In his post You Will Never Guess Who Is Really Responsible For The Softening of Males In The Church, Mark Sayers shifts the blame for the current “sea of passivity” in modern males from feminism to men like John Newton.
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Grace Agenda Conference Trailer from Canon Wired on Vimeo.
This looks like good medicine. Guess I will have to settle for the MP3s again. You know Doug and Mark. Ben preaches at Doug’s church and his messages are simple yet profound. They really stick with you. I’ve read Nate Wilson but not heard him speak. I hear he’s also very good.
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One Good Friday at a Baptist church we used to attend, we were treated to the creepy sight of a mannikin onstage in a wedding dress. [1] The lady speaker (who is not the pastor) told us of a dream she had in which she saw the church as a bride. In the vision, Jesus was brushing the bride’s hair. Ew.
The content of this post has been revised and included in Bible Matrix II: The Covenant Key.
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[1] See Bloody Throne, Bloody Frontiers
[2] See An Atheist ‘Gets’ Baptism
“When I began to edit the film, something happened. I found I was being educated. And not just with arguments. I was watching a Christian life. I was seeing a Christian man.” —Darren Doane
Just watched The History Boys, a film based on an entertaining but self-indulgent West End play by Alan Bennett. Despite the fact that under Course Language and Sexual References it should also have a “gay theme” warning (but I guess that’s not politically correct), the film is hysterical is places and unwittingly highlights a fatal flaw in our culture.
The content of this post has been revised and included in Bible Matrix II: The Covenant Key.
“For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand.” 2 Timothy 4:6
A recent bestseller mistakenly tells us to be “wild at heart”, which results in passive wimps looking into their dark, little, empty hearts to find selfish, authoritarian rednecks. What men really desire is other men to follow—godly elders who are modelling Christ.
Bread is energising Alpha food (morning); Wine is intoxicating Omega food (evening).1 Young men are bread, ready to be broken. Breaking brings wisdom and maturity. Old men are wisdom-wine, servant kings poured out for the next generation.
The answer to geeky Christianity is not more Alpha Males (or less of them in some circles), but more of the Omega variety: fathers.
At study tonight, someone mentioned attending a Keswick convention where a wise old sage who spoke to the thousands was later not dining with the elite, but behind the counter serving the lunches, apologising for the wait. Now, that’s an Omega male.
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1 I recommend James Jordan’s lecture series, One Life, Many Deaths at www.wordmp3.com
“Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, like a mighty man who shouts because of wine. And He beat back His enemies; He put them to a perpetual reproach.” Psalm 78:65-66
“I’m a 30 year old boy.” Edward Norton, Fight Club.
Guns are dangerous. They are so offensive in fact, that they should be prohibited altogether. And male leadership has been abused so much, and women exploited for so long, that such headship should also be shamed and even prohibited. And alcohol. Alcohol leads to so much misery that it also should be prohibited. Oh, wait. That’s us.
The western church’s capitulation to feminism is part of the reason it suffers a creeping rigor. Why would there be any life in something that carries its own disaffected head (ie. the disconnected men) around like so much luggage? No wonder the men stay away from this freak.
The church can learn a lot from gangs. Really. Men join gangs for one reason: they want a father figure.
Many troubled men grew up without strong male role models. But these men do not turn to church because the congregations they’ve attended are predominantly female, and the spirit of the place feels so warm, nurturing and gentle. Men need a masculine path to Christ. Young men crave a wilder, more demanding faith, and don’t mind the spur of discipline when it’s administered in love.
What if our churches were structured differently? What if the basic unit of the church were not the committee, but the band of brothers? What if every congregation had men leading other men to maturity in Christ? What if these spiritual fathers were challenging young men, and sending them out on dangerous missions (as a gang leader might send out a young initiate)?
Today, a young single man 18-35 is the person least likely to show up in church. Do you think a church based on spiritual fathering might turn that around?
David Murrow
www.churchformen.com
