#529. Manly Men Retreats
Apr 24th by Jon(A few weeks ago, my wife said “Jon, you have to read this blog it’s hilarious.” I said, “Jenny, hilarious? Really? That’s a pretty big word.” She said, “Seriously Jon, it’s funny.” I said, “Jenny, is it really funny or fake funny like ‘lol’ which everyone types when they IM but is rarely ever doing?” And then she said, “Jon, why do we keep using each other’s first names in our sentences?” And I said, “Because this is a guest blog introduction that has jumped the tracks, Jenny.” But I did check out the blog for Dr. Awesome and it is indeed funny. I asked him to bring his mantacular wisdom to Stuff Christians Like today. Enjoy.)
Hello readers of Stuff Christians Like. I am Dr Awesome, and I write a blog, To Every Man A Manswer, that looks at questions from men and gives them manswers. I have been gifted by God to emangelize the men and women of the world by dropping testosterbombs of biblical masculinity. Jon was kind enough to allow me to do a guest post, and suggested I talk about man church retreats. That’s fine, since I’m all about putting the Fellas back in Fellowship. So let’s roll.
Guys, let’s be honest for a second. Men’s church retreats are an avalanche of craptacularness. Tell me if this doesn’t sound familiar: you and a bunch of men go off to some remote part of the woods, where you meet some large African American lady in a Shack who claims she is God the Father and She/He tells you it is ok to cry. Wait, I’m getting confused, that’s something else. No, what really happens is that men go off together, sing camp fire songs, and learn about how important it is to be nicer to our wives. That’s all well and good, I do think it is important to be nice. But how am I supposed to get fired up about that? It basically amounts to a woman’s bible study, except you have the woods and a campfire instead of dainty floral arrangements and finger foods. Give me some powerful teaching and some powerful activities, not the spiritual equivalent of a pedicure in the woods.
Many churches and ministries have realized what I’m talking about, that men need a little more oomph in their retreats. But they’ve gone to the opposite extreme. They’ve cranked the masculinity up times eleventy billion. They don’t just take their men camping, they take them in the middle of the friggin desert and basically leave them for dead. They build a fire, then have Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego Fire Walks. Or they do trust falls off the side of a mountain. Then they sit around in loin clothes and bash themselves in the heads with rocks while howling like wolves. It’s as if masculinity is all about getting in touch with your primal Lord of the Flies instincts. Now don’t get me wrong, I love doing stuff like wrestling and dominating a grizzly bear as much as the next guy. I sometimes do that to really spice up my quiet times. But that has a time and place, and I’m not sure it’s the church men’s retreat.
That’s why I’m advocating a new style of men’s retreat. Something that junks the watered down wussitude of happy clappy campfire tea and snacks time, but doesn’t go to the opposite extreme and encourage shirtless cavemannery. It’s like our only choices are Man Vs Wild or Man Vs Mild, and I think there should be a third option. If I had to plan a men’s retreat, it would be centered around one theme: MEAT. Of course that’s an acrostic, because how can we make t-shirts if we don’t have letters that stand for something? Here is what the letters stand for:
M – Meat.
Pulled a fast one on you. Look, every guy activity I’ve ever been a part of included the consumption of delicious meat. Think about this…whenever Jesus got a few thousand people together, he didn’t just drop wisdom on them. He also had a massive fish fry. If you are going to have a retreat, you better come up with some way to feed everybody. BBQ, chicken, steaks, or even tasty hot dogs…get your men tons of tasty food, and they’ll be greased up and ready to learn.
E- Explosions.
Now I don’t mean literal explosions, at least not destructive ones, unless you just happen to have access to a cache of weaponry. No, what I mean are things that produce loud noises. When God made Adam, He genetically programmed in an appreciation for things that go boom. For centuries the only way we could make loud noises was to break wind, which provided (and still provides) hours of hilarity and entertainment. Now we have modern technology like guns and rockets and so on that make REALLY loud noises. If you can somehow arrange your men’s retreat to take place on a fully operational destroyer in the US Navy, that would be ideal. Eat a steak, shoot some cannons. In the absence of that, I recommend copious amounts of beans.
A – Athletics.
Men love competition. This envelops us in every area, from timing how long we can continuously urinate (95 seconds is my personal best, FYI (or TMI?)) to epic playstation football tournaments that last for days on end. We love to keep score. A great men’s retreat will channel this energy into something constructive. I don’t recommend anything that involves equipment…men are sinful, so even an innocent game of horse shoes will probably wind up in the head trauma unit at the ER if you aren’t careful. I recommend some sort of basic obstacle course, where you have to climb a tree, swim a river, fight off a hoard of rampaging raccoons…you know, just your every day woodsy activities. As long as this energy is properly channeled, it will be good for morale. And what wife wouldn’t be proud of her husband for coming home from the church retreat with a coon-skin cap as a present? Mrs. Awesome looks good in raccoon.
T – Mr. T.
I can’t think of a single situation that wouldn’t be improved by having Mr. T. there. From weddings and parties to your wife giving birth to your child, there’s no time that is inappropriate for Mr. T to be around. Part of the gospel is realizing you are a fool in need of pity. Fortunately, that’s what he specializes in.
