A look back on Vassal's Guild

(UPDATE: the second half of this article has been added to last week's portion)

Vassal: a subordinate, subject or servant; someone at another's mercy

Guild: a union of men formed to uphold standards

Vassal'’s Guild:
A union of young men formed to uphold servitude and humility

During the summer of two-thousand five, six young Minnesota men between the ages of 14 and 17 gathered together once a month to discuss their valued new possessions and the lessons that were contained inside.

Specifically, what it means to be a servant.

Thus formed Vassal's Guild, a union of young men formed to uphold servitude and humility through the use of rare and classical material: century old stories from Lamplighter Publishing.

The books in their Rare COLLECTOR'S SERIES are an invaluable resource in the quest for a Biblical standard of living. After reading a few of them and discussing the stories with the Vassal's Guild, I am 100% thrilled with the books and the lessons they presented. I would love to launch into a review of all the great things about the Rare Collector'’s books, but since my purpose is to tell you more about the book club experience and less about the outstanding quality of the books we read, I will restrain.

The first meeting found yours truly (the leader) with some stuff to hand out like the books I had ordered, a schedule for the meetings, and the study guide I put together which contained, among other things, a list of analysis questions, review forms for the books, and commentary on servitude to help evaluate the attitudes and actions of the people in the books.

Since we hadn'’t done any reading prior to the first meeting, I thought it would work out well to listen to a CD message by Doug Phillips of The Vision Forum entitled "“Women and Children First!"” It gives some extraordinary stories of men playing the position of servants aboard sinking ships like the Titanic; and also stories of some men that refused the calling.

Students went home that night with the assignment to read, read, read before the next meeting when we would be discussing the different aspects of what they had covered.

At the assembly a month later, held on a Thursday evening, we dissected The Boy Who Never Lost a Chance by starting at the beginning and talking our way through it.

After going over some general questions, we looked into the spiritual and servitude side of the story, peering into the character’s hearts and following their actions; we looked at how the lessons gleaned by the characters could be used by us to herald behavioral improvement. We talked about the kinds of personalities that match a humble spirit and how they were evident in the personalities of the characters. “We learned to act more like servants from the books we read. In the books it showed us what servitude was…” wrote Jeffrey Rausch, age 14, in a post-book club comment sheet.

The other books that went through our process were Shipwrecked But Not Lost, The Robbers’ Cave, Ishmael, and it’s sequel Self-Raised. They taught many lessons besides the specific ones we wanted to identify, and I will let my fellow Vassals share some of them with you.

“By reading The Boy Who Never Lost a Chance, I learned you should work hard but at the same time make friends. I mean you shouldn’t just focus on one thing and block everything else out. Otherwise you might miss a chance.”-Warren Rausch, 17

“…I was hoping to find out who Ishmael Worth really was in history. Nevertheless, by reading his story, I have better learned to appreciate long books like Ishmael and Self-Raised.”-Joel Waage, 16

“…I think it [Vassal’s Guild] has helped me in my walk with God, and helped me to be more helpful in my family…the books we read were very, very good.”-Kwende Kiemle, 17

“The Robbers’ Cave taught me that as Christians, right here, right now, we have it easy. Get out and serve others, stay loyal to them through hard times, and pray that Yahweh will draw them to him evermore.”-Ian Willard, 15

The value these young men place on the lessons they learned is evident, as is the appreciation they have for the books themselves. “The books we read were a good variety,” writes Warren Rausch. “They pretty much had the same principles and morals as each other. Servant-hood was stressed in all these books.” Each story seemed to be better than the one before it, and there was so much in the larger books it was hard to keep ourselves from reading the days away.

Sometimes questions arose about a certain story in parts that were hard to understand. It helped to be able to bring up the problem in conservation with peers who most likely ran into the same thing. “The overall atmosphere of the meetings was comfortable” writes Warren, although at times “it should have been more on the study” notes his brother Jeffrey. (That is, I suppose, a valid statement as we did get a little distracted!)

“I would like to go through the winter with this book club,” Kwende passionately exclaims. Of course, since it is the leader who has to do all the prep work, the decision on whether to continue or not would be his.

After thinking a moment, what is his response?

“Yes, these books are very good, enriching, interesting stories and worthy of our time. My eyes have been opened as to just how important it is to be a servant of others and show humility and also to live out the old-time values as they are presented here…”

I firmly believe I’m right.