{"id":302233,"date":"2011-03-09T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-09T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/%series%\/approaching-adolescence\/"},"modified":"2011-03-09T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-03-09T17:00:00","slug":"approaching-adolescence","status":"publish","type":"podcast","link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/familylife-today\/approaching-adolescence\/","title":{"rendered":"Approaching Adolescence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s not always easy being in the middle of something, especially if that something is boyhood and manhood.  Dennis Rainey, a father to six and grandfather to 17, talks about what teens are facing and exhorts dads to keep engaging their sons and calling them up to manhood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s not always easy being in the middle of something, especially if that something is boyhood and manhood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":294104,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"https:\/\/web.familylifetoday.com\/fl2011-03-09.mp3","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"00:","filesize":"24.78M","filesize_raw":"25982677","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":""},"categories":[2826],"tags":[4284,4868,4698],"podcast_series":[7792],"cwp_profile":[3048],"series":[2101],"class_list":["post-302233","podcast","type-podcast","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-men","tag-father","tag-husband","tag-manhood","podcast_series-stepping-up","cwp_profile-dennis-rainey","series-familylife-today"],"acf":[],"episode_featured_image":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1001\/2024\/09\/FLT-Podcast-Cover-2-508x508-3.jpg?w=508","episode_player_image":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1001\/2023\/02\/image-scaled.jpg","download_link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast-download\/302233\/approaching-adolescence","player_link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast-player\/302233\/approaching-adolescence","audio_player":null,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"light","subscribeUrls":{"apple_podcasts":{"key":"apple_podcasts","url":"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/familylife-today\/id212174303?mt=2&app=podcast","label":"Apple Podcasts","class":"apple_podcasts","icon":"apple-podcasts.png"},"google_podcasts":{"key":"google_podcasts","url":"","label":"Google Podcasts","class":"google_podcasts","icon":"google-podcasts.png"},"spotify":{"key":"spotify","url":"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/0j5UaKdQOHQCuo1bt0ebEm","label":"Spotify","class":"spotify","icon":"spotify.png"},"youtube":{"key":"youtube","url":"","label":"YouTube","class":"youtube","icon":"youtube.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/feed\/podcast\/familylife-today","embedCode":"<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"Rn2LqtPdXo\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/familylife-today\/approaching-adolescence\/\">Approaching Adolescence<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/familylife-today\/approaching-adolescence\/embed\/#?secret=Rn2LqtPdXo\" width=\"500\" height=\"350\" title=\"&#8220;Approaching Adolescence&#8221; &#8212; FamilyLife\u00ae - A Cru Ministry\" data-secret=\"Rn2LqtPdXo\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\"><\/iframe><script>\n\/*! This file is auto-generated *\/\n!function(d,l){\"use strict\";l.querySelector&&d.addEventListener&&\"undefined\"!=typeof URL&&(d.wp=d.wp||{},d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage||(d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if((t||t.secret||t.message||t.value)&&!\/[^a-zA-Z0-9]\/.test(t.secret)){for(var s,r,n,a=l.querySelectorAll('iframe[data-secret=\"'+t.secret+'\"]'),o=l.querySelectorAll('blockquote[data-secret=\"'+t.secret+'\"]'),c=new RegExp(\"^https?:$\",\"i\"),i=0;i<o.length;i++)o[i].style.display=\"none\";for(i=0;i<a.length;i++)s=a[i],e.source===s.contentWindow&&(s.removeAttribute(\"style\"),\"height\"===t.message?(1e3<(r=parseInt(t.value,10))?r=1e3:~~r<200&&(r=200),s.height=r):\"link\"===t.message&&(r=new URL(s.getAttribute(\"src\")),n=new URL(t.value),c.test(n.protocol))&&n.host===r.host&&l.activeElement===s&&(d.top.location.href=t.value))}},d.addEventListener(\"message\",d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage,!1),l.addEventListener(\"DOMContentLoaded\",function(){for(var e,t,s=l.querySelectorAll(\"iframe.wp-embedded-content\"),r=0;r<s.length;r++)(t=(e=s[r]).getAttribute(\"data-secret\"))||(t=Math.random().toString(36).substring(2,12),e.src+=\"#?secret=\"+t,e.setAttribute(\"data-secret\",t)),e.contentWindow.postMessage({message:\"ready\",secret:t},\"*\")},!1)))}(window,document);\n\/\/# sourceURL=https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-includes\/js\/wp-embed.min.js\n<\/script>\n"},"spectra_custom_meta":{"_wp_page_template":["default"],"transcript_url":["https:\/\/transcript.familylifetoday.com\/fl2011-03-09.pdf"],"audio_file":["https:\/\/web.familylifetoday.com\/fl2011-03-09.mp3"],"transcript_content":["<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>One of the key steps a young man will take as he progresses toward courageous, authentic, biblical masculinity is the step where he begins to assume more responsibility.\u00a0 Here\u2019s Dennis Rainey.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<br><strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 You know what?\u00a0 As a young man, get used to stepping up.\u00a0 Get used to taking on more responsibility because it is the stuff of manhood.\u00a0 It\u2019s why God created you.\u00a0 Back in Genesis, chapter one, you were designed to reign over the creation and make a living by the sweat of your brow and be a part of God\u2019s redemptive work on the planet.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, March 9<sup>th<\/sup>.\u00a0 Our host is the President of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I\u2019m Bob Lepine.\u00a0 We\u2019re going to explore today what has to happen for a young man to move through adolescence and to embrace authentic masculinity.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tWelcome to <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em>.\u00a0 Thanks for joining us on the Wednesday edition.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tWe\u2019re going to have to start with some definition, maybe, or some discussion here at the beginning.\u00a0 You\u2019ve just finished a book that you call <em>Stepping Up, a Call to Courageous Manhood.<\/em>\u00a0 You\u2019re challenging men to step up.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tOne of the things you address in this book is the idea that men go through a middle phase, from boyhood to manhood, the phase of adolescence.\u00a0 You know there are people in the culture today who push back on that whole idea of adolescence and say that\u2019s an artificial construct.\u00a0 Back a hundred years ago there was no such thing as an adolescent.\u00a0 You just went from boyhood to manhood.\u00a0 So what do you say to that, huh?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 Well, they\u2019re right.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t even in the dictionary at the turn of the twentieth century.\u00a0 In the early nineteen hundreds there were two steps, boyhood and manhood.\u00a0 There wasn\u2019t anything in between.\u00a0 You stepped up from boyhood to manhood and probably did so at a much earlier age back then than we do today.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 So you\u2019d have teenagers, young men, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old getting married, taking jobs\u2026\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 Oh, yeah!