The Men’s Ministry I Know (Part 2)

This and the previous post in this series have been incorporated into the Introduction of my online article, “A Comprehensive Church-Based Ministry to Men.”

Over the past fifty years of my adult life I have been exposed to dozens and dozens of parachurch men’s ministries. The first two that I learned about as a young man exemplify two important lessons for anyone involved in men’s ministry.

YMCA – A cautionary tale for all men’s ministries

“We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away…

how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation?” Hebrews 2:1,3

YMCA is the most successful parachurch “men’s ministry” in the history of Protestant Christianity

I’m starting this brief and by no means complete history of men’s ministry with YMCA because, technically, it is one of the most successful parachurch “men’s ministries” ever. But I put men’s ministry in quotes here because it really is no longer a men’s ministry in the strict sense of the term.

I joke that the Young Men’s Christian Association should be called the Association – or the “A” – because it is no longer just for young men and it is no longer Christian. Instead, YMCA has become a cautionary tale that all men’s ministries should take to heart.

As originally conceived by George Williams, who founded YMCA in 1844, YMCA “combined preaching in the streets and the distribution of religious tracts with a social ministry. Philanthropists saw them as places for wholesome recreation that would preserve youth from the temptations of alcohol, gambling, and prostitution and that would promote good citizenship.”^[8]

YMCA soon caught on and by 1851 had spread to 9 countries around the world. Today, YMCA is in 120 countries and boasts 64 million members, a truly remarkable achievement.

YMCA’s success came at a cost

But YMCA’s success came at a cost: having gained the whole world, it lost its soul. For instance, I do not know of any YMCA today that conducts prayer and Bible reading groups the way George Williams did when he first founded the organization. And I would be very pleasantly surprised to see gospel tracts being handed out at the front desk of a local YMCA.

I personally worked in a YMCA in Southern California when I was attending college. I knew at the time that God was calling me into ministry. When my vocational plans became known at the Y, some of my fellow staff members took me aside on more than one occasion and strenuously tried to convince me that entering the ministry would be a waste of my life!

The evolution of YMCA from a conservative, Bible believing and preaching “young men’s Christian association” into an organization that ignores orthodox Christian beliefs and even opposes them parallels the heterodoxy that has come to characterize many mainline churches, denominations, seminaries and so-called Christian colleges. The end result is that these organizations bear primary responsibility for destroying the foundations of Western civilization and now actually promote the ensuing moral relativism and cultural disintegration I have previously described.

So much for the A.

But if YMCA and its liberal Christian cohorts failed to stem the tide of male moral declension in America, what will?

I believe the answer is clear: what transforms men is the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ within the context of Christians practicing sacrifice for the benefit of fellow believers.

The Bible teaches that it is Christians practicing sacrifice for the benefit of others that adorns the gospel and paves the way for its broad acceptance in any culture. I offer up two men as beautiful examples of this principle.

The Navigators – When men observe Christians sacrificing for the benefit of others, it opens doors into their hearts

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.

And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.” 1 John 3:16

Why The Navigators has had such a massive impact on the United States Air Force Academy

The late Lt Col Scott Huddleson served in the Air Force’s Space Command for over twenty years before it became a separate branch of the military. Scott and I were good friends in high school. I got to know him just after his girl friend, whom he would later marry, took him to a Billy Graham Crusade, where he made a profession of faith. After we graduated high school, Scott headed to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs while I entered UCLA. Over the years, we kept in touch.

While a cadet at the Air Force Academy, Scott became involved with The Navigators, a college and military men’s ministry known for its focus on evangelism and discipleship through Bible study and scripture memory. Soon Scott began rapidly growing in his faith.

One day I received a cassette tape (I’m dating myself!) from Scott in the mail. He had just learned about the founder of the Navigators, Dawson Trotman. Scott was so impressed by his testimony that he made an audio recording about it and sent it to me.

On the tape, Scott recounted with solemnity how Dawson sacrificed his life for a young girl who fell out of a boat they were in. Dawson jumped into the water and kept her afloat until she could be rescued. But Dawson drowned in the process.

As I listened to Scott’s earnestness on that tape, I realized that this story meant so much to Scott because he himself was expected as a member of the armed forces to be willing to sacrifice his life in service for our country. Dawson Trotman was a Christian man who had sacrificed his life in service for another human being. No wonder Dawson had such an impact on Scott.

