5 Tips on How to Disciple young Men

In honor of my tour with True Texas Project and several area churches and men's groups, I thought this would be a great time to provide a resource on powerful discipleship techniques.

If you want to learn how to disciple young men, then this article will provide you not only with the reasons why, the potential of the next generation, and the value it adds, but also the 5 steps necessary to start down the pathway of discipling young men.

Key Takeaways:

• We need to learn how to disciple young men to ensure the next generation has a fighting chance.

  
  

• Thankfully, Gen Z is primed and ready to be led. They’re hungry and seeking.

  
  

• 5 Steps on how to disciple young men:

  1) Pursue the Standards of being a true man of God

  2) Be available for them

  3) Teach, don’t dominate

  4) Help them build their community

  5) Prepare them for a life of service to God

5 Tips on How to Disciple Young Men

As each generation gets older, the aging elders love to set their sights on the generation coming up behind. However, while we may wish that focused gaze is given in love and honor, it typically comes out as some form of, “These kids coming up are ___________!”

And almost guaranteed, you filled in the blank with some negative insight.

It’s time to change the perspective. It’s time to learn how to disciple young men. When we decide to stop condemning the next generation and instead take an active role in their pathway to become future adults, we will instantly change our view of them.

Why? Because we’ll take responsibility for how they turn out.

I’m a millennial. And of course, all kinds of jokes exist about millennials. Let’s be honest – a lot of those jokes have some merit.

But the trouble with all the jokes the boomers make about millennials is that they were the ones who raised us (or failed to raise us). Not that we don’t hold responsibility for ourselves, but we worked with what we were given.

As I watch the potential of Gen Z and even Gen Alpha, I’m inspired. While many of them chase after the fruitless, useless things or believe themselves to be useless, there are plenty of others out there who have an outlook that can craft a rock-solid generation.

But their development into upright men and women falls on us. We adults need to shape up and truly learn how to disciple young men (and women) while they’re still malleable.

They hold potential that can shift the entire direction of this nation, but they can’t do it if we cast them off as weird or shallow.

It’s time to take responsibility. That means learning how to disciple young men.

Here are 5 tips on how to disciple young men

1) Pursue the standards of being a true man of God

We have a problem in the church today. Leaders left and right are being exposed for terrible financial practices (greed), affairs and sexual abuse (lust), and reports of poorly leading through intimidation, verbal and emotional abuse, and domination (pride).

Our leaders were allowed by us as men. Women, obviously, you had a say, but it is the man’s role as a true man of God to hold his leaders to account and to ensure they exceed the standard of a true man of God.

As we watch these corrupt and wicked leaders exposed and recognize those who don’t meet the standard, we need to figure out what went wrong.

Our leaders failed us. And we failed them.

What went wrong? We didn’t uphold the standard of a true man of God. You want to know how to disciple young men? Then you need to understand where you’re trying to lead them. And that means setting your sights on exceeding the standards yourself so that you can be counted as approved.

We need to weigh out our leaders by those standards and not simply give approval to a man because he has a seminary degree or can give a good sermon. Instead, we need to be willing to stand as a united front of men and say, “You need to earn our respect if you’re going to be our general. Prove to us you were called to lead us.”

This isn’t a skepticism or lack of faith position. It’s a weighing out of fruits as a flock. We need to know our shepherd is not just a hired hand, but a true shepherd who will give his life for the flock, not expect the opposite.

As we develop ourselves and our leaders to conform to the standards of a true man of God, the young men WILL take note. They will begin to respect and gather around quality men. There are plenty of men who lack true quality but give plenty of boasts – these men will win your sons if you’re not presenting a powerful alternative.

Step up to the plate and devote yourself to transforming in little ways each day. Small adjustments mean big changes.

2) Be available

It is way too easy for men to be busy. Work, hobbies, family, house chores, etc. It all takes up our time. And while we may pat ourselves on the back and say we’re raising our kids, we need to evaluate how well we’re actually doing. If we can evaluate and inspect a work project or process to find errors or bottlenecks, then all the more should we evaluate our home life. Do we actively raise our sons, or are they raising themselves? Do we believe they’ll grow up through osmosis and become outstanding men simply because that’s what we’d like to see?

