Dudes! Clearly, I have stepped back from Skool in the quest to press into my first year of seminary. Who would've thought going back to school, running a business, and being an involved husband and father could be so time consuming! 😝 Things are going well over here, though, and I wanted to reach out to you guys and see if I can serve you in any way. Comment with prayer requests, questions, updates, or anything else you can think of because I want to hear from you, sincerely. I hope all is well and I hope to see your message pop up shortly! Ryan

Let's see them, fellas! We need to come together and pray for each other. No man is an island, and we are here to support each other in life's struggles, triumphs, challenges, etc. This community has been quiet, and that it on me by not pushing to get our guys back in here. I challenge you to step in and help me grow this space as a refuge and support for guys looking to become better in all aspects of life. My prayer request: I have an opportunity to lead a small home church. That would require stepping away from our large church in town and following the template that Jesus set in the Gospels: start with a small group, raise up leaders, and multiply. There would be no income from this, so it's a tough decision. I would have to really ramp up coaching and drop the notion of seeking a paid opportunity within the church that I have applied for. My family is blessed with finances that, if we stewarded well, we could live off of, but it would be a heavy adjustment. Your prayers would be greatly appreciated. Now comment your requests below and let's get after it!

I have a friend, who is also a mentor and a truly gifted pastor (not to mention a master of productivity...literally writing a book on it), and he carries with him a laminated note card, everywhere he goes. At first glance, it's such an old man thing to do (and he's only 40). I mean, in his journal he carries with him, inside the front cover is a pocket, like the ones from the library that hold the checkout card. Yeah, glued there by his own doing. And inside of that pocket is one of the greatest reminders of identity one could carry, written on that note card I mentioned. I want to share what's on it. Check this out: Who God says I am is the most important thing about me. I need to be reminded of these realities each day. 1. I am a creature in the image of God—fully dependent on him and fully accountable to him. 2. I am united to Christ by the miraculous work of God. I am spiritually, vitally, and permanently bonded to Christ—renewed in and represented by Him. 3. I am a new creation given a new heart, new spirit, and new identity. I am purchased by God, delivered from darkness, oriented to light, empowered to resist temptation, and welcomed at the cross when I fail. 4. I am a son—an adopted child of the King and heir to an everlasting inheritance. I relate to God with a posture of expectant hope as a beloved son to an indulgent father. 5. I am a sinner called to wage war against the rebellion still indwelling me. I seek to grow in holiness and grow into my new identity, drawing from wells of grace and mercy that are bottomless because I am in Christ. 6. I am a saint categorically, declared holy by God. I am being reconfigured from the inside out, conformed to the image of Christ, made into my truest self, and called to cooperate in that process. 7. I am shaped by the living God to be a certain sort of person—my life, thought, and habits of mind and heart are caught up in a process of being slain and made alive by the gospel. 8. I am royalty, unfathomably, ingrafted into Christ’s royal line, sharing the King’s table and rule, and summoned to act with honor, valor, and nobility befitting the upward call of God in Christ.

*The blogs will live in the Classroom, so you can access them whenever you'd like. I will still post them to the main page, as well. This seems like an odd way to begin, but I was eating lunch earlier and I had a thought emerge, “I forgot to pray.” And honestly, in the recent past, I hadn’t really prayed before eating by myself. I would always pray before family meals, and eventually meals with just my wife and I, and there have been a few occasions where I would pray before. And to pause here, you may be a more mature Christian and say, “You should be praying before every meal, regardless of if you are alone or not.” I agree, but understand I didn’t think of it, but now I do. It sparks the interest to investigate further and see what has changed. It is also not lost on me from a higher viewpoint, this is sanctification. The cool thing, though, is that this is sanctification before my own eyes, and that is neat. I’ll get to the investigating in about two minutes, but I want to go back to lunch (because it was delicious). I am there, eating my heated up, pre-prepped (by another person, thank you Clean Eatz) grass-fed burger with red potatoes and a fantastic dipping sauce, and the Holy Spirit clearly reminds me to pray. Less of my thought popping up in my head, and more of a wind of illumination cross my mind by osmosis. And my immediate reaction was to say, “Oh! Yes Lord, forgive me.” And what’s weird, dude, is as I’m writing that it sounds rather pious. I mean, I say “dude” a lot, and am very much a person of the modern times (not in the ways of the world, per se, but cultural), so speaking to my Lord so saintly would seem out of character, maybe, but it was what my heart blurted out. And here is where the gratitude enters. As I prayed, I remembered something my seminary table mate said last night. In discussing the ways we deny our limitations, as limited creatures, of course, he mentioned that the Lord gives us daily bread and we don’t bat an eye to truly thank him. Because of the accessibility of food, it just seems like getting whatever we want to eat is just what we do. We don’t stop to think about how it got to us. Outside of the Lord’s Prayer, and blessing our food, I don’t believe we often sit there and think deeply that this food showed up to nourish us, like a momma bird flying in and feeding its baby, seemingly out of nowhere. We didn’t cultivate the land, plant the seeds, nurture the plant, and pick the food. We exchange money for it, and here it comes.

We need to you know you, dude! You're one of the pioneers of this group. Share your name, age, what you do for a living, how many kiddos you have (if any), and what you're looking for out of this community. BONUS: Share a picture of you killing it at life - whatever that looks like to you.