Your Help Requested to Rethink Man in the Mirror’s Direction

from Patrick Morley

Volume 332
July 27, 2009

For a decade our BHAG (Big "Holy" Audacious Goal) has been "To reach 10,000,000 men for Christ by 2010." In 2009 we have reached our goal -- or more appropriately we have "impacted" 10,000,000 men. We give glory to God for the great things he has done.

However, resolving one issue often reveals another. We had hoped that these 10,000,000 men would change the world. And maybe they have -- who can say what the world would look like if we had done nothing? But we can all agree that we need more change. We clearly see a gap between "impacting" and "long-term transformation." Many men need leaders to help them move further along the discipleship continuum toward spiritual maturity. So while we have met our goal in one sense, in another sense there is so much more work to do.

How does transformation take place? As always, getting the right answer depends on asking the right questions. If we try to solve the wrong problem, then we can only succeed by accident. Our assumptions are that, while a man can become a Christian in a moment, it takes years to become a spiritually mature disciple of Christ.

So we would like to enlist your help. Are we asking the right questions? Are we moving in the right direction? Our current thinking and assumptions are that:

• The church is the best vehicle to disciple men into spiritual maturity
• Training and equipping pastors and leaders to more effectively disciple men is a leveraged strategy with a strong potential to succeed
• Man in the Mirror has the capital to be heard by the church
• It is possible to develop a plan (strategy) to achieve the following goals:
  • Make all 350,000+ churches in America aware of our No Man Left Behind (“NMLB”)Model to disciple every man in a church
  • Identify and recruit every church willing to be trained in the NMLB Model
  • Recruit trained churches to an ongoing relationship (NMLB churches)
  • Recruit trained pastors and leaders to an ongoing relationship (NMLB leaders)
  • Track the number of men discipled through these ongoing relationships

We still think 10,000,000 transformed men would change the world -- their marriages, families, workplaces, and churches. So what should be our BHAG for 2020? Here are several possibilities:

• To see 10,000,000 men transformed by the gospel by 2010
• 10,000,000 spiritually mature men by 2020
• An effective disciple making ministry to men in every willing church by 2010
• 50,000 churches transforming the lives of 10,000,000 men by 2010

As you can see, we are a good distance from closure. We want to give everyone in the Man in the Mirror family a voice before making these decisions. So please weigh in by sending me an e-mail at patrickmorley@maninthemirror.org.

Here are the questions:

• Is the church the best vehicle to disciple men into spiritual maturity?
• Is training and equipping pastors and leaders to more effectively disciple men a leveraged strategy with a strong potential to succeed?
• Do you think Man in the Mirror has the capital to be heard by the church?
• Do you think it is possible to develop a plan, as outlined above, to recruit and train a critical mass of NMLB churches large enough to transform the lives of 10,000,000 men?
• Are we asking the right questions?
• What other questions we should be asking?

Want more information? Read a 1,300 word adaptation of a white paper I wrote for a July 22, 2009, meeting of academics, scientists, theologians, and practitioners, "What Needs to Happen Next for Men?" at http://www.maninthemirror.org/email/alm/176/176.htm.

Yours for changed lives,