Why the Men's Advance?

HUGE Men of God and Warm Beach are once again partnering to hold the Men's Advance, the weekend of March 2-4, 2018. We asked two AC3'ers, "Why should men go to the Men's Advance?" Hopefully, their answers will convince the men reading to go and to invite their friends to go. Ladies, there is a Women's Retreat coming up later in the year, so do not fret! We'll have a blog post for that as it gets closer. Onto the men!

First up, Michael O'Haegher:

I've been going to the Men's Advance since it was still just called the "Men's Retreat". I hear it said often that people tend to tire of the same thing over and over again, but I have yet to tire of the Men's Advance. Every year that I go, I am changed for the better. Some years are more dramatic than others, but I always come away with something valuable. The HUGE board works hard all year, and the quality and caliber of the Men's Advance always blows me away. What can be accomplished when men of God gather together and put their skills into the game is a thing of beauty. When you attend, you not only hear fantastic messages from world-class speakers, and excellent worship; but you also get fabulous meals, fellowship with other men, and most importantly, a chance to put your life on pause and hear from God.

I'm especially excited about this year's event. Not only is the speaker my pastor, but he's also engaging in one of his favorite things: answering the tough questions about the faith that people have. Apologetics is like a hobby to Rick, and his interest shines through when discussing these topics. I'm also excited about the new technology we are using at this year's Advance. We have purchased software that allows attendees to text in their questions real time, and have them appear on the screens. Rick will answer these questions during the Advance. I know the interest will be high, as the questions will come directly from the audience!

I urge you to attend the Men's Advance this year. It will be a life-changing event. It is for me, every year.


Next up, we asked the speaker himself, Pastor Rick Thiessen:

No man should want to miss this year at the Men’s Advance because you’ll get to see a live human getting grilled. And you thought the ropes course was going to be exciting! Actually, we plan to make our main sessions interactive as our keynote speaker (Rick, me, whatever tense you want to use here) takes live question from you, the audience. Why would we do it like this? In past years at the Advance, HUGE held a seminar where men could ask any question they wanted, about God, the Bible, or Christianity. And we found that this approach scratched a real itch where men clearly needed a forum to ask thoughtful and difficult questions.

What kind of men and what kind of questions? Well...

• Men who sometimes feel like theirs are the taboo questions that can’t be asked in church, and have been told to “just have faith and believe”. 
• Men who are young in the faith and a knotty bible passage just doesn’t make sense. 
• Older disciples, feeling their faith tested by the challenges of skeptical friends. 
• Men who are struggling to try and integrate truth they’ve been taught with the truth claims of Scripture. 
• Men stumbling over Christian stances on moral issues. 
• Seeking men who have serious doubts about Jesus because some part of the Christian faith seems utterly unbelievable.
• YOU and YOUR questions.

So at the Advance, we’re going to talk openly about the Christian faith and its relationship to reasons and evidence. We’ll attempt to build a reasonable basis for the Christian faith from the ground up, which will build you up and challenge you to be a more confident, winsome witness to God’s grace in a dark world. Plus, as promised, part of the adventure will be opening the door wide to express your question or doubt or bible problem. So warm up the BBQ!

You can register online at Men's Advance 2018 Registration is required, and there are a variety of packages available.

Men's Forum Week 3: Strength

Strength week...

As I prayerfully looked at how to write this blog about week three of the 2014 H.U.G.E. Men's Forum, I felt led to look in to my past. I know for me, a recently saved follower of Jesus, the past is where I have to look to confess things to God, it's where I look for forgiveness and it's where I look to forgive others.

Looking in to and meditating on the past for me is far and away the best way to take biblical principles and truly think about how I would have applied them in different situations to help me move forward in relationship with Jesus.

Fear, strength's adversary

This act is how week three has hit me. Pastor Aaron Thompson of Marysville New Life Church was our teacher for the evening. Aaron is a man after my heart, I can tell you that. Any man who can properly apply sports analogies to biblical principles is no doubt going to have my attention. He talked about a football game that he played at Lake Stevens High School, about how he had a great game against his former school and was named MVP that night. Sounds great and all, I've had those games, it's a great feeling to be on fire during a big game.

What he talked about next was the punch that hit me though. After all of that, he couldn't even remember the 10 solo tackles he had that night, they didn't matter. He remembered one play, where he let fear get in his way for just an instant and the opportunity of that moment was gone forever. He let fear win on that play, that's why it stuck with him. I think we can all look back and find moments where we let fear get in the way of doing something that God intended us to do.

