A Comprehensive Church-Based Ministry to Fatherless Boys

Since the late 1960's, the number of fatherless children in the U.S. has rapidly increased. Ministering to fatherless boys will ultimately reduce this fatherless epidemic by enabling them to become successful husbands and fathers. Fatherless boys suffer severe emotional, social, and spiritual consequences from their fatherlessness. Thankfully, the church has a solution to this fatherless crisis that centers around the fatherhood of God. In obedience to God's natural concern for the fatherless, the church should make an emphasis on fatherless boys a central feature in many of its ministries. In addition, numerous national and regional ministries serve as resources for ministering to fatherless boys.

Introduction: A Fatherless Boy's Father Wound

"Brian Leifson" was the first bully I ever knew. I was eight and he was eleven and he lived on my street. I did my best to avoid Brian and his home, but sometimes I couldn't resist the temptation to check out the massive trainset his mother had helped him assemble in their backyard garage.

The platform that held the train was so big, Mrs. Leifson had to park her car on the driveway. On the platform was every possible permutation of traindom: intricate train tracks braiding their way in and out of miniature towns. Precisely detailed locomotives pulled tanker cars, flatbed cars, and boxcars that snaked along the tracks.

I say Brian's mother, rather than his father, helped him with the trainset because Mrs. Leifson was divorced and Brian's father was out of his life. It was the end of the 1950's and divorce was still a rarity. I'm thinking the over-the-top trainset was Mrs. Leifson's attempt to compensate for his father's absence.

One day, as I walked by Brian's home, I saw Brian down the driveway in his garage playing with his trains. Giving into temptation one more time, I nervously walked to the garage to see it. Sure enough, he immediately shouted at me not to touch anything or he would beat me up.

I stood there feeling a mixture of terror and awe as I watched Brian playing with his amazing trains. As he did he bragged about how much fun it was to have his trainset, while repeating dire warnings of what he would do to me if I dare touch it.

After several minutes of dangling both his trainset and the possibility of a beating in front of me, Brian said, "Follow me. I want to show you something."

Then he led me outside the garage into the backyard. There on the ground was a dead bird. It was crispy black and lay in a circle of dead black grass. It had been burned.

"Look! I set this stupid bird on fire!" he laughed. "Now watch."

Brian stepped hard on the bird with the ball of his foot and it chirped. Brian howled with laughter. Then he did it again, and again it chirped. Brian laughed and laughed.

I, on the other hand, was mortified. I turned and got out of that backyard as fast as I could.

I haven't seen Brian in the sixty years since. But I did learn recently that Brian never married and he still lives, alone now, on that same street in his mother's home.

What I witnessed that day was the troubled soul of a boy growing up without his father. Brian had been deeply wounded by his father's betrayal and abandonment and he was acting it out.

Unfortunately, Brian was just a forerunner of millions American boys -- boys born during and after the sexual revolution of the 1960's -- who would also suffer the destructive consequences of the father wounds that come from being betrayed and abandoned by the one person they should admire and model their lives after.

With that dreadful cultural situation in mind, I have written this article to answer the obvious, but often unasked, question, "What can the church do to help fatherless boys like Brian?"

Fortunately, the answer is, "A lot."

I. Gaining Perspective about Fatherless Boys

What Fatherless Children have in Common with Widows and Single Moms

Before I turn my attention to fatherless boys specifically, I want to point out some similarities fatherless children in general have with widows and single moms, since these are the three primary types of care receivers my ministry, New Commandment Men's Ministries, serves.

All three groups represent people who have lost, or never had, an important loved one. In the case of a widow, that loved one was her husband. In the case of a single mom, that loved one was her husband or unmarried partner. And in the case of a fatherless child, that loved one was, of course, their father.
For all three groups, the person they lost was an adult male.
For all three groups, the loss of their adult male often results in financial deprivation.
For all three groups, the loss of their adult male often results in unmet social and emotional needs.
For all three groups, their unmet financial, social, and emotional needs can last for years, and sometimes decades.
And finally, increases in the number of people in any of these groups are directly proportional to increases in government social welfare expenses.

Why Focus on Fatherless Boys?

The simple answer to the question of why the church should focus on fatherless boys is that fatherless boys represent a huge proportion of households with young boys in general, and fatherless boys often grow up to become absentee fathers themselves.

But going deeper, fatherlessness affects boys more severely than girls, as Warren Farrell points out in his book, The Boy Crisis:

"After divorce or loss of a father, both girls and boys experience unhappiness , but especially with divorce, girls’ grief eases within a year or two, while boys’ does not. Similarly, among children with unmarried teen mothers, it is the boys who experience alarmingly high levels of pathology: substance abuse , criminal activity, and prison time. These problems persist beyond their teen years: boys with teen mothers also have far more problems than girls as adults. (The Boy Crisis, Warren Farrell, p. 147)

Not only do boys express more anti social behavior than girls as a result of being father - deprived, it also affects them more severely biologically. Writes Farrell:

"Depriving a child of his or her dad is depriving a child of part of her or his life. That is, findings published in Pediatrics in 2017 concluded that 'at 9 years of age, children with father loss have significantly shorter telomeres.' Telomeres in our cells are what keep our genes from being deleted as our cells divide. As the National Academy of Sciences reports. 'Telomere length in early life predicts lifespan.' How much damage to life expectancy is created by dad - deprivation? Children with father loss already have by age nine telomeres that are 14 percent shorter. However, when compared to girls, the telomere damage from father loss is '40% greater for boys.'" (ibid. p. 138, my emphasis)

Therefore, when the church brings salvation and healing to a fatherless boy -- that is, brings the boy into a right relationship with God as his Father, it accomplishes several things: it gives a boy who has been abandoned by his earthly father his self worth back, it prepares him for a productive adulthood as a man, a husband, and a father himself, thus helping to break the fatherless cycle, it prevents numerous negative social outcomes, and it even increases his lifespan.

