Transformation through Intentional Discipleship
Soar Thrive Purpose
Soar Thrive helps individuals and families build resilient spiritual foundations, clarify their identity in Christ, and live out biblical truth with disciplined, practical application.
Soar-Thrive offers structured teaching that strengthens faith, integrates belief with vocation and family life, and prepares believers to lead with conviction in an increasingly complex world.
Our mission is not simply inspiration—but transformation through intentional discipleship.
Our Values
Faith Integration
Faith must influence family, vocation, business,
and community leadership.
Generational Impact
We build for long-term fruitfulness and legacy beyond ourselves.
Obedient Action
Knowledge without application is incomplete.
Biblical Authority
Scripture is our foundation. Every teaching and framework flow from the Word of God.
Spiritual Resiliance
Faith must withstand cultural pressure, adversity, and doubt.
Identity and Purpose
Clarity of identity in Christ produces clarity of direction.
Disciplined Growth
Spiritual maturity requires structure, repetition, and accountability.
Founder, Robert Young
I am a husband, father, grandfather, and teacher committed to strengthening believers through biblical truth applied in everyday life, as does my wife, Annette.
My family has always been drawn to serve others through mission work. In 2004, our daughter Holly enrolled in the Youth with a Mission (YWAM) Discipleship Training School (DTS). As we learned about her outreach assignments, our hearts were awakened to the global mission of discipleship and service.
Traveling nearly 13,500 miles from Michigan, USA to Vanuatu in the South Pacific marked a defining spiritual turning point. On the island of Éfaté, I sensed a clear calling from God toward deeper involvement in missions, leadership, and spiritual instruction.
Answering that call, my family enrolled in Crossroads DTS and completed five months of discipleship training and outreach, including ministry in Fiji. This season refined our understanding of obedience, family discipleship, and intentional spiritual growth.
Upon return, I began leading men’s groups in churches and ministries, sharing my experiences and spiritual beliefs, and offering biblically based support to those experiencing spiritual doubt.
Over time, structured teaching outlines emerged. What started as simple lessons evolved into a framework that equips believers with practical, actionable tools for spiritual defense, leadership development, and faith maturity.
Throughout my professional career, God entrusted me to lead Big Steps Little Feet, a thriving Christian preschool educational program in Michigan. Over 30 years, I learned that the preschool program embodied a core SOAR-THRIVE principle: faith must be integrated into family, vocation, and community influence—not confined to church settings alone.
My life mission aligns with SOAR-THRIVE: to help individuals build a resilient spiritual foundation, live with clarity of purpose, and walk faithfully in obedience to Christ.
Today, SOAR-THRIVE exists to empower individuals to build spiritual resilience, clarify identity, develop disciplined habits, and lead with biblical conviction. This curriculum is the result of years of discipleship, teaching, and lived experience.
Consider this my invitation to rise with purpose, apply truth consistently, and thrive in faithful stewardship.
Following in the Footsteps of Barnabas the Encourager
Barnabas plays a significant supporting role in the New Testament, particularly in the book of Acts. He was active during the earliest decades of the Christian church.
Barnabas’s birth name was Joseph, but the apostles gave him the name Barnabas, which means “son of encouragement” (Acts 4:36). He was a Levite from Cyprus and an early convert to Christianity.
Barnabas is remembered as an encourager, bridge-builder, and reconciler — someone who saw potential in others (Paul, Mark) when others didn’t. Tradition holds that he continued ministering and was eventually martyred in Cyprus.
SoarThrive follows the actions of Barnabas
Disciple: Follower and learner of Christ, used throughout Acts for believers in the early church.
Evangelist: Proclaims the good news, fitting given his missionary journeys.
Encourager: Barnabas was a name given to him by the apostles, meaning "son of encouragement."
Generous Early Believer
He sold a field he owned and laid the money at the apostles’ feet to support the early church (Acts 4:36-37).
Advocate for Paul
After Paul’s conversion, the disciples in Jerusalem were afraid of him and did not believe he was truly a follower of Christ. Barnabas vouched for Paul and brought him to the apostles (Acts 9:26-27). This was pivotal — without Barnabas’s willingness to trust Paul, Paul’s ministry might have been delayed or rejected entirely.
Leader in Antioch
The Jerusalem church sent Barnabas to Antioch to encourage the growing Gentile believers there. He then went to Tarsus to find Paul and brought him back to help teach (Acts 11:22-26). It was in Antioch that followers were first called “Christians.”
Missionary
Barnabas and Paul were set apart by the Holy Spirit for missionary work and embarked on what’s known as the first missionary journey, traveling through Cyprus and Asia Minor (Acts 13-14).
Council of Jerusalem
He and Paul represented the Gentile churches at the Jerusalem Council, which decided Gentile converts didn’t need to follow Jewish ceremonial law (Acts 15).
Split with Paul
Barnabas and Paul parted ways over a disagreement about bringing John Mark (Barnabas’s cousin) on their next journey. Barnabas took Mark to Cyprus, while Paul took Silas in a different direction (Acts 15:36-39).
