Man Up
Nov 5, 2009 Uncategorized | Print This Post
I was telling my wife a story yesterday about a guy I was talking with and she said, “he needs to be a man!”
Earlier this week, I walked by a crew from our Welcome Team who were talking about the free stuff we give new people at Riv. They were looking at coffee mug options and one of them said, “we need to make sure this is manly enough…right Noel?”
Both of these moments made me smile. Why? Because men are missing from the church and when they do show up, they are (inadvertently) taught that being a man is a bad thing. Dare I say, the church has been sissified.
That’s why I loved this article I stumbled onto recently: What Men Need in a Church. Here’s a little excerpt:
A 2005 study, proved men need church. Since then not much has changed. In the study by Barna Research, 61% of men make no profession of faith in Jesus Christ whatsoever. That means that barely a third know who He is. What’s worse is that only one in seven of those men are plugged in to some type of discipleship program. And that would mean only one in eighteen men in America as a whole.
He then goes on and gives advice to churches on what men need to see in their church. Awesome stuff.
Oh, and on a related note, check out the marketing of this free small group book. Haven’t read it, but I’m going to. It actually looks like the kind of small group I would want to be in.
Oh, and on another related note, watch this:
ONLINE MANCAVE TRAILER: MANSWERS FOR LEADERSHIP AND LIFE from Deadly Viper on Vimeo.
November 5th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
I’ll point out that to my knowledge there are three different Life groups for guys now going at the church. We now have one on Mon. and two on Wed. This doesn’t include any of the Saturday stuff.
November 6th, 2009 at 1:17 am
We’re beginning our own version of Fight Clubs within the month. The gospel of Jesus Christ is worth fighting for, men!
November 6th, 2009 at 9:22 am
There are a lot of guys groups around here, for sure. Some I know about, most I just hear about through the grapevine. Many are not even on my radar screen, I’m sure.
Next month, we’re highlighting one of them in the program. It’s called “The Cigar Club.”
If you are looking for a group, check out this page.
November 11th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Hey Noel - Noticed that you picked this up from Deadly Viper. Just out curiosity, what’s your take on the criticisms from Soong-Chan Rah and others that they’re way inappropriately over the top with Orientalism? Prof Rah has been especially scathing in the discussion over on his blog, and I’d be especially interested to hear your perspective on the subject.
November 13th, 2009 at 11:57 am
I’m not familiar with Soong-Chan Rah or his criticisms of the Deadly Viper stuff. Sorry.
November 13th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Cool, thanks for the response anyway. Prof Rah teaches church growth and evangelism at North Park seminary in Chicago, and he does a lot of blogging (profrah.wordpress.com). I think he has a lot of good stuff to say about multi-ethnic churches and global evangelicalism. He just got involved in the deadly viper thing to remind us (and Zondervan) to stay conscious of this other stuff.