Reclaiming Men’s Ministry in the Church

Reclaiming Men’s Ministry in the Church

Oct. 14, 2024

Host: Dr. Jamie Mitchell

Guest(s): Brian Doyle

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 10/14/24. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Jamie Mitchell:  Welcome friends to another week and another episode of Stand in the Gap. Today I am your host, Jamie Mitchell, director of church culture at the American Pastors Network. One of my unique privileges at a PN is to study the evangelical church in America and talk to a lot of pastors nationwide. As you know, late in the fall, we will publish for the fourth year our state of the church report, which identifies concerns and trends in the church today. One of the themes that I’m working on for this year’s report is the absence of strong male leadership in the church. It’s not a new problem. Over the last four decades of ministries, I’ve experienced the need for growing and enlisting men for ministry, and it’s always been a challenge. It seems that women naturally have an interest in spiritual things and are much more enthusiastic about serving the church.

Jamie Mitchell:  And let me say from the onset that we thank God for Godly available and willing ladies who have blessed the church and continue to do so. Nevertheless, the scriptures are clear. We need men to step up and get serious about the Lord, to grow in their faith and aggressively give themselves to the work of Christ. As a pastor, I used to say there are three or four key issues that were a struggle in every church I’ve worked in prayer, giving, evangelism. And lastly and probably the most significant men’s ministry. Today we want to discuss why there is this void at times and how we can reenergize men’s ministry in the church today and start developing mature and godly men for the cause of Christ. To help me, I want to introduce a new friend to Stand to the Gap. Brian Doyle. Brian’s been involved with discipling equipping men since back in the original days of Promise Keepers, he has launched a ministry called Iron Sharpening Iron, and he works with churches, parachurch ministries that want to impact men. Brian, welcome to Stand In the Gap.

Brian Doyle:        Well, thank you Jamie. Good to be with you,

Jamie Mitchell:  Brian. Like you, I began really focusing on raising men in the church in the early 1990s and the heyday of the original Promise Keepers movement with Coach McCartney. It seemed to have peaked and then faded away, and we’ve gone back to the lackluster attitude towards men’s ministry. Can you share a brief history of men’s ministry, especially reminding us of what things were like when you first got involved in the movement and where we are today?

Brian Doyle:        Well, I’d be happy to. Yes. In the nineties we probably can all remember that, so I’ll focus on that, but I’ll just quickly mention that what we are going through currently started in really the industrial revolution. When men left home and went to work, they were no longer tradesmen and working the farm. They left home and went to work, and because of that, women needed to rise up. They needed to rise up into home and they needed to rise up in the church. And so we’ve been battling with that for better part of a couple hundred years. Now, what you saw in the nineties with Coach McCartney and Promise Keepers was just a little taste of what happens when the spirit of living God awakens men. That there are men out there who are Christ followers, who want to be used of God in their home, their church and community, but are quite happy if they’re allowed to sit in the sidelines and to let the church function without them.

Brian Doyle:        It’s not because they’re lazy. Maybe it’s a low because they’re lazy, but it’s primarily because they are not feeling, they’ve not been discipled. They don’t have a clear calling on their life, and the church does not seem to value them the way God did. And really what we saw in the nineties was a hint at seeing men as God sees them, nothing more, but certainly nothing less. And so promise keepers would challenge men to rise up, rise up on men of God, have done with lesser things, give heart and soul and mind and strength, and serve the King of Kings. And of course, I was part of that in the nineties and a great privilege, very grateful to God. I got that opportunity because I was involved with the navigators, was on staff of the navigators for years, and the navigators were asked by promise keepers as well as Campus Crusade to come alongside and help them because this Colorado ministry experienced the favor of God and all of a sudden became a national, even beyond national ministry.

