Collegedale Camp Meeting 2023: Expanding His Kingdom

Georgia-Cumberland Conference

Men's Ministry

Marty Miller

The Core of Men’s Ministry: Mentoring, Coaching, and Disciple Making

Well, let's get started with prayer, and we'll pretend the room is full.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for another day and just an opportunity to share with a few brothers about what I believe is really the sweet spot of all ministry, but especially men's ministry, and that is how can we really be effective on that one-on-one level.

So just guide and direct this conversation, and mostly Lord, that each 1 of us will listen to your still small voice to reach out to those that you prompt us to.

So as I was thinking about, you know, what I could share about men's ministry, I've got a lot going in my head, but just to go through all the details of the regular traditional men's ministry, I just felt like, let's 0 in on the most important thing, and that is on this disciple-making process, but in the context of one-on-one coaching and mentoring.

So I've just got a picture here to kind of illustrate the point, is that most men are isolated.

And what I mean by that really is, whoops, I think I must have some setting that's really not right.

I know I had it so it would automatically scroll through some stuff.

So anyway, like I was saying, what I find is, especially guys as we get older, 50 plus, most guys are finding themselves increasingly isolated.

You talk to a guy in his 70s and 80s, particularly when he drops out of the workplace, he's really not engaged in deep conversations or anything.

It doesn't have to be, but that's very typical.

A couple days ago my wife and I, we did a presentation at the Kentucky Tennessee Conference.

And our topic was intimacy being the super glue of a marriage and the home.

And there's 5 different levels of intimacy.

And what I see with most guys is they stay around level 1 and 2, maybe to 3.

And what I mean by that is level 1 is talking about the weather, talking about sports scores, you know, it's just really base level.

You get down into level 2 and 3 now we might be talking a little bit of politics you know where you might have some people get a little bit of push back that kind of a thing so when you get to 4 and 5 you're talking about you're sharing your pains in life you're sharing the really personal stuff where if you say certain things about yourself you might get pigeon-holed in a place you don't want to be.

Guys are going to hold their cards close and be reluctant to get to that level.

But what I found however with 1 on 1 if you intentionally ask somebody to engage they're much more open because they felt a friendliness that that you had a interest in them.

So this picture here represents that man that is alone or many times our younger men that are also kind of isolated because they're raising that family.

They just don't have the bandwidth to do anything except just go to work, go home, do it again.

Okay, so we got an overall picture, and I think Gary, you've seen this before, right?

I usually don't do any of this stuff and so I am.

All right let's see if it stays so these QR codes on here that's that's a way that if you were to, I know Gary you already get our email, but we have an email that goes out every week, there's resources that we provide for any guys for free.

But nevertheless, in our funnel in men's ministry we have, is this laser even working?

This is very Passive that doesn't involve any engagement with other people, but there's a large number like we've got 2, 500 people in our database and Out of that, you know, they could choose to even open email or not, right?

That's a large gathering of men Maybe a hundred guys something like that And when they come together, it's a tithe, you might say, of that larger number.

But still it's taking an intentional effort and you're starting to rub shoulders with other guys that are beginning this journey.

And then out of that, we encourage guys to get involved in small groups, which is a lot more intimate space.

And then eventually, you want to get to those one-on-one conversations.

And so all of this effort in men's ministry is to get to that final place, really.

So what I propose is instead of, you know, pastors and church leaders thinking of men's ministry as a program that is expensive, takes a lot of resources and time to plan these things, instead to just say, just go straight to the one-on-one.

It doesn't matter, if you've just got 1 man, you can do the one-on-one.

You could have no other man in your church except for the pastor.

I mean, just, and he could reach out to another man that's not even in his church.

It becomes kind of an evangelistic type thing.

And really, in the end, it is making friends.

So, the whole purpose here is to take guys that are struggling and isolated and to engage them in a way that is warm and caring and they see the meaning of that and they come out, not out, but you know, they grow in their walk with God to become strong men of God.

So on the right is the discipleship pathway that mirrors this, come and see, It's just kind of a larger invitation, follow me, now it's becoming more close, abide with me, and then be fruitful in me is when we really get to that leadership level.

That's a question that most people would have a hard time defining and many times I would like to say it would be easier to define if we got rid of the word ministry.

