The Campfire

This may surprise you, but I didn't just found Holy Language Institute. I also started Yeshua Groups, a network of groups that get together to tell the stories of Scripture and talk about them 'campfire style'. Wait a minute, does that mean literal bonfires? Not usually, although it could 'Campfire style' means what we humans naturally do when we gather around a campfire - we talk freely, laugh, eat, and have fun. This story begins with my own struggles and ends with the emergence of our network.

Bored Teen

I already shared with you a little of my family's background, that my Dad and Grandpa were both pastors and that I grew up in a very strong believing home. What I didn't tell you is that by my mid-teens I was getting bored. Sermons sounded like the same rehashed stuff. We weren't doing much to change the world. And I have attention deficit issues and have a hard time sitting still and being quiet, which is mostly what you're supposed to do at church. Two things saved my faith. One was reconnecting with my Jewish roots, which I already told you about. The other was getting involved with the house church movement.

House Churching

My father was an ordained minister but he was also interested in less institutional expressions of Christianity and as far back as I can remember I too felt drawn to the simplicity of the early church. Then when I was 16 our house lit on fire, we were forced to move into an apartment for a couple months, and I read a book about "cell church" that offered me the red pill. I realized there were other ways of doing church than what I'd experienced and made the decision to strike out on the path less taken. I stopped going to church, and together with some kindred souls began to discover what it meant to be the church 24/7. For the next decade we experienced the freedom, authenticity, and challenges of what's often called house, organic, or simple church in Christian circles or chavurah in the Jewish world.

Crisis

Fast forward to my early thirties. I was leading a Messianic congregation, which you already hear about in the story behind Yeshua Radio. I found myself in a crisis. We were having wonderful services, be weren't making new disciples. That really bothered me because, wasn't that the mission? Two quotes haunted me. One was "your system is perfectly designed to give you the results you're getting." The other was the definition of insanity as "doing the same thing and expecting different results"- because that's exactly what I was doing. I spent the next year intensively studying past and present movements that were actually making disciples. You can listen to my sermons from that time, as I shared with my congregation what I was learning and prepared them for the big changes that were coming, on the 'Messianic Messages' page at holylanguage.com

Reset

Then I blew everything up. I moved us from traditional Saturday morning services to getting together in each other's homes to tell the stories of Scripture, talk about them, and eat. We also gathered at the park on Saturday mornings where I preached open air, telling a Bible story in my own words and then going through the five big questions we still use today. (You can watch those open-air messages too on the 'Messianic Messages' page at holylanguage.com.) I also started a "Jesus & Wings" group at the Belly Up Pub where I told one of the stories about Jesus in my own words and then hosted an open discussion about it. The people who started showing up reminded me of the parable about the lost sheep - non-religious neighbours, local kids who had literally never heard of Jesus, church dropouts, my MMA training partners. And some of them were going from 0 to 1, like from no relationship with God to that first step. 

Dream Come True

We were beginning to actually make disciples and my dream was starting to come true! It was such a relief to find a way to help people find their way spiritually without having to come across as a sketchy religious person with an agenda to get them to go to church. And it was refreshing, too! Getting together in homes or at the park or pub, telling the stories of Scripture and talking about them and then eating and hanging out...it all came so naturally and gave us the space we needed to be ourselves and let each gathering turn out differently.

In Retrospect

I'm sure you can see why I carry these parts of my journey so close to my heart. For one thing, they were beautiful. For another, I paid a high price for them. But even more importantly, they saved my faith and enabled me to make a positive difference in the lives of other people. It was these experiences that kept the fire burning in my own heart and showed me how to pass on the flame to others. In the next part I'll tell you how all this led to the birth of the Yeshua Groups network. 

In Part 1 I told you about my struggles with how fake and boring organized religion can be, my haunting realization as the leader of a faith community that what we were doing wasn't making a difference, and my search for ways of gathering that were more natural and authentic. We left off with me reconnecting with my house church roots, getting into Scripture storytelling, and seeing some beautiful things start to happen. Part 2 is the story of how the Yeshua Groups network emerged from these struggles and triumphs. 

Waiting

Sadly, life moved on from Prince Albert, Saskatchewan where I had those defining experiences - but I always held them dear in my heart. More than that, I carried a dream to one day start a movement where people could experience for themselves the exhilarating energy of what I had discovered. Years passed and then, in the summer of 2017, I knew it was time. 