Brian Doyle:        So I got involved from the navigator side of things as a discipler of men, and we saw men make very real, genuine decisions at these large stadium events. Well, 50, 60, 70,000 men where there was no football game, but there was masculine worship, there was biblical exhortation that was specific to being a man, and men were responding, genuinely broken, responding, committing themselves to start something, to stop something. And of course, coach Mack and the team would then point them back to their own local church, which is exactly where they went. They went back to the local church and were exhorted to take their time, their talent, their treasure, and be available to their pastor and serve their leadership team. We thought that that was the right thing to do, and I believe it was the right thing to do, Jamie, but honestly, because of the malaise and the decades of not engaging men in any meaningful way and really not discipling men, not ministering to men, not ministering through men, developing a church culture that could exist without engaged men, all of a sudden now we’ve got these engaged men who come back from a conference and look their pastor leader, church elder deacon in the eye and say, here I am, I’m ready to go.

Brian Doyle:        And we just did not know what to do with those men. We did not know how to follow them up. We did not know how to disciple them. We did not know how to put them to work in a meaningful way. We did not know how to equip them to be the leaders of their home. We just did not know what to do. We weren’t prepared. We, the local church weren’t prepared for that type of response. So that window of opportunity, frankly, that window came and went and closed. And that’s what happened during the Promise Keeper movement. It was real. It was a favor of God, but it ended.

Jamie Mitchell:  Well, Brian, as you were talking, I was thinking to myself that we have to be intentional. But yes, the church is the key. I watched it. I lived it. I was a pastor in the New York City area during those days. We took busloads to stadiums in Washington and Atlanta down to Washington dc but it was bringing them back and knowing what to do with them. I have to tell you, those were thrilling days and certainly raised the issue of the need for an effective men’s ministry in the church. We need to recapture that excitement. We need to re-energize men. There is a male drought in most churches today. When we come back, Brian is going to give us some understanding on what it takes to have an effective men’s ministry in your church during this break. Obviously, listen to our sponsors, call your pastor and tell ’em to listen.

Jamie Mitchell:  We’re going to give him some help to raising up men today. Well, welcome back. We’re talking with Brian Doyle from Iron Sharpening Iron Men’s Ministry, and we’re discussing how to reclaim men’s ministry in churches. Brian, I’m listening today. Let’s say I’m a listener and I’m a committed man in my church. I see a need or maybe I’m a pastor and I hear what we’re saying and you want to launch a men’s ministry. I have a number of questions about how to do men ministry. What should I do to get an effective men’s ministry started in my church?

Brian Doyle:        Well, again, you have to probably take a step back and determine why do I want to have a men’s ministry? What’s the point? What are we missing? What’s the vision for it? So I mentioned before we went to break that, the key thing for me as I’ve launched this and been part of it for now better part of 30 years full time, is that the vision is the key. It’s the vision of the church leader. It’s the vision of the man who wants to step up. The kind of guy you’re describing. It’s the vision of the church. How do we see the local church? So I’ll give you an example. Here’s a question that I used with some level of effectiveness, quite frankly. And since there’s not that much effective in men’s ministry, I want to make sure I share this and I ask pastors continually and your perfect pastors network, I ask them a very simple question and I try to do it in the most non-threatening way that I can.

Brian Doyle:        I’ll simply say, pastor, what do your numbers look like? Come Sunday morning. And most pastors are quite happy to share that they know the numbers and they’ll share. Let’s just say a pastor will share with me 300, give or take. I’ll go, okay, outstanding. Now just tell me, is that 300 individuals or is it 300 households? And he’ll look at me almost without exception, pause, possibly frown or squint his eyes, wonder what maybe I’m up to and he’ll say, no, that’s 300 individuals. And then I’ll follow up with, well, how many households would you say are part of your congregation? And then almost without exception, he’ll stop thinking he won’t know because he’s not thinking that way. Here’s my point, Jamie, we, I mean, I was elder, a local church for 12 years. I shepherded God’s flock that was under my care. I was on the team.