\u00a0 Right.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 \u2026taking responsibilities for families.\u00a0 The idea that there would be an extended period where you would learn and study and grow and just kind of enjoy life before you got down to the duties and responsibilities of adulthood?\u00a0 That just didn\u2019t exist.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<br><strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 It didn\u2019t.\u00a0 In fact there\u2019s a guy who wrote a book, Dr. Michael Kimmel, called <em>Guyland<\/em>.\u00a0 In it he describes a world where young men live.\u00a0 He said it\u2019s a stage of life, an undefined timespan between adolescence and adulthood that can stretch out for a decade or more.\u00a0 It\u2019s a bunch of places where guys gather to be guys with each other, unhassled by the demands of parents, girlfriends, jobs, kids and other nuisances of adult life.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tWhat he\u2019s saying is he actually wants to add another step between adolescence and manhood, one that can go on into the late twenties.\u00a0 In fact, it\u2019s happening!\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 Guyhood?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 Guyland, I guess.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 You get your video game controller and you work a job where you can go home and sit down with the dudes and crack some beers and get out the videogames and have a blast.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<br><strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 In fact, listen to this statement that Dr. Kimmel concludes with.\u00a0 He says, \u201cIn this topsy turvy Peter Pan mindset, young men shirk the responsibilities of adulthood and remain fixated on the trappings of boyhood while the boys they still are struggle heroically to prove that they are real men, despite all the evidence to the contrary.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 Well, he\u2019s really just saying that adolescence has been extended in our culture and there\u2019s kind of this state of perpetual adolescence.\u00a0 In fact, again as you\u2019ve addressed in this book and you\u2019ve spoken to men, you\u2019re calling all of us to step out of what is that inertia that pulls us back into the irresponsibility of adolescence and say \u201cStep up to the responsibility of manhood.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<br><strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 I don\u2019t think it\u2019s wrong that adolescence ultimately emerged.\u00a0 I think what has become a trap, however, is when young men are allowed to stay in some in-between world, in between boyhood and manhood for an extended period of time where no one in the culture, no one in their family, no one in their lives, is stepping into their lives and saying, \u201cIt\u2019s time to grow up.\u00a0 It\u2019s time to assume responsibilities.\u201d\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tI have to say it\u2019s interesting in this culture to watch a bunch of single people, for that matter single men, moving into their thirties delaying marriage with one foot in boyhood, one foot in adolescence.\u00a0 I think they need some older men in their lives who are on the steps above, looking down at them, and not in an arrogant fashion, but reaching down to them, saying, \u201cCome on up.\u201d\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tIt may be frightening.\u00a0 It may feel like it is more responsibility, because it is but you need to get out of childhood.\u00a0 As Paul said in 1 Corinthians, chapter 13, verse 11, \u201cWhen I was a boy I acted like a boy.\u00a0 I behaved like a boy.\u00a0 I spoke like a boy.\u00a0 But when I grew up I put away childish things.\u201d\u00a0 We need a generation of young men putting away childish things.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 But you know the messages they\u2019re getting in the culture, the messages on TV, from their peer group, the messages in the movies, and even the message of their own flesh, it\u2019s not calling them to put away childish things.\u00a0 It\u2019s saying, \u201cThis is a time for fun.\u00a0 Enjoy it!\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong> Well, you were a teenage young man one time.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 I was!\u00a0 I remember!\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 Do you remember it?\u00a0 I mean, it was totally confusing and life was a lot simpler back then.\u00a0 But what\u2019s happening today I fear, is the older men in the lives of these young men, instead of reaching out with their hand and calling them to step up, they\u2019re not challenging them to much of anything.\u00a0 They\u2019ve forgotten what it was like.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tLet me just read to you what I wrote in the book in terms of what teenage boys are facing today.\u00a0 \u201cA teenage boy\u2019s body is changing in strange and foreign ways.\u201d\u00a0 Think about it!\u00a0 I mean, hair growing in some unusual places!\u00a0 What\u2019s he supposed to do?\u00a0 He\u2019s starting to think about things he\u2019s never thought about before.\u00a0 All of a sudden, sexual allurement and the mystery of sex becomes powerful.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve never been spoken to about this, what\u2019s a boy, a young man, going to do with all that?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tSecondly, he\u2019s bombarded with bewildering thoughts and choices about sex and morality.\u00a0 In other words, when can he have sex?\u00a0 Now he\u2019s thinking about it.\u00a0 What is appropriate?\u00a0 If you watch what\u2019s on TV, there are no boundaries.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBarbara and I sat at the movies back around Christmas watching previews and there was, and I forget the name of the movie and I\u2019m glad I\u2019m forgetting it here, because I don\u2019t want to give it any advertising, but it was all about having sex.\u00a0 That was the theme of the entire movie.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tIt was like all these single people were just born for this purpose, to just figure out how to ultimately make out and get in bed with one another.\u00a0 There was no restraint on passion.\u00a0 So here are teenage boys coming to a movie like that.\u00a0 What are they supposed to do with those images?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThird, he faces relentless, unbelievable peer pressure, friends encouraging, enticing him to go along with, frankly, barbaric ways.\u00a0 I mean teenage boys left to go their own route are going to be little barbarians.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tNext, he battles an emotional upheaval of anger, sometimes rage that he has no idea where it\u2019s coming from.\u00a0 I watched out sons going through this.\u00a0 Without a strong daddy in their lives, they can be punitive upon a mom.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 They\u2019re getting some hormones squirted into their systems that haven\u2019t been squirted there before and aggression is a part of what comes with that.\u00a0 It\u2019s got to be directed and it\u2019s got to be channeled.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 And in this culture, in addition to all that, he\u2019s also has to deal with other people\u2019s expectations.\u00a0 I mean, with all the expectations around the tests they\u2019re taking, the college they go to, how well their grades are, it\u2019s pressure on pressure on pressure.