Men's Ministries

Antarctic Explorer, Ernest Shackleton, posted this advertisement in 1913: “Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness. Constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.” More than five thousand men applied for twenty-six slots. Shakleton understood what motivates men!

Men want to invest their lives in a great cause. They are drawn to a mission that is worthy of their highest devotion-and draws from them the willingness to make whatever sacrifice is required, (witness the fine young men laying down their lives in Iraq.)

If the message our men hear from the church is that the essence of their calling as Christ-followers is to be nice guys-kind, avoiding porn, finding a wife, getting a job, coming to church-their commitment to Christ will be half-hearted at best. This is especially true of our young men.

We must constantly strive to help men see that there is no greater mission than to be a part of God’s grand redemption of the cosmos, fighting Satan and his minions, being the first-fruits of the new creation, putting the values of the kingdom on display in our own lives, and invading every square inch of planet earth with the gospel of the kingdom of Christ! That is why I want again to draw your attention to the book, Making Kingdom Disciples. Here are a few more excerpts:

“If we have a right concept of the kingdom of God, a biblical world-and-life-view will be the natural outcome. A.A Milne, famous for his Winnie the Pooh stories, wrote a novel entitled “Two People” which focuses on Mr. Pump. Mr Pump was a haberdasher and a very devoutly religious man. He was so religious in fact that he would not dare carry his religion into the marketplace because it was too sacred. To illustrate this, he had two hats, one for his marketplace role and another for his Sunday morning churchgoing role. Mr. Pump was right to see a distinction between the church and the marketplace, but he was wrong to create a sacred/secular division by suggesting that the two do not mix.

This story serves to help us understand that in this life we do have somewhat of a dual role. On the one hand it does appear that Christians wear two hats, but on the other hand, and more correctly, we wear only one hat. We are to be “in the world, but not of the world.” We are members of both God’s kingdom and his church. We may say that we wear two hats because there is a difference between the two; however, on the other hand we clearly wear only one hat because Christ is Lord over all.

There are many well-meaning churchgoers who think like Mr. Pump. They think they are to serve the Lord on Sunday, but one has to be a professional clergyman or staff member to serve the Lord during the week in some church-related ministry. Selling clothes, keeping house, and teaching school, are not religious or sacred activities, but secular occupations that have no religious connotation.

Understanding the all-inclusiveness of the kingdom will remind us that everything we do is a religious activity and is to be done to the glory of God.

Article originally part of “Get in the Game”
a periodic email communication from CEP
March/April 2008 Vol. 4 No.2

What is Happening in The PCA

Interview with Charles Dunahoo: Making Kingdom Disciples of Men

Article originally part of “Get in the Game”
a periodic email communication from CEP

January/February 2008 Vol. 4 No.1

Introductory Comments by Gary Yagel. Men are made for mission. That mission, in Genesis 1:27-28, was to exercise dominion over the earth for its true King. Now, redeemed men are restored to the same mission, but must accomplish it in a fallen world. We are to seek first the kingdom of God, expanding the rule of Christ into every sphere of our lives, culture, and world. If men’s ministry is to be effective, we must challenge men with a vision big enough to resonate with their internal drive to accomplish a great mission. That vision is to live out the values of God’s kingdom-to make the invisible kingdom of God visible, everywhere we go, in every sphere of our lives, over every square inch of planet earth.

Charles Dunahoo has challenged the church to recover a proper view of discipleship, i.e. discipleship centered in an understanding of the Kingdom of God and our role in that kingdom.

GITG: Charles, you believe the calling of the church is to make kingdom disciples. What do you mean by that?

Charles: To be a kingdom disciple means to consciously think like a Christian and live with a holistic world and life view, which is oriented to the kingdom of God, seven days a week. It involves more than Bible study and prayer; it is doing all things to the glory of God.

GITG: What key elements of kingdom theology has the church failed to grasp?

Charles: The relationship between the church and the kingdom– we have confused the church’s role in general and this impacts individuals about their role in the church and kingdom. For example, in my view, the church errs, when it directly speaks, as an institution, on political issues or establishes its own institutionalized mercy ministries. The church’s main focus should be making kingdom disciples and doing so in a way that equips them or kingdom living in all of life.

GITG: But doesn’t the church today need to call its members into a greater commitment to mercy ministry?

