: Brian Doyle
: Engage Building Your Church Based Ministry to Men
: Made for Success
: 9781613398937
: 1
: CHF 6.40
:
: Christentum
: English
: 100
: Wasserzeichen
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB

Engage answers the age-old questions:

What is it Men are looking for and Need in a Church? and

How do I build this Ministry?

ngaging men to lead at the local church level is one of the biggest overlooked opportunities facing America?s churches today. The needs of men in the church are being missed, and the health of churches are at risk.?Engage begins at a macro level, helping to build the vision for your church, to a micro level showing how to meet men at their deepest need; to engage in something powerful.

Written from the perspective of 5 men in church leadership,Engage provides the game plan for developing a powerful vision that drives the actions needed from overall men's ministry down to impactful men's small groups.

In each chapter, the authors have cut away the fat and delivered 100% Grade-A meat to your table.?Engage?is a systematic plan that answer those age-old questions using a strong biblical foundation that will help you assess your church and give you tools to both evaluate and create a successful plan of action.

When Men are engaged, churches flourish.



Brian Doyle(1956-2017), author ofThe Plover,Grace Notes,Cat's Foot, and many other books, was the longtime editor ofPortland Magazine at the University of Portland, in Oregon. His many honors include three Pushcart Prizes andForeword Reviews' Book of the Year Award. He won a Pacific Northwest Book Award in 2016 for his collectionChildren& Other Wild Animals. And in 2018 he was awarded that group's Indie Spirit Honor in recognition of his body of work and vigorous support of independent booksellers in the Northwest and beyond.

Vision for Ministry to Men and Through Men

By Ron Fraser

I want to start this chapter by asking, “Where are the men?” Where are the men who are spiritually alive—who have a fire in their bellies, a passion to grow toward God, a passion to grow as men, and a passion to grow toward other men? Where are the men who are willing to take bold risks in their faith, who will live out their faith through active involvement in the Christian community and active outreach to those outside the church community? Despite the fact that men dominate the pastoral staffs of most churches, a masculine vacuum exists within the church today. Men may attend services but tend to stay on the periphery, not really having the heart and passion for actively ministering to others. Lacking a feeling of connection to God and their church, most men feel inadequate to be the spiritual leaders they know they should be. Many men would rather abandon the church, either physically or emotionally, than deal with these feelings of inadequacy.

The Bible tells us that as Christian men and the spiritual heads of our homes we are called to do the following:

  • Honor Jesus Christ through prayer, worship, and obedience to his word through the power of the Holy Spirit.
  • Practice spiritual, moral, ethical and sexual purity.
  • Build strong marriages and families through love, protection, and Biblical values.
  • Influence our world by being obedient to the great commandment in Mark 12:30-31 which commands us to love God with all our hearts, with all our minds, with all our souls, and with all our strength, and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. We as men are also called to fulfill the great commission. It is important to understand that we cannot do one without the other.

The question we need to ask ourselves is, “How can we keep these commitments?” The answer is that we must totally surrender our lives to Christ as our Savior, develop a servant’s attitude modeled after that of Jesus Christ, and be a reader, hearer, and doer of God’s Word. For a man to keep the commitments listed above, he must pursue vital, trusting relationships with other Christian men, understanding that we need brothers to help us keep our Christian commitments. He must also participate in a Christ-centered, disciple-making ministry to men in his church. Although each and every point I have mentioned is important, allow me to focus and expand on the last one.

I am sure some of you are asking why a man must be involved in a ministry to men and why do you not call it men’s ministry?

The answer is that “men’s ministry” refers to and involves being in some type of program which is provided for a man’s involvement, whereas a “ministry to men” refers to our ability to impact the lives of men as a natural consequence of our walk with God. Therefore, I think it is important that we clarify what is meant by the word “ministry,” as it relates to men.

We must recognize how the world has negatively impacted and influenced most men and to understand our unique Biblical role as godly men in an ungodly world. We must know what God’s Word says about who we are, what we are to become, and what we are to do.

In recent years, many men have seemingly lost interest in church. These men are not necessarily opposed to going to church; they just do not see the church as being “male friendly” and relevant to them and their needs. Because of this, most men in our communities are spiritually detached. With no spiritual compass, they are in bondage to debt, trapped by pornography, and caught up in numerous addictions and sinful lifestyles. Men are confused about masculinity and are disillusioned by the false promises of wealth and power. Ma