This night was about finding that strength.

Finding the strength to overcome these fears to listen to God's plan for our specific lives and to take action on them in my life is one of my biggest hurdles. That's where the time to look in to my past comes in. I looked at things that hold me back, the things that allow fear to win, wrote them down and asked myself what could have been possible if I'd handled this the way that Jesus would have.

I looked at close relationships, ones that I've felt jaded by, I think we all have at least a few of those. I looked at those relationships that effected who I am today and applied love, applied strength to do what I know now is/was right and it felt amazing.

You see, I'm a firm believer that you can make a choice each day when you wake up to be a better person than you were the day, month or year before. Jesus gives us that hope. That through Him, all things are possible. And if all things are possible, I can certainly gain the strength needed to follow Him in any situation. We have the blueprint, we have The Gospel at our fingertips to teach us how to solve any situation.

Leap without fear!! Jump straight in to whatever God has planned for you! Don't shy away from an opportunity and NEVER, NEVER be afraid to fail. God is in our weakness and in our failure, He will lift you back up if you seek Him, we must never forget that fact.

Today I will find the strength to follow Jesus wherever He leads. 

My small group after Aaron's awesome message was exactly what God had intended for me. You see, I stopped to say hi to a friend in the aisle on the way to small groups and ended up having a deep discussion with him and with Rick Thiessen. It was unreal, I don't want to disclose everything that came of that meeting, I just want to portray to you just a little of how it made me feel.

You see, the fear that has held me back from leaping on faith is deep. It's of this world and I didn't really know where it came from. The discussion in this group, the prayer in this group made this thing that has held me back fall directly in to my lap. I felt like Wiley Coyote getting hit by an anvil while chasing The Road Runner. It was so clear, I had to dig far, far in to my past and all throughout my life and apply Jesus' sweet forgiveness, I had to let go of something that was poisoning my thoughts of strength and decide to follow a new path.

Only time will tell how significant this moment really was, right now it feels like I just threw that anvil across a calm river like a good skipping rock and have been freed.

I'm pumped for the Men's Forum, week four is upon us. Loving God with all of our mind, this should be a crazy ride.....Join us at Word of Life Church in Marysville, 7 PM!!!

H.U.G.E. Men's Forum; Real Soul Food

Warm welcome...

With week one of the HUGE Men's forum still weighing on my heart and mind, even through the jubilation of being a lifelong sports fan and witnessing my first ever local professional sports championship, I arrived for week two, eager to learn and eager to grow.

All week I prepped my heart for this moment. I thought to myself that there had to be a reason that the sequence of the Men's Forum was set up the way it was and that I should work on opening my heart for what would come next. I have to say at this point that it worked. I thought all week about ways that my past has hardened my heart, from being the world's definition of a "man" and not listening to the more sensitive side of myself to being open to trying new things, new ways to better myself. I consciously made an effort to open my heart for what God had in store for me in this week.

Worship

When the worship band played their third song, Chris Tomlin's version of Amazing Grace, the room was filled with God's power and God's grace. I know sometimes you can be in the middle of a worship service at church and it feels like going through the motions. It feels like a few people in the room are engaged and being ushered in to God's presence and the rest are just kind of there. That was not the case at this special event. This song was incredible, the entire room was wrapped in God's loving grace. There were men in the aisles on their knees and the room was filled with awesome sound.

There couldn't have been a better start to the night where Ed McDowell, the Director at Warm Beach Camp gave us a peek in to his "essential self". The part of him and the part of us all that will out-live these bodies that they dwell in, he gave us a look in to his soul and what he does to fill it with love.

Real simple

Our latest series here at AC3, Real Simple, was the perfect lead in to this night that Ed spoke to us. Especially the part about finding quiet time with God in the middle of the crazy world that surrounds us and confronting the turmoil within it. Ed gave us an illustration on what the world around us was like. He asked that we all take out our smart phones, turn up the volume and play some music. Then the speakers in the church started playing music with us. This created a hectic feeling of far too much happening around us while he kept speaking and kept trying to keep our attention throughout that minute or so. It was hard to focus on him, there was too much happening.