Brian Doyle:        That’s what we did. That’s the job of an elder. Well, who’s the flock that’s under your care? So here’s the question. An elder church leader pastor, is it 300 individuals or is it give or take 125 households? And then you have to come up with an answer to that and then you got to run with it. So I would maintain in my encouragement, and anybody who’s listening today, whether you’re a pastor or lay person, whatever your role is in a local church, is that your church is made up of households. Now, I was married for 30 plus years. My sweet wife passed away, but we had five children and when they were all home, there’s seven of us who all lived at the same house, all got in the same minivan or SUV, and we went to church together. We landed in that parking lot together.

Brian Doyle:        We walked that church together. There were seven of us, yet there was one of us because we all lived at the same place. We had one address back then the church would’ve, one email would’ve one phone number. There might have seven names, but we were a unit. And when, here’s the point, when a church leader, when a board of elders, when a pastoral staff looks at their church through the grid of households versus individuals, something happens. Well, first of all, I believe they’re seeing the church as God sees it. God sees the church as units, as households, as families, and when we see the church that way, we begin to see men rise to the surface, certainly in the view of the pastoral staff, the elder board, because you’ll sit around like I did at an elder board meeting. You’ll go, what’s going on with the Smith family? And you’ll say, oh, John Smith, how’s he doing? Because we recognize we all got the same Bible. We recognize that John is the head of the Smith family. He’s the only male on planet Earth who’s going to give account to God for his wife, for his children. He’s the only guy. The pastor has his own family. He will not give account to God for the Smith family.

Jamie Mitchell:  Wow, that is so good.

Brian Doyle:        Yeah, he may give account to God for how he did in discipling or not discipling John, but that’s ultimately the portal. See, John, we’ve got to see John as the portal to the household, not as an endpoint. And so you asked me where do you start? You start with having a vision of seeing men as God sees them, seeing men as portals to other people, not endpoints. Our tagline in Iron Sharps iron is building men with others in mind. I mean, it’s not about having a men’s ministry. I don’t really want to have a men’s ministry. That’s not what I’m trying to do. What I’m trying to do is equip and disciple men to be leaders in their home, in their church, in their community, be an ambassadors for Jesus Christ in their home, where it starts in the church that’s next and finally in the community, and that is what we do. And now what do you do? Do you have to have a breakfast? Yeah, you need to have a breakfast. You need to have some conferences periodically. You need to get men connected. That’s why we call the ministry Iron Shepherd’s Iron because women are naturally connected. Men aren’t naturally connected, so there’s got to be some stuff that you do. You create entry points, you create events, but they all are designed to build men into disciples and men need to be disciples. Someone needs to disciple a man with his family or future family in view.

Jamie Mitchell:  Great. Let me build on that. When I was pastoring a church, we used to call the church a family of families. I get it. I love that idea. There are many households that are led by women because of divorce or death or other circumstances, but we need to focus on men. And Brian, one of the things I’ve noticed, and maybe you can speak to this, is that discipleship needs to be kind of designed for the challenges and specific needs of men. Have you seen that? And specifically how do you meet those spiritual needs and challenges in a man’s life?

Brian Doyle:        Well, again, we’ve set something up that has made it hard. For instance, I was at a seminary last month talking to students, many of whom were in their early twenties, terrific young men. They had undergrad, decent undergrad, they’re now at seminary, they’re going to the pastor at work, but they’ve never really had a chance to be in the marketplace. I was urging those young men, as I do all the time, to take some time, get a job, work for an employer, start a business, do something so you’ve got some time in the marketplace so that you understand the challenges that your future constituency deals with every single day. And so that your future constituency understand that you understand because they don’t even know what you’re doing. I mean, you ask the average guy, what’s your pastor do during the week? He goes, I don’t know, but I’m sure he is very busy.

