Become Good Soil

<p>“To be sure, the kingdom has been here as long as we humans have been here, and longer. But it has been made available to us through simple confidence in Jesus, the Anointed, only from the time he became a public figure. It is a kingdom that, in the person of Jesus, welcomes us just as we are, just where we are, and makes it possible for us to translate our “ordinary” life into an eternal one.” —Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy</p><p><br></p><p>How would you answer this question: What is the gospel that Jesus preached?</p><p><br></p><p>When I (Cherie) first encountered this question, I was both arrested and bewildered. I had some sense of what I thought the “gospel” might be, but I could not, for the life of me, articulate what it was that Jesus himself preached. I was new in my adult faith in Jesus and spent most of my devotional time reading the Psalms, the Gospel of John, and Paul’s letters.</p><p><br></p><p>This question launched me on a treasure hunt that changed my life—and continues to propel me today. It led me first deep into Matthew’s account of the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus, then into Mark’s and Luke’s, and back again to John. Over the past twenty years, I have returned again and again to these profound and sweeping accounts of the earthly ministry of the Anointed One.</p><p><br></p><p>What was the gospel that Jesus preached? And what does an apprenticeship look like when it seeks not only to have faith in Jesus, but to practice living the faith of Jesus?</p><p><br></p><p>Let’s remember it together. Join us for this episode of the Become Good Soil podcast. Indeed, the Kingdom of God is at hand.</p><p><br></p><p>It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.</p><p><br></p><p>For the Kingdom,</p><p>Cherie and Morgan </p>

<p>“Recovering Sabbath is an alternative to a culture ruled by an endless cycle of consumption, production, and progress. It is an awareness and practice of the claim that we are situated on the receiving end of the gifts of God. To be so situated is a staggering option, because we are accustomed to being on the initiating end of all things. We neither expect nor, at times, even want a gift to be given, so consumed are we with accomplishing and possessing. Thus, I have come to think of the Sabbath as the most difficult and the most urgent of the commandments in our society.” —Walter Brueggeman</p><p> </p><p>How regularly do you find yourself showing up in your life from a place of overflow, having been saturated in the reservoir of Sabbath overflow? If you were to describe your evolving relationship with rest over your life in all its stages in seasons, how would your life speak to you?</p><p><br></p><p>What if the timeless invitation to live from Sabbath—and to cultivate practices every day, every seven days, every seven years, and every seven-times-seven years—isn’t merely an external activity, but a way of participating with God to relearn a way of kingdom living? What if there is a hidden secret that unlocks every other resource of the kingdom, concealed within this mystery rooted in relational security with the one who models rest and created a world sustained through His own participation in Sabbath?</p><p><br></p><p>Welcome back to the Become Good Soil Foundations Series. Join us as we explore together the possibility of Sabbath not only as an extravagant gift from a God of creativity, delight, and rest, but also as a primary posture in our apprenticeship to Jesus—and a catalyst for transformation: both a resistance to our age and an alternative path to a flourishing life.</p><p><br></p><p>It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.</p><p><br></p><p>For the Kingdom,</p><p>Morgan & Cherie</p><p><br></p>

<p>“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us…”</p><p><br></p><p>—St. John</p><p><br></p><p>Henri Nouwen offers these soulful questions:</p><p><br></p><p>“In what quiet ways have you bartered the worth of your soul to other grade-givers—some clamoring voices in the world around you, other critical voices firmly within your own being? By what small, repeated surrenders have you allowed yourself to become the very thing the world applauds, and the one thing you did not want to find yourself becoming?” </p><p><br></p><p>In reflecting on these questions, we are keenly aware of the reality that we have often “bartered the worth of our soul” and been painfully malformed through “small repeated surrenders.”</p><p><br></p><p>Yet as we take stock of our precious yet infected souls, we experience Jesus’s pursuit afresh. As the generous host of all creation, as our creator and king, He invites us to once again entrust ourselves fully to Him—everything we are and everything we are not yet—and receive the nourishment, embrace, and affection we so desperately need and is His joy to extend.</p><p><br></p><p>In this second episode of our Become Good Soil Foundations Series, join us as we explore the wondrous reality whispered through the text of scripture, the text of nature, and the lives of those who intimately live the with-God life: that all reality begins with God—a God who overflows with creativity, energy, love, welcome, and life.</p><p><br></p><p>Let’s seek together how we might live more deeply from a posture of rest and receptivity, moving through our days and decades as those ever-receiving love and belonging—and, from that overflow, continually extending love and belonging to all those around us. </p><p><br></p><p>We are so grateful to venture deeper on this journey together.</p><p><br></p><p>It’s all been prologue. The best is yet come.</p><p><br></p><p>For the Kingdom,</p><p>Morgan & Cherie</p>

