Hot Buttons for Connecting With Men

Movies. Sports. Adventure. Sex. Cars. There’s no question that men’s magazines have caught onto what appeals to men, but has the Church? How can you leverage these interest areas to connect with unchurched men? Some churches are doing it. In the next few pages, they share what they’ve learned.

by Brian Mavis

I used to think that male ministers were big wusses. They all seemed to be the type who liked cats more than dogs and cardigan sweaters more than old sweatshirts. That some of them sported robes didn’t help their cause either. I figured these “men” became ministers and hid in church because they couldn’t hack the real world.

Even though I didn’t actually know a minister, that’s what I thought of them. Growing up, I had all the “culture” that comes from living in a non-Christian construction family. My dad was a carpenter, a tough guy—and still is. In the summers I worked with other tough guys who were fluent in French (as in “excuse my French”), got all their carbs from beer, smoked “homemade cigarettes,” and who talked about sex more than Oprah talks about feelings.

But one summer Dad hired a new guy named Mike Breaux. Though he didn’t do any of the above, I didn’t hold it against him. He seemed cool. In fact, I liked him more than the other guys. I even wanted to “be like Mike” before Nike made it popular.

But then tragedy struck.

I can still remember the night Dad revealed to me that Mike was a minister. I couldn’t believe my ears. The world didn’t make sense. I felt deceived—even betrayed. How could Mike be a minister? He didn’t seem like one. He seemed like a regular guy—just better. My wuss antenna must have been on the fritz.

The next day I confronted Mike about my Dad’s accusation, expecting him to somehow explain it away. But he just came right out and confessed it—no shame. He said he was a youth minister. I thought: Well, maybe there is still a chance to save him before he becomes a real minister.

Then he asked if I wanted to go to church. I didn’t want to disappoint him, so I did the honorable thing and lied. “Yeah, sure,” I said, which translated means, “You’re joking right?”

The next week and the week after that he asked again. So I lied again. Then Mike threw me a curve ball. He asked if I was interested in going to a St. Louis Cardinals’ baseball game. Now we were talking. I had a good time at the game, but when it was over, it dawned on me that I owed Mike one. So I decided to go to church once to even the score.

Since I’m now writing an article for a Christian magazine, you can probably figure out the general direction of how this story ends. The point is (in case you missed it) it took an invitation to a non-Church-guy-thing to get me started on this journey of following Jesus.

What does it mean to be a man, and what does it take to reach him for God? The world has messed up what it means to be a man, and it certainly doesn’t care about reaching him for God. The construction guys I knew thought being a man meant talking tough, getting drunk or high and getting lucky. Other worldly definitions of manliness include athletic ability, getting rich and having power.

The world tries to fix the sometimes vulgar side of man by taming him. As Garrison Keillor says, “Guys are in trouble these days. Years ago, manhood was an opportunity for achievement, and now it’s just a problem to be overcome. Guys who once might have painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling are now just trying to be Mr. OK.”

In many cases the Church hasn’t done much better than the world at “fixing men.” They’ve put a 21st century spin on a similar first-century problem. Two thousand years ago, there was some confusion about what it took to become a Christian man. Some people believed that Gentile men had to be circumcised to be real Christians. Today the church has moved the knife a few inches, no longer performing a circumcision but a castration. I’m speaking metaphorically of course. But the problem is real. Just like the world, the church often tries to take the “manliness” out of a man instead of taking his God-given strengths and finding their rightful use in the Kingdom. God wants man as He made him. Man isn’t meant to chase skirts, but he’s not meant to be in one either (Scots and Samoans excepted).

There are some churches today making the decision to give more strategic attention to reaching men. These churches are leveraging the same “hot button” topics your average men’s magazine covers every month to meet men—real, tough-talkin’, football-watchin’ men—where they are.

MOVIES

A few years ago, Webster Presbyterian Church in Houston, Texas, clued into using movies to reach guys. Each month, a group of men in the church get together on Sunday afternoon to see a movie their wives wouldn’t particularly see. Often, they invite their unchurched friends and family members.

“We tend to see ‘guy’ movies more,” says Pastor Woody Berry. “Sometimes there’s no redeeming religious value, but we know the value of getting together with guys.”

