Getting men into the Kingdom is a topic in itself. But for now here are a few things we believe as a ministry are crucial if we are to win men for Jesus. Make sure your church:
- has a long term strategy to reach the men outside the church.
- recognises that in the UK today it takes a man on average five years to come to Christ (three for women).
- realises that men today are miles from the Kingdom and need to hear the Gospel at least 30 times before making a commitment to follow Jesus.
- understands that 80% people who come to Christ are brought by a friend.
- realises that many men struggle with small talk but will open up in the context of activity.
- sets in place a programme to deal with these realities.
Perhaps the biggest lessons I have learned about reaching men have been whilst riding my bicycle. A couple of years ago, in an effort to transform my life from being an overweight unfit pastor, I took up cycling. Always being one to go the extra mile I decided to respond to the challenge to cycle from Lands End to John O’ Groats in under 9 days.
After a bit of training, I along with 6 others guys (half of whom weren’t believers) did it. All the guys who weren’t believers ended up in a weekly bible study. The following year we did the same with 16 guys but this time from Calais to Nice over the Alps. The same positive spiritual outcome took place. Some of my most effective conversations about Jesus have taken place while side by side with other men in the context of cycling.
In fact, sometimes the most intimate and personal things have been shared. Why? Because we are side by side, exerting ourselves, struggling though the pain barrier together with all the guards and defences torn down. We also used the cycle ride to raise money for a worthy cause thereby igniting men’s hearts with the chance to do something positive for those less fortunate than themselves (in this case, a work in Africa). The efforts that some went to in order to raise money was extremely humbling.
I’m not suggesting we all go out and cycle crazy distances but perhaps if we in some way made a small effort to walk and journey with men, rather than expect them to come into our world, we may see some startling breakthroughs.
So in conclusion let’s unashamedly gear some ministry towards the men.
Some things to consider:
For believing men:
- Prayer triplets – weekly if possible; 45 minutes will do; accountability among members
- Termly breakfasts – give them some fellowship time, saturated fat, and teach them some relevant Biblical truth
- One on One mentoring by mature men for younger men
For Not Yet Believers:
- Well organised social/sports events with no overt Christian content
- A termly breakfast with a good speaker who gives his testimony and a clear Christian statement.
- “Enquirers’’ courses such as Alpha but occasionally run for men only. We need to understand that as Jesus shines his light into a man’s heart, the issues that he will be struggling with (perhaps gambling, pornography or hidden stress) won’t be discussed in front of Jane but will be talked about with John and Steve. Especially if he has been doing some stuff shoulder to shoulder with them.
For Both groups:
- How about a semi retired/retired man being released to serve as an encourager and pastoral worker amongst men, carrying out work visits and giving wise counsel.
That’s far from all and as I have previously said, we have painted broad brush strokes and made inevitable sweeping statements and generalisations. Hopefully however there are some useful thoughts in the above to get us all thinking and see some more men introduced to Jesus. There’s a big job to do and a bit of up hill boulder pushing to engage in but when you consider that according to “evangelicals now” in 2003 that when you lead a man to Jesus, 93% of his family follow to Jesus (as opposed to 3.5% for children or 17% for women) we need to get serious about the way we reach out and minister to men.
personally i found that over 25 years church just wore me down to the point i cannot bear to go any longer. i dont think i’m hugely unusual in that. i’m not sure your “some things to consider: for believing men” really cuts the mustard.
No you arent unusual. Im about t write much more about this in the coming months. Stay tuned. Im barely scratching the surface of the issues in this particular blog which is aimed at pursuing issues in bite sized chunks.
I think part of the problem as well is that the church always seems to come across as having a “We have all the answers, you have none of them” mentality, which turns a lot of men off. A bit more humility does wonders, as does recognition that although the church has some answers about important issues, it doesn’t have a monopoly on truth, answers, morality or good ideas.
