I was interviewed the other day by a newspaper reporter on the topic of men and the Church. She mentioned the statistics about how men are leaving the Church or not attending church in the first place and then asked, “Why does it matter? Why should the Church care about reaching men?” The essence of the question was: If men don’t want to go to church, so what? It wasn’t asked negatively. The reporter followed up with great questions. But... Read more
You get the best out of a boy by stimulating his desire for greatness and then telling him he has a long way to go: that he can perhaps achieve something marvelous but he must be humble and work hard for it. –Roy F. Baumeister, Is There Anything Good About Men? I receive some occasional pushback on the connection between boys and heroes, and my emphasis on calling boys into heroic manhood. The pushback goes something like... Read more
If we do not provide a sacred role for our boys as they grow, they are more likely to join a gang, abuse their lovers, abandon their children, subsist in emotional isolation, and become addicted, hyper-materialistic, lonely, and unhappy. A boy needs structure and discipline in which to learn who he is. He needs to live a journey that has clear responsibilities and goals. He needs a role in life. Without these, without the role training that accompanies these, he... Read more
A few weeks ago, in the early days of the latest Government “crisis” over the shutdown and debt ceiling, Piers Morgan interviewed two women, one of them actress Sharon Stone, about a documentary they were promoting focused on bringing equality to girls and women around the world. It was an insightful, positive interview about a very important global topic. At one point, Piers asked a question that lately has been asked a lot: Would the world be better off with... Read more
When our son was little, he and mom had a very close, happy relationship. Mike was a sweet boy who had no problem giving mom hugs and asking her lots of questions. He was her little boy. But then Mike moved into the early stages of puberty and the relationship changed…dramatically. With tears in her eyes, Jan asked me one day why her son hated her. What Jan didn’t know at the time was that Mike was at a crucial... Read more
Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness…” So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27) (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God…(Colossians 1:15) (Jesus) is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being…(Hebrews 1:3) Stereotype is the new four-letter word in our culture when it comes to gender. Understandably, we don’t want... Read more
As I mentioned in my last two posts, in our well-intentioned desire to rescue our boys (and girls) from boy stereotypes, we have unintentionally robbed boys of any vision for what it means to be a boy. And with no vision for boyhood, boys have no sense of what it means to be a man. Just because something is a stereotype doesn’t mean it’s not true or that it can’t be helpful. In fact, one of the ways we can... Read more
Faster than a speeding bullet… More powerful than a turbo jet engine… Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound… Look, up in the sky…it’s a bird…it’s a plane… It’s a boy! In my last post I suggested that our attempts to get rid of boy stereotypes has left our boys without any idea of what it means to be a boy. We’ve robbed them (and us) of any vision of boyhood and haven’t replaced it with anything of... Read more
Prince Jake was kind and caring. Princess Rose was brave and strong. –from A Fairy Tale, by Lego Books What makes a boy a boy? Seems no one really knows anymore. We’ve spent so much time as of late trying to free boys of “boy stereotypes” that we no longer really know what “boy” means. In fact, many in our culture have spent so much energy criticizing “stereotypical” boy behavior that boys who may fit that stereotype are made to... Read more
These are tough days to be a boy! Boys are falling behind girls in virtually every area of education from pre-school to college The average reading skills of a 17 year old boy have declined in the last 20 years 17-18 of the top 20 growing professions favor the verbal and relational skills of women over men Boys are growing up in a world without a compelling vision for noble manhood These are tough days to be the Church: Sexual... Read more
Searching for Tom Sawyer
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