Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download “What grieves God most is not our sin but our refusing to believe that he is so kind, and that he desires to be with us so much more than we do with him.” – Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ How often do you have the opportunity to connect with a man who has invested five decades listening to the hearts and stories of over 5000 children and their families? If this generation has a few fathers among us, Gary Unruh is one of them. From serving ...
Dec 07, 2020•1 hr 13 min
Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God. God never meant man to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why he uses material things like bread and wine to put the new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: he invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it. – C. S. Lewis What if our bodies are guides for the path to become the kind of human in whom the image of God is being restored? What if t...
Nov 24, 2020•1 hr 15 min
Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download Shall I abandon, O King of mysteries, the soft comforts of home? Shall I turn my back on my native land, and turn my face towards the sea? Shall I leave the prints of my knees on the sandy beach, a record of my final prayer in my native land? Shall I then suffer every kind of wound that the sea can inflict? Shall I take my tiny boat across the wide sparkling ocean? O King of the Glorious Heaven, shall I go of my own choice upon the sea? O Chris...
Nov 11, 2020•43 min
Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download “The intention of God is that we should each become the kind of person whom he can set free in his universe, empowered to do what we want to do. Just as we desire and intend this, so far as possible, for our children and others we love, so God desires and intends it for his children. But the character, the inner directedness of the self, must develop to the point where that is possible.” –Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Recovering Our Hi...
Nov 03, 2020•1 hr 4 min
Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download God, grant me character greater than my gifts and humility greater than my influence. –Scott Sauls “God, if this is not your will, may it be rendered fruitless.” Who prays that kind of prayer? Very few indeed. Yet Zach Thomas does, and he has prayed this prayer again and again and again. A husband, father of seven children, author of Leader Farming, and Kingdom entrepreneur through and through, Zach is a man who has consented to the path and pr...
Oct 23, 2020•52 min
Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download "We must empty ourselves of that with which we are full so that we might fill ourselves with that of which we are empty." –St. Augustine of Hippo, 425 A.D. How do we become the kind of men who have nothing to fear, nothing to hide, and nothing to prove? Our Father is making available the way to becoming this kind of man every moment of every day. All that is needed to access it is the simple and powerful act of consent, consenting in this day a...
Oct 16, 2020•1 hr 4 min
Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download Friends, As we anticipate the next Become Good Soil Intensive event—we are now accepting applications—I want to feature stories of what our Father is accomplishing through this message: stories of heroic men recovering heart, strength, joy and intimacy; stories of heroic women championing those men; and stories of women benefiting from men who have risked getting curious about the landscape of their souls and consenting to the process of becomi...
Sep 14, 2020•1 hr 2 min
Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download “There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.” –Victor Hugo, Les Misérables You find yourself in a world gone mad. and You have a soul—or, more accurately, you are a soul—made by God, made for God, and made to need God. You've noticed by now that these two things, the world system and your soul, are constantly at war. But if the aim of the Gospel is ...
Aug 18, 2020•1 hr 1 min
Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download Authenticity is a collection of choices we have to make every day. It’s about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen. –Brené Brown Courage begets courage. That was my experience of Nancy Carmichael when she invited me to share a conversation on her podcast, Isle of Misfits. Her podcast predominantly serves a tribe of women; and truth be told, of the over 40 podcasts, interv...
Jul 27, 2020•1 hr 3 min
Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download It is profound how different our experiences can be inside our own skin. When it comes to sensations in the body, we are not on a level playing field. To love and be loved, to know and be known, it’s so important that we practice story-informed relating with ourselves and each other. Jesus is the most brilliant story-informed and trauma-sensitive teacher and friend who has ever lived. – Cherie Snyder Many of us—or those whom we love—ha...
Jun 30, 2020•52 min
Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download Many people die with their music still in them. Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out. –Oliver Wendell Holmes I'm noticing questions along a particular theme surfacing more and more frequently these days. How do I find a mentor? What do I do with my disappointment in older men? How do I offer guidance, counsel, or simply "more" to younger men in my world? Friends, these are ce...
Jun 02, 2020•52 min
Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download “Make margin in your life, or life will make margin for you.” –Chuck, from a federal prison cell No one stops to think. These five words, spoken over two thousand years ago,1 have the potential to change your life more than any others. These five words are the headwaters from which a single idea is found, an idea that might be the universal narrow gate through which all like-hearted apprentices of the Kingdom of God must travel if we a...
May 20, 2020•55 min
Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download The great problem of the earth and the great aim of the masculine journey boil down to this: when can you trust a man with power? – John Eldredge What’s the most important thing? Over two decades ago I set out on a relentless quest to find the answer. What I found was not what I expected, and where I found it was in the most unanticipated places. With it came a restored strength and an unshakable hope. The most important thing turned o...
May 07, 2020•38 min
Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download No life of faith can be lived privately. There must be overflow into the lives of others. –Eugene Peterson Seventy-two years ago, a novel threat emerged on the earth, inciting a proportionate pandemic of fear around the globe. In that hour, it was the advent of the atomic bomb, a weapon whose potential for immediate and global destruction was unprecedented. The pressing and consequential question of that age was “How should we now live...
Apr 29, 2020•41 min
Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download The owner of the company maintained his poker face; it was not simply for the card game. This was the face he now donned for every public moment in these dark days. He was in trouble, and under no circumstances would he let it show. The investments he had made in the good times were now worthless. Ever since the waves of panic and the dread of complete collapse had gripped the region, commerce had careened to a violent stop; his tenant...
Apr 18, 2020•43 min
Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download Friends, it was Oswald Chambers who said, "We tend to use prayer as a last resort, but God wants it to be our first line of defense. We pray when there's nothing else we can do, but God wants us to pray before we do anything at all." This morning I was deeply moved in my own personal prayer time to contend for God's particular and wide-reaching provision in a world that, in this hour, has given itself over in significant ways to fear a...
