"Back to Basics---Again!"

TO ALL the KING's MEN,

Life's a battle sometimes.  Victories are rarely won alone.  We all need help from time to time!  I pulled a book off my shelf this morning.  It's title?  The Man's Book--The Essential Guide for the Modern Man." An intriguing title, don't you think?  The table of contents covers all kinds of subjects... health, sports and games, women, drinking, smoking, cooking, how to dress and even a section on how to 'idle' while one is away from the job.  I found the smoking section particularly interesting as it included diagrams for how to light and hold a cigar and the proper use of snuff.  The copyright date is 2009, so this really IS a contemporary piece on the modern man. 

However, there was no section on faith or personal growth as a human being... Just a section listing 'holy days' according to the Episcopal church (with no directions as to how to celebrate them) and the recipe for how the church determines when Easter will be.   It makes me wonder if this is the  'primer' and road map for how 'modern man' now shows up only at Easter and Christmas.  Or if he shows up at all! And maybe I don't want to be that modern man. You? For how can a man be modern and how can one even be a man if there is no desire or call to tend to one's inside life? Just sayin'.

It's almost Easter... almost...and even now that the big annual Houston event is over I can say..."this ain't my first rodeo!" Thirty-plus years of ministry will do that.  And it's been a great ride!  To my memory, the only day I have not been in a church on Easter Sunday was in 1973 when I went to San Jaun Capristrano and SoCal for Spring break in college with a couple of fraternity brothers.  So, that's a lot of Easters...  But, not only that... I lived in New Orleans for almost a decade of my life and I can also say with great confidence..."Mardi Gras always ends like this"... with Lent and Holy Week and the Great 3 days... the story that shapes and defines who we are and how we live as Christian men. So, let's get back to basics for a moment...as this is who we are and this is how we live...

KING'S Men... as we...

     + K now Christ!
     + I nvite others to join God's team!
     + N urture our faith through prayer, worship & daily Bible reading!
     + G ive our time & money supporting God's work in our church!'
     + ' ( ' = a sign of God's "possession"   ---who we are and whose we are!)
     + S peak well of our pastor and the men in our lives!

KING'S men...that's who we are... this is what we do...

2012 started off different than the last 3-4 years.  How?  Well, simply said, it seems this "men's ministry' drum I've been beating since 2007, as the synod's Co-ordinator for Men's Ministry, has started to echo around the synod and even farther...  There have been numerous calls from pastors and congregations asking, 'can you come and give us some time to a) get our men's ministry on the right track?' or b) 'Can you come and share how to expand our men's ministry beyond the Saturday breakfast and Bible study?'  These invitations have connections as there have been requests for me to go to Iowa, PA and Henderson, NV...but my 'road trip' schedule is not the focus of this note...  I also need to say, 'thank you' to all of you who keep applauding this work... as it is easy to get into a funk about men's complacency and resistance to 'looking inside' and 'being real' with others... remember, this is not rocket science... it's harder...

Ok, so let me go a little farther and broader here and say what is at the heart of these questions and requests... and that they will not be accomplished by me and a handful of elected synodical leaders alone.  Our partnership as people of faith... clergy, AiMs, Youth & Family ministry staff and leaders of men in our congregations will in the end provide the prayerful energy and spiritual support to engage all of the men in all of our congregations in this important and urgent work.  Not convinced?  Read a couple of blogs about Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman and tell me what's missing here?

As the official men's organization of our synod. LMM, we are required to hold an annual meeting to teach, train, worship and tend to the business of the church... as what I consider a most essential arm of what our congregations are about in our neighborhoods, this synod and the world.  So, we did that this year.  Our synod event was held in Kenner, LA at Christ the King.  Less than 40 men attended, including 3 pastors.  Assistant to the Bishop, Dr. Don Carlson was present, too.  And while at the surface you might want to throw your hands up in the air and say, "what's the use?" you will need to know that this gathering included 5 male students from LSU's Lutheran Campus ministry... and each received a copy of the Master Builders Bible and were blessed beyond belief as well as giving blessing back to their older and 'seasoned' brothers!  There was also ONE HUGE take-away... and that is always asking the question, every time we meet, "what's next?"  And this is it...

