Resources

No Man Left Behind
by Patrick Morley, David Delk
and Brett Clemmer
You’ve got men, you’ve got a church. Add a testimony, some pancakes, and prayer and – poof! A men’s ministry. Right? Not necessarily.
This book is based on over 30 years of combined ministry experience, of training classes at the Leadership Training Center and thousands of interactions with men’s ministry leaders. It is filled with practical strategies and real life stories from leaders like you who are discipling men in the local church.  You can reach men. You can get them to grow closer to Christ. They can help you change the world. This book will show you how.
Click here to see what others are saying about this book.

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Forging Bonds of Brotherhood
By Gary Yagel-PCA.
How do you get a man to understand his need to be connected to other brothers in Christ and equip him to build a friendship with a few men for encouragement and accountability? Give him a copy of this booklet. It is short enough for him to read on a Sunday afternoon (60 pages) and practical enough for him to know what steps to take to take to connect with a few brothers.

Brothers! Calling Men into Vital Relationships
Geoff Gorsuch
Brothers! will help you develop the kind of relationships you need in order to be a true brother. As you work through this discussion guide with other men, you'll grow deeper in your relationships as you learn to accept one another as acquaintances, to encourage one another as friends, and to exhort one another as brothers. If you lead a men's group, this study will help you develop the skills you need to draw other men into deeper, more genuine relationships. That can revolutionize your small group!

December 2006  Vol. 2  No.6

Building a Sustainable Men’s Ministry

“No Man Fails On Purpose”

Excerpts from No Man Left Behind

 MANY IF NOT MOST, of our cultural problems—divorce, abortion, juvenile crime, fatherless ness—can be traced back to the failure of a man.  Ironically, it’s a man who got up in the morning hoping to succeed.

The signs are all around us.  We live in a country where every third child is born out of wedlock; where 24 million kids don’t live with their biological fathers; where about half of all marriages end in divorce.  We can read these statistics and just blow by them.  Or, we can consider what they mean for our country and our churches.  Wouldn’t you agree that there must be something systemically wrong with a culture that allows these things to happen?

These are all symptoms of deeper, systemic issues.  Treating symptoms is necessary and good, but you can’t cure a disease by treating the symptoms.  So, while there are many sociological and psychological studies to explain why we have so many problems—the systemic problem—is that we have not properly discipled our men.  The only way to solve systemic problems is with systemic solutions.

If most of the major societal problems we face can be traced back to the failure of men, why aren’t men in the church doing any better than men outside the church?

We are not discipling men to be followers of Jesus Christ.  Our churches are not effectively helping men understand what it takes to be a godly husband, a godly father, and a godly man.  Of the 42 million men (in America) who profess faith in Christ, only an estimated 6 million men are involved in any kind of ongoing or intentional discipleship program.  That is one in seven of the men who profess faith in Christ and only one out of eighteen men in America.

A spiritual reformation of society starts with a spiritual reformation of men.  Jesus discipled twelve men and they changed the world.  If you will disciple the men of your church to follow Christ, what will happen?  Marriages will improve, then families, then the church, and finally the world.

            Click here to order No Man Left Behind from the PCA bookstore

A Gift That Isn't Under the Tree

By Gary Yagel

 For 51 years Bob Edens was blind.  He felt his way through five decades of darkness.  Then, suddenly a skilled surgeon performed a complicated operation and for the first time he could see.  His response?  "I never would have dreamed that yellow is so...yellow.  But my favorite is red....You could never know how wonderful everything is to me."  Bob Edens is not the only one who has spent a lifetime near something without seeing it.  A man can spend a lifetime with his wife and never stop long enough to look at the incredible treasure God has entrusted into his care.  The agent of familiarity has a powerful ability to blind. 

 Our Lord said, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."  Your wife's life is measured by the total time and energy she has been given to live.  When they are consumed, her life is over.  Isn't it accurate to say then, that as she spends her finite time and energy serving you, she is laying down her life, for you?  She is spending the precious treasure that is her life itself, doing YOUR laundry, putting food on the table for YOU to eat, cleaning YOUR bathroom, making YOUR household run smoothly.  In addition, this incredible creature scurries about your life adding a touch a beauty, everywhere she goes.  From the color scheme in your bathroom, to the Christmas decorations she carefully arranges, to her own appearance, she transforms your surroundings from drab black and white to sparkling color.  Then, there is the matter of the way she takes care of your children--her feminine heart that seems endlessly able to pour out love to them, her discerning spirit that knows intuitively when something isn't right with one of them.  But the greatest miracle of all is that she loves you... you.  She is committed to being the faithful, suitable helper to you that God calls her to be.  She wants to know you, be near you, support you, share her life with you, and give herself to you.  Isn't that, in and of itself, a remarkable act of divine intervention?

Proverbs 18:22 says, "He who finds a wife finds what is good, and receives favor from the LORD."  This Christmas season, don't walk right past your wife without seeing her.  Take time to gaze into her soul and tell her from your heart that apart from the savior, she is the most wonderful gift God has ever given you.  Because, when you sit down in front of the tree on Christmas morning, your best earthly gift won't be under the tree; she will be sitting beside you. 

