This past Friday morning during my prayer time, I found myself coming back to the word commission. It isn't a word I use often, and I felt God put it on my heart. In my experience, when that happens, God has to make it *really* obvious, b/c I'm not the quickest to pick those things up. The context at the time was my prayer around the simultaneous Crucible Project weekend retreats in Wisconsin & Australia, that these men would be commissioned by God by the end of the weekend (which is this afternoon).
The next morning, I participated in a meeting at church. It was really the first of its kind in the history of our church, with the goal of reaching men, getting men more involved. Our pastor read from Jesus' Great Commission as he opened in prayer. It was more than a coincidence: it was over 2 years worth of answered prayer.
There are stirrings of Men's Ministry at my church: men who are stepping up, plans being made, meetings scheduled, etc. We're a diverse group, with different ideas, gifts, & backgrounds. We have a passion for engaging men; we don't aspire to men's breakfasts where the most significant thing is Satan pouring the syrup.
This is truly exciting for our community. As my boys grow, I'd love for them to see men fully alive, mobilized, leading, growing in our community. Yesterday, we made some of the first steps toward that.
I'm preparing to go staff the March weekend in WI, and initiation is on my mind & heart.
What is
initiation?
In pre-industrial age societies, men initiated boys
into the community of men. These were tests of strength, character, courage.
Give them a taste of what it takes to be a man:
dig deeper for strength & resolve when they want to quit
character when
faced with situations where ethics, morals, & faith are involved
courage
in the face of fear & uncertainty
The point was not to haze, shame, humiliate, or
damage. After all, these boys were sons of men in the community.
Why initiation for
men?
Service & mentorship
not hazing
What defines a man? Is it age? Maybe secondary
sex characteristics like deeper voice or chest hair? How about sexual conquest,
siring children, or moving out from his parents’ house? I argue that our
culture, including Christian culture, is confused on this issue. I’ve seen
little church teaching or guidance on this issue, leaving young men to fend for
themselves. Because few of these boys have a mentor. And that, in my opinion,
is because few men can understand, much less articulate what it means to be a
man. Christian communities need Christian men to challenge & bless young
men, to teach them, welcome them into the community of men, to share the wisdom
of their experience with these men.
For those men older than teens/20s, there are
still questions: do I have “what it takes”, how do articulate what is going on
in my head, how do I communicate with my heart / women / other men? Heck, in
most cases, men have no idea what “authentic” community means. Hint: it’s not
about drinking beer, playing golf, watching sports. If their Dad didn’t teach
them, they’re trying to figure it out on their own.
Why not have a group of prayerful Christian men
challenge & bless other men, regardless of age? Where is the downside of
teaching men how to understand themselves, be honest with themselves &
others?
I like to figure out the way to do well on a
“test”. Left to my own devices, I’ll study like a wild man, practice, prepare.
The truth is, I’ll figure out how much I have to do to meet a certain standard
I have for myself, and do that. If I don’t know what the minimum is, I’ll work
harder, do whatever it takes. If I don’t have lots of data on how to game the
system, I won’t game the system.
Initiation
<> Cult
In terms of initiation, The Crucible Project doesn’t have the hallmarks of
cults/hazing:
Sleep deprivation
Men get adequate sleep & are not up all
night. Tired, yes. Driven to exhaustion? No.
Coercion
The whole weekend is what I call “challenge by choice”.
This isn’t the military, people.
Food & water
Men eat & drink on the weekend; water is
always available. It is not a spa retreat, but we don’t starve or go thirsty,
either.
Physical punishment or verbal abuse
Absolutely, categorically, positively does not
happen. The weekend is iron sharpening iron (Proverbs 27:17), not a place where
men hurt each other.
I'm focused on what I can give back to the men on the weekend. Men I don't even know. I'm giving back the blessings & wisdom I've gained, in part through the service of other men who staffed. These men didn't know me, either. They spent a weekend away from their families, after months of preparation, to serve God and other men doing work that is challenging. On Sunday, we'll all leave blessed & full, and the community of Christian men will be stronger & wiser. That is neither hazing, nor a cult.
I had dinner recently with a wise, dear friend. He works
with youth & offered me an assessment I had not heard before. Netted out,
his hypothesis is that as the father in a family goes, so goes the rest of the
home. If the father is away all the time, angry often, doesn’t love his wife,
and/or doesn’t treat his wife well in front of his children, well, then there’s
trouble. Kids grow up with things wrong
in critical areas.
I thought quite a bit about what he said, and which of those
apply most to me. It was a humbling period of self-reflection.
