This and previous posts in this series have been incorporated into the Introduction of my online article, “A Comprehensive Church-Based Ministry to Men.”
Stumbling across The National Coalition of Ministries to Men on the internet
A few months after my brother-in-law’s funeral in June of 2002, I was on the internet and by chance (at least from my perspective) I came across an organization called The National Coalition of Ministries to Men, or NCMM. I had never heard of it before and I was fascinated to learn that it was an organization that was founded in 1996 to nurture the many local, regional, and national men’s ministries that had developed in response to the Promise Keepers movement.
At the time, NCMM had planned a national conference gathering of its members later that year in Indianapolis. As I read about it, I sensed that God wanted me to go and talk to the men attending about men’s team ministry to widows, single moms, and fatherless children. “This would be a perfect way to spread the word,” I thought.
I wasn’t interested in starting a men’s parachurch ministry myself, I just thought attending the conference would be a way to get these other ministries to do men’s team ministry themselves. I discussed it with Patti and she strongly encouraged me to attend.
So I reserved a place at the conference and began praying that the Lord would open up opportunities for me to tell others about the success I had been having with men’s team ministry.
My visit to the Indianapolis 2002 NCMM conference
When I arrived at NCMM, I discovered that there were several hundred men attending the conference and I knew none of them. So during breaks, I would randomly walk up to someone, introduce myself, and tell them my story about men’s team ministry. After listening to me, their reactions were all the same, like they were reading from the same script.
“That’s a great ministry idea, Herb,” they would say. “No one is doing this. You should do it.”
“No, no, I am a pastor,” I would think to myself. “You guys are the men’s ministers. You need to do it.”
All my life, since I was in junior high school, I had never thought of myself as anything other than a pastor. I loved the pastorate. I loved studying the Word. I loved preaching. I loved working with boards. I loved church administration. I loved the comradery I had with my staff. I loved visitation. I loved shepherding and discipling people. I loved crisis intervention. I loved doing baptisms and weddings and funerals. And I loved counseling. Well, except marital counseling. That I didn’t love so much.
There was a period of a year and a half, prior to my first pastorate, when I worked in Texas as an oil and gas lease broker leasing mineral rights for oil companies. I made a good salary. My wife, a nurse practitioner, also made a good salary. We built a new home. We bought new furniture and a new car…. but I was miserable. Why? Because what I was doing wasn’t what God called me to do.
When I finally received my first call to a pastorate, I was one happy man. Patti and I quit our jobs, sold our home, and moved into a tiny parsonage in what seemed to us to be an even tinier town.
So at the conference, when the men I was talking to suggested I do something other than be a pastor, my natural response was to discount what they were saying. “God has called me to the pastorate,” I would think in a huff, “not to start one more parachurch ministry.”
600 men’s ministry leaders
As I boarded my plane back to Denver, I noticed a man I had met briefly at the conference, but didn’t get a chance to talk with about men’s team ministry. His name was Chris Van Brocklin and he was the national men’s ministry director for the Evangelical Free Church of America. After our flight took off and reached altitude I could see that there was an empty seat next to him, so I went and sat in it.
Just like I had been doing with the others at the conference, I excitedly told Chris about my experience with men’s team ministry to widows, single moms, and fatherless children. As I shared my story, I happened to mention the 50 men at Fullerton EvFree asking for my funeral sermon notes. When I finished, Chris asked me to send him the notes as well.
When I got home, I sent Chris the notes and a few days later I received the following email from him: “With your permission, I’d like to send your sermon notes on men’s team ministry to all 600 men’s ministry leaders in the Evangelical Free Church of America! And you should do this!”
I was stunned. Something like this was exactly what I had hoped would happen by my attendance at the conference. I wanted men’s ministry leaders themselves to promote men’s team ministry.
As for me, my mind was still set on the pastorate.
My literal call to do men’s team ministry to widows, single moms, and fatherless children
A few weeks after my trip to Indianapolis, I learned about a vacant pastorate in a church in Southern California that was just a few miles from my sister and nieces.
“This is perfect!” I thought. “I can pastor this church and be near enough to my sister to be able to help her out.”
What made the situation even better was that there were some people in the church that I knew personally. So I applied to the church and received a call to come and be interviewed by the church board.
The interview went smoothly enough. In fact, it felt like a slam dunk. I even had a chance to share my experience with men’s team ministry. I returned home and eagerly waited for the call from the board chairman to come and officially candidate.
But instead, I got the surprise of my life when the chairman called. “Herb, we’re not going to ask you to candidate. We think you should do this men’s team ministry to widows, single moms, and fatherless children thing instead.”
I couldn’t believe it. I hung up the phone in shock. But then, as I prayed and looked back on the previous seven years, everything fell into place: Dan’s death and Teresa’s grief, learning about men’s team ministry at the PK conference, my first experience with men’s team ministry in my church in Quincy, my second experience with men’s team ministry in my church in Broomfield, speaking at the Boulder Men’s Fellowship, my brother-in-law’s death, the funeral at Fullerton EvFree, the team for my sister, the men at the NCMM conference telling me “You should do this,” Chris sending my sermon notes to 600 men’s ministry leaders, and now a church board telling me to do this.
Finally, after 7 years, the Lord had gotten through to me and I realized that I would be disobedient if I didn’t “do this.”
I had just one question: “But how, Lord? How do I ‘do this’?”
This post first 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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