This weekend we took about thirty Gateway guys on our first-ever Men’s retreat at the Sunstream Retreat Center overlooking the beautiful Des Moines River Valley. Together we rode the zip-lines, talked around the campfire and built lasting relationships with some truly remarkable guys. It was incredible.
Our guest speaker was Nate Larkin, author of Samson and the Pirate Monks. Nate is a wonderful storyteller with a timely message. Nate was driven to isolation by a humiliating addiction. For years, he employed all the typical weapons against his besetting sin – personal devotions, Bible study and memorization, inspirational books, and prayers for deliverance – but nothing worked for long.
You can watch Nate's story below.
Nate said, “What I wanted was a private solution to my private problems. I was willing to trust Christ, but not the Body of Christ. I didn’t really believe that God’s Spirit inhabits all believers, and I didn’t think He could use broken people to help me. I considered the church a loose association of individual God-followers, not a single organism whose members are so interdependent that they can only move together.”
For Nate, the turning point came when he found a safe place to be honest with other guys. Unfortunately he didn’t find that place in a Sunday worship service or Bible study. Nate said, “I had seen what happened to guys who had in some moment of temporary insanity taken our offer of grace seriously.” They were labeled, judged and ignored.
It wasn’t until he reached rock bottom that he found a 12-step recovery group meeting in the basement of the church after everyone else had gone home that he finally found a route to freedom. “I had spent a lifetime in church and I had never been in a room that safe. I had never heard Jesus like I heard him in the room that night.”
Today Nate shares his life with a group of men known as the Samson Society. “Only our authentic selves, fragile but forgiven, can truly experience a spiritual life marked by love, joy, peace and self-control” Nate says, “And Christ intends us to enjoy that life together.”
This was an important moment in the life of our church.
Our guys opened up. Began to share their hopes and fears.
Began to dream together about another way.
A way of freedom, healing and trust.
If you haven’t read Nate’s book... you need to.
If you don’t have a group of friends to share your life with... you need them.
Nate said that he failed as a solo disciple of Christ for one reason...
Jesus doesn’t have any solo disciples.
We need one another.
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