Is The Crucible Project Safe?

We may not be doing road work,
but safety is key.

Some of the questions men ask about men's work, and The Crucible Project revolve around safety. Safety is a broad word, dealing with several different areas:

• Am I physically safe?
• Is my faith safe?
• Is the weekend spiritually/theologically safe?
• Will I be emotionally safe?

I'll look at each of these in the coming posts. I'll start today with physical safety.

Physical Safety
Men don't like to talk about getting hurt, because we're taught to play through the pain. One of my favorite phrases is, "Suck it up, Buttercup!". And as we get older, we start to consider the consequences of getting hurt. I know I do. So I don't think this is an unreasonable question for men to ask.

I know guys who have attended the weekend with all manner of health conditions from weak backs to screws & plates in their bones to heart issues. The standard is all men on the weekend, staff included, take responsibility for themselves and inform the staff so we can partner in *everyone's* safety. I've seen guys on the weekend aging from their early 20s to early 70s go through the weekend having been challenged, but not hurt. This isn't the NFL, people.

Parts of the weekend are physical in nature, and they can be challenging. That's the idea: challenging. Guys who are interested in growth and change know that it won't be easy (even if they hope it will be), and sometimes change involves physical effort. 

There's an important piece here about the approach taken by staff. When I staff, I follow leaders who have staffed and/or led many weekends. As I blogged here, they take the mantle of leadership as a solemn responsibility to God, the staff, and the participants, per James 3:1 "Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly."

These and other things make it safe
to do men's work.

The approach we staff take is in line with 1 Cor 16:13-14 "Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. Do everything in love." It takes discipline, courage, & brotherly love to give a man the room do his work. There is a fine line between letting a man do his work and giving him (what I think is) the answer. Often times men want to fix things for people or give advice. Advice & fixing things are not on the schedule: this isn't a therapy group. 

It's not hazing, either. I've been through a weekend and have staffed twice, and I've never seen anyone on staff treat a participant with disrespect, mockery, much less derision. There are none of the hallmark fraternity hazing rituals: carrying bricks, memorizing some complex phrase, heckling, demeaning them. I have seen none of this when I've staffed. I can't say such a thing has never happened, as I haven't been on all the weekends. What I can say is such conduct would be wholly inconsistent with what I've seen with my own eyes and based on the weekend preparation of which I've been a part. I've blogged here & here on different aspects of leadership on the weekend.

The Crucible Project: Show Me or Show Up

In another recent blog, Seth Godin talks about The Show Me State. Neither he nor I mean Missouri; I

Missouri is the "Show Me" state, but
that's beside the point.

consider this frame of mind the bane of men's work: apathy. I've invited men to the weekend, and several times I've heard variations of "show me what it is or what I'll get before I commit to going". This, as Godin aptly notes, is preface to "now that I know what it is about, I don't need to commit".

So much of life is really a mystery, yet we're told we're better off driving out mystery, sanitizing things, extracting the essence of experiences and putting them in hermetically sealed bullet points. I fall prey to this approach.

Last weekend my wife & I went out to celebrate our anniversary. She really wanted to see Gravity, and I was fortunate enough to hear little of it before we went. I saw only the title of one review, which basically said in its title to ignore the review & go see the movie--which I did. I loved the movie; it was even better that I knew so little about the plot and nothing of how it ended. I was better off *not* knowing the details, so I could have the experience of being present during the movie.

I think this quest to stamp out the unknown, mystery, & surprise is based on fear. What if I *don't* know how this will go? What if I am the only one who doesn't know the answer? Men's work is inherently both: we don't know how it will go, and we often don't know the answer. After all, if I knew why, I'd start to heal & make new choices. Men's work, especially my own, scares the crap right out of me. I don't know how it'll turn out, how well I'll "do" my job, what I'll "get", how I'll feel, or what to do next. And leaving this long list of crazy-making questions somewhere else is often the best thing for me.

I know I can trust the men there: they've proven to me they're trustworthy, despite their imperfections. The men there are doing their best, and will make mistakes & fail sometimes, and do their best again to make things right. Perfection isn't required. Prayer, reliance upon God, empathy, skill, dedication, and honesty are overstocked on the weekend. These things are more than enough, and show up every weekend.

It's a good thing that God didn't display apathy at our sinful condition, or that Jesus didn't decide that he didn't need to commit. By comparison, it seems a small matter for men to set apathy aside for a weekend and commit to being present in their own lives. Doing those things has made a profound difference in my life, changing the trajectory of my life to be more in line with God's will. I'd love to see where it will go; part of the joy is being present while it unfolds.

The Crucible Weekend: Modeling Male Community & Same-Sex Friendships

I've been thinking a lot about community lately. I've spend a lot of time with a good friend, each of us bartering our time to help each other work on our houses and cars. Money is tight, the jobs are much easier with two men, and we each agree it is easier for us to work on someone else's house/car than our own. So we labor away in our free time, breaking bread together, solving problems, working late, sharing each other's burdens.

We talk while we're working: about our struggles, failings, fears, successes, jokes--the whole gamut. And this is how things are supposed to be: guys, and their families, doing life together. My kids greet the guys in my mens' group by their first names because they see them regularly. They're learning that different men act differently, and that is a good thing.

Last weekend, a bunch of men I know staffed The Crucible Weekend for men who live in urban communities. The men who participated in the weekend live very different lives than I do: vocation, background, where they live, what their city/village/community looks like. And yet we have similar goals, a similar calling, in terms of Community. As I've blogged before, differences of socioeconomic, culture, race, location, vocation, etc. are much less important when we have a common faith in Christ. This faith in Christ provides a bridge over these other differences.

As I've blogged before, we've started Men's Ministry at my church. The men I met want to learn God's word; some are even hungry for it. I also heard men say they are looking forward to the community aspect of our meetings: from simply recognizing & knowing other guys at church on Sunday, to building friendships, to challenging & encouraging each other, to knowing each other--and being known by others.

The Crucible Project teaches how to do authentic male community, and how to do it well. If posts like these cause a stirring in your soul, why not fill out TCP's Contact Us form, or comment here, or reach out to me directly?