I know I don’t have the strength, wisdom, persistence, and
myriad other things I need to raise good kids. The only chance I’ve got is to
lean into my faith, to get these things from God. For me, this starts with
prayer. Yet for most of my life, prayer was something I did half-heartedly.
Sure, I did it before meals, and foxhole prayers when life got scary.
Gradually, I did it in the mornings occasionally, or just before falling asleep
at night. But it wasn’t a focus, a priority, a value.
There were two big things that changed my approach to
prayer, making it essential. I was scared straight.
The first was a culmination, an awakening of sorts. After
our first child was born, I found myself besieged right before I fell asleep
with potent fear of horrific things happening to my son. This went on for some
time and one day I read the story of Martin Luther being awakened by the Devil
in the middle of the night. Luther, realizing who it was, replied, “Oh, it’s
only you” and went back to sleep. I was reading one of John Eldredge’s books,
learning about spiritual warfare and the value of prayer. I tried praying
against those fears at night, exposing them for what they were, and you know
what? It worked!
The power of prayer really came home for me a year or so
later. To make a long story short, I felt like evil had its hooks in me, and it
rattled me to my core. I got past my reluctance to as for help, asking my wife
& friends to pray for me. I prayed for days, deeply disturbed in my soul,
asking God for wisdom & perspective. What I realized in the midst of this
was I had too few verses of scripture in memory. Put another way, I knew of
the armor of God, but had no idea what it was, how to put it on, what it was
about. I did not want to be caught so unprepared again.
So I began praying Eldredge’s daily
prayer. It seems long & involved. And it is; check out the references
to scripture. And I’ve realized that it is an insurance policy, a shield in the
daily spiritual warfare that surrounds us all. I know on the days when I don’t
make the time for prayer in the morning that I should expect things to go
haywire. Prayer in the morning isn’t a cure-all, a guarantee of smooth sailing.
It does ground me, help me get closer to God, and practice covering my family
and myself in prayer. And it provides me with a touchpoint with God, a place to
evaluate how things are going in my walk with Him.
Are you walking with God daily? Are you in a community of
men who can tell you of the good they see in you—and challenge you to live the
life God intended for you? Are they lifting you up in prayer, and challenging
you to do the same for them, yourself, and your house?
The men's group I'm in met the other day, and one of the big
topics was work. It's fair to say that this theme was the predominant theme,
and that there was a lot to unpack amongst 4 men. My example today will be from
my own “work” on the house. The same process applies to “work” in earning a
living.
Things we do are different from many men's groups.
What we don't do
I've met with guys who fast when another man 'breaks his vow of purity'. We
don't do that.
I've met with men who spend their time serving the poor. Noble, but we don't do
that--as a focus.
I've met with guys who sit around, drink, and smoke cigars. While we do get
together socially, help each other fix our cars & houses, etc. that is not
our focus.
What *do* we do?
It seems simple since we don't do the three things above that many men do when
they gather. Sure, part of it is that we meet from 8-11 am on Saturdays.
There are several things we do:
1) Pray
We open every meeting in prayer, inviting
the Holy Spirit to guide us in our time.
2) Minimize the "story".
I want to be a great storyteller. I don't match the level of detail with my
audience's appetite. Just ask my boss. Or a former boss. I love a good story,
and context matters to me. Ask anyone who is a Myers-Briggs
"P". And the story is not the issue. We don't camp out on the
infinitesimal detail before & after some "event". We could camp
out here for days & not get anywhere. So we move away from this quickly;
2-3 sentences will do.
3) Identify the emotions involved
Emotions? Feelings?
Jokes aside, this is relevant stuff.
Why are you fired up about work? What do you feel,
besides anger? For many men, including me, anger is the "idiot light"
on the dashboard telling me something is going on inside. Usually, when I pause
to look underneath, it's not anger driving things.
Think about it. When was the last time you asked yourself what you felt -- and
actually figured out the answer? If I'm hung up in my men's group, I can ask
for help. We'll figure out what emotions are swirling about in my head. Because
these guys *know me*, they can ask questions, speak truth, and help me see into
my heart. And that is where the action is. Really.
4) Look back, re-evaluate the situation, and take action
Most often, I'm hung up about two outcomes, and I'm *convinced*
the will both happen. Most often one of them is happening, and I
expect the other will happen. The other things I expect will happen,
along with the emotions there, are usually rooted in the past. In my life,
those rules or stories were true and/or served me a long time ago. And often
they no longer serve me and are no longer true. What if I saw these things in a
new light & re-evaluated them?
An example
My Dad was pretty handy. He fixed everything that broke in
our house, without a bunch of drama or fanfare. We weren't rich, so fixing
things saved money that was in short supply in the first place. I'm handy too,
but I was 12 when he died, and there's a lot he never got the chance to teach
me. Part of me believes that 1) I can't afford professional help around the
house/cars, and 2) real men don't need help there.
