Flight Plan: Your Mission to Become a Man

Teenage boys in today's culture face a turbulent journey to manhood, often without an inkling of what that really means or any direction of how to get there. A new book by Lee Burns and Braxton Brady offers a vision of godly manhood and a complete and honest guide into the adventure facing young men today.

Flight Plan: Your Mission to Become a Man uses the metaphor of a journey of flight to speak candidly to pre-teen and teen boys about friendships, peer pressure, drinking, drugs, girls and dating, puberty, sex and school and family relationships. Like any sound flight plan, the book maps out the journey ahead giving practical advice for success and warnings for potential pitfalls any boy on his way to manhood is likely to encounter. The text strategically builds on seven biblically based virtues:

• The True Friend
• The Humble Hero
• The Servant Leader
• The Moral Motivator
• The Bold Adventurer
• The Noble Knight
• The Heart Patient

Each chapter ends with questions for reflection and discussion, making Flight Plan an ideal teaching tool for boys’ small groups, mentoring groups, Sunday school classes, fathers and sons, or individual study.

Flight Plan is based on the authors' “Building Boys, Making Men” curriculum created for the 630 boys who attend Presbyterian Day School (PDS) in Memphis, Tennessee. Over the years, Burns and Brady, colleagues at PDS, have received numerous requests from youth leaders, pastors, parents, and teachers for access to the curriculum that was only available to the boys at PDS. Flight Plan is the answer to those many requests and the culmination of 60 years of research, mentoring, and ministry to more than 3,000 boys.

Throughout his career in education, PDS Chaplain Braxton Brady has discovered that there is a void for young men that is not being taught. “I hope to call dads to be strategic with their kids and intentional with their boys, and I also want to help dads navigate their sons through middle school and high school on their way to adulthood,” says Brady.

Co-author Lee Burns is the headmaster of Presbyterian Day School. His vision is to mentor boys not just academically, but from a life perspective. “It’s important to know the person God wants us to be,” Burns says. “I believe God calls us into authentic manhood as we pursue His purpose and passion for our lives.”

“Flight Plan is a godsend to those of us working on the front lines with middle school boys,” says David Beecher, headmaster of the Hillside School in Massachusetts. “Insightful yet practical, challenging but simple, creative yet concrete—it provides young boys, their parents, and their teachers with a blueprint for sound, successful, meaningful growth.”

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