Where did all the Fathers Go? Statistics and Trends

At the beginning of the twentieth century, children living with their mother only were a relatively rare phenomenon. But beginning in the middle of the century, mother only homes began to rise rapidly until today, fatherless households comprise over 20% of all households. The accompanying graph is from the US Census Bureau and documents this rise in fatherless homes from 1968 to 2020 (Hispanic households from 1980 to 2020).

Note that the major increases in fatherless homes in Black and Hispanic households occurred in the 60's to the early 80's, then leveling off until about 2015 when the rate of fatherless households began to decline somewhat.

In White households, fatherless homes began to increase in the 60's but didn't peak until about 2000. They remained steady until 2015, and then declined slightly as well.

The recent small decline in fatherless households is encouraging, but fatherlessness still remains very high with 46% of Black homes being fatherless (up 130% from 1960), 24% of Hispanic homes being fatherless (up 26% from 1980), and 17% of White homes being fatherless (up 167% from 1960).

Not all Fatherless Boys are from the Same Type of Fatherless Home

There are many different types of fatherless homes. Some boys are fatherless because their father died. Other boys are fatherless in homes where the father never married the mother and then left. Still other boys are fatherless because their father and mother are separated or divorced.

Note also that in 1968, when the sexual revolution in America was gaining steam, never married mothers represented only 6% of fatherless homes. But by 2014, they represented 48% of fatherless homes.

Fatherless Boys and U.S. Church Attendance Trends

There is a correlation between increased rates of fatherlessness and decreased rates of church attendance.

The accompanying Pew Research Center graph, "% of those who attended religious services weekly by age group", shows two periods of dramatically reduced rates of regular church attendance in the U.S., especially for adults aged 18-29 and 30-39, spanning the years 1955 to 1972 and 2000 to 2015.

The dramatic decline in church attendance during the period, 1955-1972, parallels closely the equally dramatic rise in fatherlessness from 1960 to 1982 in figure CH-2.3.4 above.

Since adults, including single moms, aged 18-39 are in their primary child bearing and child rearing years, their reduced church attendance means that fatherless boys have less access to the one institution that excels in providing boys with moral guidance and positive adult male role models.

Thus, fatherless boys represent a massive mission field in America that is just waiting for the church — and especially men’s ministry within the church — to address.

II. Learning How Fatherless Boys Feel

Repressed: Fatherless Boys and The Boy Code

It is tough being a teenage boy. It is even tougher being a fatherless teenage boy.

As they navigate the treacherous waters of puberty and peer pressure, many teenage boys find it difficult to genuinely express their feelings.

In his book, Real Boys' Voices: Boys Speak out about Drugs, Sex, Violence, Bullying, Sports, School, Parents, and so much more -- a book I highly recommend to all parents of teenage boys and to anyone who works with youth -- Dr. William S. Pollack, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and Director of the Center for Men at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts, calls this hesitancy to deal with feelings on the part of teenage boys "The Boy Code."

"The Boy Code [is] old rules that favor male stoicism and make boys feel ashamed about expressing weakness or vulnerability. Although our boys urgently want to talk about who they really are, they fear that they will be teased, bullied, humiliated, beaten up, and even murdered if they give voice to their truest feelings. Thus, our nation is home to millions of boys who feel they are navigating life alone--who on an emotional level are alone--and who are cast out to sea in separate lifeboats, and feel they are drowning in isolation, depression, loneliness, and despair." (Real Boys' Voices: Boys Speak out about Drugs, Sex, Violence, Bullying, Sports, School, Parents, and so much more, Pollack, William; Shuster, Todd, Kindle Edition, Kindle Edition, Location 235)

Combine The Boy Code with fatherlessness, and one gets an even more toxic mix of the emotional issues boys face.

I personally experienced the pressure -- and consequences -- of The Boy Code when I was a teenage boy talking to a friend who was fatherless and also a teenager. During our conversation, he mentioned that he had been suicidal. I immediately felt embarrassed that he had admitted such an intimate detail to me. I just froze. I didn't follow up on his comment because I didn't know what to say.

My friend and I were unconscious victims of The Boy Code.

After that awkward encounter, I wondered if he meant that he had been suicidal at some point in the past, or if he was suicidal at that moment. I decided I needed to call his mother.

But before I did, my friend killed himself. That experience has haunted me ever since. I share this story with you with the hope that you will remember that many fatherless boys are subject to The Boy Code and are dealing with issues like this in silence, issues that we need to take seriously and that will hopefully motivate us to provide a safe environment for boys to talk about.

As Pollack warns, we should not let The Boy Code keep us from taking action.

"The Boy Code, which restricts a boys' expression of emotion and his cries for help, has silenced the souls of our sons and paralyzed our natural instincts to reach out to them. Our boys are exceedingly isolated. And unwittingly, we -- their parents, teachers, adult mentors, buddies, and girlfriends -- are still leaving them out in the cold." Ibid., Location 393

Alone: Fatherless Boys and their Deceased Fathers

Uncle Oscar was an amazing man. During WWII he ferried newly built war planes across the U.S. After the war, he worked as a test pilot, risking his life test flying some of the first commercial jet planes.

