Month 5—Cusco, Peru. “Manistry”
8 men from 3 different teams, living together for one month, with our only male squad leader.
With the comparative shortage of men who go on trips like the world race, this is a month we seriously look forward to after living in co-ed teams for 4 months. For my team, though, this month looks especially unique.
We’re trying something experimental this month. We’re pressing deep into fellowship and brotherhood, and asking what it would look like to have faith in the way the earliest Christians did. Acts 2 paints a beautiful picture of what life in Christ is like. Community living together, pursuing the Lord together. Breaking bread each day. Devotion to one another and to the teaching of the apostles. Sharing all that is owned, and depending upon one another deeply.
The way these Christians pursued the Lord looked so different than it does for us today, in western 21st century churches. Their understanding of the gospel was so much simpler. It’s crazy to think about the fact that these men and women didn’t have Bibles—Scripture wasn’t canonized for 3-4 centuries after the church began. Yet in this time, the church was incredibly vibrant. So what would it look like to seek the Father with only the tools the early church had? They would have had some knowledge of the Old Testament from hearing it read aloud in the temple, the Holy Spirit, each other, and, if they were lucky, a letter from Paul or James or Peter.
That’s it.
For these men and women, pursuing God didn’t mean an hour of “quiet time” in the morning. It didn’t mean studying Scripture. Pursuing the Lord meant an all-encompassing transformation that takes place in community.
They didn’t “have devotions.” 24/7, around the clock, they were devoted.
So for this “Manistry” month, we’re attempting to step into the shoes of the early church. We have two handwritten copies of a letter from Paul to the Galatian churches—written like a letter, with no chapters or verses or headings. Apart from that, we’re putting our Bibles away for the month. We’re putting away the checklists of all the ways we work to make ourselves feel better about ourselves, and learning to receive grace from the heart. And we’re challenging each other, making community our focus and learning that the simple gospel requires dependence upon one another.
We’re learning brotherhood, fellowship—refusing to play the games with each other that our culture so often demands of men. That means learning to be vulnerable and emotional with one another. That means we’re pressing into the hard things like shame and not allowing one another to hide behind our false selves any longer.
So, friends, I invite you to pray with me. My hope for this month is freedom—freedom from Law, as Paul talks about in the letter, and freedom from the lies about masculinity that we’re fed as men who grew up in the US. I don’t know exactly what the journey will look like, but I’m willing to receive whatever the Lord brings. Please be praying with me for each of us men to experience true transformation in this month, and for the fullness of the Spirit to overflow to all those around us.
~Joel