This is real in our world. So real that it's scary. We get so busy, so wrapped up in our schedules that we forget that the God we seek is in the quiet, waiting for us to look for Him and to listen to Him. Ed talked about his "alter in the woods", a place that he hikes to that overlooks a lake that you can only walk to. He remembered a time where he knew that he needed answers in regards to some rough things happening in his life. He knelt at his alter in the woods, with nobody within distance other than the God that he was seeking and got fired up. He was seeking God's will in his life, seeking answers or maybe even searching for the right questions to ask when he went back to the world to greet these problems head on again. He was feeding his soul.

The soul, on display

 

Have you ever seen somebody so messed up, whether it be alcohol, drugs or depression that you could look in to their eyes and no longer think that they're even in there somewhere? I think most of us in this current world have, unfortunately. These are people with completely neglected souls. They've absolutely lost touch with it. If you're lucky enough to have been around or this person themselves were lucky enough to make it through that and come out the other side, to where you can once again see them with their soul intact, you know what I mean. It's apparent in this world that our soul needs nurturing and it needs God's presence within it.

Another analogy that was great from Ed was his mother. If you've ever witnessed someone passing on from their earthly body, you know what he was talking about. One second a person is there, even when they're very sick and on the verge of letting go, you can see their soul is within them still. Ed talked about their pastor doing a communion with his family as his mother was nearing the end of her life here on earth. That he distinctly remembers his mother being lost in God's love and that her soul did a "sprint to heaven" once communion was over. One minute she was there, the next minute there was just this body, the old body that she would never need again as God has given her a new one in heaven. Just laying there with nothing behind her blank eyes. He could see that her essential self was no longer dwelling in this lifeless body, her soul was with The Lord.

Real soul food

You see, we often forget that our soul is our "essential self" as Ed calls it, the part of us that will live on forever. We forget that we need to fill our soul with God's promises, fill it with God's word and genuinely seek God's will to help our essential selves be more willing to love on this planet and to be "fishers of men" as we are called to be. The more well balanced your soul is, the more that feeling that there aren't enough ours in a day or that you just don't have anything left to give to your family, church and community will disappear. Feeding your soul is an essential part of being a disciple and a follower of Christ.

Ed talked about the "gotta haves". The newer, bigger, faster and stronger version of everything that we seem to want these days. He talked about how all of these things fade away. It's true, they do. We see it every day. No car lasts forever. No TV, no stereo, no fancy phone or a hot tub will last forever. Jesus told us these things, long, long ago but somewhere in the middle of modern culture, we've lost sight of that as a whole. God's love is what is going to last forever. He will endure time, our soul is the part of us that will be there with Him throughout that time, so it's of the utmost importance that we feed our souls and stay in touch with them.


We must create time and space for this soul food. Ed referred many times to the 10 minutes that he gets in the car, on the way to school with his boys every day. They read a daily devotional and talk about it on the way to school. He makes sure that his son's days start with quiet time, with time with God so that maybe they'll have the strength in High School that day to say no to temptations and say yes to boldly living like Jesus did, even at a very young age.

He talked about taking what some of us call our "man caves" and turning them in to a place that can restore your soul, rejuvenate your essential self so that you're available when a call comes to help. Amazing, culturally relevant stuff like is taught at Allen Creek Community Church, my home.

H.U.G.E. Stuff

So, as with all of our learning experiences, we're not just here to listen. It's the life application that matters. This journey is called our "walk" with Jesus for a reason. Action is required. Applying these first two weeks to my life has made for an awesome two weeks, I must say.

I've realized that my heart was hardened, been shown the way to soften it by letting God directly in to the hurtful things in my past and now am using that open heart in the morning, in my quiet time to let God in to my day with prayer and meditation that is truly bringing clarity to the vision that God has for my life. I feel empowered and this is only week two. I can't wait to see what happens next week as we continue to build on this tangible, life altering experience.

So join us, every Tuesday throughout February at the Word of Life Church on 51st Street in Marysville. Here is a full length video of Ed talking to us men last week if you'd like to catch up.

2014 Men's Forum, H.U.G.E. Hearts!!

Men after God's heart

 

H.U.G.E. Men of God Men's Forum kicked off last night at Word of Life Church in Marysville. This is my first time attending, so I thought I'd share my experience and growth throughout the 5 week event and in to the 2014 Men's Advance.

AC3's own Pastor Dan Hazen delivered the first week's message, the message was profound. An epic beginning to start this 5 week event leading up to the 2014 Men's Advance.

