John Eldredge - Wild at Heart: A Band of Brothers Small Group Participants Guide: A Personal Guide to Discover the Secret of Your Masculine Soul

WILD at
HEART
A BAND OF BROTHERS

PARTICIPANTS
GUIDE

JOHN ELDREDGE

2009 by John Eldredge

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Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

The publisher is grateful to Craig McConnell for his writing skills and collaboration in developing the content for this book.

Published in association with Yates & Yates, LLP, Attorneys and Counselors, Orange, California.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked MSG are from The Message by Eugene H. Peterson. 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-4185-4300-6

Printed in the United States of America
09 10 11 12 13 RRD 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS

I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.

John 10:10 MSG

My gender seems to need little encouragement. It comes naturally, like our innate love of maps. In 1260 Marco Polo headed off to find China, and in 1967, when I was seven, I tried to dig a hole straight through from our backyard with my friend Danny Wilson. We gave up at about eight feet, but it made a great fort. Hannibal crossed his famous Alps, and there comes a day in a boys life when he first crosses the street and enters the company of the great explorers. Scott and Amundsen raced for the South Pole, Peary and Cook vied for the North, and when last summer I gave my boys some loose change and permission to ride their bikes down to the store to buy a soda, youd have thought Id given them a charter to go find the equator. Magellan sailed due west, around the tip of South Americadespite warnings that he and his crew would drop off the end of the earthand Huck Finn headed off down the Mississippi, ignoring similar threats. John Wesley Powell followed the Colorado into the Grand Canyon, even though no, becauseno one had done it before and everyone was saying it couldnt be done...

Whatever else those explorers were after, they were also searching for themselves. Deep in a mans heart are some fundamental questions that simply cannot be answered at the kitchen table. Who am I? What am I made of? What am I destined for? It is fear that keeps a man at home where things are neat and orderly and under his control. But the answers to his deepest questions are not to be found on television or in the refrigerator. Out there on the burning desert sands, lost in a trackless waste, Moses received his lifes mission and purpose. He was called out, called up into something much bigger than he ever imagined, much more serious than CEO or prince of Egypt. Under foreign stars, in the dead of night, Jacob received a new name, his real name. No longer was he a shrewd business negotiator, but now he was one who wrestles with God. The wilderness trial of Christ was, at its core, a test of his identity. If you are who you think you are... If a man is ever to find out who he is and what hes here for, he has got to take that journey for himself.

He has got to get his heart back.

A life few men know and every man yearns for is available! Its a life in which your masculine heart is central, a life so rich and free, so dangerous and yet so exhilarating in its impact, that if you knew now what you could have, you would sell everything to find it. But you know all of this from the echoes in your heart, the hints in your deepest desires, the Voice that has been calling you for a long time, and thats why youre holding this Participants Guide and viewing this DVD series.

HOW THIS STUDY WORKS

Through this eight-session DVD series, Wild at Heart, youll en-counter God in a life-changing way. The design of the Participants Guide is to facilitate conversation between a small group of men and to provide some direction and questions for going deeper on each topic as an individual between your meeting times.

Before you start, consider the following:

Start by surrendering yourself to God and his purposes for you in this journey. Yield your mind, volition, heart, spirit, soul, and masculinity to God, and simply invite him to do whatever hed like.

Commit yourself to the pace God would have you go through the material. Determine to be responsive to his prodding maybe take a little more time on a particular section or question, or take a walk or break and allow him to speak to you in a more natural context. A simple way of putting all this is, walk with God.

It would be cruel to your heart to skip the times of reading, reflection, and prayer that will make the dreams that motivated you to participate in this study a reality. Dont fall into a just get through the material stride that ends up limiting God and profiting your heart little.

This series is presented in eight DVD sessions, each about 35 minutes in length. Each session corresponds with topics and material found in the book Wild at Heart. The series is designed to be used one session at a time, with small groups of men meeting together for an hour and a half each week to view the DVD and discuss the topic. (By the end of the eight weeks most groups will want to continue with other resources we have available.)

Each week you should gather at a set time to watch the DVD session together (35 minutes). Read through the Key Thoughts (5 minutes) and discuss the group questions, which focus on the DVD material (50 minutes). End your time with prayer. (The Going Deeper section is designed for personal reflection.)

Each member of the group should commit to coming to the weekly gatherings prepared for discussionhave an open spirit, a vulnerable heart, and a thoughtful mind. To foster a spirit of intimacy in your group, limit your group size to no more than eight people.

So, welcome to the journey. Its going to require honesty and a willingness to look at your life from a new perspective. But as you invite God in, youll find the adventure exciting, the battle challenging, and the beauty of Christ breathtaking. Each week, before you start your study, spend some time in prayer with him, listening to his voice guide you along the way.

PRAYER

Christ, I come thirsty and hungry for more of you. I yield myself completely and totally to you. I give you my expectations for this study. I surrender my heart, mind, spirit, and soul to you, inviting you to touch, deliver, speak, heal, counsel, teach, and train me in whatever areas and ways you choose.

Protect me from the ploys of the evil one. I stand in your authority against all distraction, impatience, diminishment, self-contempt, against every lie, deception, and temptation to turn to any other god for comfort. Fill me with your life that I might more fully live in your Larger Story and with you rescue the hearts and souls of many. Amen.