Brian Doyle:        Yet that’s because they don’t know what he’s doing. What’s important is that they believe that you know what they’re doing. And because you’ve been there and you’ve done that, I mean even look at Jesus, Jesus went into full-time vocational ministry when at 30 years old, he was a short-term ministry, but he worked as a carpenter for better part of 15, 16 years, and then he went and did his three years of ministry. That was God, his father’s design for him. That’s something that I would encourage anybody who’s considering vocational ministry, I left the marketplace at age 38 and went to work for Promise Keepers, worked for them for a better part of five years and started Iron Sharpening Iron. I had a huge advantage because I was in the marketplace for years. I understand men, I understand what it’s like to have unreasonable boss, have to balance a budget, have to get a new job, all those kinds of things that the average guy deals with every day. But many times people in pastoral ministry have not had the opportunity to experience. So that’s something that I think we’ve set ourselves up for failure when we’ve created such a disconnect between professional ministry people and the laity.

Jamie Mitchell:  And so pastors really need to, if they don’t have that advantage of actually working in the marketplace, they really do need to get a full understanding of what men are going through in the world today, the pressures of the workplace, the demands of time. I used to say this all the time to pastors to help them understand it. Look guys, we work in ministry 40, 50 hours a week, but the man who’s sitting in the pew, he’s going to work. He’s working 50 hours maybe more to keep his job. And so there’s a pressure on him. He’s traveling from home to work, he’s coming home, he’s got the demands of home. And then we at the church ask them to serve or go to a Bible study or show up on Sunday morning and all of these other demands, and just the time alone in a man’s life is such a pressure that they need to understand how to manage it, how to get through, how to be effective, how to be intentional, and it’s some unique challenges that we need to be aware of.

Jamie Mitchell:  Listen, friends, when we come back, Brian and I are going to discuss what’s happening in the culture today and some challenges that men are facing. Come back and join with us in just a few moments for Stand in the Gap today. Well, thank you for continuing with us. We’ve been considering the importance of men’s ministry in the church, Brian Doyle from Iron sharpening the Irons as our guest. Brian, before we go any further, would you just take a minute and tell about your ministry and how people can find out about iron sharpening iron, but also that there’s a major event coming up in a month or so for men’s ministry that they might be interested in?

Brian Doyle:        Sure. Well, Iron Sharpens Iron is a servant ministry, relate to the church. The church, if I could use a business term, is our customer, wherever we might be in the nation, we’ve got the visions of iron, sharps, iron that is coaching come alongside serving local churches, helping them mobilize their men, equip their men ministering to their men and ministering through their men. So we do a few things toward that end, but the most visible thing that we do, Jamie, is a one day men’s conference, but it’s an equipping conference. So it’s designed that a local church can bring all the men in the church age 13 and up. We have 16 different seminars at these conferences for guys of all different seasons of life. So whether you’re a teen teenage guy, whether you’re a grandfather, whether you’re married, whether you’re single, whether you got kids, grandkids, no grandkids, no kids, if you’re dealing with ger lust, whatever the issues are, they’re specific to men.

Brian Doyle:        We tackle them at any equipping conference. So you just go to ironsharpensiron.net on a conference near you, and we hope to see you there. We got iron, we got blogs, iron Sharp’s, iron, that blog. We got a podcast. We got a few different things that we’re doing. But I want to just emphasize that really we’re about the local church. I’m a church guy where it’s about the local church. We’re a parachurch ministry. We come alongside and bless the local church. That’s what we’re attempting to do now in Kansas City later next month, we’re having a national conference on ministry demand. You just go to n cmm national conference ministry men.org. You find out more than if you’re an emerging men’s leader or a pastor and you’re interested in building and discipling men. You want to come to Kansas City next month. But I’m all about the church. I’m all about the men. But there is a sequence to this process that God has laid out in his word, and I hope we can talk a little bit about that today. Talk

Jamie Mitchell:  Today, Brian. I want to address two elephants in the room when it comes to men’s ministry that I think churches are grappling with, and these are cultural issues, and some might say that the church is kind of a male obsessed evangelical Christianity, but over the last few years there’s been a push in churches to feminize its leadership. More churches are embracing the idea of female pastors and elders, deemphasizing the biblical priorities of men in leadership roles. What are you seeing and how does that affect men’s ministry? And then I have a follow-up question.

