daddy4ms

This post originally appeared at 1 Corinthians 13 Parenting. Man Up!? Have you heard this phrase before? It is often used in conferences to get guys to “man up”. It is used as a catchy slogan for men’s ministry events. Pastors use it to motivate the guys in their congregations to grow up. I hate it!   Why? Because how we are told to “man up” is based on a particular understanding of what it means to be a man.  This often includes eating a lot of meat, bashing cars, shooting things, etc. Also, the motivation is often focused on externals not the heart. What is a man?  Besides the physical characteristics, what qualities make up a man? For many it is strength. What if you are a skinny guy with pea-sized biceps? For others it is leadership. What if you did not have a father (either physically absent or emotionally absent) help you learn how to lead? For others it is doing guy things like eating lots of meat, drinking beer, shooting things, bashing cars, ...

Today I am posting over at 1 Corinthians 13 Parenting. My title is "Man Up!?" It asks some questions about how we define manhood and will be a 3 part series which will include being a husband and father.  Check it out here

On Thursday, I finished Rhett Smith's book, What It Means To Be A Man . This book would be a good small group resource for men or even for a few guys to go through together.  Smith uses his experience with counseling men to focus on what men really need based on God's Word not society's opinion. You can view a previous post on this book here Enjoy these quotes from the last chapters of the book. In the same way, our relationship with God our Father is the anchor that keeps us from temptations to look at other things for a sense of identity. Henri Nouwen writes, "Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence." We cannot experience pain without vulnerability--but we can't experience connection without it either. To put it another way, our identity isn't build on our image being reflected back to us but the image of the Father flowing through us. we see a deep connection between our identity as men and our responsibility to imitate...

I just started this book on Thursday. This would be a great book to go through with a group of men. Here is a quote from the introduction: "In other words, we have a choice to anchor our masculinity in either the defining values of the culture or the defining values of God."