I suppose if you’re going to have a church retreat, you should also have actual bible study at some point. Just make sure the topic is meaty, in a spiritual sense. It fits with the t-shirts.
So that’s my vision for the ideal Men’s Retreat of Badicalness, or ReMEAT if you prefer. Hopefully this middle of the road approach will take hold, and we’ll be done with both Pansyfest 2009 and Unfrozen Caveman Christian. I’d like to thank Jon for letting me guest post today, it’s been a pleasure. Feel free to stop by my blog and ask a question sometime, I’d love to have you. God bless you all. In the words of the immortal Ron Burgundy, you stay classy, Christians.
Dr Awesome
(For more from Dr. Awesome, check him out at To Every Man a Manswer)
Comments
Very funny stuff.
A few suggestions:
Can we incorporate atheltics and (literal) explosions into the whole thing?
What if their was a combination baptism/breathe holding competition? Who ever remains submerged longest gets a gold medal. And maybe we could strew land mines through out the site. It’ll be a bit like snake handling… If we make it through the week end we know that God loved us lots more than the other guy.
And Mr. T? Wow! What a great idea. What if we used the rest of the cast from that cartoon he starred in to lead a youth retreat? If memory serves they were like gymnast teen agers or some other bizzare thing, so that way we can send the kids away the same week end, and they can do flips for Jesus and stuff.
I remember helping serve food at a men’s event at our church. We served the ubiquitous chicken salad.
(Don’t yell at me! I was young and ignorant and wasn’t in charge of the menu!)
Yeah, the guys were THRILLED with that one.
The event my husband catered later was all MEAT. I don’t even remember any bread…
Dr Awesome, is it okay if I call you ‘Professor Awesome?’ Are you a ninja or something? I did not think a regular man could be so awesome as to pump everyone up that much!
Good stuff.
LOL… no, really, continuously. My son’s looking at me funny
John Eldredge FTW!
I read the post a 2nd time using a Patrick Warburton voice (aka Kronk). Changing my pants now.
Dr. Awesome, I don’t know you. However, surely you must be a young man. If you were well into middle age like I am, a 95 second wiz would be considered a quickie. Once that prostrate starts to enlarge you’ll be standing there for quite some time.
Don’t know if you know this, but you and teampyro.blogspot.com wrote a blog about manly men on the same day.
No way. I just dropped off my husband at a retreat last night!
He was really hoping for some “team building competitions” and that “A guy dressed as Jesus would jump down from the trees and surprise us during a hike.” Yeah, those are direct quotes.
Anyway, you really got me smiling on a morning when I miss him! Thanks, Dr. Awesome! Way to put the advent back in adventure! Ok, that really doesn’t make any sense…
Dr. Awesome,
You are indeed awesome. I thought only Ladies Church retreats made for immature snickering during interpretive dance numbers set to “I Can Only Imagine” and an endless supply of blog fodder.
Well played, doctor. Well played indeed.
In conclusion: GO MEAT!wv: mylimpel (Yeah, I won’t go there…)
Dr. Awesome, you are fan-frigintastic. My wife says I say awesome too much so I’m going with frigintastic now and fan-frigintastic is the superlative to frigintastic which is the equivalent of awesome so by that right you are super awesome (the superlative of awesome if you aren’t keeping track.
Real explosions are much better than fake. Als anything that shoots is acceptable so incorporate paintball into the retreat. Guy love hrting other guys and shooting guns. Nothing is better than paintball unless it is my homemade t-shirt cannon that I have also loaded skittles into.
Yes I made a skittles cannon which is available for a MEAT retreat. I like to shout “taste the rainbow” when shooting it.
Speaking as a Tim Allen type of guy, I loved this post! I laughed and grunted all the way through it. I have bookmarked Dr. Awesome’s website and will visit regularly!
Wow, thanks to everyone for all of the positive feedback. Let me manswer some of your questions:
Jeff – on the baptism thing, I’m going to have go say no to the breath holding for insurance reasons. However, belly flops would be an acceptable substitute.
Matt – I can’t actually refer to myself as a ninja. I did train with them, but one day when they wanted me to kill an innocent man, I ended up burning down their whole ninja monastery. Wait, that might be Batman in “Batman Begins.” Sometimes I get our stories confused because they are so similar.
Paul – So you are telling me that when I get older, I will be able to hold a continuous full force stream for over 95 seconds? If that is the case, I can’t imagine why people get so upset about growing older.
Nick – I am very interested in a Skittles cannon. Can it be adapted to shoot other delicious foods as well? I’m thinking a Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pie cannon would be majestical. Or if you had a firehose that shoots out Krispy Kreme doughnut glaze. I’m pretty sure Jesus will have one of those in heaven.
Again, thanks for letting me guest post here. Y’all are great.
Dr. Awesome, I didn’t say anything about full force. Continuous, yes. Mind numbingly continuous.
