Wild at Heart is insightful in noting that men live unfulfilled lives, searching to satisfy a vaguely unsettling malaise. Our interest in the Wild at Heart phenomenon was triggered by the attention the book was receiving in dorms on the campus where we teach, as well as in local churches. It has also been the focus of men’s Bible studies both at churches and on college campuses across America. And your community is not alone: the book has sold over a million copies and spawned a cottage industry of retreats, conferences, and spin-off products. (Nov.Have rifle sales started to soar at the local Wal-Mart? Are friends discussing white water rafting and rock climbing for the first time? Are church council disagreements now settled with fisticuffs instead of votes? If you answered yes to one or more of the previous questions, chances are that the men in your community have just finished reading John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul (Thomas Nelson, 2001). He views the transition from one stage to another as a time when "something in us needs to be dismantled and something needs to be healed," a form of damage control that allows men to advance along Eldredge's "map." Eldredge insists that the church has not served its male population well and calls for greater insight into the masculine journey. Eldredge describes typical behaviors that occur in each stage, and illustrates them with examples primarily from the Bible but also from secular biographies, popular films and legends. He begins with the observation that "God is a God of process," then identifies six stages through which men pass in their life journeys: boyhood, cowboy, warrior, lover, king and sage. How can the church empower its men to find that path of spiritual growth that will enable them to grow up into the image of God? Eldredge, founder and director of Ransomed Heart Ministries in Colorado Springs, Colo., attempts to answer this question in this helpful guide, a praxis-oriented follow-up volume to Wild at Heart 's monthly religion bestseller lists, Christian men have lost their way. According to Eldredge, whose book Wild at Heart
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |