One of the struggles of our ministry every year has been reaching guys. We feel as though we have done everything we can to be more effective in this area. Our leadership guys are relatable, share their faith, and genuinely want to see students on campus come to Christ. We have followed up with guys, shared the gospel, taken guys to lunch, invited them to play football, racquetball, eat pancakes, play video games, watch sports, you name it. In light of the effort, we have seen a minimal response. There are some young guys who have joined the cause and become involved, but not that many. Looking at our ministry and other groups on campus, there are some guys that follow Jesus, and I’m always excited to see those guys grow in their faith. However, it seems as though there are very guys that truly want to follow Christ.
There are two problems we run into.
1) Men just don’t realize their need for Christ. They are focused on academics and a future career or just having a good time in college. The bottom line here is that God has to change the hearts of men so they will realize their need for Jesus and prize him over what the world offers them.
2) The bigger problem is dudes who claim to be believers but live like the guys just mentioned. Being a Christian is just a title to them, they have no desire to grow in their faith or be used by God in order to influence others.
I’ve gleaned some advice recently from a few articles that we can apply in our hopes of seeing dudes walk with Jesus.
The first, Raising Men not Boys, is by a friend of mine who’s had an immeasurable impact on the lives of men over the last 40 years, David English.
The second is from Peggy Noonan, whom David mentions in his article which I thought was an interesting read for any of us who have hearts to see men live out the lives God has called them to. Welcome back Duke .
This brings us to the only place we can go, which is where we probably should have started. PRAYER. Over the rest of the semester, our plan is to get together and pray two or three times a week for lives of men on campus to be changed.
What are your thoughts on this subject? What are maybe some ways you’ve been able to reach guys on your campus?
Great thoughts man. We've been trying to figure out the same thing.
ReplyDeleteAn additional thoughts on why we're not reaching them:
- The guys we want are guys-guys. And those guys don't like sitting and talking (like most of the venues we offer - M29 training, Cru, Bible studies). they like doing.
Thanks for the links to those two articles - I look forward to reading them.