Orthopraxy Has Nothing to do With Your Teeth

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After my interview with Jim Daley on Focus on the Family in 2011, I went out to lunch with the producer. He mentioned the hundreds of requests for interviews FOTF gets from a multitude of Christian organizations. To which I responded, “And yet you took the initiative, contacted New Commandment Men’s Ministries and asked to interview me. Why did you do that, especially since my ministry is not directly centered on the family?”

He immediately responded with one word.

“Orthopraxy.”

“Orthopraxy?” I thought. I have to admit, after ten years of college and graduate school, I had never heard the term, “orthopraxy.” Maybe I was sick the day that topic was covered. I immediately pictured myself in a dental chair having an “orthopractic” procedure done in my mouth, complete with gauze in my cheeks and a suctioning device.

“Orthopraxy means ‘right conduct,'” he went on, “as opposed to orthodoxy, which means ‘right belief.'”

“Ah! Of course orthopraxy mans ‘right conduct’,” I thought. My Greek training from four decades ago kicked in as my paranoia of dentists faded. “Ortho means straight and praxis means practice or doing.”

“Your ministry uses men to serve widows, widowers and single parents, especially widows, widowers and single parents in the church. And that is very biblical. It’s orthopraxy. It’s right conduct,” he explained.

So here’s my thought, men. Instead of calling the ministry to men at your church “men’s ministry”, how about calling it “men’s orthopraxy”? You could even start an adult men’s orthopractic Sunday school, hold orthopractic breakfasts one Saturday a month, and invite your men in to have an orthopractic checkup every six months.

Or not.

But you get the point. What we’re really about is not just orthodoxy, right belief, but also orthopraxy, right practice. And one without the other is an incomplete men’s ministry indeed.

This post originally appeared in NewCommandment.org.

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Learn how to form teams of men for every widow, single mom

and fatherless child in your church at NewCommandment.org.

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