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.
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| 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?
Why not give out
the schedule?
- I touched on this in an earlier post.
- 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.
