The Plan

Well I've explained my idea to you, now lets get into the lay out of what I'll call "The Plan". As I said before I wanted to do something that would physically challenge my sons, but what good is a physical challenge if it doesn't cover the core beliefs and substance of what I believe a man is to be made of. This outline, that I'm about to share with you is a living document. I've changed portions of it several times, and before it's done you'll see me change it several more times, and by the time Alec steps up to the challenge it'll change again! You get the point.

"The Plan", is broken down into 4 phases, three of them coincide with my overall belief systems, and reflect the priority by which I view them. For me that's God, Family and Country. Well lets get started on this.

Phase 1 is the spiritual aspect of our lives and as I'm sure you'll agree it is by far the most important. Having said that there is so much to cover with regards to our faith that it can get overwhelming when trying to think of what should be covered first, what should the emphasis be on? By the way I wanna try to cover this in just a few days out in the woods with my son. Wrong answer, after reading Dr. Poythress's approach this process is going to take several months. Not a big deal when you think about it, because if your being proactive with your children and mentoring them as our Lord directs us you should've been doing this since birth. At this point your son should be able to express his faith, here are the requirements that I have laid out before Wil for "Phase 1";

1. Essays (My sons are gonna be required to write 3 essays on the following)
a. Explain your salvation and how it is justified in scripture.
b. Explain what a Godly man is and why you should be considered as such.
c. Explain how your life plan, and world vision will impact the world for Christ.

I want Wil to be able to express in writing why we believe what we believe, and to be a ble to justify it with scripture.

2. Memorization (It's imperative that our boys be able to quote scripture from memory. This is something that I have been sorely lacking and admittedly I need to remedy it. It is my goal to make sure that this deficiency doesn't pass into the next generation.)
a. 23 Psalm
b. John 3:16-18
c. 1 Cor 10:31
d. Matt 6:33
e. 10 Commandments
These verses span topics from a good work ethic, to fear, and most importantly their salvation.

3. Biblical Manhood (Dr. Voddie Baucham)
a. View all 8 episodes (Youtube.com).
b. Define “Biblical Manhood”
c. According to Dr Baucham what are the 3 requirements for “Biblical Manhood”?

It is essential that my boys have a deep understanding of biblical manhood. I have found that Dr. Voddie Baucham best describes this for me and my family. He doesn't mince words and backs up his statements with scripture. Dr Baucham is who I choose to refer my boys to, to back up what I'm teaching them. You may have someone else that you prefer to reference, that's great, however my recommendation is Voddie

Well that's it for me tonight. I'll finish out Phase 1 tomorrow. Just remember, at this point I don't have an air tight system, I'm just relaying to you what God has laid on my heart to do with my boys. This is a work in progress done by an ordinary guy. Having said that it's with great conviction that I'm going to try to impress upon you that we are not to subscribe to today's culture, we need to mobilize to capture the hearts of our families, especially our sons. Anything short of this will mean our failure as both fathers and husbands.

God Bless,

Joe

The Idea (cont)

For those of you that are wondering about this blog and the way it's formatted I'm trying to catch you up to speed. It's gonna take me several sessions to get you online with where we currently are.

Once again we've discussed why I'm doing this and the desired effect that I hope to achieve. Until reading Dr Poythress's paper entitled, "How I Have Helped My Boys to Become Christian Men", I was on the road to nothing more than an "Extreme Camping" trip. Something that would be fun but would be empty spiritually and lacking on the cerebral level. Not what I want for my sons. For those that know me and have been camping and hiking with me understand that extreme, or extremely stupid seem to be synonymous with some of our adventures. Anyway the Doc as I'll call him had outlined some biblical requirements that his son would have to achieve. This is great, more ammunition to make this a true experience for my children. Other resources that I had researched were Dr Voddie Baucham's study on "Biblical Manhood", this is an 8 part message that can be found on Youtube.com. 8 PARTS!! I assure you they are short, 7 to 9 minutes each. What an incredible message that is biblically on the mark.

Let me hop on my soap box for just a minute. I've read that one of our biggest problems in the Christian faith today within our families is the inability for our children to explain their faith. We take them to church, to Sunday school, we pray around the dinner table saying grace (assuming your not too busy watching TV) and remind our children to say their prayers before going to bed. We assume that our kids are going to pick up our faith by osmosis. Are we stupid?? Believe me until a couple of years ago I was just as guilty. We don't take the time to mentor our children, it's no wonder that when our boys graduate high school and leave the house that they identify themselves as Christians even though we don't see the fruits of the spirit from them. They feel they've inherited their faith!! Their fathers never challenged them on their beliefs or explained why they believe what they believe. It's like politics, "My daddy voted Republican or Democrat so I'll just do the same".

