Another
thing that we can do is emphasize the challenge and risk of following Jesus.
There’s this “I’m-in-therapy-forever” feeling in the church.
It’s true that we need to comfort the hurting but at some point we’ve
got to issue a stern challenge. If you look at Christ, He promised the disciples
arrest, flogging, betrayal, persecution, and death. Men have to sense that they
are in a huge battle rather than a huge support group.
John Eldridge has a very simple suggestion: take men outside for worship. Have
you noticed how many times in the Bible the great conversion stories and adventures
took place outside? Men tend to find God — you’ve heard this dodge
for years, “Well, I feel closer to God when I’m out in the woods than
when I’m sitting in church.” This isn’t an excuse; it’s
the truth.
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But
99% of our Christian worship takes place indoors and it’s hard for men
to connect with the God of the sky, the God of the burning bush, the God of
the pillar of fire when they are sitting in a pew or sitting on hard metal chairs
under florescent lights. So that’s some of the things that we can do as
externals that will get more men into the church.
This
one is huge for pastors and I would really put a star by this one. Today’s
church is built on a classroom paradigm. We offer classes. We offer studies.
Our sermons are 30-minute lectures. There is so much emphasis on learning about
God rather than having adventures with God, and if we’re going to get more
men in the church that’s got to change. We have to go back to the discipleship
model of Jesus — instead of getting a large number of people together and
then imparting truth through verbal means, we have to get people in small groups
around the leadership of a man they know and trust.
I’m
a part of a group like that and it’s revolutionizing my faith because now
I have personal accountability, personal trust of other men in my life. That
model is actually revolutionizing churches around the country because men are
never going to come to maturity in Christ in a class-room. It takes intentional
discipleship.
Pastors
need to see themselves less as teachers and more as leaders of men. Leading
them to lead other men into maturity in Christ. We visited a church that’s
based on this model. [Powerhouse Christian Center in Katy, Texas] This pastor,
G.F. Watkins, about 10 years ago heard a call from God to start a church specifically
for men.
Instead
of starting a church in the usual way — which is to meet in a big building
with a large number of strangers — for a year he did nothing but disciple
12 men intently, involved intimately in their lives every day. After a year
he sent those men out to find 12 more, and he has built a very large, very successful
church based on that model. Every man who wants personal discipleship gets it.