What is The Jacob Challenge?
The Jacob Challenge is a call to all 50+ men and women everywhere to gather in small groups for monthly meetings to discuss life’s basics: love and relationships, truth and beauty, adversity and death. It is about rebuilding the ability to listen, understand, and empathize. Now more than ever the world needs people who have these abilities.
Why The Jacob Challenge?
Our culture is in the process of devolving from one in which we work together for the common good despite disagreements, to one in which we take sides–join tribes–whose common motto is “my way or the highway,” and whose modus operandi is “win at all costs,” a cultural trajectory that is self-defeating, frightening, and (even) deadly.
Who is Jacob?
Jacob is the single individual in the Old Testament represented as having literally wrestled with God. His life trajectory symbolizes the life trajectory of many, if not most. Like Jacob… We are all “second-born sons and daughters,” as many have come before us and paved our ways; Like Jacob… We come into this world assisted and supported by others… and cut a couple corners…
What is a Jacob Challenge Group?
A Jacob Challenge group is constituted of 10 to 12 individuals, the majority of whom should be 50+ years of age, who agree to meet monthly for a 2.5- to 3-hour discussion about life’s basics. A group can be men only, women only, or mixed. Those accepting an invitation to join agree to attend a minimum of six times per year. Meeting dates should be scheduled in six-month intervals.