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThe last one is he feels this strong gravitational pull toward independence.\u00a0 He wants to spin out and away from the family orbit and establish his own authority away from his parent\u2019s authority all on his own.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 And that\u2019s a good thing, isn\u2019t it?\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 It is.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0 <\/strong><strong>\u2026<\/strong>that he wants to do that?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 It is.\u00a0 But it is if he\u2019s trustworthy, if he\u2019s been trained, if he understands how to begin to exercise his own authority.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 If he wants to kind of be in charge of his own universe simply so he can indulge his own fleshy desires then that\u2019s a recipe for trouble.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<br><strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 It is.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 But if he wants to be out on his own so that he can subdue the earth and fulfill it as the biblical mandate calls him to do, then that\u2019s a good thing.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 But just pull back for a second and think as a parent. Here\u2019s a young man that you\u2019re observing that has this wash of chemicals and hormones surging through his system, all these outside forces impacting him.\u00a0 He\u2019s spinning off to his own orbit and two things can happen with parents.\u00a0 One, I call the push back and the other is what I call the pull out.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThe push back is when a young man begins to push back against his parents, specifically his father, and the father lets him.\u00a0 He lets him push him back and push him out of his life so that the father is not in there helping him navigate uncharted waters.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThe second area is the pull out.\u00a0 Some parents just get busy and it\u2019s a hassle to engage your teenagers.\u00a0 The easiest thing to do, again, is nothing.\u00a0 So a dad can pull out of his son\u2019s life, in my opinion, at one of the most dangerous, most important times, when a young man needs an older man, in his entire life.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<br><strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 So ideally, as I hear you describing all of this, I\u2019m thinking to myself ideally you want to get a son from boyhood to manhood kind of as quickly as possible, get him\u00a0 through the adolescent rapids as quickly as you can?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong> Well, you know, you really understand why back at the turn of the twentieth century, why they got married and started their own families.\u00a0 These young men had to step up and had to assume the responsibilities of a man.\u00a0 They were given no other choices.\u00a0 The problem is we\u2019ve built an entertainment culture appealing to these teenagers, enticing them to stay in this phase well into their twenties.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 A lot of the young men at the turn of the century weren\u2019t in school after the seventh or the eighth grade.\u00a0 Now they\u2019re in school to college and beyond and their only responsibility is to study. There\u2019s no job.\u00a0 There\u2019s no work.\u00a0 All of a sudden you\u2019ve got all this free time.\u00a0 I mean, I remember when I was a student thinking, \u201cBoy, I\u2019ve got no free time.\u201d\u00a0 Well, I\u2019d go back and trade, you know?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 No doubt.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 \u2026because you\u2019ve got all kinds of time.\u00a0 If there\u2019s no direct responsibility attached to that, that\u2019s a recipe for mischief.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 You know, Bob, my boys at this point would cringe because they know exactly what I\u2019m about to say.\u00a0 When they entered that phase I would look at them and I said, \u201cYou have the least amount of responsibility you will have for the rest of your life.\u201d\u00a0 But the idea there is that, you know what, as a young man, get used to stepping up.\u00a0 Get used to taking on more responsibility because it is the stuff of manhood.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tIt is why God created you.\u00a0 Back in Genesis, chapter 1, you were designed by God to rule.\u00a0 You were designed to reign over the creation and make a living by the sweat of your brow and be a part of God\u2019s redemptive work on the planet.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tProbably the best illustration I have of what the teenage years look like and the assignment of a father during those years, used to occur as I completed my sixth grade Sunday school class.\u00a0 Now this was a class I used to teach.\u00a0 I had seventy, seventy-five young people in that class so it wasn\u2019t just to the boys.\u00a0 But I would always use a boy to illustrate the last principle.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob<\/strong>:\u00a0\u00a0 Now this was seventy twelve year olds?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 Yes, eleven and twelve year olds.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 Oh my goodness.\u00a0 Alright\u2026\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 What I did in that class was I used to call it the traps of adolescence.\u00a0 So I had a bear trap that represented sexual immorality.\u00a0 I had smaller traps that represented drugs and alcohol and pornography, other traps that represented peer pressure.\u00a0 I had a dozen traps that were illustrated.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tFor the last session I had all the traps set on the floor.\u00a0 It\u2019s a miracle, Bob, that in all the years I taught this I never once caught a kid.\u00a0 They never once stepped in any of those traps!\u00a0 I was relieved!\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 It was a miracle that the Fish and Game people didn\u2019t come in and shut down your Sunday school class!\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 No doubt about it. But I had all these traps and kids knew what those traps stood for.\u00a0 So I took a young man on the other side of the traps, on the other side of the rooms, and he could see the traps in front of him, and I blindfolded him.\u00a0 Then I said, \u201cI want you to take off your shoes.\u201d\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tAnd on the other side of the room, with the traps in between us and the young lad, was his father.\u00a0 I instructed the father in what they were supposed to do.\u00a0 I would say to the young man, \u201cOn the count of three I want you to come to your father and to me.\u00a0 It\u2019s representing going through adolescence all the way to adulthood.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 So come barefoot through the traps with blindfolds on?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 Right!\u00a0 Exactly!\u00a0 And I would say, \u201cOne.\u00a0 Two.\u201d\u00a0 And the father would interrupt me every time and say, \u201cHold it son.\u00a0 Don\u2019t\u2019 take a step!\u201d\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tHe would walk over, around the traps, would go over and whisper to his son, \u201cI want you to stick your hands on the back of my shoulders and I want you to scoot along and follow me very closely because we are going in between these traps.