About This Episode - 

Men's Ministry leaders from across the country share their best practices, insights and thoughts about casting vision for men. The Men's Ministry Round Table meets on the second Wednesday of each month at 8:30am PST / 11:30am EST. Visit impactplayers.org/coaching-calls to sign up today.

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Transcript -

Warren Mainard: Right. Hey, welcome everybody to the January 25 Men's Ministry Roundtable. My name is Warren. I'm one of the, the hosts for this roundtable experience. This is an opportunity for men's ministry leaders across the country to learn from one another, to share best practices, insights, breakthroughs and challenges as we all work together to try to figure out how to better reach men and help 'em grow to be husbands, fathers, and leaders, and all of our respective men's ministries. This is a roundtable, so you'll be learning and hearing from any man that wants to share. And today's topic is casting vision for your men's ministry. The beginning of the year is usually a time where we're thinking about our goals, dreams, plans, vision for the upcoming year, and probably trying to convince other people in our ministry or organization to get behind that vision, whether that's participation, financial support, leadership development or some other type of expansion or growth to what God has laid on our heart. So, with that, we're gonna just open this round table up for you guys to contribute your thoughts or questions around this topic. How do we cast vision for our men's ministry? What's working? What's not working in 2025? So, anybody want to get us going? All right. I'm gonna pull the trigger and call on a buddy, Scott Mawdesley, tell us a little bit about your vision for spiritual fathers and for Dads on Tap and how you're trying to cast vision for that right now.

Scott Mawdesley: Yeah. Hey, guys. Happy New Year. Getting ready for the ice and snow up here in Atlanta. It's coming in on Friday, so it gets crazy here when we get that kind of weather, but honored to join you guys and as Warren said, I was, I've been a pastor for 30 years, primarily adult discipleship and small groups, most recently here in Atlanta at 12Stone Church. And a few years ago, just started recognizing that a lot of dads in my community don't or won't go to church. So we launched a community based nonprofit called Dads on Tap to invite guys to come down to the local brewery and just learn how to become a better dad. God's opened some really cool doors through that, through that work, got connected to Man In the Mirror, which is my full-time day job. This many of you're probably familiar with Man In the Mirror, really going after how do we reconnect intergenerational discipleship. I think Chris Harper was here last time I sat in a breakout at an event that Warren and I were at and listened to him talk about how the model of church in the early eighties really split generations apart, and we've never recovered. It was just really fascinating. I learned a lot from him. But just how do we get older men, younger men, in a room together and how do we help them reconnect and learn and grow? So, Spiritual Fathers, we've got a resource that trains and some tools that help with conversations, but more importantly, we're just trying to figure out how do we get older men, younger men connected? We've learned a lot about what doesn't work and what some of the challenges are. I'll just say this, throw this out there. When Spiritual Fathers was launched two and a half years ago, which was about a year and a half before I got to Man in the Mirror, there was a huge assumption made in our world that we'd spent 40 years training millions of guys, and there was this army of older men that were ready and prepared to take a younger guy underneath their wing. And that was a false assumption. You know, 90, it's probably not too strong to say that 95 plus percent of the older men we're talking to never had an older guy in their life, so they'd never seen it. And they're intimidated by the idea of something called a spiritual father. And so what we're doing these days is we're doing a lot more work, and I would say a lot more handholding of older men to help them take some steps towards impacting and influencing younger guys and playing out in a lot of different ways across the community through business and local churches. And, but it's a big problem, which makes it a great opportunity for the Kingdom. And so, I think that's the biggest thing we're thinking about this year, is how do we help older men embrace the opportunity that they have and live in the tension that Paul and scripture talked about, where he said, "The things I don't wanna do, I do. The things I wanna do, I don't do," right? That humility of hey, we're in this together. And at the same time he said, "Follow me as I follow Christ." So he had confidence that he was living in such a way that if you would follow his example, you could learn. And so how do we help older men live in that rhythm, authenticity, but also a confidence that they have something to say. So, I don't know, Warren, if that was the direct we're supposed to go, but that's kind of what we're doing and thinking about.