My wife has waited, mostly with great patience, for *years*
to take a bath again in our master bathroom. She likes baths, and our other full
bathroom borders the twins' room, so running water late at night wakes them up.
And tip-toeing through toothpaste & a bathroom used by two boys is not a spa experience. Grad School, a new job, and the intricacies
of working with silicone caulk aside, it is still not bath-ready.
I don't know how and am afraid to do the work. It could look
like crap & be a huge failure. On the other hand, my wife loves baths, and
currently the caulk in that bathroom *is* a huge failure, b/c I've removed it
but not replaced it!
Only one of these outcomes is true. The other I *believe* will come true. So
I'm stuck. Do I take the risk that I'll screw it up, or acknowledge that it is
already screwed up, b/c it doesn't work? I'm screwed either way… I could blow
it.
What if people hung with me either way? That's revolutionary. What if they
spotted my issues, b/c they knew me & I tell them, and they help me figure
out which is true, and which *might* be true? What if they challenge me to step
out of my contort zone?
Take Heart...And Action!
Whether the issue is work, caulking my bathtub, or somewhere
in between, I have a group of men who know me, challenge me to the best I can
be, and call "shenanigans" on my "stuff". Working through
these things helps us be the men God created us to be, frees us to do the work
we need to do in our families, communities, churches, and jobs.
If you are not part of a group of men like this, take heart. There are men out there
where this is why we gather: to help each other work through our junk, support
us while we do it, and challenge us to take action.
Why not get out there & find a
place to teach you these things? The Crucible Project
offers an initial weekend that does it. If you're not a Christian, but this
idea resonates with you, the Mankind Project
sponsors a similar weekend. I've done them both, and am partial to TCP because
I believe in the transformational power of Jesus & the Holy Sprit.
On Saturday, Feb. 2, I attended the No Regrets simulcast at my church. Having prayed for the men of our community and the conference overall, I wondered as I arrived in the morning if this would be a "typical" men's breakfast/conference.
A good friend of mine says that Satan pours the syrup at men's breakfasts, and I think he's right. I don't think there's anything wrong with feeding guys--in many cases the food is key to bringing & keeping them there. What my friend means is men go to these breakfast events, nod their heads & maybe take some notes…and leave. Maybe there's some small talk, maybe even a resolution to make a change or two. But these are the exceptions.
As the keynote started, I realize it would not be Satan pouring the syrup. It was an exceptional day on many levels, especially the teaching. Kenny Luck's morning keynote, imploring men to fight & rise, was inspiring. I also loved the challenges, style, & substance of James MacDonald's talk, "Act Like Men".
We were fortunate enough to have some great speakers for local breakout sessions. Among these was John Casey, who came to speak about healing. Though healing doesn't seem like a natural progression from Luck & MacDonald, it was for the men in the room. Casey asked who needed healing, and around what, spoke powerfully about the need for healing, echoing Luck's comments from the keynote. He spoke of men's isolation, and our wounds, and how these wounds, unaddressed, continue to resurface in our lives. He shared openly about some of his biggest mistakes, tracing them back to his wounds. This introspection & risk-taking, this authenticity, is something men see little of--and do even less than they see.
At one point, Casey asked the men in the breakout to take the risk he modeled, to announce one of their failures. Several men offered up relational failures, taking risk to share where they blew it. Getting guys this far is outside the norm, an achievement, an opportunity. Then a man sitting in the corner, in the back, shared his failure to trust his instincts when something didn't seem right. He later learned he should have trusted his instincts, not a person he thought he could trust. The cost was terrible & tragic. This man shared from his heart, taking a huge risk. You could have heard a pin drop. In fact, if you'd looked around, you would have seen tears drop, as men were broken by this man's story, grieving for him & those impacted by his failure.
This man took a big risk, sharing a big truth. I've heard Greg Huston say, "Little truth, little grace. Big truth, big grace". I believe he's right, and the men in that room watched this man receive grace from other men, many strangers. The man who shared said he'd received big grace from God, and I believe him. I get goosebumps thinking about my front row seat that day, watching men risk, share, & support each other, feeling the Holy Spirit's finger prints on the session.
That is why I staff men's weekends, take 3-4 hours on alternate Saturdays to meet with my men's group. There we help carry each other's burdens, point out what we see that the man with an issue cannot see, challenge each other to do our best for God's will in our lives, and support each other when we fail. These men are my insurance policy, my challenge, and my bellwether as I seek to live a life with No Regrets.