Guiding Questions

I started by prayerfully writing out questions and answers: What's my vision? A movement of groups that get together to tell the stories of Scripture and talk about them. What are some words that I want to describe our groups? Fresh and raw, real and honest, simple and organic, open and informal. Why are I doing this? Because I want to make the world better and more beautiful for as many people as possible and I believe that this is the most effective way of doing it. Because everything people do springs from the stories they tell themselves and if you can change their stories then you change their lives. Because I believe this is an idea whose time has come! There's more, but that's a glimpse.

Why 'Yeshua Groups'?

But the baby still didn't have a name! I chose "Yeshua Groups" because there's something about the Hebrew name of Jesus that feels fresh and original, similar to what I wanted for our groups. Not to mention he was always telling stories. My hope was that these groups would be a place where people could encounter Yeshua himself, far from the clutter and clamor of religion. It just so happened that it was the 9th of Av when I created a Google account for the network and received an email back saying "Welcome Yeshua". This felt special because Tisha b'Av is the lowest day on the Jewish calendar, but is also the day on which one tradition says the Messiah will be born. 

Why the Campfire?

In addition to the name "Yeshua Groups" I also chose the campfire to picture us. If you've ever gone camping and sat around an open fire with your friends then you know why - you relax, eat, tell stories, laugh, and peer deeply into the flames. It is life at its simplest and its best. There's something about the campfire that captures how we humans naturally relate and what we most long for, and that was what I wanted for our groups.

Fall Flurry

For the next several months I worked furiously. Crafting a website, getting set up on social media, compiling a list of best resources, and creating online groups for our leaders. We announced Yeshua Groups at the end of October 2017 and the months after that were even more of a flurry as I interviewed potential leaders by phone, experimented and improved our processes, created a volunteer system, and then took on 30 volunteers whom I nicknamed 'the Legends' - you may remember I already mentioned that in my story about working with volunteers. 

Special Moments

A couple of my favourite highlights from this time? Dr. Bill Bjoraker, the foremost champion of Orality in the Messianic Jewish movement, lent his presence to our leader groups. And, some folks here in Albuqerque whom I hadn't even met before started a group! Those gatherings became a source of many beautiful experiences that would have made all the effort worth it, just for that.

The Book

The network had already been going for several years when I learned how to publish books, which you can read about in the Publishing House story.  Roughly a year after that, early in 2025, I was sitting in my truck looking over the twinkling lights of the city one Friday night when I felt a strong, clear inspiration to basically turn the Yeshua Groups website into a book. It didn't even take two weeks to to take all the pages about how to start a group, tell stories, and spark discussions, along with the pages explaining the WHY behind it all, and put it into a book. I also included the lists of 400 stories from the Old Testament and 200 from the New, and the handy little group host card. The end result was a book that was short, readable, and funny, but also practical, containing everything anyone would need to start a fullblown disciple-making movement. The Yeshua Groups book is now required reading for anyone who wants to join our network. 

The Manifesto

And that was how Yeshua Groups was born and grew. There have been highs and lows since then but I'll keep those for next and close this part with this. About a year after the birth of the network I sensed that we needed a statement summarizing what we were all about in under one minute - something poetic and precise, something that people would read and remember. I spent a couple months crafting the Yeshua Groups manifeso before it came out on the front page of the website, and it's still there guiding us into the future. I hope it inspires you.

"Who are we?"  Yeshua Groups is a network of groups getting together to tell the stories of Scripture and discuss them "campfire style". That doesn't always mean building a bonfire but it does mean talking freely, laughing, eating, and having fun. In the same way that a fire throws both light and heat we're learning to sit together in the light of honesty, respect, freedom, and acceptance and are feeling our lives warmed by our growing faith, hope, love, and joy.

"Where are we going?"  Imagine a circle of friends getting together regularly to interact honestly with the stories of Scripture and see their own stories in the light of them. Can you see how they enjoy each other's company and how this new culture is making their lives richer? Now watch that group inspiring new groups and changing the world, one story at a time. Our goal is to see Yeshua Groups like this started in every one of the roughly four thousand cities in the world with a population of a hundred thousand or more...and then watch them multiply a hundredfold. This is our vision.

"How are we getting there?"  Our mission is to train storytellers to do three things: tell the stories of Scripture in a way that sparks conversation, start groups where the fire can grow, and train more storytellers. We're doing that by reaching out to new storytellers by word of mouth and the internet, training them through the resources on our website and interactive online groups, and publishing their stories by email so people can find them. This is our plan and this is our movement.

In Part 2 I told you how the Yeshua Groups network was born; I guess you could call that the official story. I thought you might also enjoy the unoffical story: some candid reflections as I look back on how far we've come. But let me warn you, it hasn't all been sunshine and roses!

