Month: August 2013

Influencing Boys Toward Greatness | Leadership

I can’t remember the last male character on TV who was a leader.  OK, take out every super hero/Jack Bauer type character.  If a man isn’t single handedly saving the world he is a sally—see every sitcom husband ever.

Let me make a clarification.  By leadership I do not mean dominance.  There are plenty of guys out there who know how to get what they want through dominance and abuse.  The leadership I’m talking about is others first.  It’s the kind of leadership that draws out the best in others.  It empowers others to become who God made them to be and rallies people around the mission of Christ in the world.

When I think of my sons, this is what I want.  I want my boys to grow into men who inspire, empower and lead the way.  So, how do you get there?  How do you teach a boy to become a leader modeled after Jesus?

LEADERSHIP IS CAUGHT NOT TAUGHT

Nearly everything in our culture teaches boys to be selfish.  “It’s all about you.”  “Have it your way.”  “Wear this and women will want you.”

If we want our boys to become others focused leaders, we have to understand that we’re going against the flow of culture.  They won’t become the leaders we want them to be without first seeing it.  Specifically, they need to see us doing it.  The boys in your youth ministry and in your family will lead exactly how they see you leading.  Be the leader you want your boys to be.

One of the best ways to do model others first leadership is through volunteering.  Volunteer together with your son.  Encourage the boys in your youth group to serve in the children’s ministry.  Take your family on mission trips.  Serve together and they will catch others first leadership.

TEACH HIM TO LEAD IN RELATIONSHIPS

To be frank, many guys in our culture approach relationships asking a simple question:  “What can I get out of this?”  For the record, that’s called exploitation.  Great men don’t exploit women.  They empower and liberate.

At the risk of offending everyone in the universe, I believe that great men lead in relationships.  Before you start writing that hate comment just hear me out.  I think men ought to protect women by taking the lead on physical boundaries.  Unfortunately, many guys are out to get what they can in relationships and many girls are lonely enough that they will trade purity for perceived intimacy.

The world needs men who are more interested in protecting women and bringing the best out in them than getting what they can.   My dream is that my daughters would date guys who are man enough to be upfront about their physical and emotional boundaries and that they would lead the way in maintaining these boundaries.

We need to train the boys in our families and youth ministries to respect women by leading them.  Their role is to protect women, not take advantage of them.  Help boys clearly define their physical boundaries and then help them learn how to communicate and maintain these boundaries with girls.

Also, help them understand how powerfully their words can impact a woman.  Teach him to be careful with his words.  Again, the goal is to protect and empower women—no to get what you can from them.  That’s exploitation.

Great men lead.  They don’t dominant or exploit.  They put others first and empower the people around them.  To influence boys toward greatness, we must learn to lead in the same way.

 

 

Influencing Boys Toward Greatness | Purpose

Many of the young men I’ve talked with lately are all feeling the same crippling emotion:  aimlessness.  I believe that most of this generation’s men are lost.  They don’t know what their purpose is in life.

Great men know what they are about.  They know why God put them on this earth.  They have a sense of destiny and direction.

Today, I’m finishing up a week of blogging about raising great boys.  If we want boys to lead significant lives, they must know their purpose —they must know what God made they to do.  So, how in the world do you help a boy figure this out?  You must uncover it with him.

BOYS NEED TO BE TOLD

When God created Adam, He placed him in the garden, told him who he was and why he was on the earth.  He gave him a name and a job.  I’m almost certain that without being told, Adam would have been thoroughly confused about what he was supposed to be doing.  “I didn’t know what else to do so I invented the tropical fish tank…”

Like Adam, boys need to be told who they are and why they are here.  It’s just not in our nature as humans to figure this stuff out on our own.  As a parent or youth worker, it’s your privilege and duty to become a student of the boys under your care and to help them uncover their wiring, gifting, passions and ultimately, purpose.

EXPERIMENT

No one expects you to be able to diagnose a boy’s life passion and purpose overnight.  These things are like science experiments.  You develop a hypothesis and you test it.  Most of the time your hypothesis is wrong but it moves you one step closer to the truth.

As boys progress through life, let them experiment.  Push them to try all kinds of stuff.  Somewhere along the line a boy will experience something that awakens something buried deep within him.  He will light up.  Take note:  these experiences probably have something to do with his wiring, gifting, passions and purpose.

MISSION

As a follower of Jesus, I believe that life is most meaningful when our passions and gifts are aligned with what God is doing in the world.  It’s crucially important that we as parents and youth workers help our boys understand the compelling and life altering mission of the Church.  It’s vital that our boys understand what God’s mission is in the world and how we can join in.

When a man finds himself at the intersection of his passions, purpose and the mission of God in the world, he will find life and meaning—and more of it than he ever imagined was possible.

EXIT THE MATRIX

We need to be honest for a second, rich and meaningful lives are not easy to come by.  In fact, it is hard to live a life of purpose.  There is always immense opposition within and outside of us, pushing us to accept mediocrity.  This is part of the reason that boys find video games so compelling.  Without a whole lot of actual work, he can be the hero.  He can create, battle evil, save the girl, or even conquer the world.

The temptation so many young men fall into is retreating into false worlds where they can live rich and meaningful lives of purpose while accepting mediocre or worse in their real lives.

Look, I love video games.  I really do.  However, far too many guys are OBSESSED with video games—playing them for hours and hours every day.  Meanwhile the real world is suffering.  The church needs young men who will run after Jesus and partner with him in bringing heaven to earth every day.

If you are a parent, build boundaries around video games and help your son uncover who God created him to be and what he is calling him to do in this world.  If you are a youth worker, model boundaries with video games.  If you are a young man, unplug and dive into the Kingdom.  There is so much work to be done.  There is far too much injustice on this broken planet for us to keep shooting each other over and over on the same Black Ops maps night after night.

We need to help boys build boundaries around video games so that they don’t overtake and ultimately replace their lives.  Like most everything, video games can be used in a healthy way but it is difficult, especially for a young teenage boy, to find the balance.