The Way is Wild exists to inspire and equip each other to follow the wild way of Jesus!
We believe that following Jesus is wild! It’s a life full of adventure, faith, risk, wonder, mystery, courage, joy, and fun. We believe it is the greatest adventure we can ever experience.
The phrase, “The way” is found all throughout the Bible as a way to describe the adventure of following the calling and commands of God. Jesus declares in John’s gospel that He is “the way, the truth, and the life.” According to Jesus, following Him is life and life to the fullest. As a matter of fact, as we journey through the grand story of the Bible, after the early church launched, the first Christians were called “The Way”. Following the way of Jesus in the book of Acts was a life full of wildness, danger, risk, courage, and mission. Following the Way was wild and we want to rediscover that wildness, together.
We also believe that teaching the way of Jesus to the next generation is one of the most amazing and biblical ways to build the kingdom of God. In Proverbs 22, Solomon charged his own son to “train up a child in the way they should go, and when they are old they will not depart from it.” We believe following the wild way of Jesus is the way our children should go, it’s the life they were destined to lead.
That’s the mission of the The Way is Wild. We want to rediscover together the wildness of following Jesus and then be equipped to pass this adventure on to the next-generation.
We want The Way is Wild to unlock extraordinary faith in our lives, our homes, among our neighbors, and among the nations.
Charles Spurgeon once wrote, “Follow Jesus into the wild.” That’s exactly what we want to do with this movement and we want to invite you (and your family) to join us. Let’s be inspired and equipped together to follow the wild way of Jesus!
About the Ligons
Hey everyone! We are Blake and Joy Ligon. Welcome to The Way is Wild! We are followers of Jesus and parents to three wild kids. Blake is a teaching pastor in Arkansas. He loves outdoor adventure, investing in men, and planning our epic family vacations. He has also earned a doctorate degree in Executive Leadership.
Joy stays at home raising our kids, leads a women’s ministry, reads as many books as she can, loves to hike, and semi-loves training for half-marathons. She has her master’s degree in education.
Our family loves to have living room dance parties, competing in triathlons, hiking with friends, fly-fishing, reading books together, and most importantly, trying our best to follow the wild way of Jesus.
Our Statement of Faith
Keep the main thing the main thing. It's all about Jesus!
We believe there is one true God who exists in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We believe that God is infinitely perfect and eternally existing. God is the Creator and Lord of the world who governs all things according to the purpose of His will. Because of who God is and what He has done, our response to Him should be trust, obedience, love, and worship. God is holy, just, and loves the world He created. He desires for all people to come to saving faith in Jesus Christ.
We believe the Bible is the inspired and authoritative word of God to all people. We believe in the divine inspiration, truthfulness and authority of both Old and New Testament Scriptures in their entirety as the only written word of God, without error in all that it affirms, and the only infallible rule of faith and practice. We believe the Bible is the story of God’s grace, power, and love for all people and not merely a collection of fables that teach life principles.
We believe that all people are created in the image of God, therefore they have inherent and equal dignity and worth. We believe that people were created to build their life and find their meaning in God. When people find their life and meaning in anything other than God, the result is sin. We believe every person has sinned, resulting in a broken relationship with God. This sin has corrupted every aspect of our human nature (physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually) leaving us guilty before a just and holy God. All people are in need of a Savior to rescue them from the eternal punishment of their sins and to restore them to a right relationship with God.
We believe that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of a virgin, and lived a sinless life in complete obedience to the Father. Jesus came to earth to reveal God to all people and restore the relationship between God and all people that was broken because of sin. He fulfilled his purpose by receiving the punishment we were owed for our sin against God. Through repentance and faith in his life, death, and resurrection we are declared righteous and justified by God. Our relationship with God is restored by being adopted into God’s family, and we receive the gift of eternal life with Him.
The Gospel is the good news that God, Himself, has come to rescue and redeem all people. This was graciously accomplished through the sinless life, sacrificial death, and bodily resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ. It is through faith in Jesus Christ that we can experience the forgiveness for our sins, receive righteousness, and be declared justified. The Gospel opens the door for us to have a restored and renewed relationship with God, our Father. The salvation offered in this gospel message is received by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone; there is nothing we can do to earn our salvation. We believe the Gospel is the foundation, motivation, and declaration of our entire lives. We find the gospel is best summed up in the following quote by Timothy Keller, “We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.”
We believe the Holy Spirit is God’s personal presence and the third person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is on a mission to bring glory to Jesus Christ, convict people of their sin and their need for saving faith in Jesus Christ. The Spirit resides within all people who have saving faith in Jesus Christ, providing them with spiritual life, bestowing spiritual gifts for the work of ministry, and helping them to become more like Christ. The Holy Spirit lovingly leads and empowers all believers for worship, service, and mission. The power of the Holy Spirit raised Jesus Christ from the grave and now that same Spirit indwells all believers.
We believe the universal church is made up of all people who have saving faith in Jesus Christ. It is explained through different word pictures found in the Bible. One is the “body of Christ” which describes our relationship to Christ as our head and how each person has a role in the church. Another picture is “family” which describes how we see each other in light of all believers being adopted into the family of God. Within the universal church there are local churches. The local church is centralized at a specific time and place in human history. The local church is not a building or event you attend regularly. The local church is the family of God who are sent as disciples out into the world to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ, working alongside the Holy Spirit to bring others to saving faith in Jesus Christ, and to help them grow into disciples. Following the example of Jesus, we live as servants in the world. We care for one another and minsiter to the needs of our neighbors and the nations.