Charles: Absolutely. in fact that is the other side of the failure. We are failing to call our members to be kingdom disciples who are committed as individuals to living as kingdom members, which includes engaging in mercy ministry. The church must make disciples who are holistic in their thinking about seeking first the kingdom. Mercy ministry belongs with gospel ministry. The church should call Christ-followers to use their gifts to set up orphanages, build hospitals, begin crisis pregnancy centers or to address human needs issues. The church should not directly build or administer such institutions but rather serve as the catalyst encouraging Christians to do those things.

GITG: Get In the Game is about men’s ministry. How would seeing himself as a kingdom disciple change the way a man goes about his everyday life?

Charles: He sees his relationship to Christ in a holistic way. He is committed to serving the Lord in whatever he does. He is committed to doing all he does for the glory of God. In my book I mention the story of Mr. Pump, the haberdasher in A. A. Milne’s novel, Two People. Mr. Pump has one top hat for church on Sunday, and another hat to wear the rest of the week. He never confuses the two, because in his mind his spiritual life and secular life are completely separate. But a kingdom disciple understands that we don’t have two hats. His motivation for leading his business is the glory of God and he operates his business in a way that is consistent with kingdom values set forth in God’s Word.

GITG: How does a man seeing himself as a kingdom disciple engage that man’s heart?

Charles: He learns to love the things Christ loves. For example, Christ loves his bride, the church. One of my problems with the emerging church is its tendency to de-emphasize the church. Kingdom disciples are committed to the church, because it is the bride Christ loves. The King also has a heart for widows and orphans. This requires that we too have heart for them, as we follow his example.

GITG: How can the church do a better job of producing kingdom disciples?

Charles: In the discipleship process we need to think like Christians in order to see the big view.. We need to be intentional about teaching our members how to think Biblically about issues, helping them learn how to connect the dots. Men like to see the big picture. They like to know the reason why they should do something. We must equip our people to take every thought captive to Christ and apply them to our daily lives.

GITG: What else would you say to church leaders in men’s ministry about making kingdom disciples?

Charles: We must be gospel centered in all that we do, but we must remember that the gospel is the good news of the coming kingdom. Mark tells us, “Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, ‘The time has come,’ he said, ‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the gospel'” (Mark 1:14-15). There is a lot of emphasis today on spiritual formation, but as important as that is, we tend to have a man-centered approach in that it is about me and my spiritual life and development. In reality it is about God and his will. The kingdom perspective is God-centered. Men want significance and they respond to challenges. The kingdom perspective challenges everyone from lawyers to grocery store owners to teachers and mechanics to view their vocations as service for the king.

Ministry That Appeals to Men

Pop Quiz: Examine these two sets of values. Which one better characterizes Jesus Christ and his true followers?

Left Set	Right Set
Competence	Love
Power	Communication
Efficiency	Beauty
Achievement	Relationships
Skills	Support
Proving oneself	Help
Results	Nurture
Accomplishment	Feelings
Objects	Sharing
Technology	Relating
Goal oriented	Harmony
Self-sufficiency	Community
Success	Loving cooperation
Competition	Personal Expression

David Murrow, author of the book, Why Men Hate Going To Church, has shown this chart to hundreds of people, men and women, Christians and non-Christians. More than 95% of the time respondents chose the Right Set as the better representation of true Christian values. Murrow then tells his readers that he took the two sets of values from the book, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. The Left Set are the values of Mars. The Right Set are the values of Venus. What is clear from this exercise is that when most people think of Christ and his followers, they think of feminine values.

Few of us would agree with everything Murrow says, but his point deserves profound thought. Which set of values most reflects what our churches are teaching about the Christian faith? Does Scripture actually teach that the right side values are more godly than the left side? If the church exalts the right side over the left, what message is it sending to boys and men about their masculinity?

This is a serious issue. Is it possible that today’s church has developed a culture that drives men away by asking them to check their masculinity at the door? This is Murrow’s thesis and it is well worth thinking about. Order Why Men Hate Going to Church.

Called to Sexual Integrity
“Lust Reigns Where Repentance Is Incomplete”

Article originally appeared in “Get in the Game”
a periodic email communication from CEP

October/November 2007 Vol. 3 No.5

Recently a friend’s eight year old son confided in him about his time management problems. “Dad, with all my video games to play and friends I want to play outside with, I just don’t have time for school.” School just didn’t seem to fit into his schedule.

