The Sons of Thunder Culture

If you've already read about the principles and precepts that we, as men strive for, let me now try to explain what the Sons of Thunder is. It's a diverse group of men, of all shapes and colors, whom follow Christ, from all types of socio-economic backgrounds, with different talents, and for sure different personalities. We believe that God has placed us in a common brotherhood for the benefit of each individual and the advancement of His kingdom in our area. We're not a religious group, because religion sucks. (We define religion as man's attempt to reach and please God through rules and traditions made up by men.) In fact, detecting, revealing and smothering religion is one of the things we do best. (Besides eating steak.) The reason we called our group the Sons of Thunder, is after the nick-name that Jesus gave the brothers James and john in jest, (Mark 3:17) because they were knuckleheads who didn't understand the Kingdom of God in a full way. (Luke 9:54-56) (Which is just like us!.....Well, at least we know that we’re dopes who don’t fully understand everything.) We believe that Jesus was goofing on them when He nicknamed them that, and that brings us to another thing we do well. We are very good at harassing each other. (Like brothers do.) Lord forbid, you show up with a pink lawn chair at a camp-out. No one really cares about the color of your chair but, the verbal chiding you would have to endure will make you want to throw it in the fire. (Ahhh, it's all in good fun.) So if you're sensitive or thin skinned, we have the healing” ministry for that flaw for sure. The Sons of Thunder is not a church group. Most of the men do go to a church somewhere but it's not exclusive to one church or church people”. We don't care about denominational dog squeeze. If you believe in, and follow Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, Whom died for our sins and was raised from the dead; and you know how to pee standing up, your application for membership is accepted. We camp once a month from October through April and have forged lifelong friendships through working and hanging out together. We contact, meet up, and hang out with each other intermittently throughout the weeks between camping and other planned events. So these are real friendships and not just phony church crap. One of the other signs of acceptance and brotherly love in the group is the giving of nick-names or monikers. I.E; Uncle Dave, Uncle Jimmy, Big Mac, Nate Dog, Cornbread, Butterbean, Mr. Wilheight, Junk Yard and Jeremiah are some of the nick-names of renown in the tribe. Some of the boys have more than one nick-name, so you have to be on your toes to learn them. We have learned not to force Spiritual conversations or happenings. Our conversations around the fire can go from laughing about all the manly hygiene problems associated with camping, (enough said) to having very deep talks about God and Godly things, sometimes in the same conversation. I guess the main tenure in the tribe is Truth. We strive to face the truth about ourselves, the truth about the world, and we seek the Truth in the things of God through Christ. We recognize our humanity and love to laugh at its funny side while trying to improve upon, and limit its propensity for sin with Gods' help through His grace. Well that's all I can write about the tribe this time for fear of writing a book of mind numbing lameness. All I can say is come camp with us and see for yourself.