This weekend marks our church’s annual men’s retreat. I am especially excited about this year because my oldest son is coming to his first retreat (they are allowed to come at 15-16 years old). I wouldn’t say that our church is very good at rites of passage, per se. But in this one context, we have created something that I think is incredibly valuable. At some point in the many year history of the retreat, we stumbled upon a really organic, but profound rite of passage.
On the last night of the retreat, we bring all the 15-16 year old boys up to the front. For many years this last meeting was outdoors around a huge fire (it all added to the atmosphere!). We then have two adults give a “charge” about what it means to become a man in the Body of Christ. When possible we try to make one of these men a dad of one of the boys. This year I get to give the charge for the first time. I can’t wait! It is like a microcosm of all I’m trying to do by God’s grace, day in and day out, with all my kids.
Then all of the men at the retreat gather tightly around the boys, and pray and prophecy over them for quiet a long time. It all ends with a few tears, a lot of manly hugs, and laughter. We also give them some physical object to take away (like a knife or a Bible!).
Many years ago we kind of did this on a whim the first time because we noticed we had an unusually large number of teens with us. Since then it has become intentional and it is ingrained as a right of passage for our boys. It signifies them becoming part of the “men’s culture” at our church. The men take it very seriously. They promise to the boys to be there for them, to pray for them, and to challenge them. They encourage the boys to seek out their advice, wisdom, and friendship. It is both symbolically powerful and genuinely real – because the men mean it.
Growing up I don’t remember having anything like that, do you? I think some churches are more intentional than others about rites of passage. We have baby dedications, we honor people graduating from high school and college, but we don’t have much that rivals this rite of passage for our teen boys.
So I want to start a conversation, mostly because I’m interested in stealing your ideas! What do you do that really works for rites of passage, transition points, or mile-markers? What transitions are worth commemorating? And specifically what have you created, or what have you borrowed, content-wise to create a special rite of passage?
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We do “rites of passage” events for our incoming 6th grade/Middle Schoolers and our incoming Freshmen. The 6th grade event is an overnighter at the church. It’s your typical overnighter in the fact that we play a game, have a message (the message is on surrendering, and the event is actually called Surrender), and do prayer/ministry time. The unique part of the evening is the students will pick a scripture that will their class throughout their years in our youth ministry (we print t-shirts with the scripture too). We have a handful of scriptures in our back pocket in case they need assisted, but we open it up to their ideas first. There is a little arguing, but that is part of the process. We also do a fast throughout the event. They essentially skip dinner and breakfast the following morning. This is an effective way to help them understand the surrender portion of becoming a “mature” Christian. Then in the morning we do an outreach with the students. When all is done we break the fast and the event with Chick-fil-A 🙂
For our freshman it’s more of a physical rite of passage. We do a 12-mile walk through the city (Mishawaka). We broke it down into 3 legs. One leg is a silent leg where they are instructed/encouraged to spent that time with God. One of our legs actually walks right through the center of the University of Notre Dame, so we stop and spend 10-15 minutes praying at the Grotto. (Or at least we try. Last year we did it on a game day so it was packed, and this year we did it in the summer and their were people taking wedding photos). At the beginning there is a small message on becoming an mature (leaving the ways of childhood behind). We eat at one stop on the trip, and do a team building activity at the other. After the walk we canoe the river for about an hour and then finish with an anointing and prayer. We signify the completion by giving the students a Swiss Army knife (or the generic version that we can afford ) And we end our day with Chick-fil-A 🙂