Sometimes Christian men who are losing their battles with lust are looking for a quick and easy solution that will fit comfortably into their schedule. “Give me three steps for winning this battle for sexual purity and I will take them next Thursday afternoon at 3:00 and get this problem solved.” In a world where Yankee ingenuity allows us to read license plates from outer space and put 500 songs on something the size of a credit card, we expect to quickly solve our problems. But instant solutions to spiritual problems simply don’t exist.

Heart transformation can only take place through our union with Christ-and it is a life long cycle that requires repentance, faith, and obedience. Often this process is subverted because of incomplete repentance, so we are looking carefully at this Biblical concept through the lens of 1) mental assent-agreeing with God’s verdict, 2) our core affections-satisfying our hearts in God and hating evil, and 3) our actions-surrendering our will to Christ.

Surrendering our will to Christ is an integral part of repentance, yet surrendering to the will of Christ is what we feel so powerless to do, when lust is awakened. There is, however, no way to avoid the agonizing pull of temptation and no way to escape the battle over saying, “Not my will but yours be done.”

This battle to yield to Christ is easier to win, though, when we remember these truths:”

1. This pull of temptation is a chance to demonstrate our loyalty to our redeemer and king. “You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” 1Corinth. 6:19-20.

2. It is in remembering God’s mercy to us that we find power to surrender our bodies to God as a living sacrifice. “Therefore I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices-holy and pleasing to God-this is your spiritual act of worship.” Rom. 12:1. It is God’s grace to us that motivates obedience.

3. Surrendering to Christ’s Lordship does not mean trying to deny the pull of sexual desire; it is entrusting your sexual appetite to God. It is trusting God to satisfy your sexual longings in a righteous way-and it is “those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” who “will be satisfied, not those who seek satisfaction in an unrighteous way.

4. We need to have the dignity to refuse to let sexual desire rule us. Slavery destroys human dignity. We need the dignity and sound theology to say, I wasn’t meant for slavery. I was created a king, made in God’s image to rule-not to be dominated, enslaved by some force like sexual sin. Christ, the second Adam, has set us free from our bondage to sin. We need to have the passion of freedom fighters to never again let ourselves be enslaved. “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.” Rom. 6:12

Heart transformation begins with full repentance, which is involves the mind – agreeing with God’s verdict, the emotions-realizing that our root issue is not loving our God enough, and the will – changing directions and surrendering to Christ’s Lordship. There are no easy shortcuts to sexual purity, but there can be a gradual heart transformation that makes us more inclined to surrender to his will. Click here to order The Called to Sexual Integrity Bible Studies

5 Reasons Men’s Ministry Is So Hard

Unlike the other sub-groups in the church (children, teens, college kids, singles, women) most men are not motivated to come to church activities because they want to be with their friends. Kids and teens are often bored and want to hang out with their church friends. Singles want to find a mate. Women are naturally motivated to connect with other women. But men’s hard wiring takes us in the opposite direction–towards independence and isolation. Though we need connection with brothers at the spiritual level, being with friends is just not a strong motivation for most men–so they don’t show up just because a men’s event is planned.

Your men’s event takes men away from their homes. Many men already feel guilty about being away from home so much to do their jobs. Church ministries to women, teens, and children do not have to overcome this obstacle. To get a man to come to your event, you may have to overcome the guilt and pressure he feels NOT to be away from the family more.

Men spend their days in the work world where products and activities are assigned a bottom-line value. That is how he will see your men’s event. Most Christian men are loyal enough to their church to come to a special event targeted to men. But, it must be of high quality and have high value to him in order for him to come back consistently. It takes a lot of effort to provide well done, high value events for men. Many churches are not willing to invest the resources it takes to do men’s ministry well. The result is that their men don’t come to their men’s events.

For the 21^st century man, time is often the commodity of highest value. An explosion of activities compete for his time, from Karate for his kids to 200 channels on TV, including sports channels that have games nearly 24 hours a day. The length of the American work day is the highest it has ever been, while commuting time is increasing. The 21^st century man has less time that he is willing to devote to a men’s event than ever before.