Brian Doyle:        Well, first of all, I mean like you said at the beginning of the program, God bless the women in our churches who are available and who are rising up and in your words of this program standing in the gap. And so I just am so grateful we bless those women, but that’s different than changing a biblical mandate. And so all you got to do is open up your Bible and say, yes, men and women created equal, but yet different. We’re different. We’re equal, but we’re different. We all have the same gifts. We’re all gifts of evangelism and gifts of leadership and gifts of mercy, but we have different roles. And as we open up the scriptures and we look at the mandates for local church, we see that God has designed a man to serve and a certain role in the home and in the church.

Brian Doyle:        So if you want, we can explore that a little bit. I like to take every man, I like to take him to one Timothy three and Titus one and say, Hey, these just aren’t qualifications for guys who are going to someday be in church leadership. These are the measurables for every single Christian man. Every man should be intentionally developing these qualifications, these characteristics in his life so that someday he may be available to serve the local church in a particular way. But this is part of the problem. We look around on the church leadership, we say, is anybody qualified? And we don’t know. We don’t have a great stock. And so we go with the goers, which there’s nothing evil about going with the goers, but what happens as soon as you make it possible for a man not to step into a serving role and you make it possible for him to sit on the sidelines, he will do that. He’s got other stuff going on in his life, and if you want to replace him with somebody else, then he often will open the door and welcome you to it.

Jamie Mitchell:  Yeah. I was with 2000 pastors last week and I had this conversation probably with a dozen or more of them, is that watching churches around them, not necessarily at their churches, but watching churches around them, that when they made the move to open the door for women to become pastors and elders, the consequence was men checking out men just saying, well, fine. That’s great. That’s your place now. You don’t need me. I’m going to check out. And so there is a sense that one of the reasons why men’s ministry is suffering today is some of the ecclesiastical changes that people are making within the polity of their church. And what they’re doing is they’re cutting the legs out from men’s ministry. Brian, there’s a second issue I want to delve into. And really this goes back a few years, and I think it still has had an effect on our desire to see men get raised up into leadership and to mature in ministry and take hold of the church as they should.

Jamie Mitchell:  There was a movement called Me Too, and it arose when men were abusive of women, which we wholeheartedly condemn. And so women though began to verbalize what had happened to them. And the adverse effect was that in some respects, all men were then labeled or viewed as abusive or toxic, and men began to hide, remove themselves from leadership and fear of being accused or falsely accused. And again, there were actual men who did mistreat women, but not all. How did that cultural issue lead to men being fearful about rising up and coming into leadership and taking on the biblical roles that God had for them? Did you see anything like that affecting men’s ministry?

Brian Doyle:        Just to a small extent, Jamie, here’s what I would say. In most local churches across denominations, you’ve got godly people and not godly people. You’ve got godly men and not godly men. You’ve got godly women and not godly women. That’s just true. And so if someone’s going to yell and scream and you’re going to give credence to it, well then that’s something you’re going to have to do. I would say this, the churches, we try to mass produce disciples. Our mandate, our mandate is to make disciples not to grow a church. It’s to make disciples the command of Jesus. He’s the commander in chief. It’s to make disciples. We’re not really making disciples. I can tell you that as far as men, there’s very little disciple making going on in the church. And it goes back to really back to that constituency. Are we a bunch of individuals or are we households When we invest in men, that’s what it is.

Brian Doyle:        It’s an intentional investment. When we invest in men and we make disciples, we make men who have a heart for God, have a heart for his word, have a heart for people who know how to share their faith, know how to be established in their faith, who understand theology, and we’ve developed these. We’ve built men. We like to use the term building. Men when we’re building them, godly men, everybody wins. But going to church does not make you a godly man. Going to church just makes you someone who goes to church. What we need to do is to build godly men, and there’s a starting point, a sequence. If we just quickly just take you through that, that there’s a sequence as we open the scriptures of building godly men and where they influence. And really it starts in the home. It starts with a marriage.