OK I'm off the box.

So now you can see the evolution of this idea goes from a great experience within the rite of passage to more of a combined measure of both a head and a heart knowledge of the beliefs that I'm trying to instill within my sons, the natural and physical part is just icing on the cake, a time for male bonding.

I hope you guys are as excited about this as I am, I believe that small steps like this being deeply rooted within our faith can bust our shallow culture and help us become and likewise raise men of God that will impact this world for Christ!

The Idea (cont.)

A couple of years ago I started rolling around this idea of a rite of passage in my head. I figured when Wil became early teens that this might be something exciting for him to do. I started talking to a couple of buddies of mine who thought it was a good idea as well. Well good ideas are exactly that, good ideas, we talk about them but how often do we act on them, and how many of them just sit on the shelves of our minds? This idea was no different, I shelved it. I would dust it off every now and then and check it out and talk about it, but it would go rite back in its place. Finally this summer I got to thinking that I better start doing some research on this idea so that I don't just throw this thing together that's "cool" but spiritually meaningless. I've done allot of "cool" things in my life but if there is no purpose in it, it just fades like another fun memory. This I promised my self would be different.

Research! Yep I went straight to the internet and plugged in "Christian Boys Rite of Passage", the results were less than what I expected. Having said that I found enough to help me get started. Dr Vern Poythress had written an article entitled "How I Have Helped My Boys to Become Christian Men". THANK YOU DOC! This man has a good plan based off the Jewish Bar Mitzvah, instead he does what he calls a Bar Jeshua (Son of Jesus). My only complaint is that there is no "Crucible" (for you Marines out there), no physical or natural manifestation of the great outdoors involving some sweat, blood (just a little) and tears. Don't get me wrong, what he did is great, I'm just wired a little differently, I need the fusion of the great spiritual truths of Biblical Manhood, and the great outdoors for that perfect adventure. I suggest that you look up his article and read it, it gave me the direction to make this experience meaningful, and not just another crazy camping trip.

Well sorry I've gotta run. I'll post more later on.

The idea

I'm a man of adventure, one whose always ready for a challenge. I've experienced the open ocean while in the Navy, I've jumped out of a perfectly good airplane in the Army, and now I work within the realm of special operations within the Air Force. The military, and this beautiful country have afforded me many benefits in the realm of travel beyond our borders. Unfortunately, I didn't feel like I was really a man til I had been tried and tested, and I didn't experience that til I had joined the military. Even then I didn't find my worth as a man until I began to study the bible at which time I understood what God had called me to do, it was then that I felt I was validated.

Tribal and nomadic peoples of the globe for centuries have had a rite of passage for their boys transition into young men. The Australian Aboriginies go on "Walk About", the Massai kill a lion, another tribe in Africa do a ritual regarding a crocodile and so on. Yet what do we do for our young men? Yea times change, our culture is to fast paced for such empty nonsense. We're too busy as fathers making a living to pay for all our stuff then to trifle with when our boys begin to enter manhood. We don't know at what point our boys become "men". We'll let our culture define it for us. If that's the case when is it? Is it when they graduate high school or college, is it when they are victorious on the grid iron, or the wrestling mat, maybe it's when they are in the backseat of a car or between the sheets with a young lady for the first time. God help us! When is it.

I heard an interesting bit of trivia, did you know that when the Titanic went down that men were classified as ages 13 and up. Now I'm not gonna get into all the stuff that went wrong on the Titanic, I'm focusing on 13 years old! That was less than hundred years ago. Now our 13 year olds aren't required to do anything exceptional, except maybe mow the grass. Sad to say in most cases they don't even do that because we don't "man up" and give them responsibilities.

It's late let me make my point. I want a pivotal point in my childs life when he sees himself as having accomplished somthing hard. A point where he was challenged and pushed further than he thought he was able to go. A moment in time where he reflects back on his life and says to himself, I rose to the challenge and when I succeeded my Pops, Dad, Father, or whatever recognized me as a man. And it was at that my point that my life changed. Have you had that? Have you had that with your father? If not wouldn't it have been so freakin cool? I think so, instead I had to go find it on my own like many of you.