Purpose
12 Reasons Why We Need Godly Men More Than Ever
by on Oct 12th, 2009 at 12:01 am
#5 - Childish Distractions are Arresting Our Spiritual Development
Though we did not ask for this, our generation has access to more items of distraction than any previous generation in history. Yeah, I know, every generation thinks that it has the toughest row to hoe. Every generation of males has had its fair share of activities to distract them from living a focused life. However, the technological revolution of the past ten to twenty years has exponentially increased the number of ways in which we can waste time and energy.
When I was a freshman in high school, the internet was unknown. I was not able to watch videos for hours on youtube, shoot strangers in foreign lands on the computer, track play-by-play results of every sports game imaginable, flip through 500 channels of cable television, think up inspiring tweets, or endlessly troll through the world that is facebook. We have inherited all of the distractions of our fathers, and then we have had all of these other items added to the list as well. I cringe when I think about what life will be like for my children!
Our generation has been overwhelmed with technology and all of the entertainment possibilities that it offers. We are, as Neil Postman would say, “information gluts.” We do not know what larger role all of this technology plays in terms of advancing philosophy or helping us define our purpose for existence, but we do not that we can see more, see if from more angles, and see if faster than any other generation in all of history.
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12 Reasons Why We Need Godly Men More Than Ever
by on Oct 13th, 2009 at 12:04 am
#6 - We Are Enslaving Ourselves to Money
Gentlemen, whether you know it or not, you are pretty much on your own for learning the lessons that come with wise financial stewardship. Though the recent financial meltdown has redirected our cultural attention to reclaiming sound financial principles, the sad reality is that very little is being done to help you understand how to eliminate debt, build a net worth, and strategically compete in a market that is dead set on getting to your money before you do.
In the spring of 2008, just before Wall Street had a panic attack, I did some research in preparation for a national conference of education professionals. I surveyed 101 Christian universities, colleges, and Bible colleges in the United States. I researched their core curriculum to see whether or not they required young Christian adults, the leaders of the next generation, to study biblical principles of personal finance. I also researched their financial aid departments to see what they offered, and finally, I looked into their extra-curricular activities to see if personal finance training was being offered even as an option to students.
The results of my survey were frightening. Of the 101 Christian institutions, only 3 required a class on economics. Most economics classes are macroeconomics, which means that they study the larger market and not the economics of personal finance. Additionally, 35 schools offered economics as an elective, but only 3 of those schools had classes specifically oriented to the issue of the biblical principles of personal finance.
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12 Reasons Why We Need Godly Men More Than Ever
by on Oct 14th, 2009 at 1:55 am
#7 - We are Inheriting Financial Chaos
Whatever your political persuasion, the financial state of affairs in America is ugly now and it will be worse in the future if change does not occur. Just think about the following realities:
- Social Security is racing to insolvency because it will soon have fewer contributors and a greater number of beneficiaries. Just at the time that we are getting to our mid-life crises, we will learn that our 20-30 years’ worth of contributions will not return to us when we retire. The government has no lasting solution, and today’s politicians know that they have the luxury of leaving this world before we grow old and suffer from their lack of decision-making.
- Medicare is also going broke. We should not underestimate the sheer number of people who lives will be wrecked when this system collapses. We will be old enough to have to fix the problem, but the options will be excruciating.
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12 Reasons Why We Need Godly Men More Than Ever
by on Oct 15th, 2009 at 2:51 am
#8 - Adulthood Keeps Creeping to a Later Period in Life
When William McCune was 15 years old, his father died. Though he had several older siblings, William’s father, John, left him most of the animals on his estate and some land to sustain them. Today, he can’t even be trusted to drive at age 15, but in 1766, he was running his own estate. By his mid-twenties, his management of the family’s estate was so good that he was able to offer, as a gift, 300 acres to a Presbyterian missionary in order to persuade him to stay and start a church in their region. Oh, did I forget to mention that he did all of this on the far edge of the American wilderness, which is now known as Pennsylvania?
Besides farming hundreds of acres alone, caring for dozens of animals, protecting the villages against attacks by Native Americans, starting churches, and raising a family, he spent the rest of his twenties traveling with his half-brother, John Hinkston, and associate, Daniel Boone, throughout wild Kentucky, and participating in the founding of Louisville. At 30, he left his young family to defend Kentucky from the British during the Revolutionary War, where he was captured by the Shawnee Indians and force marched 400 miles to Detroit as a prisoner of war.
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Leadership Library Spotlight
by on Oct 16th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Book: The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life
Author: Os Guinness
As you continue to read books throughout the course of your lifetime, you might find yourself categorizing books by quality. There are books that make you feel upset because you actually paid someone money to read them. There are books that have good points, but will probably do nothing more than collect dust on a shelf in your home or office for the rest of eternity. There are books that challenge your thinking and deserve to be referenced on a number of occasions in the future.
Then there are books that demand additional readings to fully grasp the treasures that rest within their pages.
Os Guinness’ book, The Call, fits that final category for me. I did not find myself embracing every word that he said, but I did find that he makes compelling argument after compelling argument in chapter after chapter. He forces readers to understand the logical conclusions that accompany their presuppositions, and his knowledge of history and philosophy add layers of understanding to his points.
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12 Reasons Why We Need Godly Men More Than Ever
by on Oct 19th, 2009 at 12:05 am
#9 - Our Sunday Evenings are Composed of Cartoons
Every Sunday evening, a major television network produces almost three hours of cartoon programs. Apparently, the demand for cartoons among the 18-25 male demographic is so strong that they keep adding new irreverent show after irreverent show. “Men” like Homer, Cleveland, Peter, and Stan line up to demonstrate masculinity at its cultural finest. Now, Christian males can start their day in the Word and end it with the absurd.
