24 men stormed out of their beds to participate in a 3rd F experiment at the Rise & Shine Diner at 6:30 am. Most of the crowd were guys from the DaVille area. Some of them have engaged in 1st F workouts while others are actively considering joining us in the gloom.
Here is what went down this morning:
YHC (Wild Thing) opened up with a call to arms and challenged the men to embrace a vision of teaming up as men to fight the battles of their lives. He shared from Luke 2 in the Bible and described how the shepherds didn’t keep the good news of God to themselves but they went and shared it. YHC challenged the men to go out and share the good news of how they are being impacted by meetings like this one. He invited The Carpenter to share.
The Carpenter followed up by sharing about the men’s group called MANera that recently moved to this new location. This men’s group had grown to a weekly gathering of 40-50 men years ago but never planted a new one. The men had engaged in topics that helped them in their marriages, parenting, leadership and faith that led to concrete action steps. He shared how the 3rd F could be the way to resurrect and expand these kinds of discussions and action steps. He also shared about the SadClown Syndrome and how F3 is like targeted chemotherapy to kill it off. As SadClowns, we are all smiling on the outside while sad (or dying) on the inside. We need to rise up!
YHC then opened up the floor for input on how this 3rd F gathering can be impactful.
- Abacus fired up the discussion with a hard-hitting challenge to the men in the room. He shared how the meetings need to focus on topics that truly challenge men. He described how the physical workouts push our physical bodies but we also need to push our hearts & minds.
- Another man shared about how he needed a place to know that he was not alone with his struggles.
- Another man shared the idea of bringing in experts to talk on topics and then have the men engage in discussions around those topics.
- The men then entered into a spirited debate about how to go about doing this. Some wanted lighter topics that allowed for more men to check out the group. Others wanted hard-hitting topics that would go right to the gut of the problem. The attack plan will be determined as we experiment.
- Earthworm shared about what he has implemented with GridIron. He shared about the 15 pre-game devotion that he led and how it began with his leadership but is not mostly led by other men. He also shared about Ben Franklin’s idea for engaging business leaders and how we can follow a similar pattern for bringing in experts to push us in our thinking and action.
Abacus followed up with the idea of having different men “Q” this spiritual 3rd F “AO” and to let them decide on the format and content. This would be like the physical workouts but these would be spiritual workouts. Abacus volunteered to Q next Thursday’s spiritual workout. At least two other men expressed an interest in stepping up to Q in the coming weeks. One man shared that he would like to start a new 3rd F AO in the near future.
The group agreed that we need both physical and spiritual workouts to grow as men in our leadership and faith. The current F3 guys saw the value of adding in spiritual workouts (3rd F). The other guys heard about the value for adding in physical workouts (1st F). Over all of this, the men saw the potential for 2nd F opportunities to bring the groups together to build up the camaraderie toward both.
Stay tuned for what can come from all of this…
Something is happening here that can add gasoline to the F3 fire through 3rd F discussions that lead to concrete action.
We all want to kill the SadClown Syndrome in our lives.
We need more than the workouts. We need God’s help and each other. If a man leaves “the herd” then he will become dead meat.
We are in this together!