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tSo the father would begin scooting through those traps, all of this taking place in front of seventy-five young people about to encounter these traps and the parents who were about to raise them.\u00a0 They were in the room too because this was graduation.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThe father and the young man, closely behind him, would make it through to the other side and the class always began to applaud and clap and cheer as they finished it and the young man took his blindfold off and gave his father a hug.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThat\u2019s a picture of what adolescence was meant to look like--a father in the midst of doing life with his son, in the midst of the traps.\u00a0 First and foremost, staying out of the traps himself.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 Right.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 And then calling his son to step up and away from the traps and to step with him toward manhood.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tWhat is missing today are the fathers walking around the traps and then sticking with it all the way through the next five, six, seven years.\u00a0 It\u2019s not a matter of having one birds and bees conversation with a thirteen year old boy.\u00a0 It\u2019s a matter of talking with him as you\u2019re watching a football game and a commercial comes on and you tell him to look away.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tIt\u2019s a matter of talking about the movies he goes to and having boundaries in his life.\u00a0 It\u2019s a matter of training him to know how to deal with the opposite sex and honor a young ladies\u2019 femininity by keeping his hands off of her body.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tYoung men today, more than ever, need a daddy, a daddy who is on the manhood step facing upwards, who knows who he is as a man, who\u2019s not dabbling in pornography himself, so he can reach down to his son and say, \u201cLet\u2019s go.\u00a0 Come on.\u00a0 Follow me as I follow Jesus Christ.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 The dads who are there and who can\u2019t reach back because they\u2019re got one foot still stuck in adolescence themselves?\u00a0 How do they get unstuck?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 As we\u2019ve talked here Bob, we\u2019ve created a picture of five steps, a step going upwards from boyhood to adolescence, from adolescence to manhood, manhood to mentor, and, the ultimate step and most noble call for a man, that of being a patriarch.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tWe also created an image that a man can find himself with one foot on the manhood step and one foot on the lower step of adolescence, standing sideways.\u00a0 When a man finds himself standing sideways, he has to realize a couple of things.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tNumber one, his own life is in peril.\u00a0 Number two, the kind of model he is leaving for his son, and for that matter the rest of his family, is not a good one.\u00a0 And third, he needs to realize that from time to time all of us make foolish decisions.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tAll of us step down and we have to turn our back, that\u2019s call repentance in the Bible, we have to turn our back on selfishness and on sin and turn away from it and turn upward toward Jesus Christ and the scriptures and being obedient to what God has called him to do.\u00a0 So I wish it was a simple matter of just turning away from evil one time and stepping up.\u00a0 But it\u2019s never just that.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tI mean, it occurs as we walk in the middle of an airport and you look over in the magazine stand.\u00a0 I don\u2019t ask to see those pictures.\u00a0 I don\u2019t ask to have those magazines faced outward to me, thirty feet away, not even going into the book store that\u2019s in the airport.\u00a0 But they\u2019re there and they can be a temptation and they can call a man away from what he knows is right to becoming a doorway through which sin can gain entrance, not only to his own life, but also to his son\u2019s.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThere\u2019s a warning in scripture that the sin of one generation will be passed down to four generations.\u00a0 To me that\u2019s a frightening thought, that my life would be used to pass on sin rather than righteousness to my descendants.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 If a dad is going to lead his son through the phase of adolescence to manhood, the dad\u2019s got to have a pretty secure standing on the manhood step himself.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<br><strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 He\u2019d better keep short accounts with God.\u00a0 All of us make mistakes.\u00a0 I\u2019ve shared many of them here on <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em>.\u00a0 I run into listeners all around the country who says, \u201cYou know what?\u00a0 We appreciate the no baloney approach to the Christian faith and to real life as we all live it.\u201d\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tI\u2019ve shared about cutting down trees in front of my own son.\u00a0 And I\u2019ve shared to repenting of cutting down a tree that wasn\u2019t on my property and calling the owner of that tree and confessing my sin and offering to pay restitution in front of my son.\u00a0 Now that\u2019s no fun.\u00a0 But you know what?\u00a0 It\u2019s a part of showing our sons where to find life.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tProverbs 4:23 says, \u201cGuard your heart for from it flow the wellsprings of life.\u201d\u00a0 My heart is a precious thing for life in terms of it beating right now.\u00a0 It\u2019s also a precious thing, if I understand the scriptures, spiritually,\u00a0 for me to continue to guard my heart so that I might be a source of life, that my life might be a spring that would come from my life to my wife, to my sons, to my daughters, and to those that I impact and influence.\u00a0 That\u2019s a great picture for any man standing on the manhood step.\u00a0 There needs to be a stream of water influencing all those around him.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 I think it\u2019s helpful, and this is one of the things you do so well in the book, men need to see that the essence of authentic manhood involves sacrifice, involves laying down your life, giving your life away for others.\u00a0 It\u2019s not about being a man for yourself.\u00a0 It\u2019s about being a man for others and dying to self. That\u2019s what\u2019s at the heart of authentic manhood.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tI want to encourage listeners to get a copy of this new book.\u00a0 Again, it\u2019s called <em>Stepping Up\u2014A Call to Courageous Manhood<\/em>.\u00a0 This week we want to send it to you.\u00a0 All we\u2019re asking you is that you make a donation to help support the ministry.\u00a0 When you do, we\u2019re happy to send you a copy of Dennis\u2019s brand new book.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tIf you\u2019re donating on line at FamilyLifeToday.com, when you open up the donation form there\u2019s a key code box there.\u00a0 Just type \u201cSTEPUP\u201d in the key code box and we\u2019ll know to send you a copy of Dennis\u2019s book.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tOr call 1-800-FLToday and make a donation over the phone.\u00a0 Again, just ask for a copy of Dennis\u2019 book when you do. Right now the only place the book is available is here at FamilyLife so, if you want to get a copy, go online or call us and make a donation.