An old song said: “The signs of time ring out the news, another day is through; someone slipped and fell; was that someone you. You may have longed for added strength, your courage to renew. Do not be disheartened, for I have news for you…………..it is no secret what God can do!” While the song was written by Stuart Hamblen, folklore has it that every man’s hero, John Wayne, having heard the lyrics, responded with: “It is no secret what God can do.”

The signs of this century are not great: wars and strife on every hand; violence; even Toronto the good is becoming Toronto the city of street gangs! More murders in 2005 thus far than any previous year in history! Addictions are getting proportionately worse and family breakup is as commonplace as matrimony. We are creating a generation of children who do not know that they are special to a Mommy and Daddy. Church attendance, growing significantly in the U.S., has plateaued and declined in Canada; Canadians attend church with one-half the frequency, as do our neighbors to the south. We have created, in Canada, a generation of political leaders who dare not pray publicly, dare not admit publicly to being Christian, dare not use God’s name in public, and dare not let their religious view affect their public policy decisions.

The church in Canada remains fractured and lacking in influence at both national and provincial levels. And look around the church. While many churches are showing signs of growth (and thankfully some Wesleyan churches are leading the way), that is not generally the case. Men typically avoid church, and those of us who do attend lack the enthusiasm that we otherwise display at a hockey game or a day on the golf course with the boys! In most churches, if the pastor didn’t win new converts or disciple new believers, neither would happen!

In looking around the typical church, those of us men who do participate seem to do so with a level of enthusiasm that would not encourage a secular employer to keep us on payroll! During the “worship time” the majority of us go thru the motions of responding to some of the music; rarely do we look energized by worship. During the prayer time we visit our place of business or our favorite recreational activity in our mind. During the sermon time, our minds drift to our activity for the rest of the day or the coming week.


God’s plan for men is simple: be the spiritual leader in the home, in the church, in the community; be a priest; go and make disciples; and go into all the world to preach the gospel. To men, the plan of Almighty God should be clear. And if men within the church actually embraced God’s plan, we would be seeing many more New Testament churches in our time. The New Testament Church was that which arose from the believers being filled with the Holy Spirit; and Scripture says: “thousands were added to the fold daily!” The NT Church was not reliant on buildings, hardware, and trained oration---just men willing to be filled with the Spirit---all else flowed from that!
As contrasted with what we so often see in churches in Canada, living a Spirit-filled life within the context of the Body of Christ is very exciting and is a wonderful alternative to what many men think of as “church”. There is no more exciting reading than what one sees in the Book of Acts! Love, miracles, joy, lives changed! Contrast that with a dose of the daily news on your favorite news show!


Effective Ministry to Men does some of the following things:
1. Challenges Men to a life of true holiness (being filled with and empowered by the Holy Spirit as in the book of Acts)
2. challenges men to progress in real time toward Christ-likeness;
3. teaches men how to form Vital Relationships with a few other men (the essential alternative to the typical, shallow “church lobby conversation”) which empowers men to hold each other accountable for spiritual growth and development (this was taught by Wesley himself);
4. Encourages men to mentor younger men, particularly in an age when so many young men do not have a consistent Christian father figure in their lives;
5. Helps men to apply, in practical terms, the excellent preaching that they hear on Sunday morning. Chuck Swindoll says “a man will not grow spiritually by simply relying on the Sunday morning experience;
6. Teaches men how to share their faith;
7. Teaches men the essential discipline of prayer and Bible study

The result of Effective Ministry to Men is that churches come alive, the life of the pastor is made easier and more joyful, the atmosphere of the church becomes more vibrant and exciting, and the community sees something happening there because they see something happening in the lives of ordinary people.

Many pastors and laymen think of Men’s Ministry as “the Saturday morning men’s breakfast” or “the men’s Sunday School Class ”. It can start there, but if that is all there is there will be limited life change. A man’s life changes from two things: an encounter with the God of the Universe followed by regular encounters with God’s representatives on earth who hold him accountable for growth and development in his spiritual life and direction. God’s representative on earth includes the pastor but cannot possibly be exclusively the pastor. Ministering to men in the way that Christ modeled it is time consuming, challenging, difficult, yet wonderfully rewarding. An encounter with the God of the Universe is critical but is only the beginning point; men have to hold each other up and hold each other accountable and cheer each other on.

Ministering to Men can be intimidating, but the good news is that there is a wealth of resources available to help to stimulate activity. Prior to the Promise Keepers movement there were a number of organizations offering help, but the PK movement has stimulated the growth and development of hundreds of resources such as: Focus on the Family, Dad the Family Shepherd; Fathers. COM; Promise Keepers (USA and Canada); On Target Ministries; Hockey Ministries in Canada; Athletes in Action; Christian Pro Golfers; Christian Bikers; Canada in Prayer; the Early Morning Men’s Prayer Network; Man in the Mirror; Coalition of Men’s Ministries; and the list goes on.

The local church cannot, in these days, respond to issues that men present without the use of outside resources. Pornography and sexual sin is rampant in society and amongst men; addictions of all sorts; family discord often with very complex issues involved; childhood abuse; career issues---all of these and many more issues require that the church coordinate resources for men.

In summary: the church without a vibrant ministry to men is missing the mark! God’s plan has been born out in history in that when men are won to the Lord, in over 90% of the cases the entire family will follow! But relying simply on the Sunday Service and traditional mixed worship experiences does not do it for men. The goal has to be to win them and to fast-track them toward Godly character. One need look no further than what Jesus did in his 3 years of ministry: He did not preach many sermons (although those that He preached were barn-burners); he did spend much time with a handful of men, teaching them how to pray, how to live holy lives, how to minister to others. And He knew that when they were eventually filled with the Spirit, they would need little else! And History records the results. Oh that we can see a similar movement amongst men in these days.