Men aren’t the churchgoers that women are. A 1982 study by the Princeton Religion Research Center shows that 45 percent of the adult women in the United States will attend church in any given week. Only 35 percent of the men will attend. The “women and kids” caricature of Christianity refuses to die.
It’s dangerous these days to suggest that one sex should be treated differently than the other. Especially if it’s preferential treatment. But when it comes to a strategy for church renewal, I believe discipling men is an important key.
While pastoring in Miami, I saw what a ministry to men could become.
Jim Murray was an executive and a father of six who split time between our fellowship and a Roman Catholic parish. After sweating together on the tennis court, we would converse over soft drinks, share our struggles, and pray for each other. At the time, Jim was discouraged because of his rebellious teenager.
Jim’s faith grew as he saw the Lord specifically equip him to deal with his child. And the teenager began to turn around. When he asked me if he should leave the Catholic parish, I encouraged him to stay there to minister.
Then Jim faced step two in his growth. Gordon, one of his employees, was stricken with cancer. Jim was reluctant to see Gordon in the hospital, but when he sidestepped his fear and finally went, he surprised himself by grabbing Gordon’s hands and saying, “Let’s pray together.” Each visit after that, Gordon asked for prayer by reaching for Jim’s hands when he rose to leave.
When Jim asked me to witness to Gordon, I replied, “He is your disciple. You have a relationship with him. He trusts you. The Lord has given you the privilege of leading Gordon to Christ.” I equipped Jim with the necessary witnessing steps.
A rabbi was present on Jim’s next visit. Jim was relieved. He hadn’t known Gordon was Jewish, and now he felt he was off the hook in having to witness.
When the rabbi left, however, Gordon wanted to talk about salvation, and that night Gordon gave his life to Christ.
Jim and his wife were with Gordon on the night he died. Seemingly unconscious, Gordon reached for Jim’s hand, and they prayed together one last time. Through this time, Jim and I continued to meet weekly. He asked me many questions about ministering to his family, to Gordon, to his employees. Because I supported him rather than preempting him in these relationships, he was learning to minister himself rather than relying on the hired professional.
His next step of growth came when I placed Jim as the team leader of six men who had asked to be discipled. Jim met with them corporately and individually and learned to disciple them as I had discipled him. They met as a part of several teams under my weekly teaching.
Jim was petrified when his priest asked him to lead a series of six Lenten men’s breakfasts. He was full of questions. What Bible passages should he use? What should the time structure be? How should discussion questions be framed? How could he answer difficult questions? I continued to counsel and pray with him through this ministry opportunity.
Expecting fifteen men, Jim was overwhelmed when over fifty appeared each week. They were excited about the Bible and wanted more. Would Jim teach them? Jim was amazed at how God was using him.
About then Jim introduced me to his priest, and a trust relationship developed between us. Eventually Jim and his wife, Nancy, were ministering to more than 100 people in the parish each Sunday night. They recruited and trained the small-group leaders and assumed some of the teaching load. The priest was awed that this quiet Irishman had become so adept and confident in just a year and a half.
When I moved to the Mayflower Church on the Monterey Peninsula in 1976, I brought with me the lessons I’d learned from watching Jim Murray. I sent a letter to each man in the church explaining my intent and inviting men to pray about a yearlong commitment to study, pray, and grow with me in the spiritual life. I left it up to them to take the initiative to contact me.
We started with six men, meeting from six to nine-thirty on Thursday evenings. We’d eat dinner, share our lives, exchange prayer requests, and then spend the bulk of the evening in a teaching and discussion time. In six months, we covered six topics: the new covenant, spiritual warfare, how to enable your wife to grow spiritually, how to be a people helper, basic doctrine, and a study of Robert Coleman’s Master Plan of Evangelism.
After six months, we repeated the studies, adding six new men. For the original six, the material was repeated, but it wasn’t redundant. Each one said he got more out of the discussions the second time than the first. Plus their main focus was on helping communicate the principles to the new group. We’ve continued the overlapping groups ever since, adding a new group every six months. Forty-two men have now gone through the training, and several are leading groups of their own.
In addition, I spend considerable time meeting with men one-on-one. Between fifteen and twenty hours each week are spent ministering to men.
