Man Up--Week 3

When my son was young and in school, I used to dream of being a teacher myself. But as a single mom of three boys and working long hours, there was no way to go back to school. Still, I longed for it. I remember the eventful day that dream changed, however. My young son and I were sitting at the kitchen table and I was trying to teach him to tell time. (Remember analog clocks?!) It did not go well. Tears may have been shed. He wasn’t happy either. Not only did that session change my ideals about becoming a teacher, it made me doubt myself, my son and whether I really knew how to tell time! What I said and what he received from me seemed to be two different things. I had no idea how to teach this boy. When he turned 16 and got his driver’s license, I tried to teach him to drive a stick shift. These were hard days, people.

What I realized is that all the things I tried to teach my kids: kindness, the Golden Rule, the love of Jesus, fractions…. I was teaching them the way I would want to learn them, not the way they could easily learn them. In particular, when it came to growing into young men with the strength and confidence of becoming adults, no teaching from me was going to do it. I realized that mentoring and accomplishment were the ways my boys were going to come into their own. My kids were still  in elementary school when Shea and I married. He let them get under the hood of a car and help change spark plugs. He apologized to them after an argument that had unnecessary words in it. He let them try things, do them badly, then help them correct it patiently and with praise. This is mentoring.
Mentoring is more than just teaching. It’s modeling, encouragement, problem solving together, coming alongside. It’s not solving someone else’s problems, it’s helping them work through them beside them. Mentoring a child or an adult should feel like support to the mentee. It should feel empowering, encouraging and give them a sense that they can solve the issue at hand or make an idea happen. When it’s done well, mentoring is a beautiful and organic thing.

When done poorly, mentoring is the worst thing that can happen to a person who is vulnerable and ready to be led. It tears down. It is judgmental and full of ridicule. It conveys disapproval and condescension. It is not beside someone, it is over them. The fact is, most people using this kind of “mentoring” don’t even realize they are doing it, but it is harmful. It can cut the growing branches off the tree entirely.
Think of someone who’s been a great mentor in your life. Were they generous? Patient? Did you walk away from them feeling better about your situation or yourself? Empowered? When you look back at the people you feel have helped you in your life, did you even realize you were being mentored at the time? Everyone loves a great mentor- it feels good. But here’s a harder question: Who have you mentored? Who have you let walk beside you and watch you and ask questions? With whom have you been patient and generous?

Jesus was a tremendous mentor. He modeled all the important things for his disciples that are hard to teach on a blackboard: Love, forgiveness, generosity, trust, prayer, when to pour into people, when to go away alone and commune with God. He modeled loyalty, teaching, follow-through, how to pray, when to get angry and when to turn away from anger. He had strength of character and was not afraid or influenced by others. He is not done mentoring these things, friend. He’s mentoring you today if you let him. Scripture lets us continue to learn from him.
If you have been yearning for a mentor, asking God to send someone your way that you can glean from, maybe you are forgetting the other part of what Jesus did. He mentored others. There is always someone who can use the mentoring you have to offer. I’ll go a step further: Maybe you are already mentoring someone, though maybe you haven’t realized it. Your kids, nieces or nephews, siblings, co-workers, small group members, neighbor. Someone who looks to you and your actions for guidance and example. Maybe ask God who he has brought into your life that needs you. Maybe you are the person God will send to someone else who has been praying for a mentor. When you participate with God in this kind of activity, you are in the sweet spot and it is amazing.

As for me, I have had the great benefit of learning from others and mentoring others, both. Both are rewarding. There are great rewards and teachings in being the mentor as well. I have received many, and I am thankful. I’m thankful for all the ways people have taught me. I’m thankful for the ways Jesus continues to mentor me. And I’m thankful for digital clocks.

Man Up--Week 2

Be Strong, Be Strengthened Warrior

Ah men and their addictions...
Porn gets much of the spotlight in the christian culture these days, followed by either drugs or alcohol or a soupy-swampy cocktail of both. What we don't hear much about it seems is violence addiction. "What's that?" you say? Exactly my point...

