FATHERS and their teenage sons have a unique opportunity available to them from June 5-7.
The team offering menALIVE will launch “Sons of the Father”, a weekend experience “every young man needs”.
“The relationship between a father and his son is one of the primary and most critical relationships a man will have, particularly in the teen years,” organiser Robert Falzon said.
“The impact our fathers have on us and we as fathers have on our children, is profound.”
Looking at key issues such as “How does a boy learn to become a man?” and “How does he come to understand his masculinity?” the live-in experience at Redland Bay will tie in some of the content covered at the regular and highly commended menALIVE weekends.
“There is a hunger in boys to become men,” Robert said.
“There is a fire in young men to follow those who have gone before them and to go further still … a desire to rise up and face the expectations and challenges placed before them by the men who have fought more battles in their lives.”
Robert said the June weekend would also answer “Who has the map to get young men through the maze? How do they make it through without hitting the ‘land mines’? and how they face the battle of life?”
“As fathers we too have desires, a desire to transform a young boy into a powerful man,” he said.
“To speak to him, guide him through what can be an arduous road, help him go after dreams, help create vision and most of all, to just share life.”
The menALIVE team has discovered “some pieces missing in young men’s journey in life”.
“Whether it be a father’s encouraging words or just his presence in a boys’ life,” Robert said, “This absence is leading droves of young men to go and find that acceptance in other places … places which are actually potentially harmful to the journey.”
Enjoying a recent “menALIVE to the Max” weekend, Josh Ariens, of Gladstone, commended organisers, saying the “sense of camaraderie on the weekend was truly uplifting” and will no doubt be witnessed in June.
“It (the retreat) held joy and hope because we became more aware of our common mission as Christian men – as husbands and fathers, yes, but as men ‘on fire with the love of Jesus’,” he said.
For more information contact Robert on 0412 745 734 or email mail@menalive.org.au
