Men

The entire time I've been in Tacoma I've been increasingly burdened by the reality that "godly men" are an aberration at best when they should be the norm. We have men that have kids, but no men that have wives. We have women who have kids but those kids have many different fathers, none of whom are husbands of their mothers. We also have married couples who claim to be followers of Jesus but are not a part of our church or any other because the husband refuses. This is sad, heartbreaking, troubling, burdensome and it's killing the effectiveness of the gospel in our world. Something has to change.

After a lot of frustration and prayer I realized that I don't know how to fix this problem, but I had to start somewhere. God called me to start a men's Bible study with quite a few men who for various reasons claim to know Jesus but are not a part of a church (except one other guy who has the same burden I do and is a part of another local church). We just met last night for the second time and it was challenging and awesome. It was so good to get to converse over Scripture with husbands and fathers that are my age. It was challenging to hear their perspective on Scripture and frustrating to hear selfishness abound... in part because I know that I too am filled with selfishness.

This Bible study is not affiliated with The Pathway... it's just a passion of mine and a starting point. My prayer is that I will grow to understand these men and their frustration and aversion to "church." I pray that I will grow and find accountability with these men that I am currently lacking. And my ultimate prayer is that they would fall so passionately in love with Jesus that they would not be able to help being a part of his local church. Frankly, I don't care if it's The Pathway or some other missional church. I just believe the church is the way we fulfill our purpose as followers of Jesus... broken or not... the church is what God has designed for reaching the world with the gospel.

Do I have time for this? No. Do I have any guarantees that this will grow The Pathway? No. I just know that men need to step up and this is a first step. What can you do to address a problem where you are? Just start somewhere. Doing nothing is not the answer. Praise Jesus for giving me the courage to start somewhere! God is so good.