Central Community Life in Greensboro, N.C., uses movies in its worship service to reach the “postmodern, never-churched, or used-to-be-churched man,” says Pastor Steve Field, adding that he sees far more men than women in regular attendance. 

"Movies convince people the Church has a point worth hearing,” he says. “Men are more interested in movies than quotes from dead guys. In general men feel the Church doesn’t have anything to say to them because it doesn’t understand them. By being a church that uses movies as illustrations, we show them that the Church is worth looking into because it relates to the world they live in.”

The average guy in your neighborhood may not know who said, “Behold! I am coming soon”—but he knows who said, “I’ll be back.” He may not know the verse “And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day”—but he knows the line “Go ahead, make my day.” He can’t name the book that says, “Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell”— but he can name the movie that says, “At my signal, unleash hell.”

Regal CineMedia distributes to 25% of the movie screens in the United States and reaches 22 million moviegoers. Based on that half the country is male, and Regal reaches one quarter of the country, that means (if my math is right), a whole bunch of guys are going to the movies. (I asked my statistics professor brother to check my math, and he said it was right).

I’m going to let you in on a secret. Pay attention—this is pretty deep stuff. When millions of guys are interested in something, that’s a good clue you should consider using it as an outreach.

SPORTS

Each year New Venture Christian Fellowship in Oceanside, Calif., capitalizes on the Super Bowl and hosts a communitywide celebration. Super Bowl XXXVIII’s gathering featured big screens, popcorn and nachos. In the fall, the church takes advantage of “Monday Night Football.”

“For a lot of these men who wouldn’t think about coming to church, it’s a non-threatening way to introduce them to New Venture and, ultimately, Christ,” says Senior Pastor Shawn Mitchell.

Known for its focus on reaching unchurched men, Christ’s Church of the Valley in Peoria, Ariz. gives men an opportunity to be more than armchair quarterbacks. The 10,000-member church offers volleyball, softball, basketball and golf leagues. This fall, they’ll have more than 1,000 participants—50% unchurched and 90% men, says the church’s first Sports Pastor Kevin Segal.

“It’s relational evangelism in a really non-threatening atmosphere,” he explains. “We don’t offer Bible studies or a Gospel presentation.” Each team leader is required to attend one of Segal’s captain’s training sessions where he talks about the league’s vision and purpose.

Says Segal: “We’re trying to help them build relationships.”

In the past year I blew out my quadriceps playing arena soccer, pulled my hamstring beating out a throw to first base in softball, and wrecked my elbow playing tennis. I am (with ace bandages and icepacks) the poster child of the 30-something, sport-loving guy in America. 

When guys aren’t playing sports, they’re reading about it or watching it. Sports Illustrated is read by 19% of the 109 million American males. An ESPN survey estimates that 11.7 million men aged 18 to 34 access Internet sports’ sites several times each month. And each week more than 50 million viewers watch “Monday Night Football;” 63% are male. Remember the secret I shared about movies? The same holds true for sports. They also qualify as a good way to reach out to unchurched guys.

ADVENTURE

Here’s how some churches are using outdoor adventure to reach guys. Fourth Memorial Baptist Church in Spokane, Wash., put together a men’s outdoor adventure fair in its parking lot. Men of all ages walked through various stations of outdoor sports, participated in a fly-tying workshop and casting clinic, and even fished from a pond stocked with 1,000 trout.

The event helped men to think about reaching other men, says Pastor John Respold. “We had a number of guys and their kids who weren’t church people, and the soft evangelistic approach opened people up to getting involved in their area of passion. Guys really connect with men outside the church in their area of passion.”

A few years ago Church of the Highlands Pastor Leighton Sheley determined to find out about guys’ interests in San Bruno, Calif. He asked a female choir member, “What does your husband like to do?”

“He loves to hunt and fish,” she said. Thus was born the original Sportsmen’s Fellowship at the church. “We had 60 or 70 guys show up for breakfast—many of them non-church guys—who simply wanted to know what was going on,” Sheley recalls. “It gave us opportunities to build bridges to the community.”

I used to lead wilderness trips for youth groups and juvenile delinquents (is that redundant?) in the High Sierras.