Brian Doyle:        If a guy’s married his wife is his primary responsibility. If they have children, then together, then those children are his primary responsibility. You see it in one Timothy three in Titus one. It’s a qualification for a shepherd. We’ve got, guys, you probably realize this. We’ve got guys who are serving in leadership and local churches who have not hit that qualification. They’ve not discipled their own children, their own children are not walking with God. That’s the starting place for a man of God. And then so we need to teach men to be ambassadors for Christ in the home. Then we can teach them to be ambassadors for Christ outside the home, the church, and the marketplace. But we’ve got to equip men, disciple them to be ambassadors for Christ in the home, not do it for them. Again, you talk about the femininity of the local church, the professionalism of local church. Bring your kids to us. We’ll take it from here. Bring your wife to us. We’ll take it from here. It’s not working. I mean, the data, the data is out there. It screams at us that it’s not working. We’ve got to follow the scriptures and do it the way that God intended.

Jamie Mitchell:  Amen. Brian, I’ve always said this, that as a pastor, all the preaching and all the teaching we do, if it just becomes information and doesn’t lead to transformation, I have failed. And when I talk about transformation, exactly what you’re saying, that men would be men, they would be godly men, they’d be husbands, fathers, coworkers, leaders. Look, these are difficult issues and these are things we need to address, but with God’s help and walking in the spirit and following the scriptures, we can impact men when we come back to this last segment, some more practical steps on igniting men’s ministry in your church here on Stand in the Gap today we’ve been talking with Brian Doyle from Iron Sharpening Iron’s, men’s Ministry. Make sure you check out his website, check him out and see all the different resources he is had. But also he mentioned that coming November 14th through 16th in Kansas City, there is the National Conference of Ministry to men.

Jamie Mitchell:  And I want you to find out about that Pastor, maybe a leader in your church would be interested in that. And I think that would be a great thing, especially if you want to start to energize your ministry. Brian, as we finish up this last segment, this is our lightning round. I got a number of practical questions I’ve been thinking about. I’m a man. I go to my pastor, I say, I want to start a men’s ministry. He says, okay, you identified 3, 4, 5 men. What do you do with them? Do you get together a specific time? How often do you do a Bible study? Do these men need to be just men together? Give me just very quickly the practical side of getting a men’s ministry going.

Brian Doyle:        Yeah, good. So yes to men. Most every church has small groups of some sort. Yes, we love small groups. What you’re talking about is a small group of men, which would be ideal. And so if you have a couple guys you can meet early for a cup of coffee Tuesday morning at six 15 before things get rolling and you’re not messing with your family or your work schedule, do it. I would also say, Jamie, that another option. If you’re already in a small group that meets on Tuesday nights at 7:00 PM well take some of those guys and to break off part of that 7:00 PM Tuesday night just to be some guys, so you’re building some comradery and some confidentiality, and you can actually have some honest conversations or maybe have your small group, if you have couples and singles meet every other week, and then the off week, you just bring the guys together because what we’re talking about is relationships and building brotherhood.

Brian Doyle:        Discipleship is relationships. And most men do not have significant brotherhood with the guys of their church. They’ve got acquaintance level friendships. I think of Proverbs 18, A man of many companions may come to room, but there’s a friend singular who sticks closer than a brother. Many guys have those friends when they were younger in their teens and twenties playing sports in the military, but then they got married, they had some kids, got a mortgage, got a job, and all of a sudden that type of friend is in past history. So we do need to get men connected. That’s how we grow as disciples.

Jamie Mitchell:  Brian also speak for a moment to the pastor or the church leader that’s listening about using men in your churches. One of the frustrating things I remember about my own dad here was this very capable, wonderful, godly man. And the best that they could do was throw a bulletin on him on Sunday morning and stick him out a front door. And never challenged my dad to do anything of significance in the church. That’s one of the problems that we see in the church, isn’t it?

