Fellowship Around the Table
Great conversations about life, faith, and the Bible from Fellowship Bible Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma (www.fbctulsa.org).
Fellowship Around the Table
FBC Men's Ministry: Masculinity in the Church w/ David Pentecost and Alex Hovorka (Part 1 of 2)
Discover the pivotal role men's ministry plays in shaping not just individuals, but entire communities, as we join forces with David Pentecost and Alex Hovorka in a vital discussion on this often overlooked aspect of church life. Prepare to unearth the stark realities men face today—from mental health struggles to the absence of father figures—and how these issues reverberate through our churches and societies.
Amid a culture where masculinity often crosses into toxic territories, our recent men's retreat offered a beacon of hope and transformation. We shared stories and experiences that highlighted the power of positive masculinity and the biblical principles that guide it. This episode serves as a testament to the strength found in fellowship, and the remarkable change that can occur when men take leadership in their personal lives, families, and communities.
As we wrap up this enlightening conversation, an anticipation for what lies ahead fills the air. The profound benefits of men's ministry echo through the testimonies shared—benefits that extend far beyond the walls of the church. Tune in as we promise to delve even deeper into the vision and purpose of men's ministry in our upcoming episode. Whether you're already engaged in your church's men's group or simply interested in the transformative power of community, this episode is an essential listen for those ready to embrace change and growth.
You are listening to Fellowship Around the Table.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to another week at Fellowship Around the Table. Heath Casey here and I am going to crank up the testosterone. This week I brought in two manly men to talk about men's ministry. I have David Pentecost and Alex Svorka with me.
Speaker 1:How's it going everyone?
Speaker 2:Thanks for being here, happy to be here. Thanks for having us. We're going to talk about men's ministry. We just came off the men's ministry retreat. I think it's fair to say men's ministry here has been in a little bit of hibernation and just appreciate your guys' efforts to get it rolling. So today I want to talk a little bit about some statistics on men in the church and why have men's ministry? Why is it important to focus time, energy and resources on that? So take it away, guys, great question.
Speaker 3:So, statistically, when you look at it these are statistics that are pulled from National Institute of Health and the CDC and Hartford Institute, as well as Pew Research Men statistically have higher death rates than women and that's been an ongoing statistic for a long time. Death rates for men are at least twice as likely as women in suicide, cirrhosis of the liver and homicide, and in the category of suicide they're actually four times as likely. Women are twice as likely to go to mental health care, get counseling. So I think we probably all know that men don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. I don't want to ask for help, don't really want to talk about my feelings very often, everything's perfect, everything's fine.
Speaker 3:Part of that's the way God's hardwired us, you know. We just, you know, keep our heads down and get it done, and you need that in society. But also there's a tax to that, I think. And then another thing I think that drives the way I think about what's going on with men in today's culture and why men's ministry is important is a statistic that says that 25% of boys are raised without a father or stepfather in the home. And then we think about that 25% you know what percentage of that are actually getting modeled, real male leadership and hopefully one out of a Christian ethic. That's kind of a startling figure when you start thinking about that.
Speaker 2:Well, something else you've talked about is just the general and it's kind of the chicken or the egg thing, but you're kind of laying the foundation for men in our culture but bringing that into a spiritual interest or men in theS congregation draws an adult crowd of about 61% female and 39% male.
Speaker 3:So I think a lot of what churches do is geared towards females, because we know females are going to come, or more likely to come.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you naturally tend to acquiesce to your audience. Yeah, for sure. Right, that's just human nature. Acquiesce to your audience. Yeah, for sure, it's just human nature.
Speaker 3:Sundays, almost 25% of married church-going women will worship without their husbands. That's a quarter. Wow. More than 90% of American men believe in God. Five out of six call themselves Christians, but only one out of six attend church on a given Sunday. The average man accepts the reality of Jesus Christ but fails to see any value in going to church.
Speaker 2:Wow, that I mean. That resonates with me.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I feel like I work with people that are definitely the statistic. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Having a relationship, personal relationship with God is not tied to being involved in a local church body.
Speaker 2:The idea of the church, the idea of that institution, and going there on Sunday morning is a turnoff, but not God and Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Wow, A study from Hartford Seminary found that the presence of involved men was statistically correlated with church growth, health and harmony. Meanwhile, a lack of male participation is strongly associated with congregational church decline. So I about said congressional.
Speaker 2:That's what I was congressional decline.
Speaker 3:We have that too.
Speaker 1:We have plenty of congressional decline. Let's be honest, Very nasty stuff. Congressional decline let's be honest, Very nasty stuff.
