We live in a culture that celebrates femininity and criticizes manliness.

If you need proof, look no further than the drastic increase in popularity of cats over dogs.*

Cats, for the sake of argument, are the model of femininity. Soft. Dignified. They purr when you cuddle them. They keep their bathrooms neat. They plot against you if you ignore them for too long.

Dogs, specifically puppies, are the epitome of maleness. They’re full of energy and often fail to direct it appropriately. They pee on the floor and slobber all over things they want. They’re loyal and will sacrifice anything for you. I’ve never heard of a guard cat.**

Women are refined, emotionally superior, and elegant. There’s probably a reason we call some men ‘dogs.’

The differences between men and women are fodder for numerous sermon jokes, but it’s simply true. Men and women are different. That’s why the jokes are funny. They’d be stupid if we didn’t all know they were accurate.

For a better anecdote, why do you think we tell men that they “need to get in touch with their feminine side” while never saying the opposite to women?

Ask a psychologist someday why she doesn’t ask women to “get in touch with their masculine side.” I’m sure she’ll appreciate the joke.

The truth is, we are different. Not better, just different.

It’s how we were created. Men and women were created to be unique, complementary beings (see Genesis 1:27). I believe it’s because the fullness of God’s characteristics can’t exist in the limited nature of a single human being. We need both men and women to fully understand God.

So why does the church follow the culture and pretend we’re all the same? More importantly, why does the American church assume we’re all women?

In a time when movies like Gladiator, Braveheart, and Saving Private Ryan are in every guy’s top 5 list – we have reduced Christianity to inspirational quotes. We’ve turned the physical presence of the Gospel, the Church, into a Lifetime version of itself.***

No wonder men don’t want anything to do with it.

It’s dull and there’s nothing for us there. We think we’ll have to sit around and get in touch with our feelings. Our experience has taught us that, if we’re to fit in, we have to act more like our wives.

We were made for more than that.

We were made for adventure.

And we kill it so early.

We expect red-blooded boys to sit still and answer questions in Sunday School given by their female Sunday School teachers. If they don’t, they’re criticized or marginalized. Their female classmates often outshine them in this setting (due to their very nature and developmental patterns). Boys grow up equating church to school without recess (so really, what’s the point?)

If the kids last, youth group gives them another shot – and it’s usually better.**** But even then we’re never taught to take chances and step out in faith. We’re often taught to toe the company line – and whatever you do, don’t have sex. You might get an STD.

The Gospel is strong. It’s a story of sacrifice. It’s a story of a man who was God giving everything and igniting a movement that would last millennia. It appeals equally to the meekest, quietest woman to the loudest, roughest man. Why can’t we tell that story? Why do we insist on teaching men to be quiet, sit still, and wait their turn?

Now I’m not suggesting men be pigs. We’re taught to love our wives (because it’s unnatural for us) and that’s what they need. In the same passage, our wives are taught to respect their husbands (because it’s unnatural for them) and that’s what we need. In order to do that we need to both rise above our tendencies and be completely submitted to Christ and to each other.

It’s just that we’re in a love dominated culture – and the Church is no different.

If men are from mars, and women are from venus – the Church’s primary language is Venutian.

And that’s too bad for a lot of guys out there.

I long to see a the American church full of men who lead. A Church full of fathers, husbands, boyfriends, and friends who love, discipline, pray, study, A Church where the good women are equalled (or even outnumbered) by the good men. A Church where we can both proudly display our gender as an example of the God who sacrificed it all for us. THE Church.

*completely made up statistic
**only a scaredy cat
***ok, so some of the Lifetime stories would be perfectly suited for the New Testament church
****unless the cheese factor is too high. I once met a youth pastor who wore nothing but orange. He collected something new and orange on every youth trip. He looked ridiculous and I wanted to be nothing like him.
*****because I don't want to plagiarize, I was heavily influenced by this excellent article. You should read it. It's better than my little rant here.
******I feel the need to say that I'm really happy to be serving the church I'm serving. Rock Bridge gets it.

“The Church may be the most leadership intensive organization in all the world.”

I’ve been reading John Maxwell’s 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership and that quote stuck out to me…and I completely agree with it.

It’s hard to work with volunteers because you have little to no leverage. You don’t hold their well-being in your hands. You aren’t the key to that next promotion. Sometimes you’re little more than an acquaintance. And you still have to lead and ask more from them than they’re readily willing to give.

It’s a huge leadership challenge.

But it’s worth it.

I can’t think of many things better than seeing a volunteer connect into an area of passion. Watching volunteers grow and take ownership of the mission of the Church is incredible. If you’re not asking your people to give – and to give much – then you’re missing out on so many opportunities and so many things God wants to use to raise up His people.

How does it feel to be used as part of God’s plan for His people?

I couldn’t imagine it any other way.

In production leadership, and ministry in general, it’s not uncommon to fear not having enough volunteers. In fact, you may have already noticed something: we’ll never have enough volunteers.

At least not enough to make us comfortable.

Confident, yes.
Effective, yes.
Comfortable, probably not.

So what do we do? We set the bar low and beg anyone we can to help. It’s a natural reaction. We can’t find enough high-capacity, passionate volunteers to help us with our ministry so we lower our expectations and beg people to help us. And while this may make us fully staffed, it doesn’t make us good. In fact, it is a recipe for disaster. Here are 3 common problems and their solutions.
(more…)

I had a great lunch today with Kent Boyd, my production director at our Dalton Campus. We got together to talk about something that I’ve noticed in the past few weeks.

As I’ve moved from leading volunteers directly into leading leaders (who lead volunteers), I’ve become more disconnected from the daily lives of the volunteers.

For some reason, it took me by surprise. I really don’t know why. It shouldn’t have. In fact it makes complete sense. The problem is that when I became disconnected from the daily lives of my volunteers, my ability to care for them decreased. So we had a good long discussion about deliberately trying to care for our volunteers. It can’t be driven by my personality or ability to “catch” when someone is hurting. We have to make sure that we’re being deliberate and asking the right questions – the system to care for people has to be in place. Why did this take so long?

Think about it this way. As churches, we typically know where every dime gets spent. We spend hours and hours budgeting and planning and tracking and reporting about our finances – whole teams are devoted to managing the budget and to making sure we’re being good stewards of those resources. How much time and resources do we spend stewarding our people?

I let this happen to me recently. A volunteer was not meshing well in her new role and I let it slip. She didn’t tell me, but if I had been around to ask her she probably would have told me. She lost the vision, got burnt out and no longer comes to church regularly.

It hurts.

I really believe that God cares more about the one person who fell through the cracks than your whole budget.

I just bought my first house so I find myself watching HGTV a lot more than I ever have before. My personal favorite is Holmes on Homes. Each week Mike Holmes takes on a project that was done incorrectly (or left unfinished) and “makes it right.”

I was watching a few nights ago and I heard him say the following:

I don’t want to do this, but right now this is my house. As long as this is my house, I’m gonna do it right.

Man.
That’s quality and commitment.

Imagine what would happen if we, as leaders in the church, thought about our people that way.

The students in student ministry are ‘my kids’.
The visitors in the services are ‘my brothers and sisters’.
The children in children’s ministry are ‘my kids’.

There would be things I wouldn’t want to do for someone else’s kids…but that I’d do for mine. There would be an urgency for my brother to see Christ that might not be present for someone I’ve never met. But what if it was?