Not to be a Debbie Downer, but I am a huge fan of SCL and find myself laughing everyday, but today not so much. I think I was put off by the statement about the large African American woman in a shack in the woods. Was that a reference to some book or movie or something that I just didn’t pick up on? Cause after I read that, the rest of the post just didn’t matter…
My husband needs to read this blog! Hilarious!
This was freakin’ hilarious. Thanks for the guest, Jon!
And what’s on the schedule at my church in the next few weeks? Men’s Paintball Retreat! Nice.
No, John Eldredge FTL.
This is great! I can think of zero men who would pass up the meat outing.
Hilarious stuff — made me laugh out loud
I’m 53 years old and didn’t know until today that men compete over how long they can continuously uriinate 
Anon @ 7:20
Great question. The Shack reference that Dr. Awesome made was actually a reference to a book called “The Shack.” In it, the author portrays God as an African American woman. The book has sold over 3.8 million copies and I think is the best selling Christian book in the last 15 years or so, but without knowing that I can easily understand how what was intended as a funny reference would have thrown you off. Thanks for asking that question, hopefully that cleared things up.
To Anon. at 7:20–the comment about the large AA woman in the woods is a reference to the book “The Shack.”
I wanted to go ahead and triple-clear up anon’s ‘shack’ misunderstanding, but really the reason I came on here was to tell Dr Awesome that he had me at ‘large African American lady.’
Also, Jon, this site kind of blows my mind. Most Christians have their sense of humor removed when they recieve the Holy Spirit, so I’m glad to see yours is still intact.
I enjoyed the primacy of meat in your list. However, I think an addendum is neccesary: the meat cannot be eaten in any civilized manner. Forks, knives, and all sorts of cutlery are out the window. It’s the wilderness! Go after your slightly undercooked steak like an animal!
And as for cleanliness… If you’re pansy enough to desire napkins, use your chest hair.
Bull!!! I almost didn’t read this based on the title – so glad I opened it.
So does this mean Mr. T won the rights to view your baby’s birth?
Thanks for clearing up the shack thing! Now I feel silly for never having heard of that book, how did a best seller get past me??? Maybe I just haven’t heard of it if it doesn’t have matching journals, calendars, mugs, t-shirts, etc.
Thanks again!
awesome with a side of awesome with julienned awesome sprinkles.
I can’t think of anything more testosterbombish than MEAT. Are you serious? I think I would rather wrestle a bear than eat one more bowl of chile talking american football for the thousandth time at a men’s retreat. This post was almost funny in a cliched Home Improvement sort of way. Sorry for being such a downer…
Absolutely laugh out loud funny…
I agree with everything said here…assuming the invites to said event are made by these guys:
http://www.meatcards.com/
anon,
Don’t worry about having not heard of The Shack. You’re better off in my opinion.
my roommate once urinated for 2 minutes. He has you beat. He also has a problem, but that’s neither here nor there.
A men’s retreat isn’t successful unless at least two people got sent to the hospital due to cracking their skulls open while doing bike flips off of a ramp into a lake. Yes, even after the first kid got sent to the hospital, the second kid still thought it was a sweet idea and decided to crack his skull open as well. Men’s retreats are awesome!
The best baptism competition would be a race to see who could do the most. It might be good practice for a time, when your church experiences a manly revival with hundreds of salvations.
As for urine competitions, go for distance. Spraying from 10 feet away is much more impressive than 95 seconds. That or name writing contest. Those never get old.
And do your Bible study on the Sons of Thunder, James and John. Seriously, when you read that don’t you think of some wrestling tag team. Have you ever wondered why Jesus would give them the nickname? I think beans were involved somehow.
Anonymous at 9:10 Thank you for pointing out where I can find wrestling in the Bible. I am a forty year old woman who has been a wrestling fan for forty one years. That’s right. I was a wrestling fan while I was still in the womb. Thank you for pointing out its Bibliocity. Now I can watch it in good conscience.
omg this is the most hilarious blog/post…writer ever!! and i was LITERALLY crying laughing…that was my kind of humor and I am thanking my husband for forwarding this to me!! You guys rock…keep it up!!!
I’m a woman and would much rather go to this retreat than the women’s retreat. I like to eat and after having fresh veggies, fruit, and various salads for morning, lunch, and dinner I want meat and junk food. Plus, what’s wrong with a little competition? As in a paintball competition at a women’s retreat. The goal would be to hunt the woman covered with the most animal print in whatever color. Or maybe the most frilly woman with peacock feathers or something. That sounds fun!
Hmmm, I wouldn’t be surprised if Dr. Awesome is indeed another creation of Prodigal Jon. However, superheroes never reveal their true identities, so we may never know.
Also, and just a thought here, what about combining some of the best ideas here and creating a meat cannon? I imagine hot dogs would be the most effective meat projectile with their streamlined shape and protective membrane. Plus, while some might consider it wasteful, I’d think the pig/horse/lizard that contributed parts to the hot dog would likely have wanted to be remembered that way.
Jessica, I am SO with you. I’d kind of like the chance to do that stuff, but I don’t like doing it around guys. I always feel like “the girl.” But seriously, regardless of gender, who doesn’t want to get some aggression out by shooting at friends and strangers every once in a while?