Recently a church leader in my denomination told me that from his perspective, equipping the church for effective children’s ministry, youth ministry, and women’s ministry was a priority over men’s ministry. Many PCA pastors identify “men’s ministry” with the monthly pancake breakfast that only a handful of men in the church attend or with some needy layman who is always bugging them about needing "men’s ministry" because he attended Promise Keepers in the nineties. Furthermore, while “accountability partners” is a nice idea, most pastors and elders never had such “brothers” and are doing just fine.
So, why should they invest their valuable time and energy in men’s ministry?
Jesus assigned to his followers one mission: to make disciples. According to Scripture, there are two means by which disciples are made: the church functioning as an organization and the church functioning as an organism.
The organizational side of the church is quite structured and fits an organizational flow chart. Christ is the head of the church. Below him is the “session” i.e. the seating of the elders who govern the local church. The session oversees the teaching of the Word and the administration of the sacraments, which are the means of grace that keep Christ’s disciples growing. The elders also have a personal relationship with the members of the church, serving them as shepherds of the flock of God. But this is only one part of the proper functioning of the church to grow disciples.
The church also must function as organism. Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Eph. 4:15-16).
Disciples grow up into Christ the head by being connected with one another in a living organism called the body of Christ. This blob of Christians doesn’t lend itself to much of an organizational flow chart. Nor can this part of the church’s life be easily programmed because it is about relationships.
Notice Paul’s emphasis on every single member of the body being connected. The goal of the church as organism is to get every single member of the church into a relationship where speaking the truth in love is taking place.
Drilling deeper into this simple phrase reveals the significance and goal of men’s ministry. Every single member speaking requires a relational connection with a small enough group that everyone speaks, not just the Teaching Elder in the front of the auditorium. The topic of discussion is the truth, which in context, is the application of Scripture to everyday life. Love refers to the relational bond that grows from such connections. It is in such connections that the “one another” commands for Christians are lived out. Encourage one another, consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, confess your sins one to another.
Making disciples is sometimes mistakenly confused with the mentoring/multiplication discipleship training model (made popular by the Navigators.) Such programs function like basic training for Christians. They are excellent. But the design for the believer to continue growing up into Christ the head for the rest of his life, is not another dose of boot-camp or necessarily becoming a boot-camp trainer. It is having a connection to the body where speaking the truth to one another in love is taking place.
When men are not doing well spiritually, church leaders often default to thinking about the organizational side of the church. They either blame the elders for not shepherding the flock well enough or, they conclude that they need more discipleship training programs and mentors. May I suggest that quite often the real problem is that men are not connected in the body?
Men’s ministry is the church functioning as organism—men using their gifts to get other men connected with each other and talking about how the Word of God applies to their unique issues of obedience and responsibility as men.
Why invest in men’s ministry? Because God’s design for men to grow to maturity is not just the church functioning as organization—but as organism.
