“The main thing God gets out of your life is not the achievements you accomplish. It is the person you become. Spiritual transformation is not about behavior modification; it is about allowing the life of Jesus to permeate our whole being. This is a process that is slow, steady, and deeply relational. We become the kind of people who can naturally and easily do what Jesus would do, because His life has formed our life from the inside out.” — Dallas Willard

Friends,

We’d love for you to join us for the final episode in this three-part series. In this conversation, we take a hopeful look at what the Styles of Relating can become as we grow in maturity—as fear and shame loosen their grip, and as trust, courage, and love begin to shape our reactions more than our old habits do.

Our hope is that you’ll find encouragement for your own relationships and a renewed sense that change, even slow change, is possible.

We’re grateful to walk this road with you—toward deeper wholeness, steadier love, and a growing belonging in God’s Kingdom and Family.

Please note there is a COMPANION PDF for this episode that includes deeper reflection questions for the Styles of Relating. You can find it HERE.

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

For the Kingdom,

Morgan & Cherie

“When we intentionally bring awareness to our internal world—our emotions, our sensations, our impulses; we begin to see the patterns that have been driving us. And once we see them, we are no longer bound by them. Awareness creates choice. Choice creates change.”  — Dan Siegel

​Friends,

In this second episode of a deeper dive into Styles of Relating, we reflect on how fear, hedging, and self-protection show up in our relationships, in contrast to the moments when, by God’s grace, we find ourselves relating from trust, dignity, and self-giving love instead.

Nothing has exposed and transformed our own patterns more than this work. Slowly, we are learning to pause, to notice what’s actually motivating our reactions, to identify when fear and shame have snuck in sideways. But here’s the gift: awareness really does open space for change. And that change has brought us more joy, safety, and connection in our marriage than we ever imagined.

We are grateful to be on this journey with you—toward wholeness, deeper love, and a growing trust in God and His Kingdom.

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

For the Kingdom,

Morgan & Cherie

“We are born out of the laughter of the Trinity." 

— Meister Eckhart (1260-1328),  Medieval Mystic

Dear Friends,

Around 2011, we discovered the work of Karen Horney and her insight into how humans relate to one another, especially under stress, in uncertainty, or for the sake of self-protection.

Her work on the styles of relating became catalytic for both of us. It gave language to dynamics we were feeling but didn’t yet understand — why, despite our love for one another, we so often felt hurt, alone, or misunderstood. We were desperate for clarity, longing to discover what was not working, and what needed to change within us and between us to grow the kind of marriage we both believed was possible.

In 2014, we recorded a live conversation exploring how our styles of relating had been colliding — and sometimes colluding — since before we were married. That conversation became Episode 9 of the Become Good Soil podcast, marking an early milestone in our journey toward healing and deeper connection.

Now, we invite you to join us again as we revisit this territory. This is the first episode in a three-part series reflecting afresh on the Styles of Relating — a return to what these styles are, an exploration of how they may be showing up in our relationships, and an honest look at what it could mean to employ them in the service of Love instead of fear.

We’re honored to walk this path with you.

For the Kingdom,

Cherie & Morgan

P.S. If you haven’t explored our first two podcasts and the blog on Styles of Relating recently, we would encourage you to check out the following soul-nourishing resources as well:

Wild, Unfettered, and Free - Jesus Modeling Styles of Relating (Blog)

Getting Naked - BGS Podcast Episode 014 (Part 1 of 2)

Getting Naked - BGS Podcast Episode 015 (Part 2 of 2)

“There are some things that only time can do. Dynamite can't touch them.”

– Dwight D. Eisenhower

In The Scandals of the Kingdom, Dallas Willard names a profound tension between the person of Jesus and the dilemma of modern American Christianity. We spend vast sums of money and energy trying to get people into church. Meanwhile, in the Gospels, people tore the roofs off buildings just to get to Jesus. So much so, He often withdrew from the crowds—not to perform, but to be with His Father and to invest in a few trusted apprentices.

Jesus was the most consecrated King who ever lived. And yet, while we strive to build platforms and leverage influence, He chose obscurity and intimacy and consented to the slow and steady work of His Father in the lives entrusted to his care.

So we must ask ourselves: Why do we find Him hiding from crowds in places where we keep striving to be seen?

