Become Good Soil

“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” 

—Colossians 3:12-14

Friends, every meaningful journey invites us to pause before moving forward.

Over the past twelve episodes of the Become Good Soil Foundations Series, we have explored the foundations upon which we hope to build our lives—our common faith, life in God's Kingdom, apprenticeship to Jesus, whole-person formation, koinonia, a rule of life, and the values that continue to shape our becoming. These have never been ideas to master, but realities to inhabit.

In this final episode, we bring the series in for a landing.

Together, we reflect on the posture that allows these foundations to become a way of life: humility. Not humility as self-diminishment, but as a grounded way of being before God, ourselves, and one another. It is strength harnessed and vulnerability unfurled—the willingness to remain teachable as Christ continues to form us.

Our hope is that this conversation serves less as a conclusion than as a new beginning. As you listen, we invite you to pause, give thanks for the ground God has established beneath your feet, and receive His invitation into the next faithful step of your apprenticeship.

It's all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,
Morgan & Cherie

“The economy of the kingdom of God is quite simple. Every new step in the kingdom costs us everything we have gained to date. Every time we cross a new threshold, it costs us everything we now have. Every new step may cost us all the reputation and security we have accumulated up to that point. It costs us our life. A disciple is always ready to take the next step. If there is anything that characterizes Christian maturity, it is the willingness to become a beginner again for Jesus Christ. It is the willingness to put our hand in his hand and say, "I'm scared to death, but I'll go with you. You're the Pearl of great price."

—John Wimber

Friends, what if Christian maturity looks different than we imagine?

We often think maturity means arriving. Becoming more certain, or more capable. More established. More secure. Yet the way of Jesus seems to reveal something altogether different.

Again and again, the Kingdom invites us to become beginners.

Every new threshold asks us to release what we have accumulated in order to receive what God is offering next. Every invitation into deeper life requires fresh trust. Fresh surrender. Fresh dependence upon the Spirit of God.

Perhaps this is why humility has so often been misunderstood. Humility is not weakness, self-deprecation, or thinking less of ourselves. Rather, it is strength harnessed and vulnerability unfurled—the willingness to entrust ourselves again and again to the love and leadership of God.

In this next episode of the Become Good Soil Foundations Series, we pause to reflect on the journey we've shared together over the past several months. Review is one of the great gifts of apprenticeship. It allows us to notice where the Spirit has been at work, to celebrate the ground already gained, and to recognize the next frontier inviting our wholehearted consent.

We invite you to resist the temptation to measure progress by certainty or accomplishment. Instead, perhaps ask a simpler question:

Where is Jesus inviting me to become a beginner again?

For it is often there—in the place of open hands, surrendered strength, and courageous vulnerability—that the Kingdom becomes most available and the life of Christ most fully formed within us.

It's all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,
Morgan & Cherie

“A wholehearted life begins with values. They are the ‘why’ behind what we practice… while rules address behavior, values get to the heart of the matter.”

—Melissa Helser, Cageless Birds

Friends, what values are quietly shaping your life? And why does it matter?

Not simply the values you would claim or aspire to, but the values revealed by your attention, your habits, your relationships, your pace, your choices, and your responses to the circumstances of everyday life.

Realized or not, values are always at work. They influence what we pursue, what we avoid, what we celebrate, what we tolerate, and ultimately who we are becoming. They shape the culture of our homes, our friendships, our communities, and our apprenticeship to Jesus.

In this next episode of the Become Good Soil Foundations Series, we continue our exploration of the core values that have emerged over decades of personal and communal formation. These are not values we have mastered. Rather, they are values that continue to challenge us, expose us, encourage us, and call us deeper into the life of the Kingdom.

The invitation of the Gospel is not merely to adopt new ideas, but to become a certain kind of person. And that becoming takes place through the ordinary circumstances of our lives, the relationships we steward, the habits we cultivate, and the small acts of faithfulness we offer by day and by decade.

As you listen, we invite you to become curious. What values are forming you? Where might the Spirit be inviting you into deeper agreement with the life of Christ?

Enter in with us as we consider the unhurried, relational and satisfying work of participating with God in His Kingdom rooting deep within.

It's all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,
Morgan & Cherie

“Values are the goods we prize and pursue—the things we regard as genuinely worth having, becoming, and giving ourselves to.” —Dallas Willard

We must take the time to ask ourselves: How do the values we profess align with the values of God’s Kingdom?

Core values quietly shape our lives. They influence what captures our attention, how we spend our time, what we celebrate, what we resist, and who we are becoming. They form the culture of our homes, our communities, and our organizations long before they ever appear on a website or in a mission statement.

Values are aspirational. They do not simply describe who we are today; they help orient us toward who we long to become.

Some of our values are explicit. Many are not. Whether we recognize them or not, we are all being formed—every day—by the values our culture rewards, the stories we believe, and the practices we repeat. The invitation is not to shame ourselves for this reality, but to become more awake to it.

In this next episode of the Become Good Soil Foundations Series, we invite you into a conversation that has been unfolding in our own lives for more than two decades. Together, we’ll explore the core values that have gradually emerged as guides for the work of Become Good Soil—and, more importantly, for our own apprenticeship to Jesus.

Living our values is deeply personal. No two lives will embody them in exactly the same way. Sometimes it is surprisingly difficult to trace a straight line between what we do and the values quietly shaping those choices. Unearthing and reorienting those hidden values asks us to slow down, pay attention, and become curious about the formation already taking place within us.

Over the years, we’ve come to recognize roughly a dozen values that we hope increasingly inform everything we do at Become Good Soil. We certainly haven’t mastered them. In many ways, these values continue to expose us, invite us, and call us further up and further in. While each deserves an episode—or perhaps a lifetime of reflection—we are grateful for the opportunity to begin the conversation.

What follows is a two-part introduction to the core values we hope will continue to shape our lives, our work, and, perhaps, offer a companion for your own journey and the life of your community.

It's all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,
Morgan & Cherie

"This is the most difficult and at the same time the most important thing to embrace in the Christian life: that we become willing participants (with God), not only in what God does but in the way He does it."

—Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places

Friends, we continue to be gripped by these two questions. How are our daily activities shaping us into the people we are becoming? And, what changes might aim our becoming more closely toward the Person and Way of Jesus? 

In this next episode of the Become Good Soil Foundations Series we invite you to reflect with us on these questions and the ancient idea of a rule of life. Our hope—as we revisit the rule of life—is to facilitate a gentle check in regarding how we are arranging our days.

Developing a rule of life does not mean picking up a heavy yoke or toeing the line for a critical voice. Rather, “rule” in this case is related to a ruler or guide. Just as it’s helpful to use a ruler to steady our hand when drawing a line, so a rule of life helps guide our lives in the direction we yearn to live. 

As has often been observed, a rule of life is like a trellis supporting a growing vine. The trellis supports the vine as it grows and bears fruit, shaping its form and making possible its generativity. As a vine without a trellis becomes tangled, turned in on itself, and unfruitful, so can our hearts and lives, habits and relationships, desires and impulses devolve without the structure of a supportive rule of life. 

With characteristic understatement, Jesus reminds us that each day of life brings plenty of predictable challenges (Matthew 6:34). What would it be like to receive from our God and the wisdom of His people a “trellis” of habits and practices that over time will form the resilience, endurance, faithfulness, joy, and love of Jesus? What would it be like to have a Kingdom-trellis upon which to rest our souls as we trust the Spirit to form in us by day and decade the character of Jesus and allow us to persevere through whatever challenge we may face on the Way?

Check in with us as we explore a rule of life together.

It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,
Morgan & Cherie