If we just said Georgia Cumberland Conference men, it's inclusive of every man, okay.

Whereas saying it's a ministry, now it's a select group.

So what I tell pastors is to really understand men's ministry is just to understand that You're a man, you have men in your congregation, you're a leader of that congregation, you're automatically a leader of men, whether you want to be or not.

And so simply what you want to do is, hey.

It's good we've got a girl here to balance things out.

So anyway, this whole idea of what men's ministry is is really simple when we're defining it the way I'm defining it today, okay?

So, but ultimately is to build strong men of God that will stand firm till the end of time through a program that's a discipleship program for men.

Okay, in a very general way, if we're excluding even Jesus from...

In our context, following Christ just like the disciples did and becoming duplicates to the extent possible.

Now what's the risk in maybe other realms, becoming a disciple?

Is it that you become kind of a parrot of that teacher, right, you don't think any longer?

And do you feel like sometimes church can be that way?

Do you think what is described sometimes or explained is this question-answer-question-answer kind of a thing, and I've got the thinking right and the words right, therefore I'm a disciple.

Okay, what else do we need besides words and thoughts?

Yeah, we're going to need to actually have a change in our behavior.

Men of Integrity: Overcoming Sex Addiction Through Small-Group Accountability

All right, so this next presentation we have, Gary is a new visitor to this class.

But anyway, so this next 1 here is a problem that I'm sure nobody in this room's ever had but a few other guys may have.

This whole idea of sex addiction and small group accountability.

But anyway, we've been in this community having recovery groups for better part of 10, get close to 10 years.

And it's probably 1 of the most significant things that we've done in men's ministry around here because it's given a place for guys that are struggling to go.

So anyway, we're going to touch on this from the standpoint of really this is warfare, you know.

Without saying any more, let's have prayer.

Dear Lord, thank you so much for being with this group of men.

I pray that you will come into this space, into our hearts, and speak through me as we look at this very important topic.

You created sex to be something that is beautiful, to be shared between husband and wife, and of course like anything good, whether it's food, music, Everything has been perverted by Satan.

And we just find ourselves surrounded by all of these temptations.

And it's only by your grace and power that we're able to go against that flow.

So I just pray that you will be with us in this endeavor right now in Jesus' name, Amen.

Okay, so just taking a look here, Men's Discipleship Mountain.

I always like to start with this because again what I see over and over is you're most vulnerable when you are drifting, isolated.

Addictions are really associated with isolation.

They've done these experiments with rats, mice, whatever, and If they give them, let's say, an addictive substance, an opiate, whatever, they will self-medicate and kill themselves if they're in isolation.

But if you put the same rats in a large area where they've got plenty of food, mates, toys to play around on and stuff and you give them, you know, heroin or whatever, cocaine, they will not kill themselves.

They won't even use it because they've got community.

So what we find is that the antidote, 1 of the key antidotes to addiction, any kind of addiction, is community.

So this illustration of the men's discipleship mountain works well because we're calling men out of isolation.

We might do it through, you know, social media or whatever, but nevertheless there's a way, there's an invitation.

Usually it's a person when it comes to this.

And then we're saying, come and see you get involved in some kind of a.

Meeting like this, and then the idea is you get into a small group where a recovery group in which somebody emerges as a leader themselves.

So that's really what we're going to be looking at here is this journey and how Satan has really done what he's done in this world.

So we got to talk about temptation and the root of all of this stuff and I think that is really important and I think a lot of recovery stuff doesn't get as deep into the spiritual stuff.

It's just kind of referred to as a higher power and stuff like that.

So we're going to get a little bit more into the spiritual arena, but temptation is simply a desire to do something, especially something wrong or unwise.

And we could call it the fork in the road.

You know, like in computing, you've got a 1 and a 0.

I remember in biology, you know when you when you're keying out an animal or a plant, you know It's like okay.

Okay, it's this you go this way Is it this or this and and you keep having these choices in front of you?

So every day of our lives and in particular today's world we have Continual choices to make and it's very stressful I remember being in a communist country actually was after the fall of communism in Bulgaria and you go to the grocery store there and for like toilet paper there'd be a whole long shelf for toilet paper but it's 1 kind you know communist rough wipes you know there's no choice when we have so many choices especially with our young people it's very difficult okay choices are good but they're also bad And when we have all of these choices, we're gonna make some wrong choices.

