Mr. Nate Larkin has been hosting one of the (5-6 per week) "newcomer meetings" for quite a while now. These meetings serve as a clearinghouse for men who're interested in joining Samson Society (gaining access to virtual meetings / Slack, etc.), and it's assumed they've never attended an in-person Samson meeting (i.e. they're very green).
In essence, newcomers are able to reserve a seat at (again, 5-6 offered per week) upcoming newcomers' meetings on the homepage of www.samsonsociety.com. From there, they receive an email invitation which gives them access at the set day / time of their scheduled meeting.
I had the privilege to officially take the reins of Nate's regularly hosted newcomers' meeting this past Saturday, (12/28) in response to Nate's wife's request to be able to spend the full Saturday(s) with him going forward. It was a whole lot of fun.
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The newcomers' meeting firstly, in my mind, needs to provide these men - who're brave enough to step up - with a concise description of what exactly Samson Society is and how it works. And these newcomer meeting's foundations laid therein already does bring that to bare. How so? There's a specific newcomers' meeting slide deck that provides a one-to-one overview of a standard format Samson meeting. As such, it's expected that me as the host, breeze through these at some point during the hour. Besides that, what I also observed Mr. Nate Larkin relay were specific details as to his journey within 12-steps groups and how he'd attempted to overlay many of those attributes in light of his desire to foster similarly positive experiences within Samson Society (a personal justification / origin story of the Samson ethos).
Therefore, there's a template here, but in regard to Nate's position as founder, he also brought so much firsthand narrative to the table.
But one truth that I keep coming back to is how - within a standard format meeting - guys essentially are given the opportunity / expectation to both listen intently whilst talking openly themselves sans any feedback. This, to me, is what sets Samson Society apart.
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We are a culture built on individualism. Individualism that's customizable to the nth degree. This western culture approach has grown out of another cultural lynchpin. That being unending criticism - from every side. We westerners spend an enormous amount of energy / time critiquing everything around us. And this is an outgrowth of our being image bearers. For God offers the ultimate critique as he adjudicates our hearts with the deepest and most resolute sincerity.
Because of this, we hide an awful lot of ourselves or choose to live separate lives depending on the surroundings we might find ourselves within. And this is an inevitability, though as we age, I do believe there can / should be less and less of this default shielding.
Therefore, for those of us who find the results of these various approaches stilting, debilitating, suffocating, genuinely exhausting, I offer you Samson Society.
And no, you don't have to have issues with anything especially compulsory or addictive to qualify.