BUILDING MEN FOR CHRIST event in the Bayou Ministerium where this next stop goes...

The date is:  Saturday, April 21st. 8 AM - 4 PM.  Bethlehem Church and Pastor Patrick Keen will host the event and national LMM president, Rich White will be the presenter.  Details and registration forms are being handled in the Bayou Ministerium and here is a link to share more information and how one of these events goes (see the sample fliers on line)...

    http://www.lutheranmeninmission.org/events/bm4c.html

But, that's not all, conversations are already taking place to host two more of these events on the Texas side of the synod later this year...one in the metro area and the other in the Western sector/Brenham churches.

But, wait... there's a bit more... as I said this effort to answer those two begging questions will require a greater effort... and that's where 'another' next step comes in to play... and I will be contacting the pastors and lay leaders of some of our larger congregations to help me build a team of 15-25 men who can become the first wave of trainers for the "One Year to Live" event also sponsored by LMM.  OYTL is what men move toward and through after they've connected and have become a bit more rooted in their own congregation... Camp Lutherhill will be the site for this intense and life-changing weekend gathering...and here's that link... 

   http://www.lutheranmeninmission.org/events/oytl.html

So, here's my prophetic thought... when our congregations get back to basics and offer ways for men to have a life-time of ongoing faith development then we will have churches full of "Modern Men" who are prepared to engage life, when it feels like a battle or not...

"one man at a time...no man left behind..."

   Brian

COMING NEXT on this blog: 

"The Depth Chart: Seeing men's ministry through the eyes and heart of a football coach."  Too vague?  Well, here's the question..."how can we build a ministry team of men when we don't know who our men are and what they are capable of doing?"

CAMP LUTHERHILL, COLUMBUS, BASTROP, WALLER, MAGNOLIA and BEYOND!

To all the KING's Men...      This will be a time remembered with words like... "Remember the Alamo," "Remember Pearl Harbor," "Remember 9/11" and in a window of time where we remember 9/11 ten years out we will come to remember the Texas fires of 2011.  This is not just Channel 2 news from afar.  This is news in our front yard... it is people we know...they attend our churches... we know their names... we've had meals in each others homes...  And so the burn hurts a bit more. It lasts longer. Personal does that.

I drove to Bastrop and La Grange yesterday( 9/12).  I tried to bring some help.  As I drove down the hill from Alum Creek to the east edge of Bastrop, I knew immediately that what I had in the back seat of my car was microscopic in comparison the burn trail I entered.  And the greater destruction zone was the miles long stretch up HWY 21 north and east of the city.  But, you know the story.  You read the news.  People were asked to leave.  "Leave.  Now," was the two-word warning many people heard.  A 5 mile stretch of land and all that was on in was consumed in 45 minutes. It's more than a mess.  But, that's what nature will do.  We can prepare to some degree in advance.  We can't control the weather.  But, we can control how we respond to the destruction, hurt and heartache of our very own.  I hear people say, "we should take care of things at home before we go helping someone across the ocean," and whether you believe that or not, now would be a good time to help our very own.  And the good news?  We already are.

That's one of things I really like about being in our synod and in the ELCA.  Not the hurricanes (someone suggested that if our ELCA churchwide office is in Chigago, the 'windy city,' then after all the storms we've had in TX and LA we should be called, the "Windy Synod!") and not the fires but that fact that we are part of something bigger than ourselves.  Bigger than me.  Bigger than you.  Bigger than the gas and gift cards, cases of water, toiletries and baby items I had in the back of my Honda.  Bigger than any one congregation or any corner of our synod.  Therefore, getting info out and being ready to help becomes a key piece in what will happen in the days ahead. 

