August 2005 Vol. 1 No.4
“Building a Sustainable Men’s Ministry”
by
Gary Yagel
Steps 1-3 Summary:
The key to consistency in your men’s ministry is to have a strong,
men’s ministry leadership team. Over the past few years, I’ve
assisted over 20 churches with some aspect of men’s ministry, and
without fail, every strong men’s ministry that I have encountered
has a committed, lay, men’s ministry leadership team at its core.
Although it is tempting for an elder or pastor to skip this step and
launch some kind of men’s ministry directly, proceeding without a
team almost always ends up producing an event that is just a flash
in the pan. The first chapter of the
Men’s Ministry Action Plan is an excellent tool to use with your
leadership team. It will take you through a process that helps you
define the purpose (foundational goals) of your men’s ministry.
Step 4:
Evaluate what is currently happening or not happening in your
men’s ministry through the lens of your purpose statement
(foundational men’s ministry goals). Ask these questions: 1)
How effectively are we presently reaching this goal? 2) What is
currently happening that helps us reach this goal. 3) What are some
things we could be doing in our setting, with our men that could
help us reach this goal? 4) Based on our resources, situation,
needs, opportunities, etc., which 1 or 2 of these strategies should
we implement?
In the July issue, I suggested 3 goals for men’s ministry: 1) to
help men deepen their love relationship with Christ, 2) to help men
build a bond of brotherhood with a few men, and 3) to get Biblical
teaching to men that is specific to their needs and calling as men.
Let’s focus on the first of these goals. Men’s ministry must focus
on men’s hearts, on their personal love relationship with Christ,
and their experience of grace as the starting point for everything.
Men’s ministry that focuses on behavior, but neglects the heart, is
not discipleship; it is behavior modification. If our goal, then,
is to target men’s hearts, the following questions immerge:
What is the condition of our men’s hearts?
Are they
operating out of a deep sense that they are unconditionally loved,
accepted, adopted by God and able to cry “Abba?” Are they
grace-driven, instead of law-driven? Are they learning to preach
the gospel to themselves every day—seeing more and more the depth of
their sin, but equally the power of the cross to cleanse? Are they
learning to satisfy their souls in God, delighting themselves in
Him? What is their personal relationship with Christ like? Do they
have regular time with him? Is their prayer life alive and vital,
or totally stagnant? As a leadership team, discuss the idols that
you think most often capture the hearts of your men. (Don’t
underestimate the idol of lust. According to Man in the Mirror,
over 50% of church going men have a major problem with Internet
pornography.)
What is currently happening that helps us reach this
goal?
What percentage of our guys are in a couple’s Bible
studies? Are there some men’s studies going on? Which of these
studies are enabling the men to find an accountability partner to
help them with consistency in daily meeting with God? Are there
some brothers who have accountability partners that they meet with?
Are the men getting a heavy dose of grace in their Bible study?
Does our church’s training program for church officers address the
issues of the heart? Have some men read Every Man’s Battle? Have
some past accountability groups for sexual purity stopped meeting?
What is already happening in our men’s ministry, when it comes to
reaching their hearts, that we can build upon?
What are some things we could be doing to help deepen
our men’s heart driven love relationship with Christ? CONTENT:
As a leadership team, digest books like,
Desiring God, or
When I Don’t Desire God, by John Piper,
Knowing God, by
J.I. Packer,
The Character of God, by R. C. Sproul,
Addictions, A Banquet in the Grave, by Ed Welch,
Idols
of the Heart, by Elyse Fitxpatrick,
The Discipline of Grace,
by Jerry Bridges, and then recommend them to key men in the church.
One PCA men’s leadership team uses 2 questions for accountability:
1) How have you been preaching the gospel to yourself? 2) What is
the idol of the heart that is behind the sin you are confessing?
Also, find a seminar or Bible study material that addresses the
subject of sexual integrity. We cannot get far discipling our men
if their heart has been captured and enslaved by pornography. (We
plan to highlight resources on sexual purity in upcoming issues.)
QUIET TIME: Without being legalistic, find ways to go after
getting guys meeting with God daily. It might surprise you to know
how few of your men actually have a daily quiet time with God. Get
guys to find an accountability partner for being in the Word daily.
(Is the men’s ministry leadership team modeling this
accountability?) Put tools in your men’s hands such as,
Devotions for the Man in the Mirror, Table Talk,
My
Utmost for His Highest. Invest in the
Drive-Time Spiritual
Disciplines CD’s by Man in the Mirror. Listen to them
yourselves, then pass them around the church to the other men.
