Where are all the Dads? by Captain Harold Browne

Where are all the Dads?  

by Captain Harold Browne

We live in an age and society where Fathers are no longer there or are considered unnecessary. Recently, I read an article that the GREATEST need in our churches is for fathers. That article confirms our experiences in CSB. The single-parent family led by a mom seems to be the norm even in the evangelical church. This places our ministry in a unique and challenging position. As Brigade leaders, we need to be fathers to the boys and young men the Lord has entrusted to us.

When I started in this ministry many years ago, I was not a father. Since that time the Lord has given me four sons, three beautiful daughters-in-law, three grandsons and five granddaughters. In addition, I have literally hundreds of sons through my ministry in CSB. I consider each one of these Brigade boys as part of my family. They are now scattered around the world serving God. Clearly some of them I know better than others. Many of their names and faces come to mind often, others just occasionally. They include: Steve, Andrew, John, Anil, Arvind, Ben, Jeff, several Peters, Jims, Marks, and the list goes on…

Many of them are missionaries, pastors, church leaders, community leaders, businessmen, and even a former Deputy Prime Minister. Most of then are ordinary dads. 

What did I do with those fellows to be like a dad to them?

Often, it was very ordinary things. I would get together with them regularly at fun gatherings, called Brigade meetings. I would talk with them and even do that strange thing, called “Checking their Achievements”, participating in games with them, and even sharing God’s Word with them. On Sundays at church, I would even greet them with a smile, and with a verbal greeting. To this day whenever we encounter one another, they almost always initiate greetings and brief conversations. Then there were those adventures, the fall hikes in Gatineau Park, the campouts by the St Lawrence, the weeks at Camp Kakeka, and the hockey games where everyone got to play. The most memorable events of all were the Noncom Conferences, Anniversary Campouts with other groups from far and wide. Through many of those experiences, my four sons were there and I was able to combine being their dad with being the father to the other fellows, as well. 

Many years ago, CSB introduced a program called Tree Climbers. It was intended to provide an opportunity for Dads to have a regular time of doing stuff with their young sons. Our church immediately adopted it as part of our ministry. One of the important practices that was established early was that virtually every dad who had a son in the group was expected to attend regularly. I was one of the exceptions as I had just taken over the leadership of our Battalion. So, my son recruited his own “dad” for that night. That man had been one of my Stockaders. To this day they are still close friends.  Currently, with the exception of a couple of older men, all of our other Tree Climber leaders are Dads. We often expect that when sons graduate from one group to the next, their dads move up with them. For boys with no dads in the home, we recruit a few godly men from the church to serve as dads for the night. Dads are the key to the success of our church’s ministry to boys and young men.  

If we are to achieve our mission of Building Godly Men of Today and Tomorrow, we need be like fathers to all our boys, especially to those who don’t have a dad near them regularly.  

   

A Challenge to each of us from the Apostle Paul to his spiritual son Timothy

“You then, my son. be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.” (2 Tim.1-2) This is my life verse in CSB.

This 4-generation principle works. Paul - the pastor to pastors; Timothy - the pastor; faithful men - the Dads or Brigade leaders; and others – the boys. As I have been around this ministry so long, I have seen some of these boys become faithful local leaders. Some have become pastors in local churches, and some have become denominational leaders and leaders of missions. 

Become a Spiritual Dad to your own sons and to those boys that the Lord have entrusted to you in the ministry of Christian Service Brigade in you church and community. Your Church needs YOU.

A Battalion’s Secret Sauce - EB by Rob Niewoehner

My first Battalion trip, I watched the leaders drop two teams on the Tuscarora Trail, in a light rain, well after sunset, their destination seven miles south. When the teams entered camp, after midnight, a 16-year-old squad-leader was carrying my 12-year-old son’s pack on his chest. My son was exhausted but cheerful, under his squad-leader’s care.

His squad leader retrieved the boots, and removed his own socks for his young charge to wear.