Speaker 3:You know, I think some other things that really hinder the church today is an issue of pornography 77% of men between 18 and 49 looked at pornography while at work in the last three months. That's crazy. Totally believe that. Yep, yep, 32% of men 18 to 30 admit being addicted to pornography. 32% that's ministry. That's the one that really shocked me is that, you know, if you have a vibrant men's ministry that's connecting with adult men, you're almost an anomaly.
Speaker 1:It's uncommon yeah.
Speaker 2:One out of 10. Wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then you know, kind of lastly, 40% less than 40% of men in the church are engaged in any kind of discipleship community. Okay, so men aren't that interested in coming to church. Statistically, men don't necessarily want to be involved as much statistically over women, and they're just not engaged. I don't think that I don't know that it's they don't want to be in a discipleship community. They're just not engaged. I don't think that I don't. I don't know that it's they don't want to be, yeah, in a discipleship community. They're just not engaged in a discipleship.
Speaker 2:I don't know how to be I mean, it's very clear to me the enemy is in a all-out war and winning in this war, yeah, on using men's probably their strong, their biggest weakness in terms of sexual immorality and that desire, and has made it just incredibly easy to addict men.
Speaker 3:And I've heard statistics like this over the last couple of years and that's kind of what got me down. This track of thinking about what are we doing and how do we be effective here at FBC was hearing some of these different things over the last, even on secular podcasts about the state of men in the US.
Speaker 2:Well, I think you're onto something there. I listened to a lot of podcasts and you know the big audiences are long form more masculine dominated conversations, cause I do think there is a real hunger that men have, but society is kind of feminized and the feminist movement has kind of men have been a little weak in response to that I'm not sure where they fit. So, I feel like they. They do all their manly stuff off to the side.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Right, I mean, I think men definitely find community in different ways than women. Do you know?
Speaker 1:to some level. Yeah, I mean, I think men definitely find community in different ways than women. Do you know, maybe it's strong female presence or lack of knowing strong men or whatever like that comes in and it just subtracts all of the energy, all of the normal reaction, you know, responsibility that man would normally step into and it just goes away. And that's an overtime process, Like it doesn't happen overnight, but it just starts to reflect in culture and then, you know, that finds its way into the church and I know part of our conversation about men's ministry is like let's push back on that, let's push back on that. For me personally, my personal revelation about, you know, let's push men's ministry forward actually came from a secular podcast. It was Jordan Peterson. I don't know who's podcast he did, but he did a letter to different churches. So he did one to the Christian Protestant church, to Catholic church to I think Islamic.
Speaker 1:You know groups and things like that, but the one he did to the Protestant church he's like you know. You need to call the young men back to the church because they will respond to that Cause. He's coming from a psychological perspective, just knowing how men will generally respond.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And he's like just put a sign out by the side of the road and say young men wanted, and then more info here, and then put a box next to the sign.
Speaker 3:He's like put a box next to the sign In the box.
Speaker 1:You know, my Jordan Peterson impression is not very good?
Speaker 2:No, it's not bad. But I wonder, I mean, if you did have a sign young men wanted like, just like that, call it's interesting too.
Speaker 3:I'm surprised we haven't done that yet.
Speaker 1:It is which build big letters. Young men want us.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people within conservative church tradition think that there's like this perfect linear decline in terms of society and culture and going, you know, more and more liberal and every generation is more and more liberal.
Speaker 3:But actually you look at Gen Z statistics there is a huge rise in young men adopting conservative values right now yeah it's a huge trend I've heard even interest in religion is up as well, right across the board so I I'm loving what you guys are doing.
Speaker 2:Maybe let's transition there. How did this conversation get started and you guys stepped up.
Speaker 3:what tell me about it? So Alex and I were at a mutual friend's house one evening hanging out. Is this person anonymous? We can name him?
Speaker 2:Was it Kyle Coble's house? Yeah, Kyle Coble. Shout out to Kyle Thanks, Kyle.
Speaker 3:Shout out to Kyle for opening up his sweet backdoor space. He does have a great outdoor space. Me, you, Kyle, and.
Speaker 1:Tim, I think Tim Bartell, tim, yeah, I think it was just the four of us. Just the four of us.
