When Death Knocks On Your Door

I have been part of a men's spiritual development group for almost four years now. I would consider what we do to be groundbreaking in nature because we have been able to really create a "real" environment for becoming what God has designed us to be. The group is called Band of Brothers and has generated a tremendously interesting gossip (good and bad) because we remained exclusive for so long and really good things happened within the group.

When we started we knew something good was happening. Men were able to really share their hearts, learn to make commitments, dive into what it means to love and make commitments. So much of what we did felt like pioneering in a way. We were sort of discovering our hearts and souls. We all knew it was something special.

But something happened at about the three year period. The group got restless in a way that created a change in the way men approached the group. When it first happened I got mad to be honest. I felt like the men in the group didn't care. I tried to fix things using my position of leadership with the group, but it didn't work. Something was definitely wrong. It wasn't that the guys didn't care. They just stopped coming as much. And for an intentional group based upon a covenant, when a guy doesn't show up it is a big deal. But for a lot of men the reason for not being there became trivial. And no one seemed to really care anymore.

At the beginning of the journey we knew we had good food for men interested in the journey to the heart. We often talked about how long we would stay a closed group and when the journey would end in it present form. During the first year, I mentioned the idea of three years to guys, and for some this seemed unreasonably long. We needed to split and grow. I held onto the three years because this was Jesus' model. Why three years? I don't know. It just was.

Well it just so happens that at the three year mark, guys started getting restless. Funny how that works. We tried to find a way to make it work but something was consistently wrong. In the first three years, guys missing the group was the exception. After that, it was the norm. We tried to solve the problem by bringing in new guys, but after review, I think we cheated the new guys of the real experience of their own group. And it didn't solve the problem.

So last night we finally did it. We had THE conversation. We talked about the group ending in its current form and guys stepping into leadership roles for new groups. The idea did scare some of the guys, but I think everyone agreed that real maturity, real growth in the journey meant stepping into the next phase of the journey.

And for my sake, I was glad that it was broached by someone other than me. I had been feeling it for at least four months about dropping out. I struggled with this because I didn't want to leave what we were doing, but I didn't want how we were doing it anymore. I was no longer in leadership and it would be easy to leave. But just dropping out would hurt. It just didn't seem right. I wanted to leave well. Now we were talking about ending the group. It seemed so much like a divine conversation.

And in some ways, this conversation was our's to have. We had pioneered the group and it was up to us to figure out if there was an end to the process. Actually the end ended up being a way station because if we close the group, up to five new groups could start.

I thought a lot about what the disciples must have felt like the day Jesus died. "What do you mean it is over? You can't die. It is not supposed to be like this." But if he didn't die, I wonder if they would have ever taken the next step into maturity and their own growth.

It is funny when you really look at death. To a great extent it is so much a natural part of the order of the world. Death does come in the form of winter, and life is renewed out of death in the spring. It is inevitable that the group must die. But the reality is that I want to hold onto what was. It became clear last night that if I do I will be missing out on what can be. That's scary to a certain extent. I want what I know, but if I really want the real me I have to let that go.

I love my brothers and have loved the journey as hard as it has been. But now it is time to move on. What the path looks like, I don't know. But I'm ready to find out.

Here we go.