This post is the first of a series of posts that have been incorporated into Part 2 of my online article, “A Comprehensive Church-Based Ministry to Men.”
The WOW! Factor
Something unusual. Something unexpected. Something spectacular. Something important. Something excellent. Something renowned. Something valuable. Something admirable. Something heroic. When something like this appears, word of it spreads rapidly and people come running.
They stand on tiptoe in the crowd and crane their necks to get a better view. Then when it finally passes by and they catch a fleeting glimpse of it, they turn in awe to the total strangers standing next to them and without any hesitation at all impulsively exclaim, “WOW! Did you see that?”
That response is called “The WOW! Factor.”
Queen Elizabeth’s funeral, the most watched event in TV history, had The WOW! Factor.
A presidential motorcade that shuts down entire freeways as it passes by has The WOW! Factor.
A rocket that blasted off at sunset at Vandenberg Air Force Base for all of Southern California to watch as its multi-colored florescent contrail ascended into space had The WOW! Factor.
The San Francisco 49ers, when they drove 92 yards in 1989 to win the Super Bowl with only 34 seconds left, had The WOW! Factor.
The WOW! Factor does three things well: it gets everyone’s attention, it creates admiration, and it drives inquisitiveness. Something that has The WOW! Factor cannot be ignored, it overwhelmingly impresses, and it demands to be understood. People simply can’t get enough of whatever it is that has wowed them.
The WOW! Factor is what we want to achieve with local church men’s ministry. We want entire communities to be aware of their local church men’s ministries, to admire what the men in them are doing, and to want to know more about why they are doing what they are doing.
What does it take for a local church men’s ministry to have The WOW! Factor?
How does a local church men’s ministry become so renowned in their community that they make the front page of the local newspaper? What do they need to do so that, when people drive by their church in their cars, they point out the window and tell their fellow passengers, “That is where those men I was telling you about attend church”?
What would it take for national men’s ministries to point to a local church’s men’s ministry as an example of what men’s ministry is all about? What great acts do these men need to do so that people brag, “You won’t believe what the men in my church do!”
And, yes, local church men’s ministries have witnessed all of these responses.
Do you have doubts about whether churches should make it a goal for their men’s ministries to have The WOW! Factor? Maybe this will convince you: Jesus himself commands men’s ministries to have it. “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
“Did you see that? Praise God! Hallelujah! Glory to God!… WOW!” That is the reaction Jesus wants our local church men’s ministries to produce when people observe them in action; non-Christians spontaneously glorifying God because of what your men’s ministry is accomplishing.
So what is it that produces The WOW! Factor in local church men’s ministries and how do we instill The WOW! Factor into every aspect of those ministries? We find the answer to this question in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ himself.
If anyone had The WOW! Factor, it was Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ overwhelmingly had The WOW! Factor. Everyone who met him immediately realized that they were in the presence of someone exceedingly special. Jesus grabbed people’s attention and drew them in like a Star Trek tractor beam. He created in those around him a sense of awe, along with an insatiable desire to know more. Many passages in the gospels demonstrate how Jesus had this effect on people. Here are several examples from the Gospel of Matthew.
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria…. Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him. Matthew 4:23, 25
When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. Matthew 8:1
The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!” Matthew 8:27
But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the paralyzed man, “Get up, take your mat and go home.” Then the man got up and went home. When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to man. Matthew 9:6-8
After the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took the girl by the hand, and she got up. News of this spread through all that region. Matthew 9:25-26
Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus. Aware of this, Jesus withdrew from that place. A large crowd followed him, and he healed all who were ill. Matthew 12:13-15
That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. Matthew 13:1-2
Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them. The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel. Matthew 15:30-31
When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. Matthew 19:1-2
The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?” The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.” Matthew 21:6-11
That, my friends, is The WOW! Factor. Jesus got the entire nation of Israel’s attention, which resulted in overwhelming admiration by the masses, who then developed such an insatiable desire to know more that they followed him everywhere he went.
