This and previous posts in this series have been incorporated into the Introduction of my online article, “A Comprehensive Church-Based Ministry to Men.”
Saturday morning, June 15, 2002
I was so excited about being asked to speak to a church’s men’s group about men’s team ministry that I found it difficult to wait the several weeks it took for June 15 to roll around.
“Why couldn’t we set a date sooner?” I wondered impatiently.
I knew that being asked to speak at Boulder Men’s Fellowship, and now being asked to speak for this upcoming church men’s meeting, were specific answers to my prayers that I had prayed on the Mesa Trail. I had been praying that God would open up opportunities to share about men’s team ministry with churches in the Boulder/Denver north metro area, but what I didn’t know was that I had made my scope too narrow. The Lord, it turned out, had bigger plans.
Saturday morning, June 15, finally rolled around. I had studied and prepared diligently for this day and I went to bed the night before with great anticipation.
But early in the morning my cell phone rang and woke me and Patti up. It was my sister calling from Whittier, California, to tell us that her husband had just died from complications from hepatitis C.
Patti and I knew that my brother-in-law was sick, but this was not expected.
Shocked by the news, I decided to cancel my speaking engagement. But later that morning I reconsidered and decided I should go. After all, wasn’t this appointment a specific answer to my prayers?
Isn’t it ironic?
I managed to get in a few more hours of fitful sleep and then, with a heavy heart, I drove out to the church and spoke to their men about men’s team ministry to widows, single moms, and fatherless children. I must have been on autopilot because I don’t remember anything I said.
But I do remember what Patti said to me when I got home.
She opened the door, greeted me with a hug, and, with tears in her eyes, asked me, “Isn’t it ironic that you just spoke to a men’s group about men’s team ministry to widows, single moms, and fatherless children and your sister is a brand new widow and single mom, and her daughters are now fatherless?”
It was true. My brother-in-law was 48 when he died, leaving my sister with their two teenaged girls to raise by herself in Southern California. Complicating matters was the fact that I and my two brothers lived far away from them. It would be impossible for us to be of much practical help going forward.
The burden of the Lord
The one thousand mile drive from Denver to Los Angeles is at times majestic and beautiful, but mostly it is utterly desolate. Either way, it gives one plenty of time to think. And time to think was what I needed because my sister had asked me to officiate the funeral.
It was on one of the desolate stretches of endless highway out in the middle of nowhere, probably somewhere in Utah or Nevada, that I had a strange experience. As I drove along, I was praying and meditating about what I should preach on when suddenly I felt a deep conviction that I should speak to the church about men’s team ministry.
At first I resisted because I thought it would be weird and imprudent. But the more I resisted, the deeper the conviction became. In fact, it came to feel like an unbearable burden had fallen on me out of the sky. Finally, I acquiesced and told the Lord I would preach on it.
“This must be what the Old Testament prophets meant when they wrote about ‘the burden of the Lord’,” I thought. That conviction that I must preach on men’s team ministry to widows, single moms, and fatherless children, and that I would be woefully disobedient if I didn’t, stayed with me the entire time I was in Southern California.
The funeral at Fullerton EvFree
First Evangelical Free Church of Fullerton, or Fullerton EvFree, as it is commonly called, is the church where the funeral for my brother-in-law was to be held. My sister and her husband were active and well known members of the church, so a large crowd was expected
EvFree is an interesting church. It is a mega church that serves as an anchor church for the conservative Christian community in the southwestern suburbs of Los Angeles. It is also known as the church that the national radio teacher, Dr. Chuck Swindoll, pastored during the late twentieth century before he became the President of Dallas Theological Seminary.
The church sanctuary seats about 2,000. Immediately behind the sanctuary is a chapel that seats 500. To one side of the chapel, a wall of large panels can be rolled back, exposing a giant banquet area and kitchen.
By the time my family and I arrived at the chapel for the funeral, it was packed, with people standing in back. Round tables beautifully covered with immaculate white table cloths, dinner settings and center pieces filled the open banquet area for the meal that would follow the funeral. It was clear that the chapel and banquet room had been designed specifically for events like this.
