By Mark Irvin
Memphis Conference Staff
A few months ago I was speaking to a mature adult Sunday school class whose members averaged about 75 years of age. I mentioned to them that, according to Thom Rainer’s research, 65% of the people of their Builders Generation (born from 1910-1946) had professed faith in Jesus Christ.
I continued the report that 35% of my generation, the Boomers, (born from 1947-1964) had professed faith in Christ; that 15% of the Busters Generation (those born from 1965-1976) had professed faith in Christ; and that it’s projected that about 4% of the Bridgers Generation (born from 1977-1994) will profess faith in Christ.
When I finished those and other remarks, a gentleman on the front row deeply concerned about the church’s diminishing effect on younger generations turned, not to me, but to his long-time classmates, and asked the penetrating, searching questions: “Have we failed as disciples? Has our church failed?”
That is a striking question and a significant one to ask of ourselves! Couple this with the statistic that the church is presently retaining less than 6% of our young persons who grow up in faith communities. We use to expect that many of them would return to the church later in their young adulthood. However, that is not happening any longer as it once did.
These facts are distressing. Obviously, there is a crisis. How did we go from a church four generations ago that was reaching nearly two-thirds of the culture for Christ to a church that is now reaching about 4% of the people of our culture for Christ and retaining less than 6% of our young people? Have we failed as a church? Have we failed as disciple-makers?
Dan Schaffer of Wesleyan Building Brothers says clearly that we have failed. However, he says also that we don’t have to stay where we are. I say that’s always part of the good news offered to us in Christ! The reality of the situation doesn’t have to remain the way it is or continue to diminish.
Dan Schaffer, who is one of the four who started Promise Keepers, says that the issue to a large degree is the church’s failure to effectively impact men for Christ– and our failure to reproduce our faith and experience of God in the lives of others.
Schaffer says we have far too few Christian men who are becoming spiritual fathers who reproduce other Christians, even in their own families.
As the number of men who are regular participants in the life of the church continues to dwindle, the problem is exacerbated, resulting in even fewer children and fewer other men who are being impacted positively with the influence of the church.
Research demonstrates that it is men by far as a gender who have the most influence on how their children value spiritual matters. Interestingly, a 1994 Swiss government study shows that if a man is a regular participant in the life of a faith community while the mother is either an active, irregular or non-participant, their children are 12 to 22 times more likely to remain in that faith community as an adult. David Reed, a member of Martin First UMC, says pointedly, “As the men go, so goes the church!”
Wesleyan Building Brothers provides the means to address the crisis. It provides a pathway to spiritual growth that helps men mature in Christ and become spiritual fathers and mentors to other men who, in turn, become spiritual fathers to other men, reproducing their own faith and experience of God in others. Thus, the whole fruitful process of disciple-making and multiplication begins as Christ originally modeled it and called his disciples to emulate.
This has the potential to renew the church as men begin to take upon themselves the role of disciple makers as they become spiritual fathers to others. Dan Schaffer says that men are not spiritual fathers unless men make or reproduce spiritual children.
Now to specifics. For the church to be relevant to men, they need a safe, masculine setting in relationship with other Christian men where in time they feel comfortable enough to begin to open up and communicate the real issues and challenges of their lives.
Wesleyan Building Brothers provides that kind of small group setting which becomes the arena in which men experience spiritual growth which leads to becoming spiritual fathers and mentors to other men.
The Male Leadership Experience and Training – February 26-28
Dan Schaffer will lead the Wesleyan Building Brothers’ Male Leadership Experience (MLE) at our Memphis Conference Lakeshore Retreat Center from 11 a.m. on Wednesday, February 26 through mid-afternoon Friday, February 28.
At the MLE, men will be equipped to go back to their local churches and begin the process of establishing Wesleyan Building Brothers small groups. Participants in the MLE will also experience for themselves some of the dynamics of the Wesleyan Building Brothers transformative process.
Register now by phoning Debbie Colgrove in the Conference PMT office at 731-664-8480. Phone me at the same number for more information and discussion. The cost of the event will be $235.00 if you register by February 12 and $ 245.00 if you register between Feb. 13-19.
The fee includes two nights in Lakeshore’s NEW lodges, seven meals and materials. Two CEU’s will be awarded.
As I have become acquainted with the Wesleyan Building Brothers material and process including Dan Schaffer’s book, Spiritual Fathers, I’m impressed with the potential this has for a truly transformative, effective and sustainable disciple-producing ministry with men. It has all the elements for which we would hope including the following:
• small groups in which to experience Christian community and significant interpersonal relationships;
• reality of life relevance;
• a pathway for transformation and spiritual development;
• the development of local church leaders;
• faith sharing and witness;
• the intentional emphasis on becoming a reproducing Christian;
• the multiplication of disciples and small groups;
• and the Wesleyan concept of meeting regularly and holding each other accountable in love.
Nothing we’re now doing has more potential for making disciples of Jesus Christ and renewing the church than this. The commitment you make to be a part of the Male Leadership Experience has potential to produce in Jesus’ terms, “30, 60 and 100 fold.” •
David Reed
