a coherent collection of random statements regarding God, words and tunes

Since y'all are complaining elsewhere....

     Here's an adaptation of a report-back I wrote on another site, to keep things "current" until a few other items show up in the next couple weeks.... And it IS the thing I've been wrestling with the past couple weeks, so I suppose it's apropos....

    (Warning: Anyone offended or put to sleep by the idea of men's ministry should probably just move on, and I'll see you next week.... )

     Spent this past weekend at the National Coalition of Men's Ministries (NCMM) conference in Broomfield, CO, and came away with a number of conflicting/conflicted thoughts:

     1) Two... nay brethren, three... themes that were repeated regularly: a) The old men's ministry model ain't gonna get it done; b) Men's ministry (or "ministry to men," as it was regularly renamed) needs to be treated as ministry to all 100 (or whatever number) men in yr church, not just the guys who show up for an event or a small group; c) If y'r senior pastor isn't on board with all this, y'r sunk from the get-go. 

     2) And I can't count how many times guys there expressed their current "sunkness." Quote of the Weekend: "I wish we didn't have to be doing this" (i.e., doing the kind of discipling through parachurch that the local church should have been doing all along).      3) I would have to agree with the several conversations that began, "I don't want to bash the worship team, BUT..." Suffice to say they took their playlist directly from keynote speaker David Murrow's book Why Men Hate Going to Church. You know, the ones David mentions as the ones you DON'T want to play -- i.e., love songs to Jesus that make a man go "eek."

     3) One word that came up -- and that I couldn't disagree with -- was "ingrown." You had 45+ ministries represented there, and by and large, they were all using the other's ideas. That doesn't make them bad ideas, but it does make it a bit of a vicious cycle that needs breaking out of if men's ministry is ever gonna get out of the ghetto it's largely been in, at least in a local-church context.

     4) I'm pretty sure I've heard the term "father-wound" enough times to last me well into eternity now.

     5) Another observation that was hard to refute was the considerable repetition of any number of negative statistics -- 8 out of 10 guys not in church, 7 out of 10 addicted to pornography (c'mon, you can probably recite them too).... I'm not saying sweep the facts under the rug, but you did come away feeling like we've become more obsessed with the urgency of the matter than with trying to find solutions to it. 

     6) And yet here I am, feeling and probably sounding negative as all get-out. Go figure.

     7) So, turning the knife inward: Where does this leave me personally? Granted, I have the excuse of learning a whole new life 1,800 miles to the west, but I'm missing the retreat I'd started back in Jersey 10 years ago (and which will be meeting this weekend, this time without me ), and generally investing in other guys' lives any way I can. I had a good talk with a friend from church on the way home from conference Saturday, but that's arguably the first iron-on-iron session I've had in nearly a year. I'm bloody starving.

     8) And frankly, I could use some discipling myself. As arrogant as it probably sounds, I'm tired of having to figure it all out myself. And I've never fit into that old men's ministry mold to begin with (which, to my mind -- I'd probably get objections here, but this I'm talking practice, not philosophy -- is fix the behaviors rather than fix the heart), so it's probably not gonna happen there.

     9) Don't ask me about the final discussion I had at conference. Suffice to say it took out what little wind I had left in my sails.

     10) In short, there's some positives I can take away -- and hopefully some progress in areas that I contributed some legwork to on Friday, but can't make the ultimate call on -- but I'm still kinda bummed overall. I had higher hopes for the weekend, especially as it seemed as if were definite glimmers of hope going in. And to be sure, there's still some there. But honestly, I came away from the weekend more paralyzed than energized. At the very least, I need some more sleep.

     If you made it this far, thanks. Perkier stuff next week.

Posted by: burninglight at 17:31 | link | comments (3)