Raising Men not Boys by Mike Fabarez

Shepherding your sons to be men of God

Foreward by Josh McDowell

Let me start by quoting from the last page of the book: "Our parenting efforts must be laden and saturated by our heartfelt prayers. These prayers for the conversion, sanctification, maturity, wisdom, and fruitfulness of our children will undoubtedly rise to God as requests near and dear to His heart. Ask in faith and work in wisdom."

That right there is key to all parenting efforts: laden and saturated with prayer.  How else can we hope to achieve success in raising faithful Christian men and women?

While this book focused solely on raising men, I think there were quite a few principles that could be applied to raising ladies as well. Obviously there are some key differences as well.  Mike has some very excellent points on raising boys, the key one being, to me at least, saturate them in the Word of God. Have them read their Bible, make them a prayer list, take them to church, put them in positions of service, etc. etc. He also emphasized modeling these things to them along with modeling a good marriage, insisting on respect for their mom, and teaching them good communication skills. One thing I also really like was his emphasis on making them sweat every day. Don't be a helicopter parent, let them get out and experience life, climb trees, run around, etc.

While I enjoyed the book and thought there were some really good takeaways from it, it felt a little stiff and perfect to me. Mike only raised two boys and he seemed to make no mistakes while doing it. I am not doubting his principles. I think they have a lot of weight especially in today's society.  I think it was more the no nonsense way of writing maybe that didn't quite resonate as well with me. I certainly don't want to say his message isn't accurate because I believe it is and I believe it is what we as Christians should embrace more than what we do.

I received this book from Moody Publishers and was not required to write a positive review.