Testimonials

About five years ago,a few guys at our church had read Wild At Heart, by John Eldredge, and recommended it. After reading it and seeing the DVD series, I realized that maybe there was more, a lot more, to this Christian Life than I thought. I was raised in a strong Christian home and went to a college known as the "Buckle of the Bible Belt" so there wasn't much I hadn't heard (or so I thought). I had a quiet time every day, memorized scripture, went to church every Sunday and Wednesday night and on missions trips and did all the stuff that I was "supposed" to do to be the Good Christian, but my heart was dead. When Eldredge talked about "The Poser" and that we have these wounds we carry around, I knew I had been exposed. As I began to see my life as a story that involved adventure and a battle with an enemy, it all started to make sense. My heart started to come alive. I began to realize that a lot of men are sitting in church like "Dead Men Walking". A small band of brother's started meeting together to discover our true hearts together. We called this Wave One, as in storming the beaches to take back what the enemy had stolen.

After a year we started a second Wave group of a few more men. Out of this second group of eight guys, Jeff Andrechyn had the idea to meet once a week at noon on Tuesdays to share a slice of pizza, watch a movie clip, and talk about our hearts and God. "The Cave" was a place for men to be real and honest and cut through all the bovine waste we hold up to hide who we really are. It was like water to dry, parched ground. We specifically made the invitation to the "in debt, depressed, and generally discontent"(I Samual 22). The Lord used this venue to tap into a deep placed in a lot of men. My heart came even more alive as I found that I loved to fight for other's hearts and help them discover a life of freedom and purpose way beyond what they imagined. I used to be a wrangler on a ranch in Colorado where I lead trail rides out into the Wilderness. I love horses and mountains and adventure. What I came to see is that my love for those things was rooted in a God given "wiring" in my soul to lead people on an "adventure" into a wild, fearful place (their own heart) and show them that the healing of that fear leads to Life. Most of us are so afraid of that "wilderness" that we have come to believe what the enemy says about us and we can no longer hear what the Lover of our souls says about us. The amazing joy of the last five years is that we have discovered this whole other world (The Kingdom) together as a Company, a Fellowship of the Ring. We don't get through this life alone. We are finding that it has been The Father's Expedition that we are on to discover not only our hearts, but ultimately His Heart. And THAT is the greatest adventure of all.

"There are many ways in which Expeditions has touched me and many other men and their families. At first glance, it is being in boy scouts again, hanging with the guys, only God is the scout master and there are no uniforms. The fun and crazy plots on each other are there, only with more heart and less vengeance. Being challenged by other men in areas of my own weaknesses in ways that are with love gives me tools i can take home from the meetings, ways i can address my family, ways i can see my Father with new eyes. Expeditions has been about hearing from men i respect, who can share their own losses and weaknesses with us, who lead us without being leaders, as if the structure is the Holy Trinity, then us, collectively.

On a personal note, considering Jeff, it has been heartwarming to see a man let God take the lead, lead him out of the cockpit of a 767 and into a role of guiding a group of men, all of us misfit and all of us wonderful towards a deeper relationship with ourselves, with Jesus and with our wives. Jeff is at once that instigator from my boy scout troop who was always pulling pranks to make us laugh, and is the love channeled by the Father. The guy is inspiring."

ISOLATION

God's gift to men is other men. Sounds a bit scary, until you realize the guy who needed to disciple you was Dad. Most guys didn't get that, longed for it, and never really knew what leadership looked like until they went to the movies. Then.....whomever....became your hero. When I saw Steve McQueen clear the fence in the Great Escape, I was hooked. I immediately bought a blue sweatshirt and cut off the sleeves.

We grew up thinking, "I have to go it alone."

One day a guy at the office said, "We're having lunch over at a place called "The Cave" (a name based on the scripture about David and the guys who followed him). So, I went and listened to a guy explain how God used several tragic moments in his life to turn him around and start believing that God's love involved more than church attendance on Sunday morning.

From there we began to believe that God was starting something among us which exalted His Son in a particular way. He didn't want us to just start another meeting.

This was a jail break !

He was setting men free from living in their closed spaces. He began to open up the doors and release guys from solitary confinement.

So you see, I really did become part of the Great Escape !

Come join us !!

It was becoming obvious that God really wanted me to read “Wild At Heart,” the breakthrough book by John Eldredge that was helping men rediscover their true masculine heart. Our church sponsored an eight week video study of the book, so I attended the first session. At the end of the presentation we were divided into small groups and instructed to share certain personal feelings. What we were asked to share I cannot remember, but I do remember saying to myself, “I’m never coming back here again.”

Nine months later I contacted another men’s ministry after reading a particularly profound editorial in their newsletter. I shared with the author some of my personal struggles and later that week he sent me a copy of “Wild At Heart.” I asked why he sent that book and he said he believed in his spirit that I was about to embark on a whole new adventure with God and he felt this book would be appropriate for me.

I read the book and was mildly irritated by the abundant use of quotes and illustrations from secular books and movies. I persevered and ultimately found the book interesting.

Months later, back at church, Jeff Andrechyn was enthusiastically promoting a lunch meeting for men called “The Cave.” He light heartedly, so I thought, called for all “distressed, in debt and generally discontented” men to come together to see what God had to say. With that approach I had a feeling this meeting may be a bit different. While at the meeting I learned the genesis for these project sprung from the book “Wild At Heart.” Messages often come in signs of three and I felt I had just opened the third door.

The meeting had no opening prayer, no opening song, no organized structure, and featured short video clips from “guy” movies all brought together by an enthusiastic speaker (Jeff) pacing the floor while telling his story of God using other men to help him through unbelievable personal tragedies. The language was sometimes frank, the confessions were a bit embarrassing, but the emotions described were honest and I drank it in like a parched man stumbling upon a cool oasis.

Week after week I attended the unconventional church meetings with new brothers who also enjoyed the laughter, freedom and true stories of God’s love and changing power. The only rule to the meetings was, “What’s said in The Cave stays in The Cave.”

One week a man shared his deeply personal struggle that I was sure was uniquely mine. With each weekly testimony I learned I was not alone. All men share common fears and desires which we hide to maintain the illusion of strength and control.

Our trust with each other grew as we spent time together on monthly adventures. These were not polite tea and cookie events. We loved guy adventures that got our hearts pumping such as paint ball, softball, camp outs, campfires, disk golf, white water rafting, go kart racing and skeet shooting.

A year later I found myself co-facilitating the same eight week study of “Wild At Heart” that I rejected years earlier. At this time the Holy Spirit finally enabled me to stop posing as a sanitized Christian leader and let my brothers know my deepest struggles and darkest past. By this time I knew the men would still love me, but I was also sure they’d look at me differently. They didn’t.

Jeff Andrechyn called me the day after I opened up my broken story to him. His call was to remind me I was not defined by my past, or current struggle. I had a good heart in which Christ lived and God saw me as a righteous man, not because of my works, but because of my faith in Jesus. The men of The Cave loved and encouraged me similarly and my joy, victory and freedom became obvious to many.

A month after sharing my story with my brothers I was at a Wild At Heart Boot Camp retreat in Colorado where God did deeper surgery to heal my wounds and literally changed my name to seal my victorious identity. Today I continue in close fellowship with my small band of brothers as we fight for and encourage one another to live free and godly lives. We really do need each other to fight the enemy who opposes us daily. To God be all the glory.

My name is Michael
—mighty warrior, prince of God