We were at Malibu serving for four weeks as Camp Manager. Our oldest son, Tavita, was 13 years old. It was day 5, which at Malibu meant ropes day – the entire camp of 300 campers would go through the ropes course in one day. It is a long day for our assignment team (the group of adults assigned to Malibu for the month) and for the property staff. But it is also a rewarding day as we help many kids overcome fears and insecurities and get front row seats as they beam with satisfaction over doing something they didn’t think they could do. As camp manager, I always hate putting additional burden on our team, but especially on that day. So, you can imagine, it had to be something pretty important for me to ask them to stick around at the end of the day to help me with a special event for my son Tavita. I had already asked them for help and each one happily agreed to participate. I prepared them for their part in the coming ceremony. They would each man a station on the course and as Tavita would arrive, they were to read a portion of scripture and describe a character quality that he would need as he moved from being a boy to becoming a man. Then he would use that particular element of the ropes course as an object lesson for the character quality. The final step would be to pray for Tavita and send him on to the next person and station.

There were 9 character qualities in all, chosen by his mother and me – Confidence, Accountability, Wisdom/Discernment, Self-Control, Purity, Honor, Faithfulness, Courage, and Integrity. So for instance at the beginning when Tavita put on his harness, the character quality was Confidence, the verse was Proverbs 3:26, “For the Lord will be your confidence, and will keep your foot from being caught.” The object lesson was clear – on the ropes course your confidence would be in the harness to keep you safe and secure. In life, your confidence must be in Christ. Each element of the course was like this and each person spoke truth into my son and prayed for him. The final station would be me – where I declared that today you are a man, a young man, but a man. I told him from this day forward he would be different and we would treat him different. We were still his parents and he was still in need of parenting, but he was now a young man.

Later that day he ran into a staff person who wasn’t there for the event. That person asked Tavita, “So what did you do today?” To which Tavita answered, “I became a man!”

Rite of Passage – here is how dictionary.com defines it: rite of passage

noun

1. a ceremony performed to facilitate or mark a person's change of status upon any of several highly important occasions, as at the onset of puberty or upon entry into marriage or into a clan.

2. any important act or event that serves to mark a passage from one stage of life to another.

Tavita’s Rite of Passage into manhood certainly didn’t end his training and it hasn’t been all perfect ever since. But it definitely marked a significant passage for him from one stage of life to another and served an important purpose in his journey in life. Next week, I’ll talk more about why rites of passage and more on the philosophical principles behind the ceremony.