About Sebaste
Programs designed to build your faith, virtue, and leadership capabilities.
Our Story
Through their work in various institutions, schools, and leadership roles, founders Johnny and Jeremy realized that masculine identity in the modern age is at a crisis point. The idea of what a man should be is subject to distortion, misrepresentation and explicit attack.
Tyrannized by safety and comfort or pumped up on an egotistical stoic machismo void of passion or purpose, the young man of today is expected to instantly perform as a contented, polite and obedient member of the societal machine. The deepest passions of his heart for adventure, challenge, heroism and dominion are labeled as dangerous, inconvenient and toxic. His heroes and role models are weak academics, wealthy sociopaths or empty muscle heads.
To answer this need, Jeremy and Johnny created Sebaste and started mentoring young men in the heart of the desert of New Mexico - a place of challenge, silence, and transformative exposure.
Our Four Pillars
Devotion is the guiding principle of a life well lived and a death well died. The truly devoted man lives a life of strong and zealous action properly ordered toward an end higher than himself.
Far from being merely some constrictive sense of duty that confines men to mediocrity, true devotion is rather a love and passion that inspires and shapes the life of action and heroic virtue which we all made to live. Both a guiding star and a stable anchor, devotion is the alpha and omega of all the pillars and the guiding principle of all the actions of Sebaste.
The strongest man can be destroyed by isolation and individualism. Male society is not a sandpile of individuals, but a community of fathers and brothers that encourage and sharpen each other.
Manhood is a sacred ideal handed down and embodied by father-figures and heroes and nourished and supported by brothers and peers.
Sebaste uses mentorship and the fraternal experience of the poetic and the painful to form bonds that hold society together and last into eternity.
Rites of passage involving physical challenge and ritualized suffering are cultural practices as old as masculinity itself. They are deeply natural and constitute a formalized and tangible transition between boyhood and manhood.
The men of Sebaste do not seek to embody some form of hard-knuckled stoicism based in pride and masochistic practices. Rather, we use pain and physical challenge as a means to confront our own weakness, and - by accepting it - to transcend it.
We live in a world tyrannized by safety. Adventures are dangerous, uncertain, painful, and expensive. But men are born with a need to be wild - to seek harsh environments and extreme experiences. Trapped in the modern straightjacket of safety, we turn to porn, addiction, and hedonism.
Adventure is not only a key element of the antidote, but a need hardwired into the soul of every man.
the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste
Our name comes from the story of the 40 martyrs of Sebaste (an ancient village in modern-day Turkey). These men were elite Roman soldiers of the “Thundering” 12th (XII). They were each in the prime of their youth–strong, beautiful, and full of manly courage.
Late in the third century, they all turned from their pagan ways to a life devoted to Christ and His Church. For refusing to offer sacrifice to the false gods of Rome, they were brutally tortured before being sent to freeze to death on a frozen lake. They eagerly stripped themselves of their clothing, so much the sooner to be clothed in heavenly robes.
While advancing to their place of death they prayed that as 40 they come bearing witness to Christ so, too, may they as 40 be received into heaven. To add to their agony, the Roman sentinels lit fires and drew baths along the shore of the lake to entice the men to forsake their newfound Lord. One alone was seduced by warmth and abandoned the name of Christ. Upon leaping into the hot bath, the man died.
One of the watchmen was so moved by the strength and faith of the remaining 39 that he stripped himself and soon completed their company. In one of his homilies, St. Basil the Great adds that “although there were 40, they shared but a single soul. All lived as one united in Christ, under the name Christian.”
Men such as those of the 40 Holy Martyrs of Sebaste are in short supply, and so to their example we look for inspiration and strength, now, when the enemy is so close at hand. May the 40 Holy Martyrs of Sebaste pray for us to the Lord our God.
Our team
Men brought together by the desire to help men and boys reclaim a masculine identity rooted in adventure, hardship and fraternity.
Co-Founder Jeremy Gay is a husband and father who lives in the small town of Gallup, NM. After getting married, he attended law school and practiced law as an officer for the USMC for 5 years. He and his wife and their six children moved to Gallup because of its charm and inconvenience. Having had a love of the difficult instilled in him in each of the institutions he was a part of, he and his dear friend Johnny Kuplack embarked on the journey of creating a program that would instill in boys and men a similar love for adventure, sacrifice and brotherhood.
Johnny Kuplack is a teacher and endurance athlete who lives in Gallup, NM. An alumnus of the same high school as Jeremy, Johnny has spent his adult life coaching, teaching, and mentoring young men throughout the country through rites of passage and transformative adventures. He spends his time training for 100 mile races and encouraging young people to embrace the arduous good.
Cyle passionately endeavors to be a role model and positive influence in the lives of young people, especially those who are fatherless or who face other various challenges. Through his work in public education, he aims to empower youth to be virtuous, confident, and accountable. As a coach and athletic director, Cyle believes in the power of sports and competition, and the sacrifices inherently required for their success, to be an excellent means of redirecting the life-course of young people. Along with his wife and two children, Cyle and his family live on a family farm in the Zuni mountains of New Mexico and have a deep love for animals and the beauty of creation.
An alumnus of our summer program, Joe has taught boys at the high school level, embarking on and leading adventures in Europe, Scandinavia, Africa, and the U.S. He plans to attend law school starting next fall. He can be found training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and kickboxing, going on runs in minimalist sandals, studying languages and spontaneously vanishing with a backpack and a can of sardines.
“This is the most unique and powerful Catholic Program for young men I have ever encountered”
Virtue through trial
Sebaste helps men reclaim their masculinity through trial, training, and mentorship.