David's Mighty Men and the 12 Apostles
David's Mighty Men (Hebrew: Gibborim) were an elite group of warriors who served King David, renowned for extraordinary acts of courage and loyalty.
The Twelve Apostles were the core disciples Jesus chose to follow him, learn from him, and carry his message forward after his death and resurrection.
Courage under impossible odds
They repeatedly stood and fought when others fled. Eleazar kept fighting until his hand froze to his sword; Shammah defended a field alone; the three broke through enemy lines just to get David a drink of water.
Fierce loyalty
Many joined David when he was a fugitive with nothing to offer, gathering at the cave of Adullam when he was hunted by Saul. They bet on him before he was king.
Self-sacrifice
They risked their lives not just in strategic battles but even for small, personal acts of devotion to their leader (the water from Bethlehem's well).
Skill and excellence
They were masters of their craft. Benaiah could kill a lion in a pit on a snowy day; Abishai could take on hundreds single-handedly; Asahel was famously swift.
They operated as a tight-knit band, and many are listed alongside brothers or kin, suggesting deep familial and relational bonds.
Brotherhood
They didn't wait for orders. Many of their exploits are solo acts of bravery done because the moment demanded it.
Initiative
Endurance
Men like Eleazar fought past the point of physical exhaustion, and the group sustained itself over decades of David's reign.
Humility under a greater leader
They served David's vision rather than seeking their own glory, and David in turn honored them by preserving their names.
Willingness to leave everything
Fishermen abandoned boats and nets, Matthew walked away from a lucrative tax booth, and others left homes and families to follow Jesus immediately.
Teachability
Despite frequent misunderstandings, they kept learning. They asked questions, sought clarification, and grew in understanding over three years of discipleship.
Faith in the unseen
They believed Jesus was the Messiah before the resurrection confirmed it, often on the basis of his words and works alone.
Missionary courage
They took the gospel to places far beyond their comfort zones — Thomas to India, Andrew to Scythia, others across the Roman Empire — into cultures and languages unfamiliar to them.
Community and shared mission
Despite frequent misunderstandings, they kept learning. They asked questions, sought clarification, and grew in understanding over three years of discipleship.
Faith in the unseen
They believed Jesus was the Messiah before the resurrection confirmed it, often on the basis of his words and works alone.
Boldness after Pentecost
The same men who hid in fear after the crucifixion preached openly in Jerusalem within weeks, unafraid of arrest, flogging, or death.
Endurance through suffering
Nearly all tradition holds were martyred, and they accepted imprisonment, beatings, and exile rather than recant.
Humility and repentance
Peter wept bitterly after denying Jesus and was restored; Thomas moved from doubt to one of the most profound confessions ("My Lord and my God"); the group consistently acknowledged their failures in the Gospels they helped shape.
Willingness to include others
Peter opened the gospel to Gentiles through Cornelius; the group as a whole embraced the radical decision at the Jerusalem Council to welcome Gentile believers without requiring full adherence to Jewish ceremonial law.
Witness and testimony
Their defining role was bearing witness to what they had seen and heard, and they did so faithfully even when it cost them everything.
Their defining role was bearing witness to what they had seen and heard, and they did so faithfully even when it cost them everything.
What They Had in Common
Foundational to God's unfolding story: The Mighty Men helped establish Davidic kingdom, which Scripture presents as a foreshadowing of Christ's kingdom; the apostles became the foundation of the church that proclaims that kingdom. The two groups bookend a larger narrative arc.
Courage in the face of death: Both willingly faced mortal danger for the sake of their leader and his mission.
Diverse backgrounds unified by purpose: Both groups drew from varied walks of life (warriors from different tribes and regions; fishermen, a tax collector, a possible zealot) and were welded into a band by a common cause.
Ordinary men who became legendary: Neither group was composed of the obvious elites of their day. They became extraordinary through their association with their leader and the calling they answered.
Named and remembered: Scripture preserves their names deliberately. Both lists serve as honor rolls, ensuring that those who served faithfully are not forgotten.
Brotherhood and shared hardship: Both formed deep bonds through enduring difficulty together, whether on the run from Saul or persecuted across the Roman Empire.
Brotherhood and shared hardship: Both formed deep bonds through enduring difficulty together, whether on the run from Saul or persecuted across the Roman Empire.
Like Jesus calling fishermen, David gathers the distressed, the indebted, and the discontented.
Both leaders draw their followers from the margins rather than the elite,
and both transform those followers into something greater than what they were.
This transcendent cause is one of the key principle that Jesus modeled when he walked the earth.
1. Jesus rejected passivity
2. He accepted responsibility
3. He led courageously.
These three principles are taught in Rober Lewis' book, "Raising Modern-day Knights."
Human flaws alongside their virtues: Neither group is airbrushed. The Mighty Men include Uriah (whom David wronged) and likely others with failings; the apostles include Peter's denial, Thomas's doubt, the brothers' ambition, and Judas's betrayal. Their greatness shines brighter because Scripture doesn't hide their weaknesses.