(LIke Edgarthedolphin, I’m a church drop-out and can’t face the thought of going back, though I’m still a believer.)
yes Barry, sounds good
I am not a ‘blogger’ in fact this is probably the first one I have seen or used. However there seems to be two main issues here. 1 Wanting to see men saved and 2 Wanting to see men going to ‘church’.
1.We just have to allow The Holy Spirit to ‘renew our minds’ concerning our now total misunderstanding of the meaning of the word ‘church’. Jesus never sought, nor his disciples, to get people into ‘church’ as meant by the word today. The Biblical use of the word ‘Church’ means something far different from what it means today. We need to see people being saved into ‘The Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ’ – from Satan’s kingdom of darkness into The Saviour’s Kingdom of light – not ‘going to ‘church’’.
It is however, more on the second point that I wish to dwell.
2. Thousands of believers from around the world are leaving the man-made systems and organisations that we today call ‘church’. Until we begin to understand that as believers we cannot ‘GO’ to church because we ARE the ‘Church’ [ note capital ‘C’] we will never break free from the unbiblical chains of what ‘church’ has become.
We are so far from the Scriptural revelation of what being ‘Church’ really IS, that we have become blind to the deceptions of what man has made ‘church’ to become. There are those who love The Lord, often quite passionately, but who now see the far cry of what ‘church’ has become and who are made to feel guilty because they don’t cross the threshold of some ecclesiastical looking building on a Sunday morning.
‘Real men don’t go to church’ is not the issue – ‘Real Christians don’t GO to church’ is more to the point. We HAVE to get out of our little denominational boxes and start walking on the water to Jesus only and away from the boats of our own making.
‘c’hurch’ has become the idol that we now worship bringing millions upon millions of our hard earnt pounds and laying them on the altar of bricks and mortar and administrational ecclesiastical hierarchy that finds no place in Holy Writ. Run like any good business churchs have become mammon centred with ever ingenious methods of intrigue to get in ‘more’ people, ‘more’ money, ‘more’ recognition, bigger, better, faster, wider, fatter, and all the time the true worshipper is left cold and unfulfilled and empty because there is no bread on the altar of Presence.
What is needed is a transformation of our understanding of what it means to live in the liberty of Christ’s Kingdom, from decades of unbiblical indoctrination about how we should ‘go to church’ and become ‘members’ of man-made denominations.
In Glory there will not be one single denomination – why then do we fight and strive to hang on to them so tenaciously down here!! We are supposed to be getting ready for The Groom, not building our own little empires!
Wake up Bride The King is on the way.
Watch this space for comments on church v kingdom! Keep the conversation alive..
We haven’t yet discussed what we believe to be a kingdom expression of church…ie living in kingdom/Jesus centred community, but we will be exploring this.
Michael – you and I seem to be reading from the same page – brilliant loved it all, spot on, here here, amen and anything else that means I agree completely!
Steve – just along shot – do you have parentage in Cornwall?
Thanks for the encouragement – one sometimes feels very isolated in these matters but there are thousands of believers longing for and looking for the reality of The True Church as purchased at Calvary and birthed at Pentecost. The problem is they are finding it hard to break out of the boats of denominational bondage and walk on water to Jesus alone. The sad part is most do not realise the bondage to man they have submitted themselves to.Big subject and here is probably not the place.
Excellent, glad to see this debated, especially the Kingdom v Church thing.
I think it’s a mistake to limit this to men, though it is logical to start with us. Gender boundaries and roles have changed enormously over the last century, and just as there are men quite comfortable in an effeminate role in the church, there are women uncomfortable with the atmosphere inside churches.
The language we use is a major issue for me and others I know. With language, lines are (I hope unintentionally) drawn between those ‘inside’ church and those ‘outside’. It’s the marker of what level of [evangelical] Christianity you have attained. Worst of all, it can even exclude people without either party realising it. I think I’d prefer it if we swore instead. Offence caused by that is at least out in the open. I like that this website seems good in this respect, but I can’t understand why a guy’d need to be “released”? I’ve heard it before, but I don’t know what it means? Is it a spiritual version of “asked” whereby they can’t refuse?