Anyone can facilitate a BAKR if he has a heart to help men and a willingness to partner with our team to follow the time-tested guidelines we have laid out for you. There are no prerequisites for leading or participating. However, reading Wild at Heart and Becoming a King will benefit you immensely as you prepare your own heart. As a leader, you agree to offer the full four-day BAKR experience, adhere to the detailed guidelines, and neither add to nor subtract from the Retreat content. You also agree to provide feedback so we can continue to improve BAKR for future events.
Choose Your Date
Important: BAKR requires four days. (Day 1 begins in the afternoon and Day 4 concludes around noon.)
Choose Your Men
This content works for as few as four men and as many as 400. It’ll work for men from 18 to 80. The most important thing is that the men are thirsty for God and are going to risk true authenticity.
Choose Your Location
The BAKR is an immersive experience. It’s your responsibility to choose and curate a distraction-free and unplugged environment where men can encounter God. We recommend renting a cabin or finding a facility that is removed from the pulls and pressures of everyday life. As you consider your location, it is important to bear in mind the “no digital technology” boundary of the retreat.
Invite Your Guys
The following materials can be found in the marketing folder of the downloads section:
When you agree to facilitate a BAKR, you're agreeing to maintain the look and feel of Wild at Heart/Become Good Soil events—including the integrity and use of the BAKR logo. lf you plan to create promotional materials beyond what Wild at Heart provides, it's important that you…
Thanks for helping us stay true to every aspect of the BAKR at your facilitated event, including the use of the Becoming a King name and logo.
Get Yourself Ready
Jesus reminds us, when going into a mission, to “travel light. You are the equipment.” Your masculine soul matters. Read Becoming a King on your own before the event. Spend time immersing yourself not only in the book but also in the BAKR notetaking guide. (You can choose to print the notetaking guide in color or in black and white.) Open your heart to what God is up to in you. The power isn’t in the book—it’s in the hearts of men consented to the Father and his initiation of their masculine soul. Also watch all the video sessions of the BAKR so you are familiar with what the men attending will experience during your event. You can find those here. Finally, you’ll want to begin praying through and sitting in the BAKR Daybreak Prayer, which is also found in the back of the notetaking guide. This will be immensely helpful as you root your soul in God and his Kingdom in preparation for the retreat.
A few more items to consider before your Becoming a King Retreat:
You’ll Need to Provide a Pocket Knife for Each Participant
The retreat culminates in bestowing a pocket knife on each participant. We’ve worked out a pro-deal with DLT Trading to source our custom engraved knives at a great value. You can find those bulk-discount knives as you scroll down this page.
A Note About Participants
This retreat is not targeted for a particular age of men but rather for a pivotal stage of masculine development through which every man must pass. In the earlier years, this retreat targeted men 25 to 45. But we have learned that Becoming a King has much more to do with the parts of each man in need of masculine initiation. Regardless of an attendee’s biological age, look for how God is surfacing parts within his soul in fresh need of fathering, initiation, and care at a variety of stages of development.
Chimney Sweep
Dallas Willard once said, “The most important thing about a man is not what he does. It is who he becomes.” As men, we have so few opportunities to talk about who we are apart from what we do. At the Becoming a King Retreat, we are committed to flipping this script and centering the entire experience around who we are. To that end, we agree to withhold what we “do” for a living. Instead, for the duration of the retreat, we stack hands on one answer to the question of “What do you do?” Our shared answer is simply, “I’m a chimney sweep.” Advise your attendees that anytime they need to talk about their work as a context for their masculine initiation, be sure to refer to it as a chimney sweep (Ex.: “So there I am, at my chimney sweep job, when my boss comes to me and tells me I am failing miserably….”). The same goes for you and all your facilitators. Focusing on who we are apart from the specifics of our livelihood is foundational to digging deep into our masculine hearts; committing to the “chimney sweep” guideline is vital to this end. It is your responsibility as the leader to communicate the heart of this guideline at the beginning of your event and reinforce it throughout.
A Note About Language
Some of the film clips and stories during the BAKR contain strong or explicit language. Including this language is not gratuitous but motivated by our commitment to honesty, authenticity, and vulnerability. The mission of Becoming a King is to connect the heart of every man with the heart of God, and our hope is that occasionally including strong language helps to this end. We ask for your grace in this category, and if a man finds this choice offensive, this retreat is probably not for him at this time.
