What is TG?
What is Training Ground?
Training Ground is a Christ-centered, experiential discipleship program located in Colorado Springs, Colorado. We invite young men, ages 18-25, to live in intentional community while discovering who they are in Christ and the fullness of life Jesus provides. Our program offers real life testing, intentional Biblical teaching, and leadership development centering around work, wilderness, and worship all through an intentional community of older men.
Male Initiation
A boy does not become a man just because he grows older. He is shaped into one. Masculinity bestows masculinity.
The idea of father and son is a spiritual one. Boys were around their fathers because of work. A son might have worked in his father’s shop or on the farm next to him. He may have had an apprenticeship for a blacksmith or a carpenter, where he spent thousands of hours around men. Even Jesus lived this model taking on Joseph’s profession as a carpenter. For most of the history of humankind, boys learned by their fathers’ instruction, not purely through academic institutions.
With the industrial revolution, things have changed and this process is stripped away. Fathers are absent. Few men are leading their sons into spiritual maturity and guidance through hands on experiences. Men are commuting miles from their home, and boys rarely see their fathers. And rarely is masculinity passed on.
At Training Ground, we invite a community of older men to teach the young men through experience. From their time working, to the weekends fly-fishing and hunting, Biblical teaching, or even personal finance, older men invite and initiate younger men to engage in the process of becoming a mature man of God.
Leadership Development
At Training Ground, we believe that leadership is more about identity and character than achievement and productivity. All of the achievements and accolades given to us when we are productive cannot alone define us or answer the deeper questions of our hearts. Only God’s deep and passionate love can anchor us. We believe God grows a young man into a leader by the discovery of his identity in Christ and the development of character.
Training Ground extends an invitation to live, see, and serve from our identity in Christ. Our mission is to grow men of character and heart who will impact their community, families, and fulfill the purposes God has for them. We love honesty, self awareness, repentance, and receiving the Father’s love in the deep places of our hearts. By providing real life experiences in work, in community, and in the wilderness, we believe God sets young men free to live intentionally from their identities in Christ.