So, as I recieve phone calls and emails from others, this is what I can share...

• Pray.  Keep praying. Our prayers remind US of other's needs;
• Be a blessing.  Life is harsh.  Some days and in some places life is harsher.  We have been blessed to 'bless' others. Do it; practice it; own it.
• Be patient.  We are part of a team of people.  Immediate needs response, assessment and action are all part of a process.  In fact, it's part of the 'creation' theology we cling to as life has seasons, hours and chapters or life and death and re-birth.
• Be ready.  Everyone has a role.  And like our brothers and sisters in New Orelans, south LA and Galveston who continue to 're-build' (lives, familiels, houses, churches & communities) after the storms, there will be ongoing work in Bastrop, La Grange, Columbus, Waller and Magnolia.  Like many a fight... we didn't start it...but we can help end it!
• Map out a response---one that is personal and one that your congregation can take part in;
• Recruit others.  There will be "manual labor" projects to tend to once those directives comes from the staff at Camp Lutherhill and the bishop's office.  Buy some chain saws, face masks, gloves, etc and set aside some clothes you'll want to throw away when the work day comes.
• Make a gift.  The synod office has set up a 'Fire Fund.'  We've been told not to send any more clothes or water to Bastrop.  May our response to the Fire Fund be just like that!

Many years ago I heard a lecture from Dr. James Fowler (the one @ Emory U in GA and not our Dr. Jim @ Lakeside Church in League City!) and he spoke of the stages of adult faith life and likened them to this simple system...

1. Life is full of "normal beginnings and endings"... the things that are common to us... i.e. learning to ride a bike, going to school, playing in the band, winning the Little League championship, getting a job, etc... the things that people in our culture do as routine... and in each of the beginnings and endings we learn something about God and this impacts our faith.  But, life can be more complicated than this and so we learn about God and our faith is deepened when we experience...
2. "Crises moments"... they rock our world and set us back on our heels.  Sometimes they knock us down, but not out.  We get back up.  They are temporary and we go on... things like having a job, losing a job and getting a new one, or having someone hit your car in the parking lot, then you get it fixed, or you fall off the ladder and break your arm, then your arm gets better and you hire someone else to paint your house so they can fall off the ladder... 'crises moments,' temporary setbacks and in each one we learn about God, ourselves and our faith is transformed once again...and then again... and yet there are times when life is much more harsh and we find ourselves eperiencing an...
3. "Intrusive life marking"... where at that moment, everything changes and everything is different.  And there's no going back to the way it was...only a path that leads to the way it has not ever been.  These moments draw us into a depth of darkness that challenges the very core of our faith and yet shows us the tenacity of the human spirit and psyche that is driven by the Gospel's message of grace and hope and purpose.... "intrusive life markings" like when a couple gets married and then sees that marriage crumble and die; or watching a parent fade from your very eyes, or losing a child for any reason or having someone tell you 'leave now' only to return 2-3-4 days later to a heap of smoldering ash that once was a family's home...  Life is never the same... and even in these moments we learn of God and of ourselves and the deep truths that bring us from the darkness to wonderful light and life that is eternal...

So, thank you... Bishop Rinehart, our synod staff, pastors and laymen who have already responded... there will be more to do...and remember...EVERY man in every one of our congregations is part of Lutheran Men in Mission... We are the KING's men....

     Know Christ...

       Invite others to know him too...

         Nurture those friendships...

           Grow your faith via, prayer, worship and study....

              ' ... remember to whom you now belong...

                Serve the Lord via your time, talent and wallet...

In the end, our lives are not ultimately defined by the common beginnings and endings we experience, nor the crises moments we encounter and endure nor by the life changes that are permanent... as Lutheran Christian men, our lives are defined by the primacy of Jesus, the Christ, the son of the living God.  His life, death, resurrection and ascension, coupled with a command to love God, ourselves and neighbor with all our heart, strength and mind as well as to make disciples of all peoples demonstrates the model of the Godly life... showing us that Christ does make all things new... Do it; practice it; own it...in our corner of the kingdom and beyond...