A Plan to Disciple Every Man in Your Church

from Pat Morley (with Comments from Gary Yagel)

Volume 183 

QUESTION: Pat, I'm a pastor. I buy into your idea that the size of my men's ministry equals the number of men in my church. But I'm at ground zero. Where should I start?

ANSWER: Here's an idea to take out for a spin. Announce that you would like to disciple every man in the church over the next few years who has not already been discipled. Make this a high visibility deal from the front. Mention it repetitiously (e.g., that you're doing it, include stories from men-with permission of course-as sermon illustrations).

Then, several times a year (quarterly perhaps), personally lead a men's discipleship group. Make it by sign up. Create a waiting list. Use something like Master Plan for Evangelism (Coleman) or a Basic Discipleship Curriculum from your denomination. Be a discussion facilitator (not the expert everyone waits for to explain the truth). It can become a badge of honor for your men to have been personally discipled by you. Possibly/probably allow a couple of deacons and elders in each group.

Read, Building Brothers by Geoff Gorsuch, to get a helicopter view of what can happen in the groups.  Some of the men in the groups will want to continue after your 10 or 12 weeks. Encourage that as a way of sustaining momentum among the men.  (Another great resource in the CE & P bookstore is Forging Bonds of Brotherhood which suggests ways that men who have been through the training could continue meeting together as real brothers for encouragement, support and accountability.)  Click here to order Building Brothers or Forging Bonds of Brotherhood.

What if you're not a pastor but still care about this issue? Consider forwarding this email to your pastor with a few encouraging words.

In this issue of “Get in the Game,” we show how this very idea has been implemented by Dr. John Hutchinson at McLean Pres.  (See PCA Men’s Ministry News below.)

To God be the glory for the great things He has done and continues to do!

Pat Morley

PCA Men’s Ministry News

Pacesetters at McLean Pres.

 John Hutchinson, at the 1000 member, McLean PCA has found a way to disciple the men of his church.  Each summer for the past three years, John has invited about 24 men to be a part of a nine month discipleship training program, hoping to have about 12 of the 24 agree to participate throughout the school year.  This high commitment  training requires meeting one Saturday morning per month from 8:30 to noon, attending a September kick—off retreat, participating in an evangelistic mission trip to Cuba for a week, and reading the following books:

• The Life of a God-Made Man,  Dan Doriani **

• Wild at Heart, John Eldredge

• Personal Revival

• What’s So Amazing About Grace,  Phillip Yancey **

• Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be:  A breviary of Sin, Cornelius Plantinga **

• Transforming Grace,  Jerry Bridges **

• Radical Gratitude, Ellen Vaughn

• To Be Told, Dann Allender **

• Everybody’s Normal Til You Get to Know Them, John Ortberg

• The Insider, Jim Peterson

• Don’t Waste Your Life, John Piper **

            In John’s view, the key factors that have made this so successful are:

1.  His personal invitation.  This is not a come one, come all approach.

2.  High value.  The financial cost for the books, retreat, and trip to Cuba is high.  Obviously the time commitment is very high with all the reading, a weekend, and a week in Cuba.  The cost is high, deliberately and John tries to make everything the men do worthwhile.  Men respond to excellence and respond to the challenge of something that costs them something.

3.  Meeting with a mentor, monthly.  The logistics of this have not always worked out well, but after three years, John is unwilling to give up this component of the training.  He tries to link older Christians with younger ones.

4.  The Cuba trip.  This trip may be the most vital part of this discipleship ministry.  John wants to engage the men’s head, heart, and hands, and be shoulder to shoulder in real ministry situations.  The men all participate in sharing the gospel through a translator in door to door evangelism, assisting local Cuban churches.  What makes this trip even more dynamic is that God seems right now  to be bringing about enormous fruit from the sharing of the gospel in Cuba.  Nearly all of the men in the group have the opportunity to lead someone to Christ—and most of them see many new professions of faith.

The male bonding on this trip is tremendous.  All the required elements are there—risk, a mission, teamwork, time away from other distractions, celebration of the mission success, and a final evening to kick back, relax,  and smoke some good Cuban cigars.  (sorry to offend any of you with Baptist backgrounds!)

This program is in its infancy.  It has its challenges, especially finding a way to capture the momentum created by this nine  months of training.  But it has been very successful.

One sharp, young guy I interviewed, who has only known Christ for a few years, told me he was signing up to do the whole thing all over again—it had such an impact on his life.  And he’s not the only want to repeat the year.

If you want to ask about Pacesetters, email John Hutchinson at john@mcleanpres.org.  He would be glad to talk with you about it.

** Book is available on the PCA Bookstore website.

 Blue Ridge Presbytery

 November 10-11, The Blue Ridge Presbytery sponsored a Discipleship Conference in Roanoke, VA.  They planned four tracks of workshops—general discipleship, women, men, and children.  Ten of the presbyteries were represented in the men’s ministry track.  There was much positive feedback about having this men’s track.  Other presbyteries might want to have similar conferences with a men’s ministry track.  Contact CE & P for ideas and speakers.

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