United Methodist Men hear call to lives of prayer, service
7/17/2001 News media contact: Tim Tanton · (615) 742-5470 · Nashville, Tenn.
NOTE: This report has two sidebars, UMNS stories #316 and #317. Photographs are available.
By Tim Tanton*
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (UMNS) -- Four thousand United Methodist men have embarked on a journey to become more Christ-centered in their lives, and in the process to strengthen their churches and bring more young people into Christian adulthood.
The starting point of the journey was the United Methodist Men's 8th International Congress, July 13-15, at Purdue University in West Lafayette. In virtually every detail of the congress, the churchwide Commission on United Methodist Men made it clear that a new day has arrived for the denomination's men.
"We have a vision for United Methodist Men," the Rev. Joseph Harris, top staff executive of the commission, told the congress. "... We're going on for Christ, and we're going to be stronger men for Jesus Christ than we've ever been."
Meeting with the theme, "2001: A UMMen Odyssey/Christ's Men in the New Millennium," the men got fired up through preaching from well-known speakers such as Promise Keepers founder Bill McCartney, evangelist Tony Campolo, U.S. Rep. Tom Osborne (R-Neb.), and educator and author Maxie Dunnam, as well as through songs, workshops and fellowship. The congress is held every four years by the commission, based in Nashville, Tenn.
During the weekend, the men were challenged to make four commitments: to call and equip other men to grow spiritually; to form local church groups to support the pastor in prayer and service; to build a "biblically accountable" relationship with one godly friend and to encourage men to build cross-racial friendships; and to focus on keeping young people in the church and leading them into Christian adulthood.
Harris cited data by the Barna Research Group that underscored the importance of men's roles in the spiritual lives of their families. When a man is the first person in the family to go to Christ, the rest of the family follows 93 percent of the time - a far greater percentage than is the case when either a woman or child is first, according to Barna.
"The ministry of United Methodist Men is critical to the health, growth and future of the United Methodist Church," Harris said.
The commission has a goal of 1,000 new group charters by next July, and it will not stop until every church has an active men's group for Christ, he said. District and conference men's presidents, meeting for training during the congress, pledged to start three new groups in each of their areas, which would create about 250 charters, Harris said.
"We're asking those charter units not just to be a reflection of a civic service club, but to be a discipling unit to reach men throughout the church," he told United Methodist News Service.
Harris will also be working on strengthening global men's ministries when he attends the World Methodist Conference in Brighton, England, this month. "We will be presenting a resolution to the conference to establish the World Fellowship of Methodist and Uniting Church Men. It's an organization that we've been working on for the last three years." When the fellowship becomes official, he will serve as its volunteer president.
The new direction of United Methodist Men was affirmed when the National Coalition of Men's Ministries presented the commission with the Men's Ministry of the Year award. The coalition consists of 40 denominations and parachurch men's ministries. The commission is the second recipient and the first mainline denominational men's ministry to receive the award, Harris said.
A new United Methodist Men's video, "The Dropped Baton," reported that 70 percent of American youth leave the church before they graduate from high school, and that most boys and girls born after 1986 will never know Christ.
"The mission field is now in our own backyard," the narrator said. The video noted that before men can teach about Christ, they must know him not just in their heads but also in their hearts. That need to know God in one's heart was emphasized throughout the Congress.
The event took on the tone of a tent revival at times, as speakers urged the men to spend more time in prayer and drawing close to God.
"Men, I want to lead you tonight into a quest for God's heart," McCartney said in the opening session. He urged them to press close to God.
"Hey men, do you know that restlessness that you feel and you can't quite identify it? That restlessness can only be solved through intimacy with God," he said.
McCartney, former University of Colorado football coach, related the dynamics of a locker room to the spiritual quest. The first dynamic is one of relationships. The men share a fierce passion for the game and reinforce that in one another, just like iron sharpens iron, he said. The second dynamic is reassessment, which occurs at halftime as the coach determines where the team is in the game and focuses the players on achieving victory. The third is resolve, as everyone on the team unites with intent to win.