Always looking for adventure, one day Uncle Oscar suddenly quit his lucrative job -- along with Southern California's frenetic culture -- and moved his family to Nevada, where, in spite of the fact that he knew nothing about raising cattle, he bought a large ranch out in the middle of nowhere.

When I say nowhere, I mean nowhere. Uncle Oscar's ranch was seven miles away from his closest neighbor and forty-five miles away by dirt road from the nearest town, which had only 200 people in it.

His one hundred year old ranch house had no running water and no electricity. His intrepid wife got water from a nearby creek and cooked on a wood burning stove. They entertained themselves at night by reading books next to the dim light of coil oil lamps and by secretly listening in on their distant neighbors phone conversations with their phone's party line.

I guess Uncle Oscar just wanted to be alone.

There are a couple of other things that are notable about Uncle Oscar: he had been a fatherless child and, in spite of a strong Christian upbringing, he rejected Christianity as an adult.

Perhaps this is why.

When my grandfather, Sivert Reese, died of tuberculosis in 1928 at the age of 52, he left behind his wife and five children. My father, Ben Reese, was 23 at the time and was the oldest child. But Uncle Oscar, Dad's youngest brother, was only 13.

Compounding the tragedy of their father's early death was the death of their brother, Ed Reese, in a terrible car wreck four years later.

Uncle Ed was 25 and engaged to be married when his car was broadsided by a car driven by a drunken high school student, killing Ed along with three teenaged passengers in the other car. Since Uncle Ed's death happened just a couple of days before Christmas, his funeral had to be held on Christmas Eve.

Uncle Oscar never talked about why he rejected Christianity. But my guess is that the traumatic deaths of his father and brother while he was coming of age had a lot to do with it.

Knowing what I know now about Norwegian stoicism, and how the Reese side of my ancestral family raised it to a fine art, I'm thinking Uncle Oscar never had a healthy emotional way to deal with such massive loses.

If only some compassionate Christian man from his church had come alongside him during his teen years as he experienced those tragedies, perhaps things would have turned out differently.

Instead, I guess Uncle Oscar just dealt with it alone.

Betrayed: Fatherless Boys and their Divorced or Separated Fathers

It is one thing for a boy to lose his father to death. But as tragic as that is, it is quite another thing for a boy to lose his father to divorce or separation.

At least most boys who's fathers have died can assume their fathers loved them. But when a father willfully chooses to leave the home, his son suffers not only the pain of loss, but also the pain of betrayal.

It is here that Pollack, as insightful about boys as he is in his book, falls short.

Pollack writes: "Perhaps the worst thing about this rejection is living with the knowledge that someone has chosen to turn his back on you. Someone has chosen to leave you. Someone has determined your value and decided you are not worth having around—or that he would be better off someplace else, without you." (ibid., Location 124)

But, contrary to Pollack above, it is not just a feeling of rejection that boys of divorced and separated fathers have, it is a feeling of betrayal that gnaws at their souls. It is not just "the knowledge that someone has chosen to turn his back on you," but the knowledge that someone who is extremely important to your existence -- in fact, one of the very reasons why you exist at all -- someone you trusted to care for you, someone whom you thought loved you, someone you thought was committed to you, someone you might have even wanted to model your life after, that person has turned his back on you.

In this sense, then, a father leaving the marriage he founded with his wife, and abandoning the children he birthed with her, is the cruelest kind of betrayal for a boy, and it is the reason why God reserves his harshest judgment for that father (1 Timothy 5:8).

The betrayal that fatherless boys feel because of their fathers extends to the entire culture they live in. For the past sixty years, American culture, including even the church, has turned a blind eye to fatherless children and, in the case of our culture specifically, even encouraged fathers to abandon their wives and their children.

Here are some examples:

In the 1960's, the federal program, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), decimated Black families by making the federal government, instead of fathers, their primary provider, resulting in a massive explosion of fatherless families in the Black community.
In the 1970's Ronald Reagan's No Fault Divorce law, which in some form has been adopted in all fifty states, resulted in another explosion of fatherless families by making divorce almost effortless, regardless of what the other spouse in the marriage wanted.
The pervasiveness of porn has resulted in men "marinating themselves in pornography," as someone has put it, and rotting the foundations of marriage by making sexual infidelity acceptable.
Some feminist leaders have promoted fatherless homes with their "Men, who needs them?" mentality.
Our culture constantly portrays fathers as foolish "man-boys" in entertainment and advertising.

Thus, it is not just their own fathers who have betrayed fatherless boys, everyone has betrayed them.

Rudderless: Fatherless Boys and their Never Present or Never Married Fathers

But the ultimate insult to a fatherless boy is when he comes from a home where he has either never known his father, or his parents separated after having never married.

In these situations, the fatherless boy not only has never had a male role model, or -- as in the case where his father leaves his unmarried mother -- loses his male role model, he also has no proper social model of what committed, married love looks like.

When it comes to marriage, sex, and raising children, such a fatherless boy is completely rudderless. He has nothing to guide him, no template to grow up into, no external forces to nudge him in the right direction. He not only has no solution to his problem, he doesn't even know what his problem is.

"In Man Enough, Frank Pittman states, 'Men without models don’t know what is behind their shame, loneliness, and despair, their desperate search for love, for affirmation, and for structure, their frantic tendency to compete over just about anything with just about anybody.'” (Quoted in, Fatherless Generation: Redeeming the Story, by John A. Sowers, Kindle Edition, Location 272)

Hopeless: Fatherless Boys without God

During my twenty years as a pastor, whenever I hired pastoral staff, I made it a practice to ask what kind of relationship the prospective staff member had with their father.