But people were often wowed by Jesus for the wrong reasons
I’m not saying that local church men’s ministries should think up grandiose schemes just to get the public’s attention. The public can be impressed for the wrong reasons.
The crowds that followed Jesus were often enthralled by him for the wrong reasons. Some just wanted to be entertained by a great miracle (Luke 23:8). Some tagged along to see what all the excitement was about (Luke 19:2-9). Some thought following Jesus was their ticket to success (Matthew 20:21). Some even thought Jesus was their free meal ticket, as we see in John chapter six.
Then some boats from Tiberias landed near the place where the people had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. Once the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. John 6:23-26
In the end, Jesus lost The WOW! Factor
Because the crowds did not understand the purpose of Jesus’ miracles (to reveal himself as the prophesied messiah sent by God), they did not understand the nature of his person (that he was God incarnate), nor the ultimate goal of his ministry (to sacrifice himself for the sins of the world). Thus, Jesus had to constantly extricate himself from the false expectations of the crowds around him and even from the false expectations of his own disciples (Matthew 16:21-23).
As the day for Jesus to sacrifice himself on the cross drew closer, Jesus’ WOW! Factor began to rapidly fade away, along with the crowds who followed him into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. By the time Jesus hung on the cross one week later, he was almost completely deserted.
The most important way Jesus wowed his disciples
But it was during his last week on earth before he died, the Passion Week, that Jesus demonstrated the one element that would properly wow his disciples: his love for them.
It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. John 13:1
The phrase, “to the end” in this verse can be translated “to the greatest extent.” That is, Jesus’ focus was on proving to his disciples “the full extent of his love” for them, as the NIV translates it. In other words, his eleven disciples would have a front row seat as they witnessed the complete demonstration of Christ’s love for them.
Jesus started his demonstration by washing his disciples’ feet, an act of utter humility before a group of men who only minutes before had been arguing about who was the greatest among them.
Jesus ended his demonstration by dying on the cross for his disciples, and for all of us, an act of love that only later would be understood when illuminated by the Resurrection and the giving of the Spirit, resulting in a cascading sense of awe and wonder at what God, in Christ, had accomplished.
The WOW! Factor was back.
The one way Jesus Christ wants local church men’s ministries to wow people
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35
When Jesus gave this command, known as the New Commandment, in the last night discourse, he gave it to a group of men not unlike any ordinary men’s ministry in any ordinary church. Jesus’ disciples had met to eat a meal, and a sacred meal at that. There were just twelve of them, soon to be just eleven; probably around the average size of most men’s ministries.
It was these men whom Jesus commanded to “love one another” as he had loved them. Note that Jesus didn’t command them to love the world as he had loved them. He didn’t command them to love their neighbors as he had loved them. He didn’t even command them to love their wives and children as he had loved them.
He commanded them to love each other as he had loved them.
United solely by faith in him, not by blood, not by race, not by family, but by their new spiritual birth, Jesus commanded his eleven men to love each other.
This love Jesus wanted his “men’s ministry” of eleven men to have for each other was no ordinary love. They were to love each other as he had loved them, that is, unto death.
And then Jesus said that he wanted their love for each other to be their defining characteristic, their WOW! Factor, because by it the entire world would recognize them as his disciples.
In other words, the world may be alienated from God, spiritually blind, and dead in their trespasses and sins, but nevertheless, God has hardwired unbelievers to know when they are in the presence of the love of Christ.
And the love of Christ at work in us, my friends, is The WOW! Factor Jesus Christ wants every men’s ministry to have.
A call to wow men – and to wow others through men – in the right way
When a local church’s men’s ministry has something unusual. Something unexpected. Something spectacular. Something important. Something excellent. Something renowned. Something valuable. Something admirable. Something heroic. When something like this appears in ordinary men in an ordinary local church, word of it spreads rapidly and people come running.
That something is called the love of Christ, the greatest WOW! Factor in the history of humanity.
And when a local church men’s ministry has the love of Christ and practices the love of Christ in everyday life, when it has that WOW! Factor, it becomes a men’s ministry men want to know.
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
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