So, now this is not a very clear image, but I just want to throw this up here and I need to redo this slide.

But the Sorus character and danger of temptation.

And the pathway in James, if you've ever done that study, James 1, and it just kind of goes through it all the way to this verse right here, verse 15.

Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin when it is full-grown brings forth death.

It's like this birthing of a stillborn child, okay?

So the path of sin is we have an idle mind, that's the greatest thing that happens, doom scrolling, whatever, you know.

Temptation, contemplation, and contemplation leads to not just contemplation but pursuing.

Okay, it's not after you, now you're after it.

And then you've got the action, you got the cover up, the guilt, and then the consequences.

Okay, so this is really the path of sin, which also you'll see is the path of addiction.

So 1 thing that Doug and I can relate to, outdoor risk management.

So if you take a mountain, which is an objective danger, and then you have people, which are subjects, and they don't have the right training or skills, and the weather goes bad or whatever, there's going to be a great chance of an accident.

There's going to be something bad that's going to happen.

On the other hand, if you have people that are prepared, they're roped up well together, the conditions are good, they're being wise in their actions, the action potential, these 2 circles are not going to be overlapping very much.

So what we find with men is that we do not prepare young men when they're hitting puberty to really understand the big picture of what's going on.

Even if we do, the chances are they're going to still eat from this fruit, right?

So we've got beautiful women in the flesh and also in the pixelated form, and then we've got men that are in trouble in their marriage, there's conflict, and so the temptation is to abandon that marriage because it's getting too tough.

1 thing I would say to a man is if you're going through hell keep going.

Winston Churchill said that you know it's 1 of my favorite quotes you know You get on the other side of it, it's gonna be probably okay.

Now I know that you could be married to crazy, it can, sometimes it's hard to encourage somebody down that path when you hear some of the things, but overall most marriages will make it through and be better on the other side if they both want it.

So, are we preparing our young men to deal with sexual temptation?

Are we preparing our young men for dealing with temptation of financial debt?

Are we preparing our young men for dealing with substances and how to avoid it and to recover if they find themselves in a bad place?

So the addiction cycle is that you have a wounded self.

Now this goes way back to your past, okay.

Somehow in your past you were wounded, you've got shame in your life, you're covering up that wound, and then you've got to feel good.

And so most everybody, from the time that they are young, has been exposed to pornography and has gotten into that pornography masturbation cycle.

Goes to a ritual, start looking at porn, acting out the masturbation, and then moving on into despair, and then it goes around and around and around over and over and over.

Now some people have a an addiction cycle of very short time periods.

I mean some people it could go multiple times in a day, but then there's some that maybe months go by, or maybe even years go by, and they find themselves back in this because some kind of thing going on in their life.

But the core thing is, Gary you kind of were speaking to this in a sense, is that everybody wants to feel good.

And the problem is the world is full of anxiety and stress and worry and shame and all this stuff And if you have enough of that kind of cortisol and brain chemistry that's unhealthy, you go to what's quick.

And porn, masturbation, is in Christian circles the go-to drug.

Doesn't cost you really anything, but it does.

And then you end up getting deep into it, and you see how it's affecting your marriage, everything else.

So now here's the brain part that I was talking about.

You've got the center of the brain which is kind of a primitive brain you might say, the lizard brain, you know all your emotions, And then you've got the prefrontal cortex.

So we've got this chemistry involved here.

The adrenaline or cortisol, fear, anxiety, all of that stuff is going to cause that to build up in your mind.

We're designed to have this trickle of pleasure and dopamine.

But when you get so much of this stress in your life, you've got to feel good.

And you're going to go to a hit of something.

And you find out what your drug of choice is.

But This is just that cycle of addiction shown on brain chemistry.

The frontal lobe, prefrontal cortex, is like the brakes and steering.

It's the adult of your brain, and it matures at age 25.

The limbic system, the center of the brain, is like the gas pedal.

Series

Men's Ministry

Men of Integrity: Overcoming Sex Addiction Through Small-Group Accountability

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

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