Tribesmen

#008. We wrap up our series on manhood by talking about allegiance, the fifth and final of our 5 Marks of Manhood. For the first three Marks, we dealt with attributes that are more about the man as an individual. With the last two, we’re focusing more on how men relate to others. Since Tribesmen is meant to be understood and practiced in a group context, these last 2 Marks are really significant for us.

Allegiance is all about how we relate to those in authority over us. This is an important aspect of manhood, because traditionally men have had to offer their allegiance to someone external to their family. Whoever we choose to give our allegiance to affects not only ourselves but also those that we influence, especially our family.

We discuss three significant aspects of allegiance that are important for every man to think through. The first is authority figures, meaning your boss, parent, teacher, or coach, but also broader categories like government and law enforcement. The second is what we call big influences, which can be any activity, substance, or ideology that is dominating your thinking and decision making, like politics, sports, or even things like drugs or porn.

Don shares a good bit of his personal story, of how allegiance is the Mark of Manhood that he struggles with the most. Both in his relationships to authority, as well as in addictive behaviors, learning to navigate the things that have control over him as a man has been difficult. He talks about how he has grown in that area by talking about those things openly with other men.

The third aspect of allegiance is ultimate allegiance. Who or what is the driving force of your life? This is often a question of faith or spirituality, but can be anything that determines the biggest decisions and direction of your life. At Tribesmen, we believe there’s no better person to give your ultimate allegiance to than Jesus. We don’t ask you to agree to follow along with us, but we do want you to wrestle with the question of ultimate allegiance.

As we wrap up our discussion of manhood, we will pick up next week with our next big pillar of Tribesmen: camaraderie.

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Don’t forget to check out our resource you can download to help you get better at being a man in each of our 5 Marks. It’s called “How Manly Are You?” and it will help you measure your manhood in minutes. You can download it for free at tribesmen.net/manly.

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#007. We continue our series on manhood by talking about honor, the fourth of our 5 Marks of Manhood. For the first three Marks, we dealt with attributes that are more about the man as an individual. With these last two, we’re focusing more on how men relate to others. Since Tribesmen is meant to be understood and practiced in a group context, these last 2 Marks are really significant for us.

Honor is probably the most difficult of the Marks to define, because we use the word in a different way than most people use it today. We’re not talking about integrity or accolade. Instead, when a man has honor, we believe that means he represents his Tribe well.

Honor is about learning and living by a shared set of values among a group of men. It takes time to learn these things, and only with shared life experience can a man be deemed worthy of honor. A man who isn’t known to other men can’t be deemed honorable, because there isn’t anyone in his life to honor him.

We make an important distinction about how honor is still a neutral characteristic, and not about virtue. Men can receive honor from other men for things that the broader culture might consider dishonorable or even immoral. Honor isn’t inherently virtuous. The values men choose to uphold among one another are what make a man upstanding or disgraceful.

So why is honor a Mark of Manhood? Well, for most of history and in most cultures, men have naturally lived this way. It is only in our highly individualistic society that honor among men has become something of a lost trait. We believe it needs to be recovered. And the best way to do that, is by being part of a Tribe.

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We need your help! Help us get the word out about the Tribesmen Podcast by joining our email list. You can sign up at https://tribesmen.net. When you get our weekly email on Tuesday, forward it to another man in your life who you think would benefit from listening in each week.

Don’t forget to check out our resource you can download to help you get better at being a man in each of our 5 Marks. It’s called “How Manly Are You?” and it will help you measure your manhood in minutes. You can download it for free at tribesmen.net/manly.

Support the show (https://tribesmen.net/donate)

#006. We continue our series on manhood by talking about skill, the third of our 5 Marks of Manhood. Skill is probably the easiest mark to identify, as it simply represents the ability to do things effectively. As men, we need to be jacks of all trades. We demonstrate our manhood by being able to come through for others when called upon. 

We talk about why skill is a mark of manhood, including the idea that men are meant to be depended upon, our skills help us master our domains, and that we need to pass our skills on to others. We share how our lack of skill in certain areas can expose our insecurities as men, revealing where we’re placing our sense of identity.

