The following is a journal entry I did at the very beginning of Pirate Monks...

Last week we had an interest meeting where I shared a few martyr stories and gave them the daunting list of commitments to try and scare away anyone not interested in going to the extreme for Jesus.

Either I failed, or Jesus had a great victory! All but 2 (because of a prior conflict) came tonight to make a commitment. The other 2 have expressed their desire to commit, but will have to do so next week. The 10 men are:

Michael Van Huis
Roy Cervantes
Daniel Marolf
Andrew Saucedo
Jacob Coffman
Hart Mendenhall
Joshua Brandon
Kevin Sorber
Stewart McGreggor
Alex Cobb

In all honesty, I can hardly imagine any two of them becoming friends randomly outside of the fact that they are brothers in Christ and Pirate Monks. None of them could be any more different than any one of the others. I find that to be incredibly refreshing and a lot of fun!

Today was a non-stop busy day, so my plan for preparation for the night fell on the Spirits guidance and leadership. I literally showed up with all the guys waiting at my door, hung out for 10 minutes, and then transitioned with ...so... Not knowing what to say or do next. Foolish, I know... But thus is life. Then the Spirit stepped in and took over for me. We started by having everyone make a commitment statement, in the hot seat and in their own words (partly because I was unprepared for an official statement) but this turned out to be an awesome idea! Credit, Jesus.

Each man shared their heart and committed to the hard way of Jesus. After each individual shared their commitment we laid hands on them and I prayed a prayer of blessing over each of them. I then sat in the hot seat myself and committed to the same rules as they did, but also committed to being their Spiritual Coach and Guardian.

We then talked about our soul friendship. And I told them we would allow space for Jesus' leadership in how we choose our soul friends. We prayed for his guidance, I instructed them briefly on how to pay attention to Jesus' leadership here, and then we shared what we felt the Lord calling each of us to. We are calling these soul friendships, or churches of 2 or 3. These relationships will meet regularly for prayer, confession of sin, and confession of heart (SASHET) and respond with words of encouragement.

We then talked about what we wanted our defining scripture to be. This will be the scripture that we read 3 times a week with the intent to put it to memory. We will meditate on this at our gatherings. We will pursue a life that is modeled after that scripture. Several ideas where shared and voted upon. Once we narrowed it down to 2 choices, 1 John, or the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) we had a split vote. So on a whim I decided to cast lots for the scripture with the group. Which I had zero experience in by the way... They asked, how do we do that and I said, I don't know! So I went to the kitchen to see what I could scrummage up. I found roasted sunflower seeds and grabbed a handful (it turned out to be 12). We set a lanyard on the floor in a straight line and designated one side to 1 John and the other to Matthew 5-7. The one that had the most seeds on it was chosen. So the lots fell to Matthew 5-7. It was 5 seeds to 7. They had a blast with this! After this, we talked a bit more about what our gatherings might look like and then we left.

God was so good to us! Let the adventure begin!



The next blog entry will be a reflection on the last semester. I will then attempt to do something a little more regular.