Defining Success

Why don't I start by talking about success. I didn't mention this yet but I did all that work getting the network off the ground on the side. I was still working fulltime at Holy Language Institute, teaching and directing. And it's a good thing too because, while we had lots of people stepping up to start groups, it was also a money pit. In 2017 I put in about 300 work hours, which is just about two months of regular work weeks. That year we received $300 in donations, with my work hours and donations for the following years working out to roughly the same. I really like the recurring 300 because it reminds me of Gideon's army and how small groups can do great things! But yeah, that's not enough to support a family unless you're in some country where minimum wage is $1/hour. It left me facing a question that I wrote out in that initial phase but didn't tell you about yet. "How do I define success?" The answer to that question is why I didn't give up. I was called to do this, and I define success by faithfulness to the call.

For Younger Me

And there were other reasons to keep going. I've wished many times that there was something like this when I was young and searching and desperate. Now, there was! We had raised a flag that restless souls who were sick of the status quo and wanted something more could rally to. And we weren't just offering hope - we had a plan. Making that available meant the world to me. So did watching the lights come on as people started groups and began to experience it for themselves.

Making a Difference

Success is a funny thing too. It's all relative. Some people would say wow to see the size of our email list or social media following or to hear that for several years after our inceptoin we had approximately one person a day sign up to start a group. But all I can see is the size of the world and the number of people out there who need this and don't even know it yet, and I can't rest. Also, get this - I've had several people tell me they started local and online groups that I didn't even know about because they never joined the network! Part of me was disappointed because the rest of us missed out on getting to know that group and another part of me was concerned because groups like that don't last, but more than anything I was encouraged. I realized that we're never going to actually know the difference we're making.

So Frustrating

I'll share another personal struggle with you and then something happy. I don't think I've ever felt so frustrated before. It's like coming down from the mountaintop and trying to tell people what you've seen and having them all just look at you weird and keep going. How are you supposed to travel back to the 1970s and convince everyone they need a smart phone when they don't even know their phones are dumb? "Getting together to tell the stories of Scripture and talk about them, campfire style"...but unless somebody's actually experienced it for themselves they don't seem to get it. I feel like I'm 50 years ahead of my time, trying to tell people that the Gutenberg era of literacy is over and the Zuckerberg era of orality has begun and everybody thinks I'm talking about dental hygiene or Bible stories for kids or Third World missions and I'm like NOOOOOOO IT'S HEEEEEERE!!! 

Lame Excuses

I also get frustrated when people are presented with this opportunity to start a group and for a split second they have this chance to do something that will actually make disciples, not to mention make their own lives better and more beautiful, and then the next second they kill it with a lame excuse. I know, there are some people who legitimately can't. But in most of the cases I've seen they're just lying to themselves so they can continue avoiding the initiative, responsibility, and hard work that comes with starting a group and actually making disciples. I confess, I don't do well watching that.

S'More?

Whew! Hopefully that wasn't too heavy. Let's move on to something lighter now and I'll tell you about something that always makes me happy. Have you ever had a s'more? Like those graham cracker sandwiches with melted chocolate and marshmallow in the middle? They're so yummy. No wonder people go camping. So here's a fun question. How is the s'more a picture of getting together with your friends to tell the stories of Scripture and talk about them? There's this one page on the Yeshua Groups site where we creatively answer that question and then give people the option to start a group so they can spend more time eating with their friends. I don't know why but that page always makes me happy. Maybe because I love eating? 

Short Rant

But seriously, have you ever noticed how central eating together was for the early disciples? They called it the Lord's SUPPER, not the Lord's snack yo! They also called their gatherings love feasts. When was the last time you went to a religious service that came anywhere close to that? I actually know of one house church pioneer who told new groups to just eat together for the first six months. Skip all the religious stuff and just eat. I think his assumption was that between bites they'd interact on a more natural level and might actually get to know each other. If so I think that could actually be a really good idea! Anyways, I'll calm down now. But I do hope you check out that "Eat" page about s'mores at yeshuagroups.com. 

What Next?

And that is the story of Yeshua Groups. Of course it's ongoing, as people continue to find us, start groups, and spread the fire. But that's where we came from. In a way I feel like I've shared so much with you - but in another way I feel like we barely scratched the surface. I didn't get to tell you the ten reasons that storytelling is so powerful, or get you imagining how a campfire storytelling group could make your life so much richer. Would you be willing to continue this conversation with me? If so, I want you to get the Yeshua Groups book for yourself. It's short and readable, even for people who don't like to read. Or, if you don't want to do that, would you at least write a quick five-star review on Amazon? You don't even need to order the book, and you already know the gist of the book because you're read this far? Get the book, or just give a quick five stars, here: