Target

Lots of youth workers are working hard with boys. Here are some who have moved to the third step: knowing your audience. This involves being strategic and tactical.

Tim works with middle schoolers. He struggled for years about how to reach and keep boys. He developed a strategy of service projects as a motivational tool to involve and give ownership. Each year, these boys move up the ladder of servanthood. By the end of their middle school years, they will have served locally, state-wide and nationally. In their high school years, they are able to do more adventurous trips to Mexico and Central America. If they make it all the way through, there's a graduation trip before college.

Eric takes seventh thourhg ninth grade boys on a 72-hour backpacking experience with all sorts of experiential learning opportunities, and adult mentors come along to help lead small groups and team initiatives.

Andrea and her husband are doing a type of Bar Mitzvah ceremony in which their son will take a purity vow along with other elements of deepening his life in God.

Promise Keepers has developed a rite of passage for turning teen boys into warriors. Their passage uses Christian rock and hip-hop artists, videos and stories of changed lives to reach thousand of boys in an outdoor stadium.

Many denominations have curricula for rites of passages. The Episcopal Church uses Journey to Adulthood (see Leaderresources.com). It has a rite called The Rite 13 Liturgy. Another resource is called A Chosen Generation: Men of Honor (see Achosengeneration.org).

These are examples of people who have read, investigated and determined their target accordingly. Without taking the first two steps, the target stage most likely will fail. So don't be impulsive or discouraged! Be patient, because this is a process.

Evaluate

We often skip this last step. Are we hitting or missing the mark? As you venture into new areas with teenage boys, test their fruitfulness. Ask some hard questions such as: "Is this program working? Why or why not? What are the strengths and weaknesses of this rite of passage model? Are lives being changed? Do I have a good model? Are mentors involved? Parents? The church? Are teens more connected with the local church? Are students becoming more faithful disciples as a result?

When it is all said and done, ministry to teenage boys is tough but worth it. There is much work to do in this area. May God lead us to new blueprints and systems with teenage males. Who knows, maybe you will be used by God to build the R.I.T.E. stuff for a new generation of men.