The reason I asked that question was because I noticed that staff members tended to duplicate the kind of relationship they had with their father with me, since I, as the senior pastor, served in a type of father role to them.

Once one potential staff member I was interviewing answered my question about his father-son relationship by saying that he had no relationship at all with his father. He and his father were estranged and he hadn't spoken to him in years.

Normally, I would not have hired him, but he was a gifted man and I hired him anyway. That turned out to be a mistake. He indeed wound up duplicating his dysfunctional father-son relationship with me and it resulted in a significant amount of pain.

Father-son relationships provide sons with a template for how to relate to authority and, ultimately, how to relate to God the Father himself. When that relationship has been broken, or nonexistent altogether, it affects how sons perceive God.

In the case of fatherless sons, where fathers have betrayed their sons by abandoning them, these profoundly traumatic experiences can cause fatherless sons to reject God as well.

As John Sowers writes in his book, Fatherless Generation, "Fatherless children often believe that God, like their earthly father, is now gone. He does not inhabit their bleak and ashen existence. He does not speak a meaningful word to their postmodern existence. And this theme—alienation from God—is repeated over and over by young people growing up without their fathers, struggling with their experience of rejection, and trying to understand God in the midst of it all." (John A. Sowers, Fatherless Generation: Redeeming the Story, Kindle Edition, Location 847)

When a father who, along with his wife, brings a son into the world -- a father who is supposed to love, financially support, protect, nurture, and discipline his son -- instead abandons him, the natural reaction of that fatherless boy is to conclude that there is no God the Father at all.

The result is that we now have an increasingly godless country that denigrates healthy fatherhood as sexist patriarchal oppression and where millions of fatherless boys grow up "without God and without hope in this world."

III. Restoring Hope for Fatherless Boys

"Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name."

Our Lord's Prayer

To paraphrase a popular saying, America is perfectly designed to get the fatherless epidemic it is getting. After all, since the current publicly accepted general view of reality is materialism -- that is, that all that exists is only matter, energy, and chance -- then so what if men abandon their families?

In a materialistic view of the world, life is only about the self and sensual gratification. And sex -- unlimited sex -- is the ultimate sensual gratification. We are all just glorified animals anyway. Why should men bother with antiquated moral ideals like duty and sacrifice?

Thus men who abandon their families are simply living out, whether consciously or subconsciously, the logical conclusions of their materialistic, godless worldview. I am not saying that all atheists are terrible parents who abandon their children. Many atheists, like many Christians, are not consistent with what they believe. But logically, materialism, with its "whatever is, is right" ideology, is silent when it comes to the question of what kind of parents we should be.

Therefore, atheism and materialism provide no answers to the fatherless crisis. Unless something changes in the way we perceive realty, the problem of fatherlessness and family disintegration will continue. In other words, if we want to change the result, we have to change the system...or in this case, our worldview.

Or maybe we should just call it repentance. It is time for us to repent before God and acknowledge that he really is the foundation of all existence and, therefore, that he must be the center of our own existence as well.

So let us revisit the Christian worldview, the worldview that has been so unceremoniously ushered out of western civilization's intellectual front door, the very worldview that has fatherhood at its core.

The Christian Worldview is Gold for Fatherless Boys

Theists begin with a basic assumption: if a personal God exists, then it is logical to think that he would introduce himself to us.

Christians believe that God has in fact done so in human history as recorded in the Bible.

The Bible is the story -- the real time history -- of God's progressive revelation of himself to humanity, first to the Jewish race, and then to the entire world. As such, the Bible tells us many helpful and important things about God. Here are some of them:

God exists - God, who calls himself "I am," is objectively present and is the foundation of all reality (Exodus 3:14). As such, God is inescapable in the sense that our very being revolves around him (Acts 17:28).
God creates - Everything that has a beginning has its beginning in God (Genesis 1:1).
God communicates - God, who has intellect, emotion, and will, is a personal being who communicates (Genesis 1:3) in many different ways (Hebrews 1:1-2).
God is holy - God is separate from creation and separate from evil (Revelation 4:8).
The problem -God's creation, and humanity itself, has been marred because Adam, the first man, sinned (Romans 5:12). Because all of us have Adam's fallen nature and have followed Adam in his sin, we too are unholy and, therefore, separated from God and under his judgement (Romans 3:23).
God is love - God doesn't just love, he is love. He is everything that love has ever been or ever can be (1 John 4:8). But because God is both holy and love, man's sin set up a conflict between these attributes of God: how can God express his love for us when we have violated his holiness and deserve his wrath?
God saves - God resolved this conflict by sending his Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for our sin, bearing the wrath we deserve for our sin in our place (John 3:16). By doing so, God both proved his love for us and satisfied his holiness.
The solution - God does not force his forgiveness on us. We must receive it as a gift by placing our faith in Jesus Christ to save us from our sin.

If you never have before, you can receive that gift of salvation right now by telling God through prayer that you know you are a sinner, that you believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins on the cross and rose again from the dead, and that you are placing your faith in him as the one who paid for your sins on the cross.

God is both a Father and our Father - The Bible tells us that God is the eternal Father of his Son, Jesus Christ (John 3:16). It also tells us that God becomes the father of every believer because when we place our faith in Christ, we are "born again" by the Spirit (John 1:12; 3:5). This is why Christians pray, "Our Father, who art in heaven...."