BIBLE STUDIES: Suggest that your couples’ or men’s Bible
studies use the excellent, study used for discipleship at Redeemer
PCA in Manhattan. “Gospel and Heart—Galatians Study,” by Tim
Keller, Church of the Redeemer, NYC. It can be downloaded from
their website for $10. MEN’S RETREATS: Plan retreats to
maximize the heart impact. Provide excellent worship, if possible.
Give men a chance to be alone with God. You might have a man share
his testimony who discovered that he had made work, or success, or
money his idol. WORSHIP: If you can do it with excellence,
don’t overlook the value of excellent worship at men’s events. Our
goal is reaching the heart.
Based on your context, choose one or two ideas to
implement.
Most of the above ideas are not very related to men’s
ministry programs. That may be frustrating for you.
Obviously, programs are extremely important since they are a chief
means for reaching our men’s ministry goals. In your setting, some
of the above ideas might be shaped into an effective program for
you. But, if we are to maximize our effectiveness in men’s
ministry, we must refuse to view men’s ministry as a series of
programs. More than anything, men’s ministry is influence, and your
task as a men’s ministry team is to think about how to most
effectively use your influence to deepen your men’s love
relationship with Christ. You may decide to implement a few
of the above suggestions or ideas of your own. In any event,
though, the starting point for men’s ministry must be at the core of
a man—his heart.
(Please feel free to contact me about your particular ministry, or
to give me some additional thoughts. My email is
gyagel@familybuildersinc.org.)
Building Male Relationships
What are some of
the issues that men are interested in discussing? There is an
excellent book entitled,
Brothers! Calling Men Into Vital
Relationships, by Geoff Gorsuch with Dan Schaffer, which helps
men develop a deep sense of what it means to be brothers in Christ
with the purpose of growing toward Christ-likeness.
Here are some
questions that Geoff has gathered from research about men’s
ministry.
- What is true
manliness?
- What is
success? The real “bottom line” of life?
- How do we deal
with guilt feelings?
- What is male
sexuality? Is purity possible for the modern man?
- How can we
nurture family life?
- What is
Christian leadership? How is it developed?
- What are the
basic disciplines of the Christian man?
- What ministry
skills need to be developed? How?
- What is
biblical business conduct?
- What is
integrity? How is it developed?
This little book
will help those of you who want to start a men’s group, as well as
those of you who are already leading a group. It is chocked full of
helpful ideas regarding relationships and accountability as well as
how to go deeper in these areas. There are some very good
suggestions in the appendices as well. You can purchase this book
and others on the questions above through the CE/P Bookstore.
www.cepbookstore.com .
The process of
building deeper relationships among men is likened to a baseball
diamond as you lead men through four phases of development. They
are Acquaintances, Friends, Brothers, and Christ-likeness.
With Fall coming on
here is a great resources to get things off to a fresh start.
A Theology and Philosophy of Men's Ministry
Foundations for the Battle for Men's Souls™
Patrick Morley
Christian writer
J. C. Ryle wrote, "He must dig down very low if he would build
high." The potential height of a building is limited to the actual
depth of its foundation. What foundations are deep and strong enough
to support us in The Battle For Men's Souls?
This article
raises what we think are some of the central foundations that a
church must have in place to be successful in winning the battle for
men's souls.
1. THE CENTRALITY
OF CHRIST
Our most
important question is not, "How do we do the ministry?" but "Who
does the ministry?" (Dick Kaufman's insight). Christ does the
ministry. Christ ministers the gospel through us, Christ overcomes
the obstacles, Christ raises the money, Christ sets the agenda,
Christ changes life, Christ seeks men's souls, Christ transforms the
heart, Christ uses events to reach men, Christ helps men use
resources and books, Christ starts the small groups, Christ develops
the leaders, Christ builds the team, and Christ builds the church.
The direction,
agenda, and results of the ministry belong to Christ. Our job is not
to produce a particular outcome. Our job is to be faithful-to
execute the plan Christ revealed to us. And our plan must be the
person of Jesus Christ. We have no other plan. He is our agenda. He
is our message.
2. THE CENTRALITY
OF THE HEART
Paul said, "For
me to live is Christ." To help a man change the core affections of
his heart is easily the greatest contribution we can make to
Christ's work. We need to encourage men to let Jesus be their
highest and best thought in every situation. It is an error to deal
with the outward actions and not deal with the motivational
structure of the heart. The focal point of our message must be a
man's heart.
Let's go beyond
asking men to conform. We are not merely concerned about the
specific sins a man commits, but the unbelief that would make a man
sin at all.
Idols make promises they cannot keep, which is why you can be on a
winning streak and still feel empty. We will help men understand
that the battleground is the heart. The issue is looking to anything
except Jesus Christ for what we need. An idol is anything of which
we say, "I need this to be happy."
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