The availability of graphic pornography at the click of a mouse means that more men are enslaved to secret sins than ever before. They are often not interested in men’s ministry because they feel guilty and fear being found out. As a church, we can not stand idly by and let this happen to our men. We must pay the price to design disciple-making ministries for men that will lead men out of their isolation!

Because building a discipleship ministry for men is so tough

• It can not be done effectively with a half-hearted commitment.
• It can not be done effectively without a wise, carefully thought out strategy.
• It can not be sustained over the long haul without a trained, committed, lay men’s ministry leadership team to lead it.
• It can not be done effectively without an investment of significant resources. Staff time, funding to train the men’s ministry leadership team, leaders who are freed from other church responsibilities, strategic time on the church calendar, funding for a men’s ministry library, funding for speakers and/or retreats, are just some of the resources it will take to be effective. (Now is the time that many church budgets are being formulated; make sure you get the funding you need to do ministry well in the coming year.)
• It can not be done quickly. Pat Morley says it takes 10 years to build a strong, sustainable disciple-making ministry to men in the local church. Only tough, stout-hearted men who know how to persevere need apply for this job!
• It is not for wimps, lightweights, or immature Christians who want instant success. The battle for men’s souls is an all-out war, and it requires an all-out effort!! Dare we give our Lord anything less!!

Called to Sexual Integrity
“One Way God Changes Our Hearts”

Reliable studies indicate that over half of the Christian men in America have a major struggle with the pull of temptation to look at pornography. As Reformed believers, we understand that the only answer to this struggle is the power of the gospel to transform our hearts. We understand that the Biblical approach to the battle with lust is heart transformation, not just superficial behavior modification.

In our last issue we emphasized that the root issue of sexual sin is idolatry. We are looking to the God of sexual pleasure to satisfy our hearts rather than looking to the one who says he is the answer to our deepest longings. But confessing our idolatry is only the starting point for heart transformation. There are many other Biblical principles that reveal how God changes our hearts. We discover, for example, that one way our Lord transforms our hearts is through obedience to Romans 12:9, “Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.”

God commands us to do something with our heart. That action is to hate. God wants us to develop a heart-felt hatred of our sexual sin and a passion for sexual purity. The way to hate sin is to realize how much pain and destruction it causes. Joe Dallas, who teaches the Every Man’s Battle Workshop writes:

“You should know by now that sexual sin ravages everyone connected with it. If you’re entertaining lust, you’re dancing on a cliff. Take concrete action now while you can. “Lust, when it is conceived, brings forth sin, and sin brings forth death” (James 1:15.)

To train his heart to hate sexual sin, one man wrote out the following list to meditate upon:

The Price Tag of Sexual Sin

1. The guilt of lust destroys your inner peace and temporarily breaks your communion with God.

“Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day and they hid from the LORD God. Genesis 3:8

2. Impurity steals the spiritual growth you need to be the spiritual leader your wife and kids need.

“Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.”

3. Your sexual sin brings shame on the name of Christ. Can God boast to Satan about your sexual purity?

“Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”

4. Surrender to lust inflames your sexual desires making it harder to resist temptation next time.

• The more you indulge your lustful appetite the stronger that appetite becomes.
• You are on your way to building a habit that will soon enslave you.
• Each surrender to temptation further entrenches the habit, making it harder to resist next time.
• Every sexual sin adds one more picture to the scrap-book of enticing sexual images stored in your memory and accessible to your sinful nature for awakening lust.

5. Training yourself in sexual indulgence may eventually cost you your wife and children.

• No one goes from winning his sexual battles to committing adultery over night.
• Surrendering to adultery won’t usually happen unless a man is already in the habit of excusing his sin and turning a deaf ear to the promptings of God’s spirit.
• If he commits adultery, his wife has the Biblical right to divorce him. He may lose her and no longer be permitted to live with his children.

Remembering this list is not some magical cure for lust. But obeying God’s command to train our hearts to hate evil is part of the process by which God redeems us. He wants us to hunger and thirst for righteousness and to loathe evil because we know that sin’s wages are always death.

“Do not be deceived: God is not mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, FROM THAT NATURE WILL REAP DESTRUCTION; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap life.”

• Job 1:8
• Matt. 5:8

Gal. 6:7-8