Movies and TV series force feed us violence at unprecedented levels these days. I know Game of Thrones has had all kinds of controversy within the church because they blatantly show some boobies - but the level of violent display goes all the way to eleven. If you watched it (and I'm not saying you should or shouldn't have) consider the feeling you felt when that hated character of Joffrey got what was coming to him. The feeling of elation at the violent death of a character you have been led to despise - it is a toxic formula for your heart. The worse a bad guy is in a movie, the more you look forward to the spectacular death that awaits them. Sure this has a word to us about justice, and who can fault anyone for upholding a thing like that, but it also generates a blood frenzy within our hearts that does not belong alongside the mind of the one following after Christ.

Just as porn takes a healthy masculine desire (sex) and twists it into a thing pernicious, so does extreme consumer violence take a healthy masculine impulse and buckles it into abuse and cruelty and bloodlust. That impulse is warriorship. 

 

"Protecting yourself is self-defense. Protecting others is warriorship."

I rather like this simple definition of warrior. Yes it implies physical confrontation, but it surely goes beyond that. As warrior, you are committed with protecting the people you love, whether family or community or perhaps even an ideal you hold as beneficial to your loved ones and theirs. In this world you will have trouble, and there is a time for both peace and for war. Days will come, and may be upon you in a tick, when you must take up your sword and enter the struggle.

Why is Rick such a great teacher? Because he is a warrior about it. He teaches to strengthen you and protect you. He, as a spiritual leader, is committed to seeing you grow and thrive because you have much to contend with and fearsome enemies at your doorstep. These enemies are not savages with curved swords. These adversaries look like complacency and consumerism and self-absorption. They may be a simple disgust with the Good or a disregard of the Beautiful, or disdain toward the Truth. 

A warrior is one who is actively engaged in the battle. I would suppose it is possible to be a warrior and a pacifist at the same time, but certainly it is not possible to be a warrior and a spectator at the same time. I know there are many warriors among us here at AC3 - please allow me now to call you forth as our champions to stand with us and for us.

Quoting one of my teachers - as I like to do:
"The true warrior is not merely a superb fighting machine.He needs to confront and overcome much more than mere opponents. He must triumph over adversities, philosophical stumbling blocks, spiritual trials, emotional crises, social and cosmic injustice, his own weakness and possibly the devil himself." ~David Carradine

If you were to visit my house and peruse my movie collection, I'm confident that you would be quite impressed with the kung fu section. (we can discuss my own violence addiction later...) I've been watching kung fu movies my entire life. As a kid in Hawaii, I often spent my Saturday afternoons in front of the tv. I was not watching Scooby-Doo or Gilligan's Island like the rest of the kids... no, I was watching Kung Fu Theater - Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Gordon Liu and all the rest. My favorite part of any kung fu movie is the training scene. This happens shortly after the protagonist's master has been murdered by the evil bastard warlord and justice must be fulfilled at any cost. Our hero then goes into a season of training... beating his body to make it strong and capable. The fight of his life, and possibly his death, awaits him.

Watch this for a taste (really, I mean it, spend 3 min and actually watch it):
https://youtu.be/G6f0w5BRasw

"Kung fu lives in everything we do. It lives in how we put on a jacket, in how we take off a jacket. It lives in how we treat people. Everything is kung fu."

In China, the word Kung Fu refers to any practice that requires discipline, patience, energy, and an extended period of time to complete. It is not specifically a style of fighting even though that is how we use the words here in the states. In its original meaning, kung fu can refer to any skill achieved through hard work, tireless study and relentless practice - the grueling training scenes to strengthen the mind and the body are a great example, but the idea can be applied easily to how you live today. 

Kung fu lives in how you show up at your day job, in how you treat your wife and children, in how you study the scriptures and apply the wisdom God gives you. It lives in how greet a brother, in how you serve a sister, in how you teach the young and revere the aging. Kung fu lives in how you respect and love and fight to protect. 

Kung fu results in honor and a code - every true warrior has a code. The one without a code is brute beast and no man. There are things worth fighting for and people worth protecting. The code of the warrior rightly assigns value to these and sets the price of protecting them. This is not a thing that can be stolen from another nor passively received - the strength of the warrior must be developed through training and resilience. 