Speaker 3:And we were sitting around talking in the topic of kind of a masculine upbringing and what. Hey, what was your experience at home growing up? Did you have a dad? How involved was he? You know, and I think out of the group of us four, I think only Alex had a dad that was involved, that was really involved and intentional in his life, and that's a pretty I mean it's a small sample size, but you know, out of the group it was like either I had a dad and he wasn't very involved or I didn't have a dad, and so we're just talking about you know, how do men really model masculinity in the right ways and masculine faith, and we kind of all shared our story where we'd come from. That kind of led to either me or Alex saying it at some point. I don't know if it was Alex or me, but it was like man, I would love to get the men of this church together and have an opportunity to encourage and challenge them in those ways.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if for nothing else, just the physical getting together in the same room for a purpose that's about God, not about us, and coming together just seeing that is a visual challenge to the norm, which is to kind of go about our way. We'll go to church with our wife and maybe serve once or twice and just kind of leave it at that, like don't let it infect your heart. And when you just get together with other men and for that purpose, it's like we're actually doing something about this and it's it's visual for me, it's visual accountability.
Speaker 2:Well, I do think, in terms of men pursuing that spiritual formation, there is some to be like this cultural drive to be kind of on your own and push them in to kind of feel lonely about it. And on an island, yeah, and there is something powerful of gathering a bunch of men and I felt this at the retreat, like looking around and seeing, just seeing the quantity of men worshiping, hungry for Bible teaching, I'm like I'm not alone.
Speaker 1:This is cool, yeah, and because it immediately defeats, like I talked a little bit about earlier, that gray area, just question mark stuff that just sets in on your heart. Yeah, all that goes away when you hear your fellow men singing, because they were singing loud, they were.
Speaker 3:Right yeah.
Speaker 1:They were up and running in the teaching and you know the stuff that was talked about there, I think was just very, very helpful for not only eliminating, you know, the negative, but also galvanizing us as men to lead well, and I think in that conversation we had on that back porch, I think Alex was like hey, we used to do that.
Speaker 3:I was like, really We'll have retreats.
Speaker 1:We had retreats like yeah, new Life, ranch I was like really retreats.
Speaker 3:We had to retreat like yeah, new life ranch. I was like really new life, ranch.
Speaker 1:Okay yeah, growing up as a student, yeah he was like man.
Speaker 3:I would love to do that again. I was like dude.
Speaker 1:Let's do that I missed that as an adult, like I don't know where to find that, like I gave my life to the lord out at new life ranch yeah summer 2009 and just that time away with other you know, at that time we were all boys yeah Was crucial.
Speaker 1:The first year I went, I knew no one and we just built community that way and got me in a place where I was actually asking questions about faith and did that. But as a man like I just so missed that time of just time away, time together for spiritual purposes, and I think we had that time as a group and I think that's just critical to the health of a church. Yeah, I was gonna say I think men need that.
Speaker 3:I think men are in society and I don't think this has changed.
Speaker 3:I think it's been this way, probably by biblical design, but I mean men are kind of designed to carry a lot, and whether it's traditionally working outside of the home, working the fields not to say that women haven't played, you know incredible parts of family and all those things but I mean I think, just as again, my perception of men, I think there's a lot of men out there that are plugging away, that are working in their jobs, that are, you know, ferrying kids around to sports, that are, you know, living under, you know, intense pressures and they're not connecting with other men in a deep way.
Speaker 3:And one of the things is just, if I'm dealing and struggling with something, if I'm really challenged in at work, with difficult relationships there, or things are going on and I don't, I don't really get to talk to anybody about that, and you know, there there's no release valve and and what you find out is like when you have struggles and you share them with somebody else, they go. Man, I was actually dealing with that same thing three months ago and you're like, oh wow, I thought I was the only one. And so I think men are under intense pressure this day and age with just the societal expectations but also just all of the challenges, like we talked about in pornography and all these other types of things, and that's why there's something driving that statistic that men are four times as likely to commit suicide. I mean, that's a staggering thing.
Speaker 2:We were made for community. We're not made to do life alone, and I think you're right. Men in this society, they build up, build up on an island, and they do turn to porn for that release Instead of and it's a trap. It's absolutely a trap. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it becomes a kind of a snowball thing where you isolate and maybe you go to porn or some other avenue of sin, where it just becomes this self-repeating thing Meanwhile you have no community, Meanwhile you're just going to church with your wife, Meanwhile not growing, Meanwhile isolating further further, further, further, until you get to that point where you're just like I don't even want to be here anymore.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that's where something like a men's retreat starts to reverse that and sheds light and starts to pull you back to where God wants you to be.
Speaker 2:That is definitely a plan of the enemy and you see, that for folks that are struggling with sin, is they retreat from the body.
Speaker 1:They retreat, retreat, retreat, because that's what the enemy wants.
Speaker 2:That's what the enemy wants Absolutely Well. One of the things I loved is just you guys hearing that story, and something I want listeners to really take heart at. That I've just really really noticed in my time in the church is sometimes we have the perception that when we're excited about something or we want something done or we want something to happen in the local church, we look above, to perceived people above us and think, oh, I hope they do that. Why don't they do that? And the reality the reality in the church is things get done because a lay person is excited and passionate and roll up their sleeves and makes it happen.