If we are willing to be honest with both this longing to be seen and the desire to see immediate results for the fruit of our labors, we can access a precious part of us that becomes a fresh doorway to return home to the heart of God.

This episode concludes a deeper cut series—an excavation of the foundational ideas unearthed through Becoming a King. At its core, we’ve been exploring a central, piercing question: How do we become the kind of men to whom God can entrust His power?

Let me remind you—this path was never promised to be easy. But I can assure you: it is profoundly worth it.

Over time, a compelling pattern emerges. Through the consent by day and by decade to the narrow road of deep apprenticeship, transformation is no longer just a hope—it becomes a lived reality. I see it in the stories, again and again, from men being led by God into deeper wholeness and restoration through Becoming a King.

What once felt like a headwind—marked by adversity, resistance, and battle—in time becomes a tailwind. The strength and care of a good Father, ever present, begins to nourish and sustain us.

A Father who is for us, not against us. Having committed Himself to our well-being, He relentlessly pours Himself into our shepherding and our apprenticeship.

He is our tailwind. And even in our trials, in the end, we will encounter His exceeding kindness.

In this episode, we conclude this conversation with some compelling ideas, questions, and stories from Outposts of Eden around the globe, thanks to the strength lent by allies John Scott Mooring, Pablo Ceron, Ryan Ruebsahm, and Chris Rice.

Together, we’re looking deeper into the kind of King that Jesus is, and I want you to join us.

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

For the Kingdom,

Morgan and Cherie

“We are wounded in isolation and we are healed in community.”

— Tim Keller

What does it mean to be made in the image of a Triune God-in-Relationship?

What if relational connection is the heartbeat of the with God life?

What is a relational model for becoming a king or a queen, one who can steward from wholehearted maturity?

We must begin by recovering our hidden life in God—the joyful intimacy available with the Father, Jesus, and Holy Spirit. Drawing our life from the Life of God, we move into relationships with our spouse, children, peers, and families—both our biological and kingdom families.

Right where we find ourselves. On this day. In these circumstances. Perhaps even through these circumstances, God offers a creative invitation to shepherd us in such a way that the things which matter most are no longer at the mercy of the things which matter least.

Join Cherie and me as we take a deeper cut into a relational rule of life and explore generative steps toward arranging our days so that more and more of us can be reattached to the Vine of Life.

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

For the Kingdom,

Morgan and Cherie

“Karl Barth, a devoted apprentice of the Kingdom of God, emphasized the lived reality of the Christian life. He listened attentively as God revealed Himself—not by dissecting the Christian life in a laboratory, but by entering into God’s action, creation, and ongoing work of salvation. He chose to participate. He wasn’t indifferent to getting it right, but his passion was getting it lived.”

—Eugene Petersen

“First, God. God is the subject of life. God is foundational for living. If we don't have a sense of the primacy of God, we will never get it right, get life right, get our lives right. Not God at the margins; not God as an option; not God on the weekends. God at center and circumference; God first and last; God, God, God.”

These are the opening words of Petersen’s evocative invitation to consider how we might begin to enter into the sacred scriptures.

As we find ourselves today in a Story already in motion—being invited to play an essential role—we must begin afresh with God, we are being invited to turn our affections and our attention back to Him.

It is from that posture that we can revisit this operational question: What are you practicing that is helping to consistently re-align your soul to this reality amid the precarious circumstances in which you find yourself?

We must lean into compassion, remembering Dallas’s reminder that there are, indeed, no ordinary days. With that in mind, what we choose to do shapes the days given to us. Our days shape our decades, and our practices shape our days.

The question isn’t whether we are apprentices, but whose apprentice we are. Make no mistake: we are being formed by our daily practices. Whether chosen with care or dangerously shaped by the current of culture, whether life-giving or quietly corrosive, these practices are not neutral. They are the sculptors of our souls. The real question is, how is that formation going, and how is it being led? What shifts might the Spirit be inviting us to make—shifts that, over time, could bear dramatically different fruit?

Living the Christian life—right where we are—is both our intended place and the primary way we access God. Let us take a fresh look at the ancient practice of a rule of life—a framework that helps us arrange our everyday rhythms around practices we can trust to lead us toward greater wholeheartedness and deeper union with God.