And no wonder The Navigators has had such an impact on the Air Force Academy, a place that drills into its cadets that it is better to die with honor than to live with shame. Dawson’s selfless act perfectly illustrates this ethic. As a result, Dawson’s continuing impact has been so great among the cadets at the Academy over the past several decades that The Navigators has been sued for supposedly violating the establishment of religion clause in the Constitution!¹

Men respect men who sacrifice for the benefit of others

Scott’s deep awe and respect for Dawson Trotman because of his sacrifice illustrates a critical principle for reaching men: men respect men who sacrifice for the benefit of others.

We see this principle lived out in real life time and again. When a police officer is dies in the line of duty, fellow officers line up by the hundreds to salute him as his body is driven away from the scene. When a fireman dies saving the life of someone in a fire, his fellow firemen do the same thing. When a war hero is buried, his fellow soldiers give him a twenty-one gun salute. Indeed, our entire country honors its war dead on Memorial Day once a year.

When Christians sacrifice for the benefit of others they open doors into men’s hearts

This is a universal practice: when a man gives his life for the benefit of another, other men stop in awe and pay their respects. Because of this truth about men, when Christians practice sacrifice, they “adorn the gospel.” Christian sacrifice pries open tightly closed and well-guarded spiritual, emotional, and moral doors that lead directly into the hearts of men.

In doing so, when men observe Christian sacrifice in action, it becomes natural for them to accept the One who sacrificed his life for them.

A classic biblical example of this truth is Saul, who, while standing at the scene of the martyrdom of Stephen, saw and heard his bold testimony as he was being stoned to death. That example of Christian sacrifice, along with the many other examples that Saul would soon witness later, lodged in Saul’s mind as a powerful goad until he couldn’t stand it any more.

“We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’” (Acts 26:14)

That is what Christian sacrifice does. It starts an internal dissonance in the soul of the unbeliever that cannot be resolved until he surrenders and believes.

When Christians sacrifice for the benefit of others they inspire other believers to do the same

But there is more to Dawson’s story and it expands on this principle: men not only respect men who sacrifice for the benefit of others, but they are also inspired by them to do the same.

Dawson Trotman’s example of self-sacrifice is well known. But what is not as well known is that when he sacrificed his life for that little girl, he was most likely inspired to do so by his own brother who had done the same thing.

That is correct. Before Dawson Trotman gave his life for a girl, his brother Roland had given his life to save the life of different girl.

Here is how Dawson told the story about his brother’s heroic sacrifice just months before he made his own heroic sacrifice:

“When I first came to know the Lord, I talked to my brother about the Savior. He laughed at me and said, “I’m not interested. Don’t talk to me any more.” I do not talk to a man when he tells me not to, but I talk to the Lord. Three years later I said, “Roland, could I talk to you for a moment about Christ?” He said yes, and smiled a bit. The Lord had just brought him to Himself. He had seen some things that had touched his heart. Three weeks later headlines in the Los Angeles Examiner read, “Hero Gives Life To Save Girl.” How do you think I felt when I found out that my own brother was gone? What if I had not spoken to him about Christ?”²

Think about it. Roland Trotman was a hero before his brother Dawson was. It seems that Dawson Trotman had his brother Roland’s example on his mind when he jumped out of the boat and into the water to save the life of that girl, even though he knew he couldn’t swim and might drown.

So let me say this again, men who see another man sacrifice for someone not only respect that man, but are inspired to do the same.

This is true of soldiers. When soldiers sacrifice for others, they inspire other soldiers to do the same.

This is true of police officers. When police officers sacrifice for others, they inspire other police officers to do the same.

This is true of firemen. When firemen sacrifice for others, they inspire other firemen to do the same.

And this is also true of Christians. When Christians sacrifice for others, they inspire other Christians to do the same.

“By this we perceive the love of Christ, that he laid down his life for us. And we ought also to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.” (1 John 3:16)

The principle of sacrifice is central to Christianity and critical to men’s ministry. Until we learn how to practice sacrifice the way Christ modeled for us, we will never be effective in reaching the millions of men who need to be reached in order to make an impact on our culture.

I will cover the specifics on how Christian men can sacrifice for the benefit of others at another time (I’ll put a link to it here when I do). Until then, in my next post I will continue my series on the history of men’s ministry by discussing two Christian authors who sounded the alarm and paved the way.

This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.

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