The following year, we launched four teams of Brigadiers into George Washington National Forest on Friday night charged with navigating independently to a Saturday evening rendezvous. That Sunday for breakfast, another 16-year-old squad-leader pulled a 20-lb. watermelon from his pack that he had carried since Friday night, through 15 miles of mountainous bushwhacking. All dads’ jaws dropped. This was his expression of care for his guys.
    Some years later, in that same forest, a 12-year-old was at the brink of tears when his boots came off while slogging through a thick patch of muddy trail, trashing his only dry socks. His squad leader retrieved the boots, and removed his own socks for his young charge to wear. That youngster’s mom still tells other moms that vignette, 8 years later.
On one March trip, a freak storm caught many unprepared. We woke on Sunday surprised to find snow on our tents and a howling wind across the ridge. A 15-year-old squad leader hiked out in shorts and a t-shirt because he’d given his only warm layers to a novice hiker under his care.
    In the fifteen years since, I’ve seen this played out innumerable times, older teens - Nomcoms - carrying some little-boy’s pack out of the woods on Sunday. In fact, each of my four sons had some older boy carry their pack or gear at some point on one of their early trips, when the mountains or weather had beat them. They then longed for the day when they’d be privileged to carry some younger boy’s gear, having been imprinted with this image of what it means to be a Christian teen. The behaviors above were expressions of what this group of teen leaders had learned from their teen leaders 5-6 years earlier. And the behaviors modeled by the Noncoms become the routine behaviors of those they lead.

Culture eats programs for breakfast. 

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” claimed Peter Drucker, the 20th Century’s most prominent leadership theorist.* The ministry analog would be “culture eats programs for breakfast.” Drucker insisted that culture overwhelmed all else in an organization’s success, and I’ve seen nothing in 40 years as a naval officer, coach, leadership educator, or church elder to refute his claim.
    Culture instantiates belief. An organization’s culture is defined by its instantiated assumptions and beliefs. And a key source of organizational stress resides in the distance between espoused values and values-in-fact, those values instantiated by behavior.
Surely, your ministry’s espoused values are evident: “Greater love has no one than this, than one lay down his life for his friends.” “All men will know you are my disciples if you love one another.” “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.” But are they your ministry’s values-in-fact? Closing any gap between the two is our primary challenge as leaders.
    I’ve found that while teen boys easily visualize what their mother’s love for them means, they have a much more difficult time conceptualizing what it means for them to love one another as Brigadiers at a meeting or on the trail. While the most powerful learning will come from the demonstrated love they experienced as young campers from older boys, Expedition Behavior (“EB”) has proven a valuable concept in translating Scripture’s lofty exhortation to a conception of concrete behavior in the church gym or on the trail.
    Expedition Behavior captures not simply the grand gestures above of carrying packs and watermelons, but the little behaviors that signal, “I’m glad you’re here with me,” and “I’m here for you,” regardless of the weather or terrain. It’s sharing a snack, or extending a hand across a stream. It’s fetching water for someone else, or the team. It’s showing up ready to serve, rather than expecting to be served. EB spans how we treat one another, how we treat our group, how the group treats each member, and how the group treats those other groups we meet afield (waking other groups with your noise or leaving your trash for others is not good EB). And, per my stories above, good EB begets good EB. 

It’s the character-forming culture that will determine more emphatically the kind of fathers and elders these young men will become 

Here’s some suggestions to build a deeper conception of good EB with your Noncoms, where it must begin.
    First, have them do a search for the New Testament’s “One Anothers.” Some will come to mind immediately. “Love one another.” “Bear one another’s burdens.” “Forgive each other.” “Pray for one another.” But don’t let them quit there. There’s over thirty, and when you catalog them on a chalk-board, taking in the whole, you get a richer sense of what your ministry can aspire to in great EB. (Teens invariably get a chuckle out of “Greet one another with a holy kiss,” which appears three times.)
    Second, you and your Noncoms can call out great EB when you see it. And, not just the big things, but great EB cultures arise from the little behaviors reinforced into habit. A young boy or older teen will recall you telling them, “That was great EB.”
It’s the character-forming culture that will determine more emphatically the kind of fathers and elders these young men will become than their awards or achievements. Their character as fathers and church elders will prove the real measure of our ministries’ success.
*Peter Drucker came to faith in Christ late in life, claiming it was an economics decision: “No where but the gospel do you receive everything of value for nothing.”