One man at a time; no man left behind,

    Brian

Rev. Dr. Brian K Gigee, Gulf Coast Synod Men's Ministry Co-ordinator

                                                                             

AN OPEN LETTER TO COLLEAGUES AND MEN OF THE GULF COAST SYNOD...

CAUTION: Men @ Work

+MEN'S MINISTRY VALUE +     

UNDEREMPHASIZED & UNDERESTIMATED!

To All the KING'S men,

Put on your hard hat---it's time to go to work...so let me just say this out loud...not in anger nor with brashful boasting...just an honest announcement...

"Our synod's men's ministry is underemphasized & underestimated..."

There, now, I feel better and after reading this post, I hope you will too...laymen, clergy, AiMs and youth ministry network leaders alike...I really do beleive this---men's ministry in the Gulf Coast synod is underemphasized and underestimated... at best... and misunderstood at least...

A number of years ago, the Washington Post shared an article that stated (my paraphrase)

"even though our budget will present itself with more shortfalls equalling millions of dollars and the mayor has been arrested for posession of cocaine, everthing else in Washington D.C. is just fine." 

Some of you when reading this would say..."that does not pass the smell test!"  And you would be right.  There is not shalom in Washington D.C. and there is not shalom in the Gulf Coast synod when it comes to men's ministry.  Why do I suggest that?  Here are some symptoms...

• I read a lot of newsletters.  Most of our congregations have no visible sign of an attitude for men's ministry or seek to be engaging men in an intentional way by looking at their monthly calendar and in the body of the newsletter itself;
• After four years of seeking to reach out to all congregations to coonect with men, many of our congregations are still not in the KING'S MEN network;
• Only 3 pastors in the last 4 years have called to ask me about ramping up their men's ministry in their local setting;
• I don't always add a 'read receipt' to e-communications, but occassionally when I do, there are a couple of pastors who dump it..."unread;"  AND MOST RECENTLY...
• The Men's SpiritualityRetreat @ Camp Lutherhill with Campus Pastor Greg Ronning of TLU set as the presenter was cancelled due to lack of registrants...

Even though our bishop is a proactive voice for men's ministry and we have no worry of lack of funding for there is no budget, everything is not just fine...and again, I'm not angry, sad or being brashfully boastful...I am only sharing what I see...

Now, please understand... I cannot NOT do this work.  God's Holy Spirit has gripped my heart, mind, eyes, hands and feet and my attention to this ministry to, for and with men per all men's sake is a primary focus for me as a parish pastor.  We all have our passions and I have mine  ...ending global hunger in our life-time, tending to 21st century 'reformation' worship, and nurturing the family...especially 'blended' families to name my personal few and these do not take a back seat to all the other things that I find myself involved in pastoral ministry...preaching, teaching, coaching, ecumenical work, community service and being SEO (Second Executive Officer and subservient to Christ and his Gospel) tending to the visioning and administration of congregational life.  Understand---pastor or church staff or member...we are all busy... so that is why it is important to work and think and live 'smart' for the sake of the gospel we preach and the perfect and preferred kingdom work we are welcoming as we must all admit...this kingdom comes all by itself and thus OUR personal "busy-ness" should not get in the way of God's work...

Thus my point... men's ministry is NOT something 'extra' pastors and men and the church at large do...rather it is a way of seeing the ministry we do using the gifts of men and reaching out to all men with the good news of Jesus and inviting them to take their rightful place at the font and table and lead the church, their families and communities in lives of prayerful devotion to God and service to the world... let me try to say it again... a bit differently...

Men's ministry is NOT something extra... it is an attitude of faith that permeates the household of God and impacts the lives of men...one by one...two by two... and in small groups and large gatherings... men's ministry is not a program...with a goal to begin and a deadline to meet...men's ministry may very well be the ONE thing (beyond Word & sacraments) that every church in the ELCA can rally around for the sake of our work as God's people...