Brian Doyle:        Well, I mean, I could tell you all kinds of stories like your dad, and it’s not a good thing what we’re looking for. There’s a place for a guy for a season to be a greeter at the door. But what we’re looking to develop men, so we’re looking to co-labor with God. So pastor, look to co-labor with God, invite men to certain challenges. Here’s what I would do. I would invite men to your study at 6:00 AM on a Wednesday morning for six weeks, just so that you can dig into their life. Maybe take a book of the Bible. First Timothy, go into it together, select these men. Don’t be afraid of selection. Jesus did selection. Selection is biblical. Favoritism, not so much, but selection. Select some men. See who rises up. Find out who’s ready. I like to use the acronym, FAT, faithful, available, teachable. One of your jobs as a pastor, you’re looking for the guys who are faithful, available, and teachable. You invest in these men in such a way that they can then invest in others. You’re not the only guys disciple men. You’re discipling men so that they can disciple men. Your job is to make disciples who make disciples. But you start with looking for co-labor with God, with a half dozen or so faithful available and teachable men.

Jamie Mitchell:  And one of the things I did as a pastor, which I kind of fell into it was by accident. I wanted to pray on a Sunday morning before I went to preach, and I was looking around the lobby and all of a sudden I saw some men and I just said to them, Hey guys, come on back here. And I pulled them into a back closet and they weren’t leaders. They were just men in the church. And they were so overwhelmed that I would ask them to pray for me before I preached. And I watched men rise up, men who didn’t even pray publicly all of a sudden, and it became a significant gateway for men growing. One other thing before we run out of time, speak to the issue of impacting young men in the church and the importance to do that. And is there some ways that churches can really start to impact young men before they get into the foolishness of their adolescents and even bottom out when they’re young adults getting themselves involved in all kinds of things that will distract them spiritually?

Brian Doyle:        Well, I mean, it goes back to, like I said earlier, our conferences are for men of all ages, not boys or men of all ages, age 13 and above. Now you’re going to have to develop, if you’re listening today, you’re going to have to develop your own conviction. When does a boy become a man? I’m just going with the Bible. I’m looking at the Jewish tradition, and I’m picking the number 13. So you pick a number you want. This is where our wonderful youth ministries, our world-class youth ministries, which have a place in all local churches, can’t backfire because what we’re doing, we’re grouping those young men and women together in such a way that they’re not learning from their mentors. So what we need, we need some guys who are inviting the young men, the high schoolers into the men’s ministry and not waiting to hopefully they’ll graduate and stay with us. The truth is, Jamie, they’re not two out of three high schoolers and our evangelical Bible teaching churches are exiting after high school. We’ve got to change the way we do high school ministry. We’ve got to get the men of the church into the high school ministry. We’ve got to get the high school ministry into the men of the church.

Jamie Mitchell:  Wow, that is fantastic. Brian, we’ve got a minute left. What’s the long-term benefits? Speak to the church leaders. Speak to the pastor. What’s the long-term benefits if tomorrow he would start to become intentional and focused on developing and equipping men?

Brian Doyle:        If I take over and I’m hired as a pastor or pastoral staff and local church tomorrow, I’m doing what I’ve already hinted at. I’m looking for where God’s already at work. I’m not trying something that’s outside of where he’s already working. I’m looking for guys who are surrendered to the Lordship of Christ and I’m coming alongside and I’m multiplying my life, spiritual reproduction. I’m reproducing. I’m really discipling one or two guys at a time with the idea that I’m doing it in such a way that they can then do it with someone else. Much of church ministry, men’s ministry included is a ministry of addition. We’ve got to look at the example of Christ. Got to look at an example of Paul and we’ve got a multiplier like find the men in your church who are ready for more right now, October, 2024. Be intentional to invest in them so that they can invest in others.

Jamie Mitchell:  Amen. Brian, thank you so much for today. I truly believe that one of the major indicators of a healthy church is a growing men’s presence. In that church, we need men, Sunday school teachers, worship leaders, greeters, small group leaders, prayer warriors. When we see that, we’ll see healthy families and communities, and to do that, they’re going to need courage. So as I say, at the end of every one of my programs, live and lead with courage. Thanks again. See you back here in 23 hours for another Stand in the gap today.