We close by talking about how we can improve in the area of skill. We start by choosing an area we know we’re not skilled enough, and then finding another man to help us tackle it.

Don’t forget to check out our resource you can download to help you get better at being a man in each of our 5 Marks. It’s called “How Manly Are You?” and it will help you measure your manhood in minutes. You can download it for free at tribesmen.net/manly.

Support the show (https://tribesmen.net/donate)

#005. We continue our series on manhood by talking about courage, the second of our 5 Marks of Manhood. Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the willingness to face our fears and move towards them. We offer our thoughts on why courage is an important part of manhood, including facing external threats, confronting difficulty, and dealing with failure. Failing doesn’t indicate weak manhood, but failing to try does.

Shaun shares some of his particular struggles with expressing courage, and talks about how he’s learned to grow in the area that has been most challenging for him. We close by offering some tips on how to become more courageous. Hint: you start by identifying the hard things in your life that you’ve been avoiding.

Wondering how you can get better at being a man? Download our free resource “How Manly Are You?” and measure your manhood in minutes. Visit tribesmen.net/manly. 

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#004. We begin our series on manhood by talking about strength, the first of our 5 Marks of Manhood. Particularly, we’re talking about physical strength, and how the use of our bodies helps us understand what it means to be a man. We offer our thoughts on why strength is such an important aspect of manhood. Our male bodies are built for it. It’s how we learn our impact on the world. And it’s the foundation for all the other Marks of Manhood.

We close by talking about what it looks like to be strong, especially in an era that’s obsessed with the appearance of strength. And we offer some brief tips on how to grow in the area of strength.

We’re also introducing a new resource for you to download to help you get better at being a man in each of our 5 Marks. It’s called “How Manly Are You?” and it will help you measure your manhood in minutes. You can download it for free at tribesmen.net/manly.

Support the show (https://tribesmen.net/donate)

#003. In this final episode of our Intro series, we recap from our first two episodes how there is a crisis in manhood and it affects all aspects of our culture, including our churches. The goal of Tribesmen is to address this by helping men get better at being a man. We believe what men need to thrive can be summed up in three things: manhood, camaraderie, and freedom. Manhood is about gaining skills and abilities that help a man answer the questions of “What does it mean to be a man?” and “How do I know if I am one?” Camaraderie is about adventuring together to form lasting bonds, which requires time spent together in shared activity, as well as depth of relationship. Freedom means fighting for one another to overcome life’s challenges. Learning to fight effectively for the men around you, so that you can all experience freedom is really the goal of Tribesmen. As we wrap up the Intro series, we share how the remainder of season 1 will be about unpacking these three big ideas that men need to thrive.

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#002. In this second part of our Intro series, we narrow the focus to talk about the church world. Whether you’re a church man or not, you’ll find this episode insightful. As pastors, we’ve seen firsthand how the crisis in manhood has affected even our churches and the way men connect to faith. We talk about how churches do better with women in almost every area of engagement--from attendance, to volunteering, to group interaction. And we share our thoughts on why this discrepancy exists. We suggest churches’ messaging to men focuses too much on being a better man instead of understanding how to simply be a man. Additionally, most church ministry is designed around the felt needs of women, leaving men struggling to find their place. We think churches, like all areas of our culture, could do better with men by focusing on the things men are wired for, which is what we discuss in the final episode of our intro series.

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#001. In this inaugural episode of the Tribesmen Podcast, we discuss our goal of helping you get better at being a man. We introduce the hosts of the show, Don Ross and Shaun Sullivan, and share about our backgrounds. Our stories led both of us on journeys to discover what it means to be a man, and now to a place of wanting to help other men find the same. We share some statistics about men in crisis in our culture today, and how we think a lack of understanding about what it means to be a man is really contributing to these things. And lastly, we talk about what's coming next in our podcast, as we unpack our big themes of manhood, camaraderie, and freedom.

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