Mar 14, 2020•24 min
Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download Standing up and owning our reverberating pulses of passion rarely comes down to a singular event or momentary intersection with destiny. There is a daily-ness to our noble and sensible resignations. We dutifully go about our lives for years, decades even, and suddenly we look up to find ourselves with parts or whole swatches of our lives unlived. –Aaron McHugh What if the current challenges you're facing could lead to an inner transfor...
Dec 17, 2019•1 hr 24 min
Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download Much of our effort to do things for the Lord is really the resurgence of our desire to dominate and make things happen in our own strength. – Dallas Willard, Life Without Lack We celebrated the 50th Become Good Soil podcast by asking you like-hearted listeners around the globe to send in the questions coming up as you travel the narrow road. The response was far more than we anticipated, and so deeply encouraging. And included far too ...
Oct 16, 2019•50 min
Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible. – St. Francis of Assisi It has been an incredible privilege to invite you into an intimate mentoring encounter with Chuck Bolton in this three-part Become Good Soil series. Among the many treasures in this final conversation, Chuck offered this gold: "I want to be authentic with everyone, transparent with fewer, and intimate even fewer....
Jul 25, 2019•50 min
Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download Prison was so holy, because there was such a dependence on God. I had the gift of desperation. I couldn't fix anything. I couldn't do it. I had to lean into the Father. -Chuck Bolton One of the lenses I often use when I'm looking to recover the way back to the narrow road is to search for couples who have courageously cultivated friendship in their marriage. I know couples who choose to love and stay together and do hard things togethe...
Jul 03, 2019•49 min
Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download I've spent 15 months in federal prison, but I can say the loneliest, darkest prison I've ever been in was my addiction. It was because I was alone and because I was living in secrets. -Chuck Bolton Heart strong and soul safe. That’s what I think of when I think of Chuck Bolton. I had the privilege of sharing over four hours in the studio with this mentor, friend, and hero. He’s been close to hell and back more times than you’d want to ...
May 30, 2019•54 min
Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download The questions came pouring in. From near and far. They have been rich and meaningful. What I thought would be one podcast celebrating the 50th episode of Become Good Soil is sure to turn into an extended volume of conversations over time. For this first volume and to celebrate you—the tribe of like-hearted around the globe—we are diving into these questions: Taking the lowest seat at the table: When is it time to take a higher seat and...
Mar 15, 2019•1 hr 1 min
“Love and relationship are the bottom line of the Kingdom of God. And they must be ours if we are to establish a Kingdom culture in our homes.” -Danny Silk, Loving Our Kids on Purpose: Making a Heart-to-Heart Connection Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download It was 21 years ago, but I remember the interaction like it was yesterday. I was in the home of a mentor, and he and I were talking in the kitchen while two of his boys played in the adjoining room. A few minutes into o...
Feb 19, 2019•1 hr 4 min
Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download Though it is rare, there are people who have built a strong inner character, who have achieved a certain depth. In these people, at the end of this struggle, the climb to success has surrendered to the struggle to deepen the soul. – David Brooks In The Road to Character,David Brooks explains the crooked timber tradition, an ancient way of understanding human nature. The crooked timber tradition holds two facets of the human person in s...
Jan 22, 2019•1 hr 29 min
Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download It is not what a man does that is of final importance, but what he is in what he does. The atmosphere produced by a man, much more than his activities, has the lasting influence. –Oswald Chambers In the mid-20th century, The Times in London ran an essay contest, inviting highly respected thinkers and leaders to respond to the question, “What’s wrong with the world?” Chesterton offered this as his full response: Dear Sirs, I am. Sincere...
Oct 10, 2018•53 min
Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download For a human character to reveal truly exceptional qualities, one must have the good fortune to be able to observe its performance over many years. If this performance is devoid of all egoism, if its guiding motive is unparalleled generosity, if it is absolutely certain there is no thought of recompense and that, in addition, it has left its visible mark upon the earth, then there can be no mistake. – Jean Giono, The Man Who Planted Tre...
Oct 02, 2018•51 min
Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download The world has yet to see what God will do with and for and through and in and by the man who is fully consecrated to him. – Henry Varley What astonishes the heart of God? Join me for this sixth episode of an eight-part series where we are going behind the scenes into the most recent Become Good Soil Intensive. If you're joining us for the first time in this series, I would encourage you to begin with episode one . For the Kingdom, Morg...
Sep 25, 2018•36 min
Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download How are you arranging your days? Dallas suggest that there is a possibility and a promise that, in time and over time, we can indeed arrange our days so that we are "experiencing deep contentment, joy, and confidence in our everyday life with God." Friends, it is available. By day and by decade. Join me as we once again dive behind the scenes for a portion of another session from the most recent Become Good Soil Intensive. In this epis...
Sep 18, 2018•42 min
Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download In Renovation of the Heart, Dallas says, "Our soul is like a stream of water, which gives strength, direction and harmony to every other area of our life. When the stream is as it should be, we are constantly refreshed and exuberant in all we do, because our soul itself is then profusely rooted in the vastness of God and His Kingdom...and all else within us is enlivened and directed by that stream. There we are harmony with God, realit...
Sep 11, 2018•1 hr 1 min
Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download I break the limits I have made with who God can be, what God can do, and how God can do it in my life. It's perhaps the second most dangerous and daring prayer we could ever pray. And it is one that can lead us into treasures beyond telling. Listen to this session from the most recent Become Good Soil Intensive about receiving God as Mother. Then, if you'd like to explore this teaching more deeply, check out a video of a teaching I rec...
Sep 04, 2018•27 min