Thus, the biblical view of God as a Father who can also become our Father is pure gold for every fatherless child, especially for every fatherless boy. Because in God that fatherless boy can have a Father, and in God he can also find a model of whom he, too, can become: someone who begets and then loves, protects and nourishes his begotten.

Fatherhood, then, is a central aspect of the Christian worldview I described above and it is this worldview that reigned supreme in western civilization for almost two millennia.

God the Father's Heart for the Fatherless

It should be no surprise, then, that the Bible tells us in many places that God the Father has a special concern for the fatherless. Here are some examples:

“Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan [or "fatherless child"]. If you do, they will cry out to me and I will certainly hear their cry. My anger will be aroused and I will kill you with the sword, your wives will become widows and your children fatherless.” Exodus 22:22-24 [“Orphans” and “fatherless” are English translations of the same Hebrew word. Because widows often had almost no source of income in the Old Testament, a fatherless child was considered to be as desperate as an orphan.]
“You are the helper of the fatherless…. You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more.” Psalm 10:14, 18
“A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.” Psalm 68:5
“In you the fatherless find mercy.” Hosea 14:3
“Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.” Psalm 82:3

These verses describe God the Father as someone who, quite naturally, has a special concern for children who have no father. God hears the cry of the fatherless and inflicts terrible pain on anyone who takes advantage of them. God is a special helper and defender of the fatherless. And God is a father to the fatherless and shows them mercy.

The last verse listed, Psalm 82:3, is especially pregnant with meaning for any Christian who comes across a fatherless child. For if a father abandoning his children is a logical conclusion of a materialistic worldview, then a Christian taking a fatherless child under their wing is a logical conclusion of someone who believes that God the Father, and therefore fatherhood itself, is at the center of all reality.

IV. Ministering to Fatherless Boys in Your Church

Do Something Significant Right Now for a Fatherless Boy in Your Church

If you are a man reading this, you may be wondering what you can do to help a fatherless boy in your church. It is tempting to think that you have to get something going officially in your church before anything can be done.

But, as Pastor Mark Strong writes in his book, Church for the Fatherless, "The fatherless problem is enormous. You may face gnawing anxiety that comes from feeling you need to minister to the fatherless in a complex or big way.... Don't feel that the call is either to do something big or to do nothing at all. Start where you can." (Church for the Fatherless: A Ministry Model for Society's Most Pressing Problem, by Mark E. Strong, p. 163.)

Pastor Strong is right. Start where you can. Here is a suggestion to do just that: volunteer with another adult male to provide transportation to and from your church's youth group for a fatherless boy. This is a simple way to start ministering to fatherless boys and it requires no particular expertise.

There are a couple of reasons why this service is invaluable.

First, fatherless boys hate having their moms drive them anywhere, let alone to youth group. Most teens wouldn't be caught dead in the company of their parents in front of their peers. A teenage fatherless boy having his mom drive him to youth group is especially embarrassing.

And second, volunteering to drive a fatherless boy to youth group every week provides a great opportunity to get to know that boy on a regular basis.

But note, driving a teenager to youth group is not the same as driving a bus or a van full of kids to church, which I have done. Driving kids to church is a needed ministry, but it's difficult to develop close personal relationships with multiple children.

Of course, you will need to submit to a background check and any other requirements your church has for adults working with children. (See my post, Safety Considerations for Men Mentoring Boys.)

The reason I suggest providing one on one transportation for a fatherless boy to your church's youth group is because I have done this myself on a number of occasions and found it to be quite fruitful.

One teen I drove to our youth group got saved and went on to become a missionary to Latvia. Because of his service, the Latvian national parliament, in a nationally televised ceremony, awarded him their highest civilian medal of honor.

Another teen also came to Christ and became a chaplain in the Navy.

Another teen I took to youth group also became a Christian and now teaches high school in Texas.

Over the years, every time I reached out to a fatherless boy, he responded positively. The few hours I spent taking fatherless boys to church youth groups were well worth my time. Taking a fatherless boy to your church's youth group will be worth your time too.

Develop a Church Value Statement for Fatherless Children

Turning now to what the church as a whole can and should do for fatherless children, Pastor Mark Strong, in Church for the Fatherless, suggests that a church begin by adopting a "value statement" for fatherless children.

By writing and posting a value statement for fatherless children, a church identifies its ministry to fatherless children as one of its highest priorities. (I would also suggest value statements for widows and single moms as well.)

Pastor Strong writes, "Your value statement might look something like this: According to James 1: 27, Northeast Community Church values the scriptural mandate to care for the fatherless. We are committed to share God’s grace to the fatherless by being sensitive to their needs and by engaging in tangible acts of service in order to enhance their lives through the love of Jesus Christ." (Church for the Fatherless: A Ministry Model for Society's Most Pressing Problem, by Mark E Strong, p. 55)

But simply writing a value statement for fatherless children is not enough. It needs to be prominently promoted throughout the church on a regular basis.

"Once your value statement has been crafted, you can begin to use it to create awareness in your church. Here are some ideas: Include it in your church membership classes, seminars or orientations. Place it on appropriate literature or brochures. Pass it out to members of your staff. Post it on a wall somewhere in your church where people can read it. Share it from the pulpit. Post it on your website, send out a tweet or put it on your Facebook page. Have a staff prayer meeting and pray over the value and its implementation. Write an article and include the statement, and email, blog or mail it to church members. Include it in a newsletter. Say it over and over again." (Ibid., p. 66 Focus on Fatherless Boys in Your Men's Ministry)

Focus on Fatherless Boys in Your Men's Ministry

Here is an important question for your church to ask: How many fatherless boys are attending our church and who are they? This question is important because we can't minister to our fatherless boys if we do not know who they are.