The intent of the Men's Forum is to unify the men of all Christian churches in and around our community. To continue to create a church without walls, worship, fellowship, deep discussion and HUGE growth in the hearts of the men in our communities.

Open Heart?

 

As I do with all of my time with God's people, I intentionally went in to this night with what I thought was an open heart. I try to leave all notions of who I have been to this point in my life at the door and just take in what God has planned for me to learn.

As Dan passionately and intentionally delivered this message to this crowd of men, gathered on a Tuesday night in Marysville, magic was happening in our hearts. God's presence was apparent and what an open heart truly means was redefined for me, through God's eyes.

The Pregame

 

I won't dissect this message too much, it was too good for me to hit every point of it and somehow do it justice. I can however relay where and how it hit me. First things first here though, I must say, the worship band absolutely rocked, excellent couriers in to God's presence, that shouldn't be understated but the message hit me hard, so I guess it is.

For as long as I can remember, I've looked to world class athletes for traits that I strive to have. An amazing work ethic, a dream and a lofty goal realized, humility, courage, faith and especially those with an extreme will to succeed.

Russell Wilson is all of these things. His character, by all accounts is absolutely incredible. I bring this up because it was profound to me. That Dan, self proclaimed "nerd" and hardly a fan, let alone a big fan of football would start his message with tangible (and somehow accurate) evidence of how the characteristics of Wilson's heart are responsible for where he is today. Where he is today is on the verge of achieving his ultimate football goal as well as finding himself on the biggest stage possible to spread The Word of God in a community that desperately needs it, he does the latter quite gracefully I might add.

With Super Bowl Sunday coming in a few short days, I think Dan knew the way in to our hearts because that was just the beginning. The set up or the 3 yard run before the deep play action touchdown pass.

The message of and from the heart

 

If you know Dan, you know Dan's heart. If you don't know Dan, know that he wears his heart on his sleeve and reveals it to his community in every walk of his life, especially while delivering a message from The Word.

I won't dive in to the event in Dan's life that he centered this message to these men around, if you weren't there, I'll leave it up to you to ask him about that. Let me just tell you that he told an amazing story, a story of true courage in a young boy's heart and the profound effects of the lessons learned from it more than 30 years later in his life. How that courage gave him the ability later in life to love his father more and better than he had even thought possible.

The fierce passion in this man's eyes, his tone and his fists, shaking at the sky made it feel like he was talking directly to me, but I know I wasn't alone...I wasn't alone in knowing that men's hearts in our society aren't just broken, they're hardened by our culture. We're on a crash course, losing the courage and will it takes to truly love God, to truly love ourselves and in turn, love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

My will to seek God is the will that matters. We've all been broken by something at some point, our will to seek God is what gives us Christ followers redemption, it's how we find God's grace in the darkest of hours in our lives and how we find true joy in the best of times.

What I took from this message is that my will to seek God, the courage it takes to open my heart, mind and soul to God's word and His people is everything. My heart is hardened by my past, the only way to soften it is to keep it open for God's work, to have the courage to completely break societies mold of the modern man and continue to give my entire life to Jesus Christ so that our community can be the light on the hill for all to see.

H.U.G.E. stuff

 

After the message everyone headed to breakout rooms for discussion on what we love versus what we fear and different ways men have overcome fear with the courage to chose love in many situations. I'm certain that a man's life was changed in our group and I can't wait to follow up with him to make sure he stay's in God's presence where he was on Tuesday night.

These are the rooms where new relationships with like-minded men in all walks of life come from. A safe place to find real answers to real life problems through someone else who has conquered a similar situation, because I guarantee you, someone else has been there and overcome it, whatever it may be.

So, I hope and I pray that you'll join us. If week one was this good, I can only imagine where we'll go, I can already imagine the bonds that will be created in the hearts of men in our community over the next 6 weeks. The growth that this event is creating in our communities is astounding. So please come, open your heart, be courageous and do your part to make our community and your love for it stronger.

More information on the website HERE

We'll be at the Word of Life Church on 51st Ave in Marysville on Tuesdays all throughout February.

AC3 Men's Getaway - What Does Love Require of Me?

What Does Love Require of Me?

In years past, I would have thought that 18 men headed for a lodge up in the mountains would need to start with a common activity, fishing, hunting, skiing, snowmobiling, partying or maybe a mix of those in some form. The mere thought of this getaway, the fact that all of these men are here to just get to know each other better, to get to know God better and to just take a refreshing break from every day life was unfathomable for the first 30 years of my life. Maybe just weird, yeah, I definitely would have thought it was just weird.

