Chris Bruno - Man Maker Project: Boys are Born. Men are Made.

From incarceration to abuse to just plain missed opportunities, so many boys in our country become chronological men who never arrive at manhood. What is needed, urgently so, is a field guide for fathers, mentors, and teachers of boys. Chris Bruno has given us the kind of book to carry into the terrain where boys become men. I would trust Chris with the five boys most precious to memy grandsons. This book is for fathers, mentors, grandfathers, teachers, and anyone who cares about even just one boy.

Dr. Keith Anderson

President of The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology

A boys world is a dangerous and treacherous place, filled with traps and sharks. I often hear men describe the bewildered and lost experience of entering adulthood, feeling that they should know how to be a man, but with no guide, map, or support. How deep is the longing to have another man just a few steps ahead of them, showing them how to do it, what is important, what to look out forwith a particular longing for someone to see their heart and tell them that they can do it. Chris Bruno has given men a great gift in Man Maker Project. This is a stunning work, borne of Chriss own story and his passion for his son. It is a feast of narratives that prove the struggle into manhood is not only worth it, but can display the kindness of God. This is a meaty feast, worthy of all men and fledgling men.

Jan Meyers Proett

Author of The Allure of Hope, Listening to Love, and Beauty and the Bitch: Grace for the Worst in Me

For centuries, men in most cultures knew they had a sacred responsibility to guide the boys of their community into healthy manhood. This practice is largely unknown in our own culture. Most men intuitively know they want to pass on some significant teaching about masculinity to their boys, but they have no idea what. In Man Maker Project , Chris Bruno invests his own passion, insight, and experience into this crucial topic. He provides tangible, long-term, meaningful experiences that dads will immediately connect with and use. This book is truly a gift to those boys, their dads, and our culture.

Craig Glass

President of Peregrine Ministries,

Colorado Springs, CO

Man Maker Project is an answer to many fatherss prayers. How do I lead my son into becoming a man? is a question Ive heard from men for many years. I now have a book I will enthusiastically recommend to all the fathers I know. Chris not only outlines a practical path for fathers to follow, but he also reveals how fathers can step into the fullness of who they are as men. You will be enlightened, inspired, and connected to Gods powerful plan for you as a father. Im excited for the many sons who will become men of God through the influence of this important book.

Bob Hudson

Founder and director of Men at the Cross Ministries

Golden, CO

Every man should read Man Maker Project because it speaks into the struggles and doubts of all men. As a pastor and father of two pre-teen boys, I found myself challenged and provoked. It is here that most books on manhood end, but Chris goes further to give practical steps for creating a learning and experiential environment for sons. This book has given me the tools to be a better man and a better father.

Brent Rood

Pastor at Seed Church in Lynnwood, WA, and

Founding member of 3Strand Church Network

I knew from experience that Chris Bruno is a fine therapist. He gently and profoundly guided me through my own heart and my work as a jail chaplain and gang pastor. I now know he is also a fine writer. Im buying a box of Man Maker Project and giving copies to all my colleagues. Im also putting this book to practice with the young men I pastor out of crime, and mailing copies to guys I love still sitting in their prison cells.

Chris Hoke

Tierra Nueva Gang Initiative, and Author of

Wanted: A Spiritual Pursuit Through Jail, Among Outlaws and Across Borders

This is a book that strikes home for me. As a father of three boys, I see the challenges we dads face in parenting our sons. We need perspectives like Chriss to bring clarity to this difficult task. This is an incredibly helpful book for all fathers and sons. Man Maker Project will help us, as sons, confront and reflect on our own masculine development; it will help us, as fathers, raise the next generation of men.

Samuel Rainey

Therapist and author,

Nashville, TN

I know for a fact that Chris is not scared off by anyones life, and thats a gift to all who need somebody they can entrust both their scars and their substance to. Chris has earned the authority by which he attracts that trust. Hes spent much of his adult life reaching out to people in the most extreme circumstances and environments, offering genuine solace and peace they might never have hoped for. This same clear authority is evident in his writing to men, writing that is tenderly inviting and immovably challenging in equal measure. That combination makes Chris, to me, a living reminder of Gods merciful strength, and thats something all men could use.

Scott Sawyer

Author of Earthly Fathers

Preface

Mothers, Daughters, and Wives

If we have a crisis in this country, its more than a fatherless crisis, though. Its a crisis of manhood, of masculinity. Its affecting our families, our schools, its filling our prisons, and its killing the hearts of our women.

Donald Miller

T he other day, I visited one of the most amazing and odd environments I can imagine. The Alpha Center sits just off the campus of Colorado State University, in a quaintly remodeled bungalow. Jenny, the centers executive director, warmly and vivaciously welcomed me and ushered me into the depths of the building. Along the way, I passed brochures titled Is it love? and How to Cope with STDs. I could hear raucous laughter coming from the larger staff room just off the hall and up the stairs, accompanied by the loud clicking of a spinning Price Is Right -style prize wheel. I would later see the wheels bright, eye-catching words, Got Sex? Get Tested! The slogan boldly announces the Alpha Centers disruptive and redemptive work. As Jenny and I sat down, she joked, I never thought Id work at a place where we talk about sex every day.

The Alpha Center is a Christian medical clinic that provides free pregnancy and STD services, support groups, and post-abortion counseling, and assists the thirty thousand-plus sexually active college students at CSU in the area of sexual health. Their desire is to empower women and men with the right information about sex, healthy relationships, and right choices. Its not your average pregnancy center. There is hope and life and laughter and joking combined with concern, care, and nurture.

In a meeting with the staff team, I described my passion to help restore men to a godly understanding of masculinity. To my surprise, the women cheered. They literally shouted Yes! and applauded. At that time, eight of the nine staff members were women. And while centers such as Alpha typically service more young women than men, the staff fully recognize the role of men in the breakdown of wholeness and health. In sexuality, it takes two to tango. But most often women suffer the consequences.

As author Donald Miller talks about the growing epidemic of fatherlessness in our nation, he identifies the ramifications on boys and young men, but also the impact these un-fathered men have on women. Its killing the hearts of our women, he says. According to priest and author Richard Rohr, The effects of this are lifelong for both genders, creating boys who never grow up and want to marry mothers instead of wives. The poor or non-existent fathering of our boys wreaks havoc universally, and most profoundly on women. Centers such as Alpha would not exist if men would truly be men as God intended.