<p>“The creeds function like a treasure chest, waiting to be opened and explored. The creeds are not meant to reduce our faith to simple facts; they are not intended to drive away mystery and complexity. Rather, the creeds secure a framework for the whole of our faith, so that we can freely go and explore the riches of the mystery in each part and in the whole.”</p><p> </p><p>—Jason Ortiz and Daniel Keating in The Nicene Creed: A Scriptural, Historical, and Theological Commentary</p><p><br></p><p>Friends, beneath every value we express and every thought we act upon lies an underlying belief. Though often unexamined, each of us has developed a comprehensive worldview that shapes every moment of our lives. What are those beliefs and assumptions—and to what degree do they align with reality as revealed by God?</p><p><br></p><p>Join us for the first episode of the Become Good Soil Foundations Series, where we explore these core beliefs and assumptions of our faith and the fellowship of Become Good Soil.</p><p><br></p><p>Drawing on Jesus’ imagery in Matthew 7, we ask: what would it look like to make a fresh assessment of the foundations upon which the “house” of our lives is built? What might we notice if we paused to appreciate the beauty and strength of the “rock” itself—and to reckon honestly with the areas of our lives still resting on shifting sand?</p><p><br></p><p>As a fellowship, what does it look like to freshly receive and act upon Jesus’ invitation to relocate the whole of our lives onto the Rock—who is Christ Himself, His teaching, and His beautiful Kingdom?</p><p><br></p><p>Come along in a courageous global fellowship as we venture together down a path and process that leads to a life truly worth living.</p><p><br></p><p>It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.</p><p><br></p><p>For the Kingdom, </p><p>Morgan & Cherie </p><p><br></p><p>Note: In our conversation on The Nicene Creed this is the reference. For further exploration: Ortiz, J., & Keating, D. A. (2024). The Nicene Creed: a scriptural, historical, and theological commentary. Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group.</p>

<p>“We are greatly strengthened for life in the kingdom now by an understanding of what our future holds, and especially of how that future relates to our present experiences. For only then do we really understand what our current life is, and are we able to make choices that agree with that reality.” </p><p>— Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy</p><p><br></p><p>Where are we going?</p><p><br></p><p>Friends, this simple question continues to wake us, gently and insistently, again and again. As we linger with it, we remember that every path—whether chosen or assumed—is always leading somewhere. The question meets us as both invitation and mercy, asking us to notice where we are headed and to hold our lives up to the light of God and His kingdom.</p><p><br></p><p>In doing so, this question stirs our imagination toward the greatest end—the long-awaited day when God’s kingdom is fully revealed on earth as it is in heaven, when all things are gathered up and made right, good, and beautiful. With that ultimate future shimmering before us, we find ourselves able to turn—sometimes subtly, sometimes decisively—and set our course again toward the good, the true, and the beautiful, trusting </p><p>God to lead us faithfully in the present moment and into what is yet to come.</p><p><br></p><p>For more than a year, we have carried this question in our minds and hearts as we have listened for God on behalf of Become Good Soil. Through prayer, discernment, and many honest conversations—with God and with so many of you—a clearer sense of where Become Good Soil is being led in this new season has slowly come into view.</p><p><br></p><p>It is our deep joy to finally share this emerging vision with you.</p><p><br></p><p>In this final episode of Our Origin Story, we reflect on the expanded mission and vision of Become Good Soil. At its heart is a simple and steadfast desire: to walk alongside you as you continue your apprenticeship to Jesus—the gradual, grace-filled transposing of your whole life into the life of Christ—and as you faithfully steward the generative outposts of Eden entrusted to your care.</p><p><br></p><p>It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.</p><p><br></p><p>For the Kingdom,</p><p>Morgan & Cherie</p><p><br></p>

<p>You are here.</p><p><br></p><p>It turns out this matters more than we have come to believe. Consider this reflection from Henri Nouwen in The Wounded Healer:</p><p><br></p><p>A waiting person is a person practicing patience.</p><p><br></p><p>The word patience means to practice a daring willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full, in the belief that something hidden here will make itself known to us.</p><p><br></p><p>Impatient people are always expecting the real thing to happen somewhere else—the better thing to be somewhere other than here. Therefore, practicing impatience is to entertain and cultivate a longing to be somewhere else.</p><p><br></p><p>The present moment is empty for them.</p><p><br></p><p>Patient people dare to stay where they are.</p><p><br></p><p>Patient living means living actively in the present and daringly waiting right here. Waiting, therefore, in God’s Kingdom, is not passive. It involves bravely nurturing the moment as a mother nurtures a child growing in her womb.</p><p><br></p><p>As Nouwen reminds us, waiting carries with it both opportunity and temptation—the opportunity to become more whole and mature, united with God, and the temptation to give way to impatience, to hustle for control, or to force our will on others.</p><p><br></p><p>In this second episode of Our Origin Story, we explore a core challenge to fully inhabit the present moment: the twin thieves of fixation on the past and preoccupation with the future. We examine the subtle seduction of living in the past—not only the pull of regret, but also the empty cistern of nostalgia. We also explore the thievery of vaulting ourselves prematurely into the future—not only the anxiety and fear this can produce, but how visions of what might be can quietly morph into fantasies of a better life somewhere else or with someone else, rather than in the place and with the people to whom we are presently called.</p><p><br></p><p>Join us as we take a deeper dive, considering both the temptation and the gift of this present moment—and the audacious joy of coming home to where we are, here and now, held within the epic story of God revealing who He truly is and restoring all of His creation, together, with us.</p><p><br></p><p>It’s all been prologue. The best is yet to come.</p><p><br></p><p>For the Kingdom,</p><p>Morgan & Cherie</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>