No Weak Men!

Well, just got back from the Men’s Retreat.  Learned something very important.  Don’t play football with guys 10-15 yrs younger than you when you are out of shape.  Two days later you can barely walk.  Write that down.  It may be the best thing you ever learn on cloften.com.

I thought that the retreat was great.  It has been a long time since I’ve gotten away for a time like that.  Very glad that is already part of the Grove culture.  I also enjoyed speaking.  I definitely want to get to know the men in our church better.  (For example, I now know with whom I should never play football. Just kidding. Not really.)  I also believe that is very important for men to get away and talk about how we can be better men.  I know my small group had some great discussion and I heard that the others did as well.

Over the next couple of weeks, I want to put some of the info that we talked about on the ol’ blog to get it to more men, both in the church and outside and to keep it fresh in our heads for those of us who were there.

The overarching theme of what we talked about is how too often men fall into one of two categories, both of them bad.  The first is the passive man who is just watching life happen.  He is not taking any leadership in his own life or his family.  For a husband it looks like a man who has a wife that is in charge of the finances, the house, the kids, big picture decisions, spiritual direction and the husband is in charge of making sure his chair is pointed at the TV, remote control management and snack consumption.  He lives life avoiding responsibility and conflict.

Then there is the man who would read that paragraph and say, “You’re right.  I don’t want to be a puddin’! It’s time to be a man!”  Then he becomes an obnoxious wrecking ball.  Overbearing, insensitive, bully kind of leader.  He makes unilateral decisions, typically not based on what is best, but what he deems best, often for himself.  He calls aggression discipline and dictatorship leadership.  From puddin’ to jerk.  Actually this jerk is just a puddin’ in a halloween mask.  He is still a man without the courage to lead and love appropriately.

Unfortunately most men, only know avoiding responsibility and being a punk.  Doesn’t there have to be a better option?  Jesus gave his disciples (and us) one in Matthew 20.

²⁵Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. ²⁶Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, ²⁷and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— ²⁸just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

A servant leader.  We will look at this passage more in depth over the next couple of weeks.  For now, I leave you with this profound thought:

Stop being a puddin’.