Apprenticing Leaders by Dr Steve Grove, CSB Canada

"As we know it today, discipleship is mostly about that first kind of learning: the classroom experience. And really, that’s about it. We learn from the pastor’s teaching on Sunday. We learn from Bible studies. We go to Sunday School. We learn from small group discussion guides and DVDs. We learn from reading books. We learn from taking classes at church. Notice that all of this is completely information driven, in some sort of classroom-esque experience. There is virtually no apprenticing happening in our churches."

Building a Discipling Culture by Mike Breen

I have been a student of discipleship for most of my life. My interest started in Brigade as a Stockader, continued on in Bible college and a youth major in my master’s degree. Even my doctoral project focused on helping a father disciple his son. I have seen the divide that Mike Breen talks about. In the church, we are so good at information transfer. We often think if we have said the right words, that we have accomplished the work God has given us, but often there is a next step God wants us, challenges us, to take.

The next step is to live out what we talk about in front of our boys and young men, what Breen calls “apprenticing”. As men, and fathers, we can do that in the family. We play with our kids, our children see us as we relate to our spouse, they see us as we fix things around the house or apartment. They watch us as we drive and interact with the occasional bad driver. But there are a surprising number of men are largely absent from their family for work and other activities, and many single parent homes that lack a mature male presence altogether. To do this in the church is a further challenge - how do we live what we say when our context is mostly just speaking? Where do the boys and young men see our behaviour, our life?

Consider how we can be more intentional in establishing apprenticeships its mission of making disciples. Let’s find a way to make our programs and ministries lean more to action and life than just pushing information. I grew up in a great church, with a great youth group. I did 3 Bible studies on Sundays (Sunday School, morning service (sermon), evening service (sermon)). Then we had youth group, youth choir and youth events, two of those with Bible studies or devotionals. Five studies a week (two nights on top of Sundays). I was also out one night for Brigade, and another for Evangelism Explosion, and so those five studies were balanced “faith in action”. I would be happy today if my children had one good weekly study with solid “apprentice-style” application.

Do we balance our programs today with apprenticeship style events? We are busy people - families have so many choices to make in terms of time and relationships: school and extracurricular activities, church services and programs, time spent with extended family, neighbours and peers, hobbies and sports. Perhaps we need to do less things, but be more intentional about what we are doing with whom. 

President's Connection - November 2019

And so we begin a new season of personal, intergenerational, and peer to peer discipleship with Brigade. Did you realize that there are three kinds of discipleship in play when you run a Brigade program?

Personal Discipleship - the boys and young men, as they pass Achievements, are working through a Personal discipleship track. It is something they work on outside of the meeting, with help and guidance by a leader or parent, but largely on their own. I remember writing verses out on index cards, words on one side, the Scripture address on the other. I still do that, actually. I remember building a wooden shelf thing in Stockade that I used through my college days and beyond, the piece currently in my basement screwed to a wall holding bottles of glue. I remember the Bible stories, reciting them to my Ranger. These were things I did intentionally to get an initial in my book, to get a badge or pin on my shirt. It was formational for my young faith.

Intergenerational - I remember some of my leaders had hard hips. I cam to love floor hockey, and while it was far from a "contact" sport, some of the leaders seemed to love to give an extra bump or push me off the ball. They raised the bar for me, and while my wife thinks I am pretty competitive today, I learned to play hard and work hard, and find enjoyment in those things being hard. I caught the prayers of these men, and listened as they told stories of faith, their own and others. These men, these relationships were foundational for my growing faith.

Peer to Peer - I didn't get this until I got older, but as a man, working with other men in Brigade, I found my faith sharpened by my colleagues. We had come together to help the boys and young men be more like Christ in their thoughts, words, and actions, but in doing so, I became more like Christ. By discipling others I was discipled, and as I rubbed shoulders with men of the same purpose, even though some were quite different than me, pieces of their faith rubbed off on me. This continues to be formational for my older faith.

I have been involved with Brigade for almost 50 years because I was discipled, and it gave and continues to give me opportunities to disciple others. May you find encouragement and success in your Brigades this year as you disciple boys and young men, as you win and train them for Christ.

Blessings,

Steve