He used the Lord's Prayer to illustrate those three dynamics of relationship, eye-on-the-prize assessment and resolve to do the hard work. When he reached the passage in which the prayer asks God to "deliver us from evil," he noted: "All of us are at risk spiritually." If men don't hear God's voice in their lives, then not only are they at risk but their households are too, he said.
"I've gained an intimacy that I will never give up," McCartney said. He believes that God wants every guy to have time to reach down and grope for the Lord, he said.
Campolo gave the men a familiar example of that search for intimacy, relating that Methodism founder John Wesley "didn't get it" at first. Wesley had been in ministry, studied the Bible, served as a missionary in Georgia, and done all the right things, but he hadn't really experienced Jesus, Campolo said. Then Wesley wandered into a prayer meeting off Aldersgate Street in London and, as he later described it, felt his heart "strangely warmed."
Campolo described how he prays in the morning by saying Jesus' name repeatedly, driving everything else out of his mind to focus on Christ. In the stillness, he waits for Jesus to envelop him, he said. He asked the men when the last time was that they gave God five minutes of stillness, asking only for Jesus to heal them and allowing the Holy Spirit to explode inside them.
"What happened to Wesley at Aldersgate can happen to you," he said. "If you wait patiently for the Lord, it will happen."
When it does, the experience will create an intensive commitment to meet the needs of the poor, Campolo said. He recounted Wesley's dictum to work as hard as you can, make all the money you can, spend as little as you can and give away all that you can. He challenged the men to support the Society of St. Andrew and United Methodist Men's campaign against hunger.
The men did contribute more than $250,000 to the commission's general work, the hunger initiative and the United Methodist Men Foundation, Harris reported after the congress.
Osborne, a Congressman and former coach of the Nebraska Cornhuskers, told the men that if they begin serving Christ with their time, talent and money, "then you'll begin to find your life."
Through serving Christ, a person finds that life has a sense of purpose, meaning and mission, he said. One begins to develop a sense of assurance about life; receives strength and courage; and begins "to have some sense of what grace is," he said.
"I really feel that right now, we're engaged in a huge spiritual battle," he said. "It's not something that's casual. It's all-out warfare." The outcome, he said, is "going to hinge on our men."
In one of four breakout sessions on journey themes, the Rev. Terry Teykl of Houston urged the men to become "God chasers." God chasers, described in a book by Tommy Tenney, have a thirst for God that cannot be quenched, Teykl said. They aren't satisfied with truth, but they want a revelation of God. A key part of being a God chaser is having a desire to pray, Teykl said.
"The issue is that there is more of Him for us to know, and one of the most desperate needs of the United Methodist Church is to have more of God," he said.
Speaking during a general session, the Rev. Jonathan Jonas, of Sulphur Springs United Methodist Church in Jonesborough, Tenn., urged the men to strengthen their connection with one another and to make the church a place of love.
He noted that connections are often formed by elements that are in tension with one another. That's true even in the church, he said, citing contemporary and traditional, Reconciling and Confessing, liberal and conservative, young and old. The odds are good that some of the men are former Ku Klux Klansmen and that others have suffered the ugliness of racial discrimination, he said. He mentioned sexual orientation as another point of contrast.
It's not enough that men be connected in their heads or with their hands, he said. "Jesus demanded that we be connected at the hearts."
In the final session, Dunnam, president of Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky., told the men to work for spiritual renewal in the denomination. "Could it be, friends, that our problem is a simple one, that we don't spend enough time on our knees?"
He told the men they mustn't cease seeking to reinvigorate the church. "We must stand against those who would diminish the authority of Scripture," he said. He told the men to not tolerate those who violate the doctrine of the church, not cease standing up for the Boy Scouts and not back away from supporting the church's bishops and other leaders, he said.
During the closing worship service, Indiana Bishop Woodie White urged the men to tell others the story about how Jesus has changed their lives. When Christ was transfigured on the mountaintop, his disciples wanted to build a memorial there, White said. They were focused on the mountaintop, but Jesus knew they had to prepare for the valley, the bishop said.
"It would be good if we could just stay here at Purdue on the mountaintop," White said, "but the work begins in the valley - in the valley, not on the mountaintop." # # # *Tanton is news editor for United Methodist News Service.
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