Once we know who our fatherless boys are, the next question to ask is: How do we minister to them?

The best way to minister to fatherless boys in any church is not to set up a separate ministry for them, but to include them as a special focus in your already existing ministries.

As Pastor Strong writes, "The key to embedding a corporate value in your church, organization or ministry to meet the needs of the fatherless is not creating something brand new. It’s the deliberate embedding of care for the fatherless into your existing ministries, services and culture." (ibid. p. 62)

The natural place to begin is with your men's ministry. Given the pervasiveness of the need, every men's ministry in the country should have an emphasis on ministry to fatherless boys.

Here are some ways a men's ministry can reach fatherless boys:

Teach your men about the importance of ministering to fatherless boys.

One way to begin a conversation about fatherless boys is to simply ask your men if any of them grew up in a fatherless home. If so, ask them to share their experiences and especially if they had any role models who stepped in to fill their father's absence.

Then teach on the many passages of scripture that touch on this topic, some of which I have shared above. You can start with James 1:27.

Finally, give your men a vision of reducing fatherlessness in your church and community by pointing out that reaching fatherless boys will reduce fatherlessness in just one or two decades as those fatherless boys come to Christ and grow up to become godly husbands and fathers themselves.

Include fatherless teen boys in your meetings.

Most men's meetings are appropriate for teen boys, such as men's breakfasts, retreats, and sporting events. Besides encouraging your fathers to bring their teenage sons to these meetings, make a special effort to invite teen fatherless boys to them as well. But be sure to provide volunteers in your men's ministry to pick them up and take them home.

Recruit men from your men's ministry to be mentors for fatherless boys.

Of course, you don't have to limit your recruitment of mentors to just your men's ministry, but your men's ministry is definitely a natural place to start. What better way for your men to grow in their walk with the Lord than to come alongside a fatherless boy and minister to him? Besides being a blessing, they themselves will be blessed too.

In his book, Fatherless America and the Church, my good friend, Sam Mehafie, writes, "I truly believe the most important ministry a men’s ministry program can start is a mentoring program, and I believe there are many men who would get involved in this.... The challenge is to get churches—men—to reach out to this new 'mission field' of fatherlessness." (page 49)

In his forward to John Sowers' book, Fatherless Generation: Redeeming the Story, Donald Miller shares his testimony of how godly men in his church mentored him:

"John and I have a similar story. When we were kids, men from our church took us under their wings and taught us how to be men. These men weren’t our fathers, but they were men provided by God, and evidence that God has a heart for fatherless kids. Without these men, I’d most likely be in prison. John may have fared better, but it’s statistically doubtful." (p. 19)

Create male "rites of passage" and include fatherless boys.

How does a boy in America know when he has become a man? When he goes through puberty? When he gets his driver's license? When he can drink alcohol? When he first has sex? When he joins a gang?

A major problem with teenage boys today is that there is no real defining moment when they pass from childhood to adulthood. And if the boy is from a fatherless home, the problem of not knowing when he crosses the line into manhood becomes even greater.

This lack of clarity in American culture of when a boy becomes a man is one reason why the concept of "rites of passage" has taken on special significance in men's ministry.

Most cultures have rites of passage for boys. The bar mitzva in Jewish culture is one example. But there is no clear rite of passage for boys in American culture.

Given the current problems the church is having in retaining young boys -- and especially fatherless boys -- it's time for churches to develop their own rites of passage.

To help you research this topic and develop a rite of passage for boys in your church -- and especially for fatherless boys in your church -- here are three references for you to get started:

David Olshine gives a good overview of rites of passage in "Boys will be Boys: Rites of Passage and Male Teens."

Dr. Chuck Stecker, another good friend of mine, has written a book on rites of passage called, "Men of Honor, Women of Virtue."

For an example - although a rather extreme one - of an actual rite of passage, read Dr. Vern Poythress' post, "How I Helped My Boys to Become Christian Men."

Give fatherless boys "The Blessing".

Every boy coming of age secretly longs for his father's blessing. This is why I suggest that every rite of passage should conclude with a very special blessing pronounced by the father on his newly recognized adult son.

Some examples in the Bible of fathers giving their sons a special blessing are Isaac blessing Jacob in Genesis 27:18-29, Jacob blessing Judah in Genesis 49:8-12, and Jacob blessing Joseph and his sons in Genesis 48:15-16.

In their book, The Blessing, Giving the Gift of Unconditional Love and Acceptance, John Trent and Gary Smalley write, "The Blessing described in Scripture always included five elements:

1. Appropriate meaningful touch

2. A spoken or written message

3. Attaching high value to the one being blessed

4. Picturing a special future for him or her

5. An active, genuine commitment to fulfill the Blessing" (Ibid., p. 51)

As you can see, a fatherless child receiving such a blessing as he commences his adult journey would be greatly encouraged by such a blessing. Most fatherless children never experience this kind of basic affirmation of their potential for good.

As John Sowers writes in Fatherless Generation, "This generation is an Esau generation—a generation that has lost its birthright and is longing for the father’s blessing. But the fathers of this generation can no longer bless them because they are gone. While this is a tragic reality, it is also a great opportunity to bring healing and reconciliation to a broken generation. When authentic relationships have been established, there are opportunities to speak words of blessing into the lives of those we mentor." (ibid., p. 118)

Reach out to fatherless boys in your community.

Once you have successfully reached out to the fatherless boys in your church, it's time to begin thinking about fatherless boys in your community. Some churches work with local schools to provide them with male mentors. Some churches even work with the local court system to provide mentors for juveniles in trouble.