Said a bit more simple... it would seem obvious that if every man in every congregation were engaged fully into this ministry...the women and children would follow.  Men are called to lead.  So many don't and when asked...they don't know how... what kind of churches do we want?  That seems obvious, too!

Another way of lifting this up is to be a bit brash and confrontational... and that then comes with a challenge...simply stated... PROVE ME WRONG... there, I said it and I feel better now that I have... "prove me worong" and I say this with an honest understanding that if you try to do this..."prove me wrong"...I'm am confident  that God's Holy Spirit will prove this work to be of value to you and if you tend to this work over the next 2-3-5 years...your congregation and ministry will not be the same and will in fact be something I dare say you've not anticipated...

Four years ago, Bishop Paul Blom appointed me to serve in a volunteer position as Co-ordinator for Men's Ministry in the Gulf Coast synod. I have no real job description and yet I think I have a very big drum to beat and some of you have thanked me for beating that drum with passion and power.  You're welcome. Thank God, too..OK?  Because that's what I do when I hear from you that you appreciate that I keep this ministry out in the foreground of our collective synodical work...

Two years ago, our newly elected bishop, Mike Rinehart, asked me to continue in this position and do this work and that I would have his blessing for the next 2 years...and now at the end of September 2010 that time period has expired and the bishop has asked me to beat this drum for at least two more years...but as I said earlier...there is no deadline for men's ministry...so, I'm writing to you today to let you know...

1. I am honored and humbled to serve our synod and the ELCA in this role and will soon have a job description to present to synod council for affirmation and adoption;
2. Lutheran Men in Mission is a movement of the laity...they are called "KING's MEN" in the Gulf Coast Synod and some congregations are embracing this reality better than others.  Our best days remain the days to come;
3. The pastors, AiMs and Youth & Family Ministry network MUST get on board with this ministry attitude so that every man in every congregation gets the idea that they are LMM and have a ministry which is God given and intended to be shared.  You can find out about the importance of this ministry by simply reading the church newsletter, weekly bulletin, and listen for ongoing opporotunities to grow and serve.  Look.  Listen.  Respond.  Plan.  Act.  Review.  Look.  Listen, etc;
4. LMM serves the work of pastors and lay leaders in the church.  Thus, pastors, above all will benefit from this ongoing work...EX---teaching and coaching 5 men to make hospital visits IS an extension of pastoral care and also IS ministry by and for men...
5. Lutheran Men in Mission works to reach out to every man we know...those who are unchurched; those with a developing faith; those with a deep faith; those who are leading and coaching other men; AND men who are hurting...even their pastor who may be male OR female... Does your men's leadership team have a list of these men and a strategy to reach out to them?  Perhaps, that's the place to start...

Lastly, see it this way...men's ministry is NOT the best thing since sliced bread... It IS the bread...or at least one of the 5 loaves a young boy gave to Jesus to feed a multitude...5 loaves... worship...teaching...outreach...service AND men's ministry... and when congregations and pastors are tending to these five loaves...a couple of fish show up too... and you can call those whatever you like...but in the end a miracle occurs and their is great contentment on the plain (or mount!).

Please wander around this web-site for a bit... read some back posts...  check out some of the links... and so I invite the men in your church...including the pastors... to take time to gather at Peace LC in Pasadena on FRI-SAT  November 12 & 13... to hear David Dusek share 'hands on' ways that each congregation can use to amplify their ministry to men and for men...

Please know that you can call me anytime...832.858.4076... there I posted my cell number and I feel good about that...men's ministry may be undersestimated or at least misunderstood... but can never be under valued!!!.... and your call would never be taken as intrusive or considered an interruption... and when you call remind me to tell you the old story of the father who had little time for his son...and how the young boy set out to get the world together by first putting the man together...

One man at a time; no man left behind,

   Brian