Join me for a deeper dive and a conversation with like-hearted allies Ryan Ruebsahm and Chris Rice, as we recover more of the ancient path together as a global community.

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

For the Kingdom,

Morgan and Cherie

“If we believe that God made the world, then the world is important as a revelation of God, as a sacred text. If we believe that Jesus is the Son of God, then we must believe that he is the Son of God made flesh, made a human being—and therefore that the life of the human body in this world is important.”

— Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community by Wendell Berry

Take a moment to breathe. Slow your pace.

Another breath.

Perhaps another. Allow your soul to catch up with your life—even in this very moment.

Another breath.

Enjoy this brilliant poem by Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things. Read it as slowly as you are able:

“When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”

The first sacred text given to all of humanity is God’s creation itself. In many ways, the created world was intended to be a sacred container for the Kingdom of God—a primary expression of His presence and love.

What if, just as the Creator crafted this redemptive backdrop for the story of mankind, you were invited to partner with Him in creating your life as a continually expanding spiritual refuge? A place where you are known, loved, perfectly safe, and deeply nourished—affording you an ever-increasing capacity to engage the battles God invites you to fight on behalf of your own heart and those entrusted to your care?

Just as every creature is designed to flourish within a particular habitat, every soul is also meant to thrive in a specific environment. This is our destiny, and this is God’s invitation. A soul planted in good soil has little choice but to grow into the full expression of all it was created to become—since before the foundation of the world.

Even a cursory immersion in the sacred text of nature reveals a profound truth: the health of any living thing is directly tied to the quality of its habitat. When the environment is whole, life flourishes. When it becomes toxic, life withers.

Day by day, decade by decade, we hold far more power than we’ve believed to shape our lives in ways that increase our joy, confidence, and contentment in daily life with God.

It was the prophetic voice of God through Isaiah that offered this invitation:

“My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest.” — Isaiah 32:18

Make no mistake: this restoration is fiercely opposed. And yet, there is One who is greater. Even now, a perfect invitation is being extended—for you to take the next brave step, the next twenty seconds of courage, to partner with God in restoring a habitat where your soul can truly thrive.

What if the restoration of the masculine soul depends on our willingness to humbly embrace the formative power of our context? What would it look like to recover a way of life that positions us to receive the revitalizing power of God's own life?

Join me as we explore the power and hope of cultivating a habitat where our souls can flourish.

As part of the journey of Becoming a King, this podcast offers a deeper exploration into creating that sacred habitat where this dream can be realized.

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

For the Kingdom,

Morgan & Cherie

"Several of our young people were formerly brought up at the colleges of the northern provinces; they were instructed in all your sciences; but, when they came back to us, they were bad runners, ignorant of every means of living in the woods, unable to bear either cold or hunger, knew neither how to build a cabin, take a deer, or kill an enemy, spoke our language imperfectly, were therefore neither fit for hunters, warriors, nor counselors; they were totally good for nothing. We are however not the less obliged by your kind offer, though we decline accepting it; and, to show our grateful sense of it, if the gentlemen of Virginia will send us a dozen of their sons, we will take great care of their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them."

— Native American Leader to Benjamin Franklin, 1759

Of all the responses I’ve received regarding the encounters and process through which God has fathered souls through Becoming a King over the past five years, none have been as impactful as the invitation to become a generalist.

In many ways, this big idea in masculine initiation is a prologue to a deeper question: How do we become honest about our relationship with fear, risk, and failure?

Becoming a generalist is the process of engaging in a maturing relationship with risk, and failure through the recovery of repairing our relationship with fear by doing and in time, mastering real things. It’s about becoming the kind of man who, more and more, can handle himself in any situation—whether it’s fixing a broken toilet or helping mend a broken heart.

It’s a process of identifying where we overreact and under react, what we avoid, and where we feel exposed; where we even hide behind our gifting, our competence, and our training, allowing precious and essential parts of our soul to remain uninitiated.

None of us becomes a generalist overnight. It’s a slow and steady process of healing our relationship with risk. It’s the practice of stepping onto our frontier instead of avoiding it. It’s learning, little by little, how to do real things in the real world.

Where are you on your journey of becoming a generalist?

Join me as we take a deeper cut at exploring what it means to become the kind of man who brings skill and harnessed strength to meet the world’s needs.

