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Treeclimbers Without Church Support
A friend asked me about the possibility of running an informal Tree Climber group that hasn’t been officially recognized by his church leadership. What advice would you give him?
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8 Replies
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I know that CSB offers “Mentoring out of the Box” and “1-on-1 Adventures” for situations like this, but I think the Tree Climber material could work well for this same purpose. Especially if you have a few CSB alumni involved in the group. And once you have it going, it should be much easier for your local church to see the value of the group and want to make it official.
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While it is true that to be an official unit there must be a signed working agreement with the church, there is really nothing stopping a dad from purchasing the material and going through it with his son or a group of dads/sons. Just like there is nothing stopping a youth group from purchasing a bunch of copies of Leadership Trails and using it as a discipleship training program without being a Brigade Unit.
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You bring up a good point about the importance of church support. Church support is needed for an official Tree Climbers group and church support is also important for our own personal discipleship in the areas that God has given us passionate hearts. Thank you.
In this case, there is no existing ministry for the specific group and I think that his goal is to show church leadership that there men in the congregation who are able and willing to step up and serve. I’ve known several pastors who were too overwhelmed to start something new, but would have been happy to see the men in their congregation take initiative. Once the group was up and running, they were happy add it to the church’s official ministry.
So I guess that a follow on question would be–at what point do you return to the pastor with your ad-hoc group?
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I am currently part
of a 3-father group that started meeting together when our church was not able
to meet in person. We are going through the stockade books. My son, Josh, was
able to invite our neighbor and his father who felt comfortable coming because
it was outside and not at church. The conversations that I have had with my son
coming home from the “stockade meeting” are awesome – this one on one time is
wonderful! Our conversations run deeper, and I can tell the messages are
working out in his life.-
Thanks for sharing Bill, it’s great when we can see the fruit so clearly!
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As it stands now, most of the Tree Climber, Stockade, and Battalion materials are available to the general public in the CSB store (both Canada & USA). Awards, patches, and perhaps a few other items require one to be part of an official registered unit. I don’t know much about the history here and if/when/why it may have changed. For what it’s worth, I bought a bunch of Stockade books as a “guest” some 4-5 years ago.
Canadian Store: https://www.csbbc.org/csb-canada-store.html
USA Store: https://store.csbministries.org/
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Registration has several purposes and benefits. It provides discounts in the store, which can add up to a significant amount depending on the size of your unit. But more importantly, it brings your church’s unit into the larger CSB culture: Leadership Training, Camporama, Father Son Team Days, Leadership Advance, Camp Events, etc. etc. It also provides access to a Regional Director who is available to help your church’s ministry grow and thrive.
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