Last year, the National Sporting Goods Association surveyed men in America on their outdoor sports participation. Look at what they came up with:

    • Fishing: 26.5 million
    • Bicycle riding: 20.4 million
    • Camping: 27.1 million
    • Hiking: 13.2 million
    • Downhill skiing: 3.1 million
    • Backpacking: 8.4 million
    • Kayaking/rafting: 2.8 million

If you could reach just 1% of these guys, you’d have a gigachurch (much bigger than a puny megachurch).

SEX

Instead of ignoring a growing problem, Crystal Evangelical Free Church in New Hope, N.M., took action after noticing a trend in its marriage counseling sessions.

“The wife had found cookies on the home computer referring to pornographic Web sites,” says Dale Telle, director of the church’s purity ministry. “At first, the husband denied it, but eventually he’d admit it.”

The Church launched a program, “Every Man’s Battle for Purity,” based partly on Stephen Arteburn’s book, Every Man’s Battle (WaterBrook Press). Initially, only a few men signed up, so one Sunday during the service, church leadership put on camouflage shirts and stood up with the senior pastor to talk about the issue and the upcoming boot camps. 

“When those men stood up, registration shot up from around 20 to 300,” Telle says. Members began to invite their unchurched friends and co-workers they knew were also struggling. After boot camp the men enlisted in purity platoons, and met weekly. After 16 weeks, the men graduated. 

“Not all were walking in purity by then,” Telle recalls. “Some got a handle on things; others were ‘white-knuckling’ it. There’s a powerful bond between men who share a secret that you thought you’d go to your grave with.”

Ahem. For the sake of my employment, marriage and self-respect, I will edit out the humorous anecdote for this section. (It’s quite a trick to write a Focus on the Family meets Maxim article.) And do I really need to give you stats to verify that guys are interested in sex? I didn’t think so. Unfortunately there’s plenty of evidence that shows men are “mis-interested” (interested, but messed up) in sex. 

According to a survey of 9,000 online users conducted by Alvin Cooper, a San Jose, Calif., cybersex expert, five out of six users who cruise the Internet for sexual material are male. More than half the men surveyed admitted to downloading adult-oriented material. And it’s not just the unchurched that visit pornographic sites. A 2001 survey by Leadership magazine found that 21% of pastors had visited pornographic Web sites “a few times a year.”

Your church has a prime opportunity to be a much-needed resource to its community. Think about it. How many places do you see offering free counseling for sexual addiction? Here’s your chance to connect to men (and their wives) through a very real problem and offer a Christian perspective.

CARS

Here’s how one church uses cars and men’s innate enthusiasm for the topic to reach motorheads.

For the past seven years, Opportunity Presbyterian Church in Spokane, Wash., has sponsored the “Car-b-que”—a classic car rally and (you guessed it!) barbecue for the community. Last spring, the event drew more than 100 entries.

“It’s given guys in the church a reason to get together and build relationships with unchurched men around them,” says Pastor Craig Hall. “It served us very well on our recent building project. The men who were most involved in the building project came from the guys who get together with the cars.”

Through the car connection, Hall has forged inroads with a group of men who have very few ties with any faith community.

“I’ve become their token minister or chaplain,” he explains. “When tragedies happen in their lives, they start to open up to me and to each other.

“These are rough, tough guys with grease under their fingernails who don’t trust the Church. But they seem to feel less threatened when they see that there are people of faith who are interested in the same things they care about and that it’s okay to come into worship and begin to talk about spiritual issues in their lives. It’s an absolute revelation to them that Christian men who have committed their lives to Christ can understand how they feel and what they think.”

A study took a group of 2-year-olds and recorded them at play. The study reported that almost 100% of the girl sounds were understandable verbal expressions, while around 50% of the boy sounds were unintelligible noises, like “vrummmm” and “eeerrrrr.” That’s one way to look at it. Another way to see it is that the girls had no car noises, and the boys had a savant-like, bilingual automotive language. Conclusion: Boys are hardwired for car talk.

In 2003, the top four vehicles preferred by American men were high performance cars: the Dodge Viper, the BMW M5, the Porsche 911 and the Audi A8 with No. 5 being the GMC Sierra pickup. Thinking of that list of cars just makes a guy want to say “vrummmmm, eeerrrrr.”

-Outreach magazine, "Features," November/December 2004

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