Here are five ways to guarantee your ministry to men will die this year.
Of course, you will want to make sure you don’t do them! Let me know what you would add to this list. We’ll make it part of a teaching section on the CMN website.
1. Make sure the senior pastor is not involved
The pulpit is the propulsion center of the church. What is celebrated from the pulpit will be part of the life of the church. What is neglected will have no energy, and many will see it as secondary in importance. The DNA of the pastor fills the life of the church, and the pastor’s commitment gives life to the ministry to men. We are taking men to a particular place—to a passionate, committed lifestyle of following Christ. This singular purpose is to be at the heart of every pastor, biblically. Discipling men was at the core of the life of Jesus, and it must be our center priority.
2. Make fellowship a priority
Fellowship is always the by-product of purpose, never the goal. The focus must be maintained. It’s about building men strong spiritually. Keep the main thing the main thing. Have fun, hang out, do fun events, but — make the process the center of your purpose…everything continually points in to that, building strong men. We do events to bring profile and energy to the men’s movement, but that’s not the focus of a ministry to men, it’s the highly visible place that introduces men to your ministry to men.
3. Try not to offend anyone
If you back off the passion of reaching and building strong men, you will not get anything done. Iron does sharpen iron. Sermons don’t set men free, truth does.
Confront men with the life of Christ! What is it to be a real man, to be like Jesus. Don’t back off calling men to a higher level of living. Don’t lower the ministry to the level of your men’s lives. Bring them up to the life of an overcomer. That challenge may make men uncomfortable, but it’s what they need to break out of a ‘normal’ life.
The pain of staying the same must become greater than the pain of changing to move men to decisions that will bring transformation.
4. Guys are busy, don’t ask too much from them
The best guys are always busy…that’s why they get stuff done. Men who are not busy are not men of vision and capacity. For some of your men, you will have to help them adjust their priorities, if they’ve made the smaller things larger in their lives. Jesus called men who were working. They were busy people. He never called a man who was just hanging out.
5. Just let things happen
The ministry to men takes hard work. Nothing just happens... if you wait to see what will happen, that's what will happen, nothing. Here’s a great timeline of how to create and sustain momentum: prayer, planning, preparation, perseverance and perspiration…then, you’ve got to repeat it again, and then, repeat again.
“The very greatest things — great thoughts, discoveries, inventions — have usually been nurtured in hardship, often pondered over in sorrow, and at length established with difficulty.” -Samuel Smiles, Scottish Author
Put a system for discipling men into place, equip your leaders, empower them, THEN — watch, measure, adjust, push, lead and encourage.
YOU CAN DO THIS!
And, it’s what we are about as followers of Christ.
Build men, Build churches, Transform nations!
Make it a great month!
grace/peace
Paul
2 comments:
Paul, I would add "Never do anything outside of the meeting place"
I have to add that we in the street style prison compassion ministry are almost forced to be very patient, we have so many more challenges than the "normal quiet" guys do! the way we would kill our men's ministry would be to not love the unloveable, to not be a "Jesus ordained recycling center" for the unreachable throwaways of society.
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