MISSION. BROTHERHOOD. SERVICE.
Many young Christians, men and women alike, set out to search the world for a life that feels worth living - a life that contains significance and purpose, love and friendship, beauty and adventure. Some leave Christianity behind completely. Others cling to the traditions of the faith, but consider it basically irrelevant in their quest to discover Life. While some of this may be the time worn tale that each generation seems destined to re-enact our race's original sin - that of believing that there is Life to be had apart from God - we are concerned that it also might be simply because the teaching of the previous generation has not clearly explained how much genuine Life is already being offered through the Christian story.
At the Warrior's Path, our task and our mission is simple:
“to both proclaim and display the fulfilling, significant, alluring, and adventurous Life, and the irreplaceable role in the story of the universal trial of good versus evil, that is to be found only in absolute surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.”
The Warrior's Heart: Noble. Brave. True.
Who doesn't want that kind of life? Who doesn't want to leave that kind of legacy on the world? Who doesn't want to walk in fellowship with such brothers, and be considered worthy of their company?
That we would need to make a defense for the existence of The Warrior's Path seems... unfathomable. After all, don't we all live in this imperfect world with the nagging sense that what we so often are experiencing, as G.K. Chesterton put it, are "the agonies of a dethroned monarch"? The Garden of Delight may be a legend lost in the ancient past, but not all the brokenness and heartache East of Eden has been enough to purge the memory from our collective souls that once upon a time we were meant to be so much more than this...
And so the good news that we preach is truly the greatest news that could ever be: the chapter of Earth's history best described as Paradise Lost is going to be swallowed in the eternal joy of Paradise Regained. All things will be restored. All manner of things will be well. Happily ever after will at last be the truest thing that could be said about the human experiment.
But not yet.
Right now our experience tells of a different story, and the Happily Ever After feels as far away as Cinderella's Castle and as unlikely as magic beans growing a stairway to heaven right through your bedroom floor. Right now we live in the midst of a cosmic battle between Good and Evil, a battle that our God, the Lord of Angel Armies, has invited us to join Him in. To play our part we will have to be Brave and Noble, Fierce, and True, Holy and Set Apart. We will have to develop the heart of a Warrior.
Ancient Paths. Today's world. Life at the Crossroads.
"Modern" does not always equal "good". By no means is it guaranteed to mean "the best possible". Isn't that what the term post-modern is trying to imply, even if it is wielded most often with the implication that this is truly the most modern thing of all? One of the distinctions of the Warrior's Path is that we believe much of what is good in the world and in the traditions of our Faith are not new inventions, but ancient paths, worn by the wise feet of many generations of those who have walked with God. There is much to learn from the history of how God restores men and women to wholeness over two thousand years. The monastic tradition. The Desert Fathers. The Christian Knight of both history and legend. Great Reformers and Great Saints. Pacifists and Mighty Warriors. Paupers and Kings. We are indeed "a stem of that victorious stock", and there are riches there if we will seek them.
“The Warrior’s Path is dedicated to teaching, encouraging, and equipping a new generation of Kingdom warriors who desire to live life from the strength of their position as sons of the King and the authority they have been given in Jesus in the ongoing mission of bringing God’s Kingdom into a dark world.”
Some of the basic truths that undergird the Warriors Path:
“ - We understand that a conflict of two Kingdoms is the context in which our lives are lived out on this planet.
- We accept the daily, normal fact of spiritual warfare as unavoidable, true reality.
- We accept the Commission given by Jesus to his band of disciples to carry on His work in this world through His power and authority and indwelling Spirit.
- We are painfully aware of the soul-killing nature of modern life on the hearts of men especially, and many women as well.
-We admit to knowing the powerful pull towards passivity that can only be counteracted by pursuing the heart and character of a Warrior.
- The vital importance of the “warrior age” (18-35) in a young man (or woman’s) life, and the need for a transcendent mission and an “in training” mentality in these years.
- The incalculable power of participating in a fellowship that is epic, intimate, and lifelong.”