Increasingly, boys are growing up without a consistent male role model. Nearly 30% of all births in the USA are to unmarried women. Divorce rates are over 50% and custody after divorce is usually given to mothers. Eighty-six percent of single parent families are headed by women. At the time in their lives when they must begin to define themselves as men, many boys have no guidance to follow, no example to emulate, and no mature male support from which to draw. Lacking role models, boys seek their own “family” of peers. Absent the support of mature men, they seek “mentoring” in gangs. In search of a way to prove themselves, they attempt “initiation” through violence, drugs, and sex. Yet none of these options fills the void. And without a healthy alternative, both the boys—and our society—pay a very steep price.

Masters of Ceremony holds the belief that “the system” cannot solve the problems confronting young men today. What is needed is for healthy, mature men to work together with young men in such a way that both achieve their full potential as men.

Masters of Ceremony finds that success in the outside world (good grades, good job, money) does not necessarily make men great. What is required is a willingness to develop self-understanding and the qualities that come with that, including compassion, integrity, connection to feeling, courage, accountability, empathy, capacity for love, and leadership. Acquiring knowledge and experience of self and skill with emotion is sometimes very challenging, because it requires facing those expressions of self that we would rather hide, deny, or ignore. Yet we find that the path to what is most dear in human expression sometimes leads through that which we would most like to avoid. We are a community of men who challenge and face ourselves honestly and with courage, and emerge with greater strength, humility, and wisdom. By rising to this challenge, we intend to create a very different world for ourselves and those we love.