 
You may not think about "gentle Jesus meek and mild" in a conversation about warriorship, but give it some thought. He carried the ultimate code - the gospel of the kingdom, and he paid the ultimate price to protect the ones he calls friends. He spent years developing his kung fu - the temple elders were amazed at his grasp of scripture even as a child, and He could not be tricked by his adversaries but turned their words back upon them time and again. He fought in life and he fought with His death. He was and is the True Warrior in this world. 

Now, we are in a series about biblical masculinity, but I want to make it clear that women also have an instinct to warriorhood. It doesn't always involve swinging battle axes on bloody battle fields (though in some stories it rightly does - think Joan of Arc). The female warrior protects and nurtures. The female warrior has moved beyond petty competitions and fights the good fight so that her children and her tribe may be harbored in the safety of her strength. 

Whether man or woman, the Word speaks the same call to you:

Be strong in the Lord for the fight
Train fiercely for the conflicts that lie ahead
Stand firm before the destroyer and protect those that would be his prey
Watch for attacks from the left or the right, ahead or behind, within or without
Be strengthened by every encounter for your adversary will be relentless

I will leave you with another training scene (real life stuff here) - not because I want you to develop the Infamous Iron Palm Technique but rather I desire to inspire you to train up the Force of Iron Faith. The battle of your life is still before you but LORD is with you mighty warrior (Judges 6:12)
https://youtu.be/EL1Nvy6bMDs

-Written by Shea Caperoon

Man Up-Week 1

It’s Not About the Crown

“I am King of the Mountain and nobody can knock me off!” as children we would declare such statements as a challenge to our friends, just to try and take us down.  After all, who could resist the glory of being the king?  When we envision a king, we generally picture some guy sitting on a throne being indulged by his subjects. Often, he is overweight and while dress nicely, is a bit slovenly.  Pop culture would have us in one of two camps; the careless king who does little for his people or the king who is tyrannical in his treatment of his subjects.

I am called to be “King/Lord of my domain”, what does it really mean? And what about the part about me being the “man of the house”?    Should I have a throne in my living room? I don’t think it would fit with the current décor…

Stu Weber talks about being a king in his book “The Four Pillars of a Man’s Heart” (Weber, 1997) and has some valid points about what it means to be one.   Unlike the pop culture vision of the king, Stu focuses on the balanced and self-sacrificing king.  He goes on to pose an out of balance king is one who is either an abdicator or a tyrant; but a balanced king is a provider of leadership, support, and guidance.

“God took the Man and set him down in the Garden of Eden to work the ground and keep it in order” (Genesis 2:15 MSG).  The man was to work the ground and “keep it in order”.  Wow, now there’s a big charge.  God creates this amazing universe, filled with all kinds of life, and says “Ok, this is yours to take care of”.  In fact, God commands it through His blessing, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.  Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and every living creature that moves on the ground” (Genesis 1:28 NIV Emphasis added).

Ok, so let me recap:  As a man, I am called to be a king…I am to take care of the land, keep it in order, subdue it, and rule over all creatures…but still I do not fully understand what it means to be a king.  Here is where I turn to look at the great leaders of all time and see who really got it right…yup…Jesus.  He was a called a Rabi, Lord, Teacher, King, yet he never lorded it over His disciples.  Jesus nudged (John 6:5-6), He taught (Matthew 5:3-12), He served (John13:1-17), He loved, and He sacrificed Himself (Matthew 27:45-56, Mark 15:33-41, Luke 23:44-46, and John 19:28-30) for all who were in His care (every last one of us).

All right all you men out there, here is the core message as far as I can tell: We are all kings, but the one true King, Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, came to teach us.  We are not to be hard handed tyrants who rule with an iron thumb, nor are we meant to be lackadaisical and aloof letting anyone who wants them to take the reins.  Men, we are called to lead, guide, nudge, teach, inspire, serve, love, and yes, sacrifice for those placed in our sphere of influence regardless if you are a commander of an army of one, two, ten, or thousands; whether they are family, friend, colleague, or neighbor.  It’s not about the throne or the crown; kings are men of action and every action is to be done in love and with an attitude that places others first.