\u00a0 If you\u2019re interested in multiple copies of the book, those are available for purchase as well.\u00a0 I know there are a lot of men\u2019s groups that are going to look at doing a book like this for a men\u2019s study.\u00a0 So if you want to get multiple copies, contact us, again, online at FamilyLifeToday.com or when you call 1-800-\u201cF\u201d as in family, \u201cL\u201d as in life, and then the word \u201cToday.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tNow tomorrow we\u2019re going to talk about what authentic, mature masculinity looks like.\u00a0 What are some of the characteristics of someone who has stepped up to manhood?\u00a0 We\u2019ll talk about that tomorrow. I hope you can be with us for that.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tI want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team.\u00a0 On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine.\u00a0 We will see you back tomorrow for another edition of <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em>.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<em>FamilyLife Today<\/em> is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tHelp for today.\u00a0 Hope for tomorrow.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tWe are so happy to provide these transcripts. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider f to help defray the costs?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t2011 Copyright \u00a9 FamilyLife. All rights reserved.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>www.FamilyLife.com<\/strong>\n\t\t\t<\/p>"],"_seopress_titles_title":[""],"_seopress_titles_desc":[""],"_seopress_robots_index":[""],"duration":["00:"],"show_notes":[""],"_thumbnail_id":["294104"],"filesize":["24.78M"],"filesize_raw":["25982677"],"_uag_css_file_name":["uag-css-302233.css"],"_uag_js_file_name":["uag-js-302233.js"],"_uag_page_assets":["a:9:{s:3:\"css\";s:82560:\".wp-block-uagb-container.uagb-block-e11dbe9f .uagb-container__shape-top svg{width: calc( 100% + 1.3px );}.wp-block-uagb-container.uagb-block-e11dbe9f .uagb-container__shape.uagb-container__shape-top .uagb-container__shape-fill{fill: rgba(51,51,51,1);}.wp-block-uagb-container.uagb-block-e11dbe9f .uagb-container__shape-bottom svg{width: calc( 100% + 1.3px );}.wp-block-uagb-container.uagb-block-e11dbe9f .uagb-container__shape.uagb-container__shape-bottom .uagb-container__shape-fill{fill: rgba(51,51,51,1);}.wp-block-uagb-container.uagb-block-e11dbe9f 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not always easy being in the middle of something, especially if that something is boyhood and manhood.","meta_box":{"show_notes":"","transcript_url":"https:\/\/transcript.familylifetoday.com\/fl2011-03-09.pdf","transcript_content":"<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>One of the key steps a young man will take as he progresses toward courageous, authentic, biblical masculinity is the step where he begins to assume more responsibility.\u00a0 Here\u2019s Dennis Rainey.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<br><strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 You know what?\u00a0 As a young man, get used to stepping up.\u00a0 Get used to taking on more responsibility because it is the stuff of manhood.\u00a0 It\u2019s why God created you.\u00a0 Back in Genesis, chapter one, you were designed to reign over the creation and make a living by the sweat of your brow and be a part of God\u2019s redemptive work on the planet.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, March 9<sup>th<\/sup>.\u00a0 Our host is the President of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I\u2019m Bob Lepine.\u00a0 We\u2019re going to explore today what has to happen for a young man to move through adolescence and to embrace authentic masculinity.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tWelcome to <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em>.\u00a0 Thanks for joining us on the Wednesday edition.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tWe\u2019re going to have to start with some definition, maybe, or some discussion here at the beginning.\u00a0 You\u2019ve just finished a book that you call <em>Stepping Up, a Call to Courageous Manhood.<\/em>\u00a0 You\u2019re challenging men to step up.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tOne of the things you address in this book is the idea that men go through a middle phase, from boyhood to manhood, the phase of adolescence.\u00a0 You know there are people in the culture today who push back on that whole idea of adolescence and say that\u2019s an artificial construct.\u00a0 Back a hundred years ago there was no such thing as an adolescent.\u00a0 You just went from boyhood to manhood.\u00a0 So what do you say to that, huh?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 Well, they\u2019re right.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t even in the dictionary at the turn of the twentieth century.\u00a0 In the early nineteen hundreds there were two steps, boyhood and manhood.\u00a0 There wasn\u2019t anything in between.\u00a0 You stepped up from boyhood to manhood and probably did so at a much earlier age back then than we do today.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 So you\u2019d have teenagers, young men, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old getting married, taking jobs\u2026\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 Oh, yeah!\u00a0 Right.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 \u2026taking responsibilities for families.\u00a0 The idea that there would be an extended period where you would learn and study and grow and just kind of enjoy life before you got down to the duties and responsibilities of adulthood?\u00a0 That just didn\u2019t exist.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<br><strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 It didn\u2019t.\u00a0 In fact there\u2019s a guy who wrote a book, Dr. Michael Kimmel, called <em>Guyland<\/em>.\u00a0 In it he describes a world where young men live.\u00a0 He said it\u2019s a stage of life, an undefined timespan between adolescence and adulthood that can stretch out for a decade or more.\u00a0 It\u2019s a bunch of places where guys gather to be guys with each other, unhassled by the demands of parents, girlfriends, jobs, kids and other nuisances of adult life.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tWhat he\u2019s saying is he actually wants to add another step between adolescence and manhood, one that can go on into the late twenties.\u00a0 In fact, it\u2019s happening!\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 Guyhood?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 Guyland, I guess.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 You get your video game controller and you work a job where you can go home and sit down with the dudes and crack some beers and get out the videogames and have a blast.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<br><strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 In fact, listen to this statement that Dr. Kimmel concludes with.\u00a0 He says, \u201cIn this topsy turvy Peter Pan mindset, young men shirk the responsibilities of adulthood and remain fixated on the trappings of boyhood while the boys they still are struggle heroically to prove that they are real men, despite all the evidence to the contrary.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 Well, he\u2019s really just saying that adolescence has been extended in our culture and there\u2019s kind of this state of perpetual adolescence.