Maybe complaining about cartoons during prime time television makes me sound like I’m becoming an old cuss. After all, we really can’t expect to learn much about manhood from television programs in the first place. Most of television is designed to keep us simultaneously glued to the couch and inattentive to the real world, with all of its needs, around us.
What bothers me is not the fact that a network has decided to run cartoons. I am more bothered by the fact that the males in our generation are clamoring for more. Television companies obey the consumer, and we, as the consumers, seem to want greater and stronger doses of programs that waste our time and serve as little more than a spiritual anesthetic. Seriously, do we really have no better way to invest our talents for the Kingdom?
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12 Reasons Why We Need Godly Men More Than Ever
by on Oct 19th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
#10 - Our Lack of History is Making Us a Mile Wide and an Inch Deep
I often think about all of the church wars that could have been avoided had the members been better informed about church history. The fact that church buildings did not even really exist until three hundred years after Christ could have helped to soften all of the petty fights over building decorations, materials, colors, and architecture. The fact that most musical instruments, including the hallowed piano, experienced great resistance at the time of their initial use in worship settings could cool all of us down when we fight over new styles and instrumentation.
American Christians, like American culture, do not generally gravitate toward an appreciation of history. We are a future-focused society. Even in our churches, we talk about vision for the future, seek ways to be relevant tomorrow, and cringe at the thought of holding “Heritage Sundays” or attending celebrations of the past. Of course, as we age, we see the error of our ways, but the younger generations won’t care about the past either so the cycle simply continues.
This disdain for the past and all of the lessons that it has to teach us makes us worthy candidates to be pitied. The people of God in the past were not so ignorant. In fact, they would verify the strength and importance of their biblical stories with genealogies (see Genesis 4:17-5:32; 10:1-32; 11:10-30; 1 Chronicles 1:1-9:44; Matthew 1:1-17; Luke 3:23-38). They built history lessons into their worship songs so that the story of God could be preserved from generation to generation (see Psalm 78). They reminded themselves that they were attached to God by including the names of their ancestors under His rule (see “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” Acts 3:13). They even used history to remind the living of the failures and faithfulness of the men and women who had preceded them (see Hebrews 3:1-4:13; 11:1-12:1). Because of their connection with history, they understood their role in the larger story of God’s kingdom, and we could benefit just as much if we attached ourselves to this cloud of witnesses instead of selfishly thinking that history exists to get out of our way so we can live for the future.
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12 Reasons Why We Need Godly Men More Than Ever
by on Oct 20th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
#11 - Lust is Killing Our Marriages, Families, & Ministries Before they Start
Becoming an alcoholic or drug addict is actually pretty difficult if you never actually drink any alcohol or use drugs. At worst, we may have a predisposition to these things, but the addiction will lie dormant unless we open the door to let it in. However, sexual addiction is different for men because our pubescent hormones launch a lifetime of desire. We don’t need to experience sex to be obsessed with it.
As if this reality isn’t tough enough, we now have the ability to bring millions of sexual images into our homes at no cost, and the risk of being discovered is minimal. We are like smokers who live in a gunpowder factory!
Living a life of sexual purity is frighteningly hard work, and the temptations do not escape us until our sinful bodies are locked away in a coffin and encased in the ground. Pursuing sexual purity will be one of the biggest fights in our lives, but we must take control of our bodies and minds, and we need to fight together to stand a chance.
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12 Reasons Why We Need Godly Men More Than Ever
by on Oct 22nd, 2009 at 9:41 am
#12 - Today’s Problems Demand Selfless Courage & Not Self-Expression
Being a man is like being a quarterback. The quarterback has the responsibility to move the offense to the end zone. He has to coordinate the offense with the coaches on the sidelines, call the plays that he makes or receives, make sure the rest of his players are position, check the signals that the defense is giving him, make the necessary adjustments, launch the play, react appropriately to the situation, execute effectively, and then emotionally direct each of the men depending on whether they need to be confronted or encouraged. Just to make sure that the job isn’t too easy, there are half a dozen men, two to three times his size, who spend decades of their lives learning how to cripple the quarterback on every play. The work of a quarterback is heavy, and good quarterbacks have no time to screw around or worry about their own personal levels of satisfaction.
Manhood is much the same way. God has thrust upon the shoulders of men responsibilities that are numerous and heavy. Men have to get into spiritual, physical, and mental shape, shepherd the earth, build up the hearts and lives of their wives, train their children in a loving, but consistent manner, lead the church in bringing the Gospel to all of the nations, seek out justice for the oppressed and fatherless, defend the defenseless against those who would seek to harm them, and if necessary, be the first to bleed and die in protection of those who are assigned under their care.
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Leadership Library Spotlight
by on Oct 23rd, 2009 at 8:19 am
Book: Church History in Plain Language, 2nd edition
Author: Bruce L. Shelley
“Many Christians today suffer from historical amnesia. The time between the apostles and their own day is one giant blank. That is hardly what God had in mind.”
- Bruce Shelley, xv
Bruce Shelley is a church history professor who understands that the general lack of historical understanding on the part of most Christians is a dangerous condition. Years ago, he set out to make productive use of a career’s worth of studying church history, and the result was Church History in Plain Language.
A few days ago, I described how the world needs Godly men who know their Bibles and understand the historical links between the apostles and today’s believers. I also promised to help you get started in building your historical foundations. Well, Shelley’s book is an excellent starter for Christians who know very little about their religious past.