The Intentional Father

True masculinity has the strength to smash hierarchies, stand up for those on the margins, and lead men into lives where they are stopping abuse from happening.

In almost every other culture, there is a codified, intentional, intense pathway to develop adolescents into adults. But in Western, U.S. culture, there's almost nothing.

When there's no older generation intentionally ushering boys into manhood, when there's no tribe of mentors or fathers taking their sons along a predetermined path, many of our young men try to establish themselves, attempting to walk through the wilderness of adolescence with the hope that, somehow, they'll find their way into adulthood on their own.

Here's my take: a man is an image bearer and son of God entrusted with power and the responsibility to create, cultivate, care, and defend, for God's glory and the good of others.

My vision is not to produce men who conform to a list of traits that cause the world to say, "Now that's a man!" My goal is to help our sons become like Jesus. It's what my goal was for my son when I started out on this path, and that's still my goal.

I started my son down this path from boyhood to manhood when he was thirteen, and after five years he went off on his gap year, getting ready for the rest of his life.

We [father and son] had a daily ritual where we would sit down and have time together in the mornings.

We need to have a vision of the day our sons will leave our homes and work backward from that day with a plan to help them gain the knowledge, skills, character, and experiences they need.

There are four questions I want you to think through...1) What do you want your son to know about God, about himself, and about life?, 2) Who do you want your son to be?, 3) What skills do you want your son to have?, 4) What formational experiences do you want him to have?

Somebody is going to disciple your son. Somebody is going to give your sone wisdom on how to live, and it's either going to be you and a community of godly men or it's going to be the world.

May it never be said that your son thinks there is more wisdom about life from Google and YouTube than from you.

I guess at some point we all have this realization about our fathers, that they didn't quite have the tools they needed to propel us into manhood.

Reflect over your life. Ask yourself these questions: What are the most beautiful moments of my life, and what are the most broken moments of my life? What are the highs, and what are the lows? What are the mountains, and what are the valleys? The goal here is to begin to get a sense of your own story, have an awareness of the moments that have defined you, and remember the people who have shaped you.

First off, I let Nate know it [journey to manhood] was coming. But I didn't tell him everything. When he was around age ten or so, I started dropping hints...I kept it all very vague, but I wanted him to know that something was on the horizon, and it was a big deal.

Now, I chose age thirteen because almost universally this is the age at which other cultures have realized something happens in the heart of a boy. Something happens in his body, in his mind, in his psychology, and in his sense of self. He can tell he's beginning a new journey - he might not understand it, and most of it is going to catch him off guard if he has to navigate it on his own, but he knows something's coming. But the whole thing didn't kick off with me. It actually kicked off with his mother...Years later, Nate would tell me this dinner with his mother was one of the most personally helpful things we did.

We began by giving the boys a vision of what it means to be a man, explaining to them the path of men through history. We discussed the concepts of discipleship and formation. We told them there was an ancient pathway that all men of nobility walked, but this path had been lost.

It [initiation into manhood] was such a powerful moment, and they [sons] listened with eyes wide open. We [fathers] charged them with their responsibilities and their obligations, and we laid out a vision of what was going to happen on this journey.

What meaningful gifts will you give your son that will last well into his life? Examples include pens, leather journals, bags, articles of clothing, storage options for the things accrued in the coming years, Bibles, medallions, and morale patches.

It is important that young men get a sense of a larger story and tradition, so they have some context for living well and break the delusion that the world revolves around them.

Without knowledge of that [family] legacy, it's easy to become selfish and start to think the world's timeline begins and ends with us.

Maybe you're wondering about the resources involved in making this kind of trip happen. Well, mine took months and months of planning and quite a bit of money, but I have zero regrets. It was so worth it, because it has become a reference point for both of us. It is a moment in time Nate can look back on and say, "That's where I come from. That's who I am."

What are your values? Have you ever really taken the time to clarify what you and your family are all about? We obsess over values in the workplace, our politics, and even the church, but few people do so with their families.

What matters to you as an adult? What do you want your child to understand from your story?

Men sometimes...draw on snippets and sound bites from random places as their source of philosophy, often without a historic or deep code of ethics.

The goal is to help young men fulfill their God given values of being conformed into the image of Jesus (Rom. 8:29). And no one has embodied these values [wisdom, self-control, courage, justice] like Jesus.

How will you mark these values in the life of your son and reward him when you see him cultivating and growing in these areas? In our home we established mottoes, and these helped us to constantly reinforce our values.

We are either helping our sons move into adulthood or joining the culture's attempt to trap them in an extended adolescence.

What does our culture tell us? Life should be easy, you're important, your life is about you, you should try to control everything, and you can live forever. And as a result, all of that emphasis on the self and self-fulfillment produces an extended adolescence, where men never grow up or reach their full redemptive potential.

But the beauty of being a man is that a man embraces difficulty, cares about others, is part of a greater story, is willing to surrender to a greater cause, and lives for the eternal, not the temporary.

