What do you want your son to know about God, about himself, and about life?

“Wounded?” was all I could manage. “Yes,” said Pat. “And you’re wounded in the same place. That’s what fathers do if they don’t heal their wounds. They wound their children in the same place.” CHERYL STRAYED

Here’s one example of something we did: when we were talking about the beauty and strength of man, we’d watch one episode of Band of Brothers each week and then we’d eat at a different barbecue restaurant around New York City. Band of Brothers and barbecue.

What I’m trying to say is that our common definition of what makes up a good man is actually not that inspiring. Christianity hasn’t done a good job of raising up men we can look at and think, Now, that’s a good man. That’s what a good man is, and it’s amazing. Few of us, when thinking of a good man, think of the wildness or passion of Jesus

Young men today don’t aspire to a moralistic vision of generic goodness. They want a deep understanding of what a man actually is and how to be good at that. They want the vision and skill to master the art of manhood. In this framework, confidence comes through competence. We must learn to transfer the tangible skills and the key elements of

Adventures in Missions was an organization that, for over two decades, has been sending young adults around the world to do the exact program I was trying to create for Nate myself. They expose young people’s hearts to the poor, give them a vision for the kingdom of God, break off the spirit of entitlement and selfishness that often exists at that

Far too often, this is how we interact with the next generation of young people. We’re on the sidelines telling them to keep going, telling them they can do it, and they’re out there in the middle of their crazy lives thinking, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to keep going. This is why I decided to shift my vision of Christian manhood

When he was around age ten or so, I started dropping hints. “Hey, man, when you turn thirteen, you’re going to enter into a sacred and ancient rite of moving from adolescence into manhood. And I want to tell you, this is going to be hard. It’s going to be scary. You’re not going to know what to do. But we’re going to walk through this together, and

There’s a line from The Power of Moments that resonated with me so much, and it’s this: “Beware the soul-sucking voice of reasonableness.”1 These moments I’m talking about have the power to change our lives forever, but they won’t be as powerful if we try to be just reasonable. We have to be unreasonable in the way we mark these moments.