Whatever your men's ministry does, remember that working with fatherless boys can become some of your most fruitful ministry. As Sam Mehaffie writes,

"Because certain men in my church came into my life, I am the man I am today. Frank Boyko was my sixth-grade Sunday school teacher. He would put his arm around me and just be there. That gesture spoke volumes to me. There were others: John Struss, George Escourt, my stepdad, and most of all my Uncle Vern, whom I still consider my mentor and my role model. These guys helped bring healing into my life and helped me discover hope through Jesus Christ. Because of men like these, I learned that God believed in me, and he can’t be wrong." (Fatherless America and the Church, p. 7.)

Focus on Fatherless Boys in Your Christian Education and Pulpit Ministries

You can also broaden your church's ministry to fatherless children by embedding a fatherless value in your preaching ministry and Christian education program. Here are some suggestions.

Preach and teach on the importance of ministering to the fatherless.

Pastors, you have a wonderful mechanism for steering your church. It's called a pulpit. Use it to call attention to the need to minister to the fatherless. As such, there are a number of things you need to accomplish. John Sowers does a good job of listing them in Fatherless Generation.

"Preaching on father absenteeism should achieve the following goals: Educate the church on the problem of father absenteeism. Make the church aware of the effects of father absenteeism on children. Empower single mothers as individuals and parents. Stress the importance of marriage as it relates to father absenteeism. Address the father’s responsibility to his children. Make the community aware of its responsibility to the fatherless. Present God as the supreme Father for every person and child." (Fatherless Generation: Redeeming the Story, John A. Sowers, p. 84)

Preach and teach on God as Father.

The fatherhood of God is not a minor biblical topic. We see it taught throughout the word of God, especially in the New Testament.

Take, for example, the beginning of Paul's prayer for the Ephesians in Ephesians 3:14-15, "For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name..."

This passage teaches us that fatherhood is modeled after God and that when fathers abandon their children, that is a direct attack on God the Father himself.

Passages like this should form the basis for an entire series on God as Father, and should not be relegated to just one sermon.

Preach and teach on a Christian view of dating, marriage, sex, and procreation.

Make sure your entire church knows where the Bible stands on these topics. In this day and age of massive sexual promiscuity, we must be crystal clear on what God's will is in these areas.

Educate your children's minister, youth minister, and volunteers on the needs of fatherless boys.

Do not take it for granted that your children and youth ministers and volunteers know how to minister to fatherless children, especially fatherless boys. I suggest you require reading and special workshops for these workers.

In those workshops, you can discuss specific fatherless children in your church and how best to minister to them.

Showcase married couples and single men as teachers in your children's Christian education classes.

Proper male role models, both husbands and single men, should figure prominently in your CE ministry and especially in your youth ministry. Fifth and sixth grade Sunday school classes especially should have male as well as female leaders in them.

Having Christian male role models is important for all boys, but especially for fatherless boys. Note that gangs start recruiting new gang members in middle school. The church should be mentoring boys well before then.

Focus on Ministries that Naturally Draw Fatherless Boys to Your Church

Certain types of ministries tend to draw the fatherless into churches. I'll start with the most obvious.

Single moms ministries

New Commandment Men's Ministries has helped 1,000 churches across America form teams of four men each who adopt widows, single moms, and their fatherless children. They donate two hours of service around their homes one Saturday morning a month, returning each month to the same home. In this way the teams develop a relational ministry with their care receivers, including the fatherless children.

For examples of other single mom ministries, see my post, "Parachurch and Church-Based Single Moms Ministries"

AWANA

AWANA is a popular children's parachurch ministry with a large focus on scripture memory. I have seen this ministry used as an effective outreach into the community for the following reason: it usually meets at the church for two hours on weekday evenings.

AWANA meeting on weekday evenings is significant because my observation has been that non-Christian parents, especially single moms, often use AWANA for free babysitting, resulting in a good percentage of fatherless children attending.

Church sports

Since fatherless boys make up at least 20% of all boys, any church activities that attract boys from the community, like church basketball or softball leagues, will inevitably also attract fatherless children.

V. National and Regional Ministries to Fatherless Boys

Here are some examples of successful national and regional ministries to fatherless boys:

National Center for Fathering

Provides extensive research on fatherlessness.

Life Factors

"We believe the local church is the best institution to reach the fatherless locally. We are working to partner with at least one church in every county of the United States. Through partnership we provide speaking, consulting, insights and training, and physical products to help you do ministry!"

Fathers in the Field

"Mentor fathers and boys meet four times a month and, using these tools, gain insight and understanding, serve others, worship, and plan a special outdoor activity (camping, hunting, fishing, riding, whatever they decide to do together) so they have a year-end ‘rite of passage’ celebration to prepare for and look forward to."

God is My Dad Club

Provides resources for churches to use in ministering to the fatherless.

Truth in Nature

"Our mission is to reach, inspire, support, and engage young men from fatherless and single parent homes in understanding their purpose as Christian men and helping break the fatherless cycle in society today."

Mentor Up Ministries

"In 2007 the Men’s group at Coast Hills Church in Aliso Viejo, CA was challenged to address the needs of fatherless boys in their community. In response, a local business owner, Andy Schiller, was moved to answer the call. He recruited other like-minded men, contacted some single moms in the church and surrounding area and started meeting on Monday nights at the church. The moms dropped off their sons, and the mentors fed them, played sports and games and then ended with a Bible study that addressed real-life issues the boys faced every day, like loneliness, bullying and the challenge of standing up for their beliefs."

