I pray that you can keep these needs in mind in your own youth ministry.
With notebook in hand, I went on tour for two weeks with 65 guys, ages 18 to 22, who were members of the Azusa Pacific University Men’s Chorale. I was working on my book, Teenage Guys, but I also wanted to engage in a firsthand experience of being “one of the guys” 24 hours a day.
I wanted to gain insight from their perspectives, cultural imprints, ideals, behaviors, values, biases, norms, conceptions, and day-by-day interactions that cause them to struggle with what it means to be God-honoring men. My experiences on that trip, along with my research, helped me identify the 10 needs guys have:
1. Guys need to be known and understood. We need to know them better than they know themselves. We need to know how they develop; what cultural influences are bombarding their lives and identities; how they think and feel; we need to know their fears and joys. We must know about adolescence and masculinity if we really want to meet this need in guys.
2. Guys need a close connection to God. Spirituality and masculinity are a lot like oil and water. It’s difficult to get them to mix unless one or both are refined. Despite this daunting task, guys have a very deep internal spiritual sensitivity. It grows out of an instilled desire to know their Creator. Guys must taste for themselves and see that God is good.
3. Guys need validation and empowerment as unique individuals. We must be very careful not to pigeonhole a guy. Labels can make him feel as though he isn’t a man or he cannot become one. To make one issue “every guy’s battle” or journey or need robs him of his uniqueness. It also makes him a freak of nature if he isn’t like every other guy. We need to understand there’s no universal type of guy, but there may be commonalities. And we need to empower them to be all that God is making them to be.
4. Guys need community. Guys are clan-oriented. They bond and form intimate relationships differently than girls. They need multigenerational community. Within that community, they need the closeness of other men who act as a compass for their manhood. In the context of community, they can see there are many different ways that men are men. If they cannot be intimate with the masculine on a tangible level, then they can never become intimate with an invisible God whom they perceive as being predominantly masculine in nature.
5. Guys need mentors. All throughout Scripture we see older men who come alongside younger men as mentors. David comes alongside Samuel and Jonathan. Paul comes alongside Timothy. Jesus comes alongside his 12 disciples. Mentors proclaim to guys that they’re valuable and worthy of investment. A mentor pushes the protégé into the presence of God.
6. Guys need to know how to work. Guys are raised in a culture that defines their value by their contribution. While we want to bust this ideology, we still want guys to learn how to work hard as an act of devotion toward and worship of Christ. Hard work builds responsibility. It helps a guy develop the disciplines he needs to do life fully. It generates in him a deep sense of purpose that ultimately plugs into the Kingdom purpose of bringing glory to God, as he will hopefully learn a little bit later in life.
7. Guys need to lead and to follow. Leadership doesn’t come naturally for everyone; but young men should learn to both lead and follow because at some point, guys will serve as an example to others — whether it’s to their children or to others in their own peer group. The United States, among many other
nations, has been confronted with a crisis in leadership, especially in the church. At the same time, Jesus demonstrates and demands that all men — and women — follow. Guys must take the responsibility of leadership, but they must also learn that a strong man is not a power monger but a servant.
8. Guys need to play. I know a family with five boys who were all involved in different sports: soccer, basketball, baseball, track, and tennis. Life was one practice after another for this family. So you’d think that by the end of the day, these guys would’ve had enough play! But at home they constantly challenged each other: who could spit the farthest; who could eat dinner the fastest; who could win back Mom’s affection after they’d just made her angry, and so on. Many theorists say this need for play springs from an innate need for the hunt, for competition, or for adventure. And while guys learn to release their aggression in a healthy way during play, they also learn depth of character by playing fair, learning teamwork, and prioritizing important human values, such as “Winning isn’t everything.”
9. Guys need the freedom to BE. Guys grow up having great expectations imposed upon them. They live in the shadow of a looming cultural press that squeezes them into its mold of masculinity. Guys often internally question their identity or whether they’re normal or manly. They need men in their lives who
will model the freedom of being.
10. Guys need to be loved. Often guys learn to confuse love with sex. They grow up with a love deficit and attempt to fulfill their needs for affection with sexual behaviors. Men who demonstrate Christ’s love to teenage guys break that sexual connection guys tend to form between being and needing love. It also models that love is a powerful force with which to be reckoned because it comes from a masculine, non-sexual source.
Jesus said people would know His disciples by their love for each other. Guys need to be loved as a means of fulfilling their deepest emotions and understanding that they’re valuable. But guys also need to be loved because it models what a man should be and do.
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Excerpted from Teenage Guys (Zondervan, 2006).
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STEVE GERALI is director of the Youth Ministry Undergraduate Degree Program at Azusa Pacific University in Southern California. In addition to over 25 years of youth ministry experience, Dr. Gerali is a clinical counselor, author, speaker, and educator.