\u00a0 In fact, again as you\u2019ve addressed in this book and you\u2019ve spoken to men, you\u2019re calling all of us to step out of what is that inertia that pulls us back into the irresponsibility of adolescence and say \u201cStep up to the responsibility of manhood.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<br><strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 I don\u2019t think it\u2019s wrong that adolescence ultimately emerged.\u00a0 I think what has become a trap, however, is when young men are allowed to stay in some in-between world, in between boyhood and manhood for an extended period of time where no one in the culture, no one in their family, no one in their lives, is stepping into their lives and saying, \u201cIt\u2019s time to grow up.\u00a0 It\u2019s time to assume responsibilities.\u201d\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tI have to say it\u2019s interesting in this culture to watch a bunch of single people, for that matter single men, moving into their thirties delaying marriage with one foot in boyhood, one foot in adolescence.\u00a0 I think they need some older men in their lives who are on the steps above, looking down at them, and not in an arrogant fashion, but reaching down to them, saying, \u201cCome on up.\u201d\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tIt may be frightening.\u00a0 It may feel like it is more responsibility, because it is but you need to get out of childhood.\u00a0 As Paul said in 1 Corinthians, chapter 13, verse 11, \u201cWhen I was a boy I acted like a boy.\u00a0 I behaved like a boy.\u00a0 I spoke like a boy.\u00a0 But when I grew up I put away childish things.\u201d\u00a0 We need a generation of young men putting away childish things.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 But you know the messages they\u2019re getting in the culture, the messages on TV, from their peer group, the messages in the movies, and even the message of their own flesh, it\u2019s not calling them to put away childish things.\u00a0 It\u2019s saying, \u201cThis is a time for fun.\u00a0 Enjoy it!\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong> Well, you were a teenage young man one time.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 I was!\u00a0 I remember!\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 Do you remember it?\u00a0 I mean, it was totally confusing and life was a lot simpler back then.\u00a0 But what\u2019s happening today I fear, is the older men in the lives of these young men, instead of reaching out with their hand and calling them to step up, they\u2019re not challenging them to much of anything.\u00a0 They\u2019ve forgotten what it was like.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tLet me just read to you what I wrote in the book in terms of what teenage boys are facing today.\u00a0 \u201cA teenage boy\u2019s body is changing in strange and foreign ways.\u201d\u00a0 Think about it!\u00a0 I mean, hair growing in some unusual places!\u00a0 What\u2019s he supposed to do?\u00a0 He\u2019s starting to think about things he\u2019s never thought about before.\u00a0 All of a sudden, sexual allurement and the mystery of sex becomes powerful.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve never been spoken to about this, what\u2019s a boy, a young man, going to do with all that?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tSecondly, he\u2019s bombarded with bewildering thoughts and choices about sex and morality.\u00a0 In other words, when can he have sex?\u00a0 Now he\u2019s thinking about it.\u00a0 What is appropriate?\u00a0 If you watch what\u2019s on TV, there are no boundaries.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBarbara and I sat at the movies back around Christmas watching previews and there was, and I forget the name of the movie and I\u2019m glad I\u2019m forgetting it here, because I don\u2019t want to give it any advertising, but it was all about having sex.\u00a0 That was the theme of the entire movie.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tIt was like all these single people were just born for this purpose, to just figure out how to ultimately make out and get in bed with one another.\u00a0 There was no restraint on passion.\u00a0 So here are teenage boys coming to a movie like that.\u00a0 What are they supposed to do with those images?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThird, he faces relentless, unbelievable peer pressure, friends encouraging, enticing him to go along with, frankly, barbaric ways.\u00a0 I mean teenage boys left to go their own route are going to be little barbarians.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tNext, he battles an emotional upheaval of anger, sometimes rage that he has no idea where it\u2019s coming from.\u00a0 I watched out sons going through this.\u00a0 Without a strong daddy in their lives, they can be punitive upon a mom.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 They\u2019re getting some hormones squirted into their systems that haven\u2019t been squirted there before and aggression is a part of what comes with that.\u00a0 It\u2019s got to be directed and it\u2019s got to be channeled.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 And in this culture, in addition to all that, he\u2019s also has to deal with other people\u2019s expectations.\u00a0 I mean, with all the expectations around the tests they\u2019re taking, the college they go to, how well their grades are, it\u2019s pressure on pressure on pressure.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThe last one is he feels this strong gravitational pull toward independence.\u00a0 He wants to spin out and away from the family orbit and establish his own authority away from his parent\u2019s authority all on his own.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 And that\u2019s a good thing, isn\u2019t it?\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 It is.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0 <\/strong><strong>\u2026<\/strong>that he wants to do that?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 It is.\u00a0 But it is if he\u2019s trustworthy, if he\u2019s been trained, if he understands how to begin to exercise his own authority.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 If he wants to kind of be in charge of his own universe simply so he can indulge his own fleshy desires then that\u2019s a recipe for trouble.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<br><strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 It is.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 But if he wants to be out on his own so that he can subdue the earth and fulfill it as the biblical mandate calls him to do, then that\u2019s a good thing.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 But just pull back for a second and think as a parent. Here\u2019s a young man that you\u2019re observing that has this wash of chemicals and hormones surging through his system, all these outside forces impacting him.\u00a0 He\u2019s spinning off to his own orbit and two things can happen with parents.\u00a0 One, I call the push back and the other is what I call the pull out.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThe push back is when a young man begins to push back against his parents, specifically his father, and the father lets him.\u00a0 He lets him push him back and push him out of his life so that the father is not in there helping him navigate uncharted waters.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThe second area is the pull out.\u00a0 Some parents just get busy and it\u2019s a hassle to engage your teenagers.\u00a0 The easiest thing to do, again, is nothing.