I looked at my dad and I said, "Dad, I just got in a fight." He looked up at me. "Well, did you win?"...The amazing part was that he sensed what a pivotal moment this was for me, and he put his tools down.

Moments mark us. They matter. And because of the way our brains work, the moments that take place in our late teens and early twenties are moments we remember more than other times of our lives. We give a disproportionate weight to them.

Beware the soul-sucking voice of reasonableness. Your children will leave your house, and these moments are going to happen. You have the power to shape them. Be intentional, not reasonable. You get one shot.

The pushback generally levels that the reason Christian men's movements are largely cliche or ineffective is that they are usually all about being a good man. A good man - what comes to mind when you think of that? Often it's someone in baggy khaki pants and unpolished shoes with a tucked-in polo shirt that doesn't fit properly. He spends his life wrestling with insecurities and trying not to do bad things.

This is key. This is what men need. All of us need actual discipleship and development, specific advice and skills and ways of living in the world that help us learn how to be good at being men. One of the things I used to say to Nate all of the time that wa not helpful in the least - and I think a lot of dads do this - came in the form of pep talks. I used to be especially guilty of this at sporting events.

A man is good at understanding and interacting with women. We should learn about that. A man is good at understanding the role and place of money in his life. We should learn about that. A man has self-control. We should learn about that. A man knows how to be a brother to other men. We should learn about that.

And keep in mind, always, that your son doesn't want to be a good man, because who even knows what that means? Your son aches to be good at being a man, just like you do, and if you can begin to help him gain competency in manhood, he'll move through his adolescence and into adulthood full of confidence and life.

"Why are you letting your sons help you?" the first farmer asked. "It's going to take five times as long. You should just do it yourself." "Oh, but you've made a mistake," the second farmer said. "You think I'm repairing a fence. I'm not. I'm raising my sons."

Being a father is not about efficiency; it's about discipleship.

Whenever we finished a book, I took Nate out for dinner to celebrate his progress, and I gave him experiments where he could demonstrate his newfound leadership skills.

Sadly, most of this energy and possibility is channeled into video games these days. Instead of figuring out how to make a difference in their actual lives, men resort to on-screen substitutes that give them the same adrenaline rush, sense of accomplishment, and mission to have these needs met. This is one reason I think you have to be careful about how much your son plays video games - they are very good at providing a false sense of accomplishment.

Men ache to master something, to be seen as strong and to receive honor and respect, and because it is so hard to attain this is real life, many of us default to chasing these things in the digital realm, because the wonderful myth of video games is that you can conquer the world. But they're pretend worlds.

Our goal as fathers is to help our sons discover who God has made and called them to be.

Nate and I began this part of the journey [self-discovery] later in his high school years, and I recommend you don't do it much earlier than eleventh grade.

Nate now [after taking the Myers-Briggs personality test] has the chance to tell a future supervisor, "Hey, just so you know, this is my personality, this is how I work best, and this is how I respond to certain situations." It's so proactive.

We need to explain the temptations and joys of high school, a time that is primarily about exposing us to life. College is primarily about learning...[your twenties] are all about growing...your thirties are about editing...your forties are about mastering...your fifties revolve around harvesting...your sixties are all about guiding...your seventies are about imparting.

Young men need a liminal space where they are removed from the normal rhythm and routine of life and given time and opportunity to see what is inside them.

As Nate entered his senior year, I went to him with a request: "Would you consider taking a gap year between high school and college?"

I was their youth pastor and had been diligent and intense in training them during their senior year. We studied Grudem's Systemic Theology, going through the entire book. We regularly woke up at 4:00 a.m. to pray over their school. I'd poured into them, invested relationally into their lives, and had high hopes for them.

I had two concrete goals for this gap year - first, that he would encounter the poor and realize in a visceral way that his life wasn't just about himself. Second, that he wouldn't jump on the career and success conveyor belt, the winner script, prey to an overwhelming feeling that he had to get ahead and he had to do it now.

During this trip [post-gap year] we had a daily discussion about the principles he had learned, the things he needed to process, and the path ahead. The trip ended up facilitating some of the greatest moments of my life, and we bonded at the primal level.

Whatever you do, beware the soul-sucking voice of reason. Make this trip [post-gap year] unreasonable. People should be asking, "Who does that? Who takes a month and hikes across a country?"

"What if my son doesn't want to do this gap year thing?" That's a valid question, and you can't frame it as something he has to do. That's not the point. But if you tee it up properly, sowing seeds well in advance, it won't take any convincing - he'll ache to do it.

When I talk with dads who have adult children, I am so often struck by the pain and grief of regret that many of them carry for the way they have raised their kids. Many have said with tears in their eyes, "I would give anything to get that time back and invest in those years again."

There is no formation without repetition and consistency. This morning time was the meat and potatoes of the entire journey [of transitioning Nate into manhood]. If you do nothing else, have a morning ritual with your son. This will change everything.

We [father and son] also had a list of values we recited every day. As Nate walked out of the house every morning, he would say, "Strength, courage, mastery, honor, vision, passion, discipline, and risk." He carried those values on his lips and in his heart.