Speaker 2:So I just encourage people to hear that If there is something the Lord has got you excited about, yeah, get after it.
Speaker 1:Just do it, just do it.
Speaker 2:Do not wait around and hope that it'll happen, because somebody above you is going to do it Right.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah, and that was I mean. You know, I challenged our our staff and leadership to just be like hey, you know, I challenged our our staff and leadership to just be like hey, you know, let's not wait around for someone else to fix this, let's just, let's just go do this retreat, yeah.
Speaker 3:Let's just do it.
Speaker 1:There's already a budget for it. Like let's let's figure it out, and let's let's just do it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, totally. So the retreat was boring yeah.
Speaker 1:The retreat so boring, I think it was. You didn't miss anything. No, yeah, it was fantastic.
Speaker 2:The retreat was. So the retreat was born.
Speaker 1:Not boring.
Speaker 3:Oh boring, oh my yeah so.
Speaker 1:Six pound 10 ounce sweet baby retreat.
Speaker 3:We had a Friday through Saturday night event. We had some planned activities. We had a three-part series that different men in the church that are well-respected and good teachers came and delivered a message particularly about men leading well. That was kind of the thing that I thought where do we start? And it's really that call to action of how do we lead well, and so that was part of the topic there leading well Yourself. If I'm going to lead my spouse and my family, I've got to be whole, or attempting to become whole. I need to be investing in myself, I guess, is what I'm really trying to say in order to invest in others. So, yeah, that was the focus in terms of teaching. But it was a fantastic time. The last night, saturday night, I got drafted to play wiffle ball baseball there by the cabins and my right shoulder still hurts from the top of the shoulder all the way down to almost my elbow. There's a muscle in there I didn't even know existed.
Speaker 1:Somewhere out there, seth Perry is laughing right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was like using the fascia gun multiple times just trying to get that thing you know to release, and I was throwing a pretty mean fastball, though I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah right, we're going to have to get Casey in here. Oh boy, so it was a lot of fun. Tell me more about it. Kind of the theme leading. Well, we had speakers talking about leading yourself, your spouse, your family.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Kind of a call to charge and stand up. I liked that, yeah. What were some of the other?
Speaker 1:great parts. I think for me, like one of the things that really stuck out is a middle of the day, saturday, pastor Jay talked about just some buzzwords that are in society about men, like one was toxic masculinity and he's like that's not a real thing. And here's why You're either toxic or you're masculine. You're a man or you're toxic. If you're going to be a real man, you're going to be God's man. You're not going to be toxic, that's right. If you're toxic, you're just toxic. It has nothing to do with the masculinity.
Speaker 1:Masculinity is a good thing. Yes, that's how God designed us, that is what we need to be and all that. So that was not something that I had thought about before. But you hear a lot and you just start to believe it when you don't hear anything to the contrary and it just is pounded over and over and over again, subtly and directly through the culture. You just internalize it, yeah it, and to me that was like a very freeing moment of like no, that's not that way, and I know it's not that way because God's word says otherwise and that's not who he's called me to be.
Speaker 2:That's right, so great to hear.
Speaker 1:It just defeats the toxic masculinity, the mansplaining thing all over. All that is is a polite way to tell men to shut up. That's right and it's just not. That's not who God's called us to be. He doesn't call us to be loudmouths and you know, bloviate, but he certainly has called us to lead and speak up, and that's how we sharpen each other. You know, maybe you say something and it is not right. Your fellow man can sharpen you and correct you, but to just be quiet is not who we're called to be.
Speaker 2:And seeing men stand up, it's infectious. It is not who we're called to be. And seeing men stand up, it's infectious, it's exciting, it's encouraging to me. When I see it, I'm like, yeah, that's right, yeah. This is who we are designed and called to be. Yeah, I loved.
Speaker 1:Hank's pitch on Sunday morning, leaning up to it where he got up there. He just said if you're a man, stand up.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's uncomfortable, right.
Speaker 3:All right, that's where we're going to be. That's right, come sign up for the retreat.
Speaker 1:I think we had the most signups that week.
Speaker 2:We also started bacon that week, so we're going to say it's bacon.
Speaker 1:That was a very good pitch.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the speakers did great and we took just a very general approach of hey, here's the direction we're wanting to go and I'm going to trust that the Holy Spirit leads you guys to say what he wants to say through you. Really, everybody kind of stayed in the same passage of Scripture, Ephesians 4. That just happened organically. I didn't tell them, hey, this is the Scripture we're going to use, but as we kind of had a meeting about a week before, everyone was about in the same text, which was super cool. I think there was some harmony there as well that the Holy Spirit brought.