Every man has a place where he feels weak, incompetent, or intimidated. Perhaps that place of avoidance is actually the place of our greatest opportunity—for maturity, integration, and ultimately, peace.

If you dare to risk more and more, you’ll love this conversation—and this invitation.

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

For the Kingdom,

Morgan and Cherie

“It is not about the greatness of the giant. It is about the greatness of God.” — King David

“Can one stone change the course of history?”

It is the question we reflect on when considering the life of David.

In his youth, he was an outcast—rejected by his father and older brothers, exiled to wild places to perform the demeaning task of tending sheep rather than the noble work of training as a warrior. Yet it was there, in the lonely hills—not with sword or shield, but with slingshot and harp—that God trained the warrior heart of David.

Through direct confrontations with both lion and bear, his courage and identity as a warrior for God’s people were forged, not in royal courts, but in the fields, watching over a flock totally dependent upon his protection and care. There was no audience to cheer him on, only the solitude of his own conscience and the friendship with the Creator of Creation. David’s heart was shaped—not for conquest or acclaim, but purely out of love for what had been entrusted to his care.

The wild beasts he faced were not only threats but also gifts from God—tools in David’s apprenticeship as a warrior king in training for God’s Kingdom. So when he would later rise to lead Israel, it was not as a tyrant adorned with crowns, but as a servant after God’s own heart.

How do we become the kind of kings who spend ourselves on a worthy cause, willing to die a thousand deaths for those entrusted to our care?

How do we become, as Chesterton put it, the warrior who fights “not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him”?

How do we engage in the slow and steady process that trains us, like David, to become one of skillful hands and integrity of heart? 

What does it look like for the warrior heart to be fully deployed in the exact context where our souls are invited to thrive—even in these modern and precarious times?

How do we become men who move toward healthy risk rather than avoid it?

How do we grow in courage and in our capacity to offer strength in ways that bring goodness and not harm?

What place does a warrior ethic have in the Kingdom of God?

What is the path and process for maturing the warrior heart within?

Join me along with another round of conversation with Grant and Nathan, as we take a deeper dive into the way of the Warrior—as apprentices of the truest warrior who ever lived…

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

For the Kingdom,

Morgan and Cherie

“We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are.” — G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 1908

In his essay The New Name, George MacDonald reflects on the mystery of each man’s unrepeatable uniqueness before God:

“As the fir-tree lifts up itself with a far different need from the need of the palm-tree, so does each man stand before God, and lift up a different humanity to the common Father. And for each God has a different response. With every man he has a secret—the secret of the new name. In every man there is a loneliness, an inner chamber of peculiar life into which God only can enter.

From this it follows that there is a chamber also (O God, humble and accept my speech) a chamber in God himself, into which none can enter but the one, the individual, the peculiar man—out of which chamber that man has to bring revelation and strength for his brethren. This is that for which he was made—to reveal the secret things of the Father.”

Who are you? What is your true name?

What dimension of the Father do you reveal in a way no one else can—or ever will?

How is this mysterious, life-saving, and life-sustaining revelation being made known to you?

How is it meant not only to grow in depth and breadth over the decades, but also to become a kind of revelatory light—guiding you ever deeper into a life of faith, hope, and love?

It takes profound courage to become who we truly are.

Join me and brave allies Chris Rice and Ryan Ruebsahm as we take a deeper cut into the mystery and manna of our true name before God.

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

For the Kingdom,

Morgan and Cherie Snyder

“Your real, new self will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him.”

— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

How have fear and shame shaped the person you’ve become?

What patterns have you developed to avoid exposing the parts of yourself that feel afraid, uncertain, ashamed, or weak?

How do you reach for aggression or withdrawal as a way to protect yourself from the risk of being hurt or being known?

And beneath all the posing and self-protection, what do we truly long for? Who are you meant to be?

Join me and brave allies Nathan Jameson and Grant Leitheiser, as we explore what it means to become the kind of man or woman who has nothing to hide, nothing to fear, and nothing to prove.

What might a man look like—and what could his impact become, day by day and decade by decade—if he were strong and at peace in and through the God who created and sustains him?

In this episode, we take a deeper dive into a central idea of initiation: Becoming True.

It has all been prologue. The best is yet to come.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan and Cherie