"There are now six Mentor UP chapters throughout Orange County, serving over 50 boys each week, with plans to add several more chapters within a year, including reaching into Los Angeles and San Diego counties. We believe this vital ministry for fatherless boys will continue to grow according to God’s plan and with His timing."

Fatherless Boys

"If you are a single mother with sons, you likely recognize the need for your sons to have adult male role models. Find the resources you need to equip yourself as well as your sons' coaches, Scoutmasters, Sunday School teachers and other mentors. Share these resources with your church staff and encourage them to help meet the needs of the fatherless boys."

As you can see, there are a number of ministries to fatherless boys that your church can either utilize directly or use as templates for your own custom designed ministry to fatherless boys.

VI. A Prayer for Fatherless Boys

"Do you not say, 'There are still four months and then comes the harvest'? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white unto harvest!" John 4:35

"But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, 'The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.'" Matthew 9:36-38

And so we pray:

"O Father God, you see the thousands upon thousands of fatherless boys in America. You know all about their crushing father wounds. You long to bring salvation and healing to them, to be for them the father they should have had.

"You have commanded us to love fatherless boys the same way you love them; to seek them out, to lead them to you, and to train them up to be the men and husbands and fathers you intend them to be.

"In obedience to Jesus' command, we pray that you will raise up workers to reach these dear fatherless boys, for the harvest is truly plentiful and they are just waiting to hear the good news that you can be their eternal Father.

"Help me, Father God, to be one of those workers whenever I come across a fatherless boy.

"In the name of Jesus Christ, who taught us to call you our Father, we pray.

"Amen."

Bibliography

Underlined titles are links to my book reviews.

The Blessing: Giving the Gift of Unconditional Love and Acceptance, John Trent, Gary Smalley, Kari Trent Stagebert

The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys are Struggling and What We Can Do About It, Warren Farrell and John Gray

Boys will be Boys: Rites of Passage and Male Teens, David Olshine

Church for the Fatherless: A Ministry Model for Society's Most Pressing Problem, Mark E. Strong

Developing a Men's Team Ministry to Widows, Widowers, and Single Moms (Video and Workbook), Herb Reese

Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism, Paul C. Vitz

Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem, David Blankenhorn

Fatherless America and the Church, Sam Mehaffie

Fatherless Generation: Redeeming the Story, John Sowers

"How I Helped My Boys to Become Christian Men", Dr. Vern Poythress

Men of Honor, Women of Virtue, Dr. Chuck Stecker

Real Boys' Voices: Boys Speak out about Drugs, Sex, Violence, Bullying, Sports, School, Parents, and so much more, Dr. William S. Pollack

Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why it Matters, and What to Do About it, Richard V. Reeves, Brookings Institution Press

A Great Ministry Idea

For the past eighteen years New Commandment Men’s Ministries has helped hundreds of churches throughout North America and around the world recruit, train, organize, and deploy teams of men who permanently adopt widows, single moms and fatherless children in their congregations for the purpose of donating two hours of service to them one Saturday morning each month. We accomplish this with an online membership training site. Learn how to mobilize your men’s ministry to meet every pressing need in your church at newcommandment.org.

This article first appeared in NewCommandment.org.

Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus, come!

Herb Reese is an author, public speaker and President of New Commandment Men's Ministries. Herb has a B.A. in History from UCLA and a Th.M. in Pastoral Ministries from Dallas Theological Seminary. He has done post graduate work in The History of Ideas at University of Texas, Dallas and in Church Administration at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. After serving as a pastor over a period of twenty years, Herb founded New Commandment Men's Ministries, a ministry dedicated to helping churches recruit, train, organize and deploy teams of men who permanently adopt their widows, single moms, and fatherless children. Herb has served as President of New Commandment since 2003 and has helped 1000 churches develop men's team ministries in all 50 states and eight foreign countries. Herb and his wife, Patti, have three grown children and live in Arvada, Colorado.

A Comprehensive Church-Based Ministry to Fatherless Boys

Table of Contents

A Comprehensive Church-Based Ministry to Fatherless Boys

Table of Contents

Summary

Introduction: A Fatherless Boy's Father Wound

I. Gaining Perspective about Fatherless Boys

What Fatherless Children have in Common with Widows and Single Moms

Why Focus on Fatherless Boys?

Where did all the Fathers Go? Statistics and Trends

Not all Fatherless Boys are from the Same Type of Fatherless Home

Fatherless Boys and U.S. Church Attendance Trends

II. Learning How Fatherless Boys Feel

Repressed: Fatherless Boys and The Boy Code

Alone: Fatherless Boys and their Deceased Fathers

Betrayed: Fatherless Boys and their Divorced or Separated Fathers

Rudderless: Fatherless Boys and their Never Present or Never Married Fathers

Hopeless: Fatherless Boys without God

III. Restoring Hope for Fatherless Boys

The Christian Worldview is Gold for Fatherless Boys

God the Father's Heart for the Fatherless

IV. Ministering to Fatherless Boys in Your Church

Do Something Significant Right Now for a Fatherless Boy in Your Church

Develop a Church Value Statement for Fatherless Children

Focus on Fatherless Boys in Your Men's Ministry

Focus on Fatherless Boys in Your Christian Education and Pulpit Ministries

Focus on Ministries that Naturally Draw Fatherless Boys to Your Church

V. National and Regional Ministries to Fatherless Boys

VI. A Prayer for Fatherless Boys

Bibliography

A Great Ministry Idea