I went anyways....

Maybe it is weird, maybe we are weird, with all of the things in today’s world that are genuinely strange and often harmful to humanity, I’m ok with this kind of weird. I’m now firm in the belief that it’s this kind of weird that today’s world lacks, desperately. The kind of weird that allows us to be different, to stand out in the crowd like the light on top of the hill that Jesus called us to be. Not the look at me, look what I’m doing and crying out for attention standing out but the kind of weird that allows time for men to grow in to the leaders that our generation is looking for, the kind of leaders God intended us to be.

 

18 of God's Men, AC3 Men's Getaway 2013

Selah....

The Selah lodge is owned by a friend of AC3, we are blessed that he opens the doors of this wonderful place to us for this men’s getaway. It’s meant to be a house where The Lord is present, Selah is used in the book of Psalms 71 times, it’s closest translation is “pause, and look at that”, or it’s referenced as a musical interlude/pause within a psalm. To me, it’s a sacred place to pause and be with God and to be with the men that God has put in my life.

Our opening prayer is to take in the name, Selah, to use this time as a pause, to take in God’s rejuvinating power and let it fuel us to lead our families better as well as our community. To me this hit as soon as I parked the truck, I don’t know about you but everyday life can at times beat me down, mentally and physically. Recharging my battery and my passion for discerning God’s will in my life are vital in my Christian walk, a large gasp of the fresh mountain air when I stepped out of the truck was all it took for me to find the peace within the weekend, before it really began.

A safe place...       

The theme of the weekend, was based on The Book of Matthew 22:37-40.

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

The question proposed by our elders/teachers in attendance for the weekend was “what does love require of me?” This struck me, the entire weekend hung on this question, in fact, when you read the words of Jesus, our entire walk as disciples of Christ hangs on this question.

Clay’s story....

Well you see, for me, I’ve had a problem in the past with letting society’s cliche’s get in the way of me actually knowing someone. Before the trip had even started, we were all gathering in the parking lot looking to take off and I see this rough, tough looking dude, tattoo on his neck with the look of a man who’d been to hell and back on this earth. I remember thinking, “oh great, I have to spend the whole weekend with this guy”. That thought was real, it is how my mind has operated for many years, possibly my entire life. Clearly I’ve been distancing myself from some meaningful relationships due to preconceived notions that somehow I was better than this person, or in some cases, this person was better than me.

As is God’s way of teaching, Clay rode in my car on the way over and I was instantly drawn to him. Clearly God was at work in his heart and clearly he was here with us to make himself a better servant of God. As our teaching session was coming to a close the next morning, Clay told us his life story leading up to that day. I must say, some tears were shed by all. For a man to overcome as much violence and addiction as Clay had, to find redeeming power in the grace of God is absolutely nothing short of a miracle. A man that had been through more than 15 years of what would have and has killed most people whose path had crossed drugs, anger, violence and prison to be here today in the presence of God at Selah lodge, clearly God has more plans for this man. I pray that he never loses sight of the fact that God has placed him exactly where he is today to make an impact on this world, and to be a light within it.

How it hit me...

When the group separated for some free time after Clay poured his heart out to us, I wanted to grab my computer and find a quiet place to write. My instant thoughts went to the question, “what does love require of me?” and how does this pertain to Clay?

I had barely written two sentences when the door popped open and in walked Clay. He sat down on the floor below the bunk bed that I was on the top of and grabbed his iPad, seemingly to settle in for a bit like I was. We talked for more than 2 hours, I won’t divulge in to what the conversation was all about, but I will tell you that I love that man as Jesus does and as I’m called to by our Lord and Savior. The notion that there was a time in my life that I would have never known a story like Clay’s, that I would have never been around to be a friend, a brother in Christ if he needed me and had thoughts of sinking in to his old life genuinely frightens me to my core. I’m so thankful that I decided to be in that place, with those men that weekend with an open heart, God poured in his love and I’ll never judge a book by it’s cover again.

My advice...

As with most thing’s God sees as good, you have to leave the easy road behind. Think outside the box, get weird and get involved with people who will make you a better servant of God. Take a chance and go on a retreat, getaway or just call somebody and find a group that will help you grow, it’s the lone sheep that get’s slaughtered by the enemy.