\u00a0 So a dad can pull out of his son\u2019s life, in my opinion, at one of the most dangerous, most important times, when a young man needs an older man, in his entire life.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<br><strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 So ideally, as I hear you describing all of this, I\u2019m thinking to myself ideally you want to get a son from boyhood to manhood kind of as quickly as possible, get him\u00a0 through the adolescent rapids as quickly as you can?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong> Well, you know, you really understand why back at the turn of the twentieth century, why they got married and started their own families.\u00a0 These young men had to step up and had to assume the responsibilities of a man.\u00a0 They were given no other choices.\u00a0 The problem is we\u2019ve built an entertainment culture appealing to these teenagers, enticing them to stay in this phase well into their twenties.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 A lot of the young men at the turn of the century weren\u2019t in school after the seventh or the eighth grade.\u00a0 Now they\u2019re in school to college and beyond and their only responsibility is to study. There\u2019s no job.\u00a0 There\u2019s no work.\u00a0 All of a sudden you\u2019ve got all this free time.\u00a0 I mean, I remember when I was a student thinking, \u201cBoy, I\u2019ve got no free time.\u201d\u00a0 Well, I\u2019d go back and trade, you know?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 No doubt.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 \u2026because you\u2019ve got all kinds of time.\u00a0 If there\u2019s no direct responsibility attached to that, that\u2019s a recipe for mischief.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 You know, Bob, my boys at this point would cringe because they know exactly what I\u2019m about to say.\u00a0 When they entered that phase I would look at them and I said, \u201cYou have the least amount of responsibility you will have for the rest of your life.\u201d\u00a0 But the idea there is that, you know what, as a young man, get used to stepping up.\u00a0 Get used to taking on more responsibility because it is the stuff of manhood.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tIt is why God created you.\u00a0 Back in Genesis, chapter 1, you were designed by God to rule.\u00a0 You were designed to reign over the creation and make a living by the sweat of your brow and be a part of God\u2019s redemptive work on the planet.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tProbably the best illustration I have of what the teenage years look like and the assignment of a father during those years, used to occur as I completed my sixth grade Sunday school class.\u00a0 Now this was a class I used to teach.\u00a0 I had seventy, seventy-five young people in that class so it wasn\u2019t just to the boys.\u00a0 But I would always use a boy to illustrate the last principle.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob<\/strong>:\u00a0\u00a0 Now this was seventy twelve year olds?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 Yes, eleven and twelve year olds.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 Oh my goodness.\u00a0 Alright\u2026\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 What I did in that class was I used to call it the traps of adolescence.\u00a0 So I had a bear trap that represented sexual immorality.\u00a0 I had smaller traps that represented drugs and alcohol and pornography, other traps that represented peer pressure.\u00a0 I had a dozen traps that were illustrated.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tFor the last session I had all the traps set on the floor.\u00a0 It\u2019s a miracle, Bob, that in all the years I taught this I never once caught a kid.\u00a0 They never once stepped in any of those traps!\u00a0 I was relieved!\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 It was a miracle that the Fish and Game people didn\u2019t come in and shut down your Sunday school class!\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 No doubt about it. But I had all these traps and kids knew what those traps stood for.\u00a0 So I took a young man on the other side of the traps, on the other side of the rooms, and he could see the traps in front of him, and I blindfolded him.\u00a0 Then I said, \u201cI want you to take off your shoes.\u201d\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tAnd on the other side of the room, with the traps in between us and the young lad, was his father.\u00a0 I instructed the father in what they were supposed to do.\u00a0 I would say to the young man, \u201cOn the count of three I want you to come to your father and to me.\u00a0 It\u2019s representing going through adolescence all the way to adulthood.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 So come barefoot through the traps with blindfolds on?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 Right!\u00a0 Exactly!\u00a0 And I would say, \u201cOne.\u00a0 Two.\u201d\u00a0 And the father would interrupt me every time and say, \u201cHold it son.\u00a0 Don\u2019t\u2019 take a step!\u201d\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tHe would walk over, around the traps, would go over and whisper to his son, \u201cI want you to stick your hands on the back of my shoulders and I want you to scoot along and follow me very closely because we are going in between these traps.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tSo the father would begin scooting through those traps, all of this taking place in front of seventy-five young people about to encounter these traps and the parents who were about to raise them.\u00a0 They were in the room too because this was graduation.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThe father and the young man, closely behind him, would make it through to the other side and the class always began to applaud and clap and cheer as they finished it and the young man took his blindfold off and gave his father a hug.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThat\u2019s a picture of what adolescence was meant to look like--a father in the midst of doing life with his son, in the midst of the traps.\u00a0 First and foremost, staying out of the traps himself.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 Right.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 And then calling his son to step up and away from the traps and to step with him toward manhood.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tWhat is missing today are the fathers walking around the traps and then sticking with it all the way through the next five, six, seven years.\u00a0 It\u2019s not a matter of having one birds and bees conversation with a thirteen year old boy.\u00a0 It\u2019s a matter of talking with him as you\u2019re watching a football game and a commercial comes on and you tell him to look away.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tIt\u2019s a matter of talking about the movies he goes to and having boundaries in his life.\u00a0 It\u2019s a matter of training him to know how to deal with the opposite sex and honor a young ladies\u2019 femininity by keeping his hands off of her body.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tYoung men today, more than ever, need a daddy, a daddy who is on the manhood step facing upwards, who knows who he is as a man, who\u2019s not dabbling in pornography himself, so he can reach down to his son and say, \u201cLet\u2019s go.\u00a0 Come on.\u00a0 Follow me as I follow Jesus Christ.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 The dads who are there and who can\u2019t reach back because they\u2019re got one foot still stuck in adolescence themselves?