Sometimes I think the men’s ministry movement in America over the past forty years has been more about making disciples of James Dobson than making disciples of Jesus Christ. That is, current men’s ministry has an almost exclusive “focus on the family,” an emphasis one simply does not find in the gospels, in the book of Acts, and only as a subordinate emphasis in the epistles. In fact, when it comes to Jesus’ ministry, one could conclude that he was downright hostile toward the family as an institution.1
A Summary of the Modern Men’s Ministry Message
After attending six Promise Keepers conferences, over one hundred and fifty other men’s conferences, reading dozens of books on men’s ministry, talking with a plethora of men’s ministry leaders, and leading a men’s ministry myself for eighteen years, I can summarize the modern men’s ministry message over the last forty years with these three key terms:
- Salvation: A man’s need to be saved from God’s wrath through faith in Jesus Christ.
- Personal Piety: A Christian man’s walk with God.
- Marriage and Family: A Christian man’s relationships with his wife and children.
That is it. God saves men. God sanctifies men. And then God turns them loose to be great husbands and dads. In other words, current men’s ministry sees having a great marriage and godly children as the ultimate goals of a man’s salvation.
Maximized Manhood‘s Role in the Modern Men’s Ministry Message
The late Dr. Cole, who is often called “the father of the modern men’s ministry movement,” has had a central role in this family emphasis in men’s ministry as the ultimate expression of a man’s faith. The title of his book alone — Maximized Manhood: A Guide to Family Survival — explicitly equates “maximized manhood” with a Christian man’s family. First published in 1982, at the beginning of the men’s ministry movement, and with over a million copies in print, Cole’s Maximized Manhood has had an important influence on all men’s ministry.
Now, before I go on, let me say that being a wonderful husband and a good father are excellent and necessary applications of a Christian man’s faith. And Dr. Cole’s book, Maximized Manhood, is a masterful example of how men need to do just that.
I highly recommend Maximized Manhood and if you haven’t read it, you need to. Praise the Lord for all of the books, all of the conferences, all of the workshops, and all of the men’s ministries that are dedicated to helping men be good family men.
Being a Complete Christian Man Involves Practicing Good Works
But the Bible teaches that being a complete and mature Christian man who is living out his faith consistently involves far more than personal piety and being a good family man.
Consistent Christian living also involves good works, a subject modern men’s ministries almost always completely ignore. For example, the term “good work(s)” occurs only once, and that in passing, in Maximized Manhood, (Kindle Edition, Location 2509). And yet the subject of good works occurs over and over again in the New Testament, especially in the epistles.
In the Apostle Paul’s mind, a “maximized man” is a man of God – a “perfect” or complete man — who has been “thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:17). He wrote that performing good works is the reason why we have been saved (Ephesians 2:10), and that the purpose of good works is to meet pressing needs in the church (Titus 3:14).
Jesus taught that good works are central to a believer’s testimony (Matthew 5:16), that they express love to one’s neighbor (Luke 10:25-37), and that even our seemingly inconsequential good works will be rewarded (Matthew 10:42).
James, Jesus’ half brother and the head of the church in Jerusalem, taught that our good works validate our faith (James 2:18).
Peter taught that our good works will cause even those who slander us to glorify God (1 Peter 2:12).
John taught that the absence of good works makes our expression of love for believers in need meaningless (1 John 3:16-18).
These are just a few of the dozens of references to good works in the Bible. Given this kind of emphasis, no men’s ministry can be complete without including substantive teaching on a practical theology of good works: what they are, who they are for, what they are to accomplish, and why they are important.
How Practicing Good Works Meshes with the Modern Men’s Ministry Message
As a starting point, if I were to summarize the biblical teaching on good works and combine it with current men’s ministry teaching, this is what it would look like:
- Salvation: A man’s need to be saved from God’s wrath through faith in Jesus Christ.
- Personal Piety: A Christian man’s walk with God.
- Marriage and Family: A Christian man’s relationships with his wife and children.
- Love One Another: A Christian man’s good works that meet pressing needs in a local body of believers so that his church can say, “there is no needy person among us.”
- Love Your Neighbor: A Christian man’s good works on behalf of the needs of his neighbors so that he can say, “I am loving my neighbor as myself.”
Now that is maximized manhood.
Since 2003 New Commandment Men’s Ministries has helped hundreds of churches throughout North America and around the world recruit 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 a free training site called New Commandment Men’s Ministry Learn how to mobilize your men’s ministry to meet every pressing need in your church at 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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- For a survey of Jesus’ views on the family, see my post, “Why Jesus Didn’t Focus on the Family.”
One thought on “One Christian’s Review of “Maximized Manhood” by Edwin Louis Cole”
What a great list.
* Salvation
* Piety (Growth)
* Marriage & Family
* Loving One Another
* Loving Our Neighbor
I believe the emphasis (perhaps over-emphasis) on “Stage 3″ Marriage & Family” stems from the dangers of a man not becoming civilized or socialized … domesticated? In the field of Family Studies / Family Systems a man must attach to a female in order to reign in his impulse / instinct for out-of-control violence, sexual aggression, etc. In fact, in the research, the most dangerous man in any people group is “the unattached male.” Obviously, all of this sounds dated in 2021. And obviously, single men can abound in the work of the Lord, perhaps even more so, according to the Apostle Paul. And yet the threat remains. Unless a man is tamed, domesticated, woven into the fabric of family with a wife, he runs the danger of never reaching stages 4 and 5 in the list. Family-life can be self-less. The Judeo-Christian model is still that a man leave his father and mother and be united in one-flesh to his wife and they perpetuate the family cycle again. And yes, single men can surely do amazing Kingdom of God work. But the danger remains that many young men who fail to integrate into our civil society learn to live as outsiders in dangerous ways. I only mention this because the 1970s – 1980s emphasis on family life (James Dobson?) in evangelicalism was probably a reaction against hyper-feminism, the gay rights movement, no-fault divorce, and the ready availability of the birth-control pill. Perhaps now the evangelical men’s ministry movement can promote this shift to an emphasis on the “good works” you rightly emphasize.