Speaker 3:It was really challenging. I think it was encouraging and I thought they did a fantastic job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's also very was very powerful, just as a young guy who looks up to all those guys that taught. It was very again, visually challenging to be like hey, here's Rick Griffith, who's a lay teacher here, who is very good teacher. He's up here all the time teaching. You have Jay, who's a pastor and works with the staff a lot, and then you have Hank, who's an elder, and they all came together, all preached very similar passage but came from different angles that work together. That's a uniting thing for the body. That's important and helpful. So I appreciate those guys doing that, because it'd be very easy if it becomes about us to like hey, I'm going to do my thing and I'm not going to work with the other people and I'm going to, you know, make this about how I think this ought to go. That's what our flesh would want us to do, and I'm not saying that happens, but when you see it all together from different areas pushing to one goal, I think that is very, very important.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, amen. What'd you guys think of the speaker panel at the end? Were you there for that? Yeah, I was there, yeah.
Speaker 2:I loved it yeah.
Speaker 1:I thought it was good. I liked the impromptu because I think Jay was preaching so he had to get back for Sunday morning.
Speaker 3:Yeah Right Right, we subbed in the vulnerable Paul Hildebrand. He stepped up and he started knocking out some homers.
Speaker 1:He was good. He was so great. I love it.
Speaker 3:One of the things that I just really noticed was the increase of cross-generational fellowship. I mean, there was guys I'd never seen that I got to meet. There was some people who are maybe not a hundred percent involved in our local body but come from time to time that came and I mean I saw people having rich conversations left and right. You know, after a After our meeting, whether it was morning or at lunch, guys were just lingering around. It's amazing what happens if you give guys just like a space and some time just to chat, right, and it's different than I think what it looks like on a Sunday morning and maybe female to female interaction. There's just a lot of looking and nodding.
Speaker 3:And then maybe they sit down for a bit and continue the conversation. I remember guys were lingering for 30 minutes, 45 minutes an hour. One guy might be 35, another guy might be 70, and they're having a conversation they've never met before and they're talking for an hour. And I just thought, man, that is so encouraging and that's the type of fellowship we really want to try to encourage in men's ministry. Is that happening? That ironing, sharpening iron? And what I've told people is the retreat went better than I ever expected, just in terms of attendance, everything Across the board. The facilities at New Life are incredible that they put us in.
Speaker 1:I love where they had us.
Speaker 3:Having our own meeting space and our own cabins, like right there on that little spot. I just thought that was super cool, you know, because we've got kind of our own little retreat area. So I just I thought it went better than expected as a whole, Seeing that fellowship happen and getting to do it as well, getting to meet guys and chat with guys that I've never met.
Speaker 2:Like you said, that space and time to form relationships. Because if you're just coming on a Sunday morning, you have a couple of conversations, you have 30 seconds and then you're going to pick up kids or you're heading out the door. You just don't have that space and time. It happens quick.
Speaker 1:So I'm in the Tuesday night Bible study with Jesse Griffith and there's 10 or 12 of us that are in there, and all but just a couple came on that retreat and we've been meeting together for almost a year now, or I don't know, like eight months, something like that. And I will tell you this past Tuesday, even though we've been meeting together regularly weekly for eight months, the vibe was totally different.
Speaker 2:Is that right?
Speaker 1:It was totally different. Not that it was bad before, it was good before, but we had that common experience time away, time together and it just changed the vibe. So if you're like, hey, I see these people at church, like I am busy, I do not need another weekend away, all that I would just challenge you and say, hey, I hear that, but I've tangibly seen different in my own life very recently and I would just say, hey, if you're on the fence about maybe I shouldn't, shouldn't, get involved in men's ministry, I would say absolutely, cause it changes the whole vibe of the church.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that I think it is a great Avenue to help men find community in the local church and that's. They need it so badly. Even if you don't realize it, you need it. They need it so badly, Even if you don't realize it, you need it. Well, this is great. I love hearing about the retreat. Will you guys hang around a second week and we can kind of get into men's ministry and why we have it and maybe some vision? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:That sounds good yeah.
Speaker 2:All right, that sounds good. All right guys.
Speaker 1:We'll see you next week. Thanks for joining Fellowship Around the Table. If you would like to learn more, go to fbctulsaorg.
Speaker 3:Is it go time?
Speaker 2:It's go time, you guys ready, let's do it.
Speaker 3:This is my first podcast. This officially makes me a podcaster. I'm going to make sure I add this to my LinkedIn profile.