At times, my decision to focus my ministry on men has been costly. In a church of 250, dozens of voices clamor for the pastor’s attention. I found I simply couldn’t fulfill all the expectations for visitation, administration, and counseling. These ministries are important, and when I turned them down, it brought criticism, especially in the early years at the church. I had to make tough decisions about what kind of ministry I would have. I decided to stay with what I do best-work with men.
I realized that if I reached a child, I rarely reached his parents. When I reached a woman, I infrequently reached her husband. But when I reach and disciple a man, invariably I’ve reached his whole family.
Men are our largest group of unreached people. I want to concentrate where the need is greatest.
Interestingly, no cries of neglect or sexism come from the wives of men I’ve touched. In fact they’re the most enthusiastic supporters of the discipleship groups. One wife told me: “I was never submissive to Jeff, but I’ve seen a change in him. He’s become tender with me, and I’ve seen his openness to the Lord.”
We make sure the men share what they’ve learned with their wives. In fact, it’s a weekly assignment. Within forty-eight hours of our session, each man must have a date with his wife to teach her everything he learned from me. They report back on the questions their wives are asking. Besides making the men listen more closely, it begins strengthening marriages.
Once a pastor decides ministering to men is indeed his ministry gift and decides to make men his priority, ministry becomes less congested, more concentrated. He isn’t spread all over the landscape but is free to develop creative alternatives to the methods traditionally imposed on men’s ministries. The following are those I’ve found most effective.
1. Recreation time. Walks, tennis, vacations, electronic games, fishing, movies, and Ping-Pong free us for a brotherly relationship. We are free of task, able to be comfortable with each other, laugh together, and discover each other’s nooks and crannies.
2. The working world. Pastors usually see men only on the clerical turf where we are in control. I learn more about men by seeing them at their job sites. I discover their areas of expertise and discouragement. They are impressed that I care to invest the time, and we become much closer. I have been with carpenters, ophthalmologists, public utility employees, pharmacists, military officers, and insurance salesmen.
3. Autobiographical retreat. A daylong Saturday retreat begins each six-month discipling group. Each man has a half hour of uninterrupted time to tell anything about himself that he wants. I set the tone by confessing my life’s failures, sins, healings, and values. The others reflect that transparency, and soon we all feel knitted together because we see how much we’re all alike.
Invariably newcomers protest, “I can’t talk that long about myself.” But we say, “Only because no one has listened.” In five years, only one man has finished before his time was up. We wind up having to cut everyone else off. With the right atmosphere, men are eager to share personal thoughts.
4. Marriage retreats. Men feel less adequate in their marriages than in any other area of their lives. They are shy in asking for help. Thus, my wife and I take couples on weekends where we openly discuss our struggles, our growing intimacy, and how we work hard to keep our relationship fresh. A man is equipped to lead God’s flock only to the extent that he has learned to spiritually enable his own family members. My practical sharing from my own pilgrimage is an important step in giving men permission to ask for help.
5. Being specific. Men want to know how a thing works, not a litany of sales promotions. Whether it be a new car, a job, or a relationship, men want practical helps. Consequently, I share the how-to’s of relying on Christ, resisting the Devil, being intimate with one’s wife, counseling, discipling, and other ministries. Each man immediately applies the teachings to his life. Supportive accountability is provided for his expressed goals, which he alone establishes. This encourages men to assume responsibility for their lives by being doers of the Word, a crucial step in discipling men. Men respond well in an environment where all the brothers are applying the Word specifically rather than hiding behind abstract propositional truths.
I have discipled men in large and small congregations. Men’s needs are the same everywhere. They want an honest place where there is no spiritual, relational, or vocational pretense. If a man has such a sanctuary during his twenties and thirties, his midlife crisis is less painful. Men want a place of acceptance where they can talk about anything and everything. I try to be a loving father in their lives. I receive them without spoken or silent judgment. And they thrive. Laughter, prayer, and encouraging words are some of the best discipling tools.
I am convinced that men want a gospel with teeth, but not one that bites. They want to be stretched, yet they need an environment of grace, liberation, and Christ’s authentic power. Men have been reached and equipped with a process tailored to their unique needs. Many of those who were once passive are now bold in Christ. They are becoming responsible leaders and witnesses in their homes and jobs. And they have become deacons, teachers, disciplers, evangelists, elders, small-group leaders, worship leaders, and ministry coordinators.
Yes, the minister to men must pay a price to concentrate his ministry this way. But the results of seeing men grow in Christ are worth it.
-Cliff Stabler
Pacific Grove, California
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