As I entered the chapel, I was overcome by what I saw: the hundreds of people packed into the chapel, the overflowing flowers at the front, and the beautiful banquet room. It was all a wonderful display of love and concern for my sister and her girls.
But I knew what was about to happen, because it happens all the time in churches across America. Soon the funeral would be over and the the meal would be finished, friends and family would say goodbye and go back to their busy lives, and my sister and her two girls would be left alone to fend for themselves.
I also knew that in order to love fellow believers who are widows, single moms, and fatherless children the way Christ loves us, the church must do better than that, much better than that.
And I knew that God sent me there that day to say so.
Preaching without notes from a borrowed Bible
There was just one problem, and it is every pastor’s nightmare: at the last minute, my bible and my sermon notes were accidentally locked away and were inaccessible.
Fortunately, I knew that the Lord had put me there that day, and that He would help me.
The passage I chose to preach from was Jesus’ new commandment in John 13:34-35: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
I wanted to challenge the church to consider what it really means to obey this command in relation to my sister and her two daughters.
I began my message my talking about how Christ Jesus has loved us. He loved us by becoming a human being; by identifying with us so that he knows by experience what it is like to be human. He also loved us by committing to us; by becoming a human being forever to prove that his love for us will never end. And finally, he loved us by sacrificing himself for us; by giving his life to meet a need we could not meet, the payment of the penalty for our sins.
Then I pointed out that Jesus commands us to love each other, that is, our fellow believers, this exact same way: by identifying with each other, by committing to each other, and by sacrificing for each other.
I continued by thanking the church for the beautiful funeral that they had arranged, and for the family meal that we were about to enjoy.
“But my sister and her daughters need much more from you than a funeral and a family meal,” I said. “They need you to love them with the actual love of Christ, not just with these kind gestures. They need you to identify with them, to commit to them, and to sacrifice for them.”
I told the audience that soon we were all going to leave, including myself and my brothers, and that then my sister and her girls would be all alone.
Please do not leave my sister and her girls alone
Then I explained that there was a way that the church could love my sister and her daughters in their time of need with the love of Christ: by providing a team of men who would identify with them, commit to them, and sacrifice for them. I went on to describe the men’s team ministry model that I had effectively used in my churches.
After telling story after story of how God had blessed the men’s team ministries in my two previous pastorates, I ended by saying, “Please do not leave my sister and her girls alone. Would you form a team of men for them who can be brothers for my sister and father figures for her girls?”
50 men
After I concluded the funeral with a word of prayer, I looked up and, to my surprise, man after man in the audience spontaneously stood up, moved to the isle, and came forward. I counted fifty men in all, enough men to form a team for my sister and for other widows and single moms in the church as well.
As I chatted with the men at the front of the church, one of them asked if he could get a copy of my sermon notes. The other men said they would appreciate getting copies too. So I got everyone’s email address and later sent them my notes. Those notes would eventually form the core of my men’s team ministry training.
A team for my sister… for thirteen years
A few weeks after the funeral, I flew back to Southern California to see my sister and also to follow up with the men at Fullerton EvFree. A team of four men had been formed for my sister and I was able to meet with them. They were all men from my sister’s adult Sunday School class that she and her husband had attended for years. So not only would these men serve my sister one Saturday morning a month, but also see her every Sunday morning at Church in their class.
I remember flying home and being so relieved. These men were filling a real need and I knew they would faithfully serve my sister and her girls.
And they did…for thirteen years! They were amazing. They basically redid my sister’s entire house. What a display of faithfulness and love.
But it wasn’t just the projects that the team did for my sister, but the spiritual and emotional support they gave her and the examples they proved to be for my nieces. Those girls were able to witness godly men faithfully serving them year after year after year.
So when it came time for my nieces to marry, they married wonderful godly men as well, because they knew what qualities to look for. As a result, my sister’s girls and their husbands took over and became her new “team” that cares for her to this day.
Seeing how the Lord was at work at Fullerton EvFree in providing for my sister and her girls was exhilarating. I didn’t realize it then, but eventually I came to understand that my brother-in-law’s funeral was God’s call on my life to help churches around the world develop teams just like my sister’s team, and to help their widows, single moms, and fatherless children just like my sister and her daughters.
But it took the Lord a while to get that message through my hard head.
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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