe, only a bunch of patches in a row that will eventually fail and flood.
Am I depressed? Well I guess so, I have gotten hear by my own decisions. I am obviously going to be stepping back from leadership, Sarah has decided that she has enough fuel in the tank to lead herself.
I don't want this to sound like a pity party for myself, I am just standing back and looking at my life and being honest with myself. There is much more that will eventually come out, just can't find the words.

Prince Caspian - May 16!!

Sorry, had to remove the trailer, it was really annoying how it would play every time I loaded the page.

Family Update

Hi all, I thought I should give you a little update as to what has been going on in our home as I am not blogging much these days.

Well as you can imagine the period from October 27^th to November 1^st was not a lot of fun. We went to Caleb’s grave site and remembered him as we shivered in the cold. Afterwards we went to Saskatoon Asian and spent some time as a family. This period of time was very difficult on our marriage, we were not coming together in our grief but rather coming against each other. We are taking joy in the fact that we are past all the firsts, the first Christmas, birthday, anniversary of his death and funeral. Hopefully the next year will be easier.

We haven’t had time to celebrate our anniversary yet (11 years) but we will hopefully take some time in the coming weeks.

Last night Sarah surprised me with a birthday party. I still can’t believe she pulled it off without me expecting a thing, I was sure that I would have suspected something. She invited all my guy friends and Chris (my brother-in-law) snuck in my house and setup several computers and networked them together. Needless to say we had a great “Christian” time of fellowship and blowing each other up until the wee hours of the morning. I am still recovering.

I started a new job at the end of September. I am commercial installer, installing cable, internet and phone services. As you can imagine going from a computer technician to a cable installer has been a bit of a culture shock for me but I love every minute of it. I found that with computers there were so many times I could get a computer working, but I didn’t really feel like a fixed the problem. With my new job there is no grey areas, either the signal is there and it is working, or it isn’t. With my string of perfectionism this is a really good fit. They have an unbelievable benefits package and I get every TV service (including HD), internet and phone for $100\month. This really helps our bottom line. Also my hours are 8am-4:30pm Monday to Friday, I have not have hours like those for a while.

Sarah is home schooling like crazy this year. We have both seen major growth in her and her ability to organize and keep focused. And the proof is in the pudding as the kids are always excited to tell me about what they learned during the day when I come home.

Noah is in Tae Kwon Do this year and is really enjoying it, it seems to be a better fit for him than soccer. He would play computer games and game boy all day if we let him, so we are trying to find the positives in that and get him into some educational software. Noah blows us away with his home schooling, he is so smart, and the weird thing is, is that his favourite subject is math! Hard to believe he is my son :)

Isaiah’s extracurricular activity this year is an arts and crafts class. This is totally up her alley as she spends much time at home coloring, painting, cutting, gluing and leaving a mess wherever she goes. She is still in ballet as well and is now in her second year.

Sarah enrolled Faith in a 2 year old dance class called “Move to Music”, this was put on by our community association at a local school. Faith loves it, but after the second class the teacher quit. So Sarah picked up the slack and started leading the class. It has kind of become a family project as I am the DJ and the kids assist Sarah in helping the kids. There are anywhere from 2-6 kids per week. Faith’s vocabulary expands every day and can now communicate most of what she wants. She still surprises us with some of the words that she incorporates in her sentences.

Elishah is growing like crazy, she is almost 9 months old, wow where does time go. Sarah is in the process of weaning her which means we are now into baby food and bottles. Elishah is crawling and pulling herself up on furniture. She can go from a crawl to sitting and turn around using that method.

Sarah and I have started leading a care group (which we call a life group), we have 3 other couples and one single girl. This has been stretching for us to say the least, and the timing of it with Caleb’s anniversary made it that much more difficult. It is obvious that God has called us into a time of stretching our faith and teaching us about leadership. I feel that once we get our bearings about us we will see the blessing.

Psalm 23 - Very Cute!

Get Perpendicular!

Here is a great animation on an innovation in new hard drives, even if you don't understand its great for a chuckle.

Get Perpendicular

Six Habits of Spiritually Happy Men

Patrick Morley http://www.maninthemirror.org/

I've been meeting with men for over three decades. Many of those men exude a contagious joy and contentment. Their lives are peaceable, orderly, and recommend Christ. They’re downright happy!

Most of these happy men exercise six spiritual habits that keep them "abiding in Christ." These six habits are not litmus tests that you can use to judge a man’s walk with Christ. That would be extremely dangerous. These habits do nothing to improve a man’s record with Jesus. They are, however, indicators or “clues” of a deeper commitment to live by faith and make a difference in the world.

Habit #1: Spiritually happy men read the Bible regularly.
Habit #2: Spiritually happy men pray with their wives.
Habit #3: Spiritually happy men are in a small group.
Habit #4: Spiritually happy men are active in a church.
Habit #5: Spiritually happy men tithe.
Habit #6: Spiritually happy men are serving the Lord.

Full article

Family Pictures

Wise Words

The more secrets you take to the grave,
the sooner you will get there.

Joe W

The Swamps of Sadness

I have not been in a very good mindset for the last while. Little by little I have allowed my faith to be chipped away. As I faltered, my feet started getting more and more caught up in the bog of depression and weighing me down.

Remember on "The Never Ending Story", the Swamps of Sadness? What a great illustration.

Depressions goal is to kill you, first it starts with your mind, your spirit, then your body.

But praise God for he is faithful, here are the events of tonight:

I came home sick from work as I had been having problems with my stomach the previous night and it was now really getting to me. I came home to an empty house and as I relaxed in a nice hot tub I realized how depressed I really was, so I started praying. After a while I got out and decided to turn on some worship music and read God's word. As I prayed and worshiped my stomach pains all of a sudden stopped, wow!

God then gave me a vision of a church and people worshiping, I felt that this was his leading so I hopped on my bike and started riding. Well I didn't know where I was going so I decided to head over to my friend Darcy's house, I though he might have a piece of the puzzle. Well I got to his house and nobody was home, hmmm, I wonder if I heard right. So I decided to bike downtown. Well there is a lot of construction around his house right now and all the detours lead me towards the river, but even those paths were blocked as well. Disappointed, I decided to ride home starting to regret riding all the way over hear for nothing.

As I pondered what direction I was going to take home I heard music, and as I looked a little closer that was a stage setup by the skateboard park. Turns out that a church was doing an outreach down there and giving a little concert. So I went over and listened for a while and met some great people. I love it when He shows himself like that when we take those first steps of obedience.

Peace out

Amazing!