\u00a0 How do they get unstuck?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 As we\u2019ve talked here Bob, we\u2019ve created a picture of five steps, a step going upwards from boyhood to adolescence, from adolescence to manhood, manhood to mentor, and, the ultimate step and most noble call for a man, that of being a patriarch.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tWe also created an image that a man can find himself with one foot on the manhood step and one foot on the lower step of adolescence, standing sideways.\u00a0 When a man finds himself standing sideways, he has to realize a couple of things.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tNumber one, his own life is in peril.\u00a0 Number two, the kind of model he is leaving for his son, and for that matter the rest of his family, is not a good one.\u00a0 And third, he needs to realize that from time to time all of us make foolish decisions.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tAll of us step down and we have to turn our back, that\u2019s call repentance in the Bible, we have to turn our back on selfishness and on sin and turn away from it and turn upward toward Jesus Christ and the scriptures and being obedient to what God has called him to do.\u00a0 So I wish it was a simple matter of just turning away from evil one time and stepping up.\u00a0 But it\u2019s never just that.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tI mean, it occurs as we walk in the middle of an airport and you look over in the magazine stand.\u00a0 I don\u2019t ask to see those pictures.\u00a0 I don\u2019t ask to have those magazines faced outward to me, thirty feet away, not even going into the book store that\u2019s in the airport.\u00a0 But they\u2019re there and they can be a temptation and they can call a man away from what he knows is right to becoming a doorway through which sin can gain entrance, not only to his own life, but also to his son\u2019s.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThere\u2019s a warning in scripture that the sin of one generation will be passed down to four generations.\u00a0 To me that\u2019s a frightening thought, that my life would be used to pass on sin rather than righteousness to my descendants.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 If a dad is going to lead his son through the phase of adolescence to manhood, the dad\u2019s got to have a pretty secure standing on the manhood step himself.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<br><strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 He\u2019d better keep short accounts with God.\u00a0 All of us make mistakes.\u00a0 I\u2019ve shared many of them here on <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em>.\u00a0 I run into listeners all around the country who says, \u201cYou know what?\u00a0 We appreciate the no baloney approach to the Christian faith and to real life as we all live it.\u201d\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tI\u2019ve shared about cutting down trees in front of my own son.\u00a0 And I\u2019ve shared to repenting of cutting down a tree that wasn\u2019t on my property and calling the owner of that tree and confessing my sin and offering to pay restitution in front of my son.\u00a0 Now that\u2019s no fun.\u00a0 But you know what?\u00a0 It\u2019s a part of showing our sons where to find life.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tProverbs 4:23 says, \u201cGuard your heart for from it flow the wellsprings of life.\u201d\u00a0 My heart is a precious thing for life in terms of it beating right now.\u00a0 It\u2019s also a precious thing, if I understand the scriptures, spiritually,\u00a0 for me to continue to guard my heart so that I might be a source of life, that my life might be a spring that would come from my life to my wife, to my sons, to my daughters, and to those that I impact and influence.\u00a0 That\u2019s a great picture for any man standing on the manhood step.\u00a0 There needs to be a stream of water influencing all those around him.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 I think it\u2019s helpful, and this is one of the things you do so well in the book, men need to see that the essence of authentic manhood involves sacrifice, involves laying down your life, giving your life away for others.\u00a0 It\u2019s not about being a man for yourself.\u00a0 It\u2019s about being a man for others and dying to self. That\u2019s what\u2019s at the heart of authentic manhood.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tI want to encourage listeners to get a copy of this new book.\u00a0 Again, it\u2019s called <em>Stepping Up\u2014A Call to Courageous Manhood<\/em>.\u00a0 This week we want to send it to you.\u00a0 All we\u2019re asking you is that you make a donation to help support the ministry.\u00a0 When you do, we\u2019re happy to send you a copy of Dennis\u2019s brand new book.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tIf you\u2019re donating on line at FamilyLifeToday.com, when you open up the donation form there\u2019s a key code box there.\u00a0 Just type \u201cSTEPUP\u201d in the key code box and we\u2019ll know to send you a copy of Dennis\u2019s book.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tOr call 1-800-FLToday and make a donation over the phone.\u00a0 Again, just ask for a copy of Dennis\u2019 book when you do. Right now the only place the book is available is here at FamilyLife so, if you want to get a copy, go online or call us and make a donation.\u00a0 If you\u2019re interested in multiple copies of the book, those are available for purchase as well.\u00a0 I know there are a lot of men\u2019s groups that are going to look at doing a book like this for a men\u2019s study.\u00a0 So if you want to get multiple copies, contact us, again, online at FamilyLifeToday.com or when you call 1-800-\u201cF\u201d as in family, \u201cL\u201d as in life, and then the word \u201cToday.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tNow tomorrow we\u2019re going to talk about what authentic, mature masculinity looks like.\u00a0 What are some of the characteristics of someone who has stepped up to manhood?\u00a0 We\u2019ll talk about that tomorrow. I hope you can be with us for that.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tI want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team.\u00a0 On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine.\u00a0 We will see you back tomorrow for another edition of <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em>.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<em>FamilyLife Today<\/em> is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tHelp for today.\u00a0 Hope for tomorrow.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tWe are so happy to provide these transcripts. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider f to help defray the costs?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t2011 Copyright \u00a9 FamilyLife. All rights reserved.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>www.FamilyLife.com<\/strong>\n\t\t\t<\/p>","theme_header_position":"","post_header_is_sticky":"","is_header_overlay":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/podcast\/302233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/podcast"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/podcast"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302233"},{"taxonomy":"podcast_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/podcast_series?post=302233"},{"taxonomy":"cwp_profile","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cwp_profile?post=302233"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=302233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}