Your sons and the young men around you NEED your time and undivided attention. Which means you need to be willing to sacrifice some of your priorities for the benefit and health of the next generation.

Not long ago, I spoke at a True Texas Project event in Dallas, Texas, and sadly, a woman at the end stated in front of the crowd, “If I had a nickel for every time a man told my son he’d take him fishing and then never did…”

Hearing this crushed me.

Gentlemen, we should feel shame at that statement. It may not have been us, but we can all easily guess what the young man most likely internalized: “Men are unreliable and focused on their own needs first.”

It’s time to sacrifice a bit of your schedule, some of your resources, a lot of your pride, and maybe even a few of your personal goals.

Be available for them and invest.

3) Teach, don’t dominate

They don’t need to hear how expert you are in a field. They don’t need you belittling them for getting something wrong. And most importantly, you don’t need to change them in a single day.

They’re going to make mistakes, say wrong things, hold twisted beliefs, and internalize lies. Discipleship means a person walking alongside you for the long haul.

Be patient and guide them.

They don’t need the domineering drill instructor yelling in their face all the time. In fact, you’ll only turn them off if you haven’t built some type of trust first.

If you try to steamroll him and change him in a single day or week, he’ll buck against you and distrust that you’re actually in it for his good. Instead, you need to come alongside and instruct him with patience and compassion. Our Father God has a ton of patience and compassion for us. He describes Himself as having lovingkindness, aka – patient compassion and love.

Want to know how to disciple young men? Then sit and listen. He’ll tell you right where he’s at and where he thinks he’s going.

And it may take time before he starts to truly open up.

4) Help them build their community

Young men need to run in packs. Just as adult men do. Sadly, we give up on trying to form brotherhood because we become work-focused and family-centered.

So, if you need to figure out how to form your own brotherhood community first, then do it. It can start as simply grabbing coffee every week with two other guys. It could be a weekly workout session (which is what we have going on all over the Treasure Coast in Florida). Maybe it’s target practice with the bow regularly or working on the car.

Figure out how to consistently get together with other men and improve yourselves and the world around you. While football and beer is a fun pastime, ask yourself: am I actually improving with my brotherhood if this is all we do?

Once you’ve got an inkling of how to build community, then lead young men in the same process. If you’re coaching a football team, then you need to be helping them foster a true bond as a team. Not just saying, “Well, you guys should work together.” It means fashioning the bond ethic and putting them through regular scenarios that force them to build relationships.

Encourage your young men to grow with their friends. Have your house be a center point. Find out what they like to do and help them use it to improve their lives. Foster a stable environment in which young men can feel safe. Because much of the world is dangerous and hostile for young men, they need a secure fortress to recover and develop.

5) Prepare them for a life of service to God

This is the full circle.

Step 1 in how to disciple young men involves you raising to the standard of being a true man of God. This means a devoted and selfless nature. It involves serving God and your fellow man first. It means upholding righteous values while protecting, providing, and presiding.

The final step in how to disciple young men is to prepare them for a life of service to God. It means not only shining the example of what it means to be a true man of God, but discipling them to become the next generation of true men of God.

These young men need to see the example and receive honest instruction on how to become servants like their king, Jesus Christ. They need to know that life is empty when we try to fill ourselves, yet it overflows when we empty ourselves.

Guide them on how to hear the voice of the Lord, serve His will faithfully, and to love their neighbor as themselves.

How to disciple young men? Pour into them.

These young men need you. They’re stepping into a world that hates them, led by an adversary that desires their destruction with every fiber of his being.

Unfortunately, we thrust our young men into enemy territory and believe that God will raise our kids for us. We cannot believe that wicked lie any longer. It takes an active man in the life of a young man to help shape his future. So many God-fearing men can point to mentors in their lives who helped them mature and develop. We need to be those men for this next generation.

Remember: If you don’t raise your sons, they’ll try to raise themselves. And Satan will gladly help.

We all know how that turns out.

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