Warren Mainard: Yeah, so let me, let me kind of volley back a question and maybe that you want answer it, or maybe some other guy wants to answer the question, but I think like everybody on this call would agree that the idea that older godly men should want to partner to mentor younger men to help pass on what they've learned as followers of Christ. Like that should be a no brainer, right? But there's obviously some obstacles, some roadblocks that have made that not the layup that we all assume that it should be. So maybe you can either talk specifically or other guys can talk more in general terms, but how do you identify what those roadblocks are and then cast vision in a way that it kind of either builds a bridge over them or eliminates them or helps guys to realize, hey, it's worth pushing through whatever roadblocks you have in order to fulfill this vision that you're putting out there.

Scott Mawdesley: Yes. I don't wanna be the one talking the whole time. I'll give you 60 seconds of my personal experience. December of 2023, I sat down with a friend in the community who's a business owner, talked about spiritual fathers, and he said, "Man, I love the idea." He says, and for a lot of different reasons, he said, "I know a few other guys that would love the idea too." So it took us six months to get these six other guys in the room to go through a study called "The Way Forward" about what does it look like to impact a young guy and through our small group, it was great and it created a lot of tension. And honestly, we got done with our study and they were probably a little bit more apprehensive than they were before we started. Like, ah, I don't know how do we go from here? And so in December, we invited 24 young guys that are primarily connected through our local chamber of commerce to join our group for a breakfast. And we just sat and shared our heart for younger men, and it took a year, but for the first time, these older guys are hearing from young guys that are just saying, thank you. I got so many questions. I have so many things I'm wrestling with. I don't have an older guy in my life. And so for the first time, it clicked for them, like, wow, like I could have an impact. And then they still said, "I'm not ready to do a cup of coffee with a guy." So we're launching in two weeks a roundtable together for four months. So I'm gonna kind of lead us through some conversations and then have them be table facilitators. But it was helping them understand the need and then giving them access to young guys to hear from them that they really want their impact, and then helping structure a way for them in a simple way to move forward with those young guys. So that'll take a year and a half, Warren. I think patience and discipline are the two things we're learning, and how do we help these guys take some steps and not assume that they're just gonna figure it out on their own. So that's some of the what we're doing.

Daniel Grossman: Hey, Scott. And hey guys, those that didn't meet me earlier - Daniel Grossman. I'm in Tampa Bay with a ministry called Man Up and Go. So definitely a lot of similarities to mentorship and discipleship of the next generation. And so, but anyhow, as you were speaking, the thing that I'm learning is it's time and relationship. Time and relationship. Everyone wants to be the Promise Keepers overnight or even within six months, but it just, it is time and relationship and like you said, I sat down with this particular man and having a face-to-face and then six months later, so it is, it's consistent involvement and building relationships. Like we've got all the fancy technology to send out mass text messages and emails and all these things and they're effective to some degree, but what's more than effective than anything is that face-to-face time. And then again, multiplying that concept of relationship equity and the importance of it. And so that's what I'm kind of wrapping my mind around this year, is I'm trying to mobilize men in our community. Oh yeah. By the way, before I forget, Scott, I already emailed you. I'm looking, we, I got my F squad, which is similar. Anyway, we'll talk more.

Scott Mawdesley: Absolutely. Look forward to it, man.

Warren Mainard: Awesome. Hey, I wanna welcome a friend of mine named Jonathan Lewis. And Jonathan, maybe you can take a moment to share about Fathers For Fathers, but one of the things that struck me about vision when I was looking at your lovely face on this Zoom is the power of storytelling when it comes to casting vision. How have you seen that your ability to tell a story has helped you cast vision for the men in the ministry that you lead?

Jonathan Lewis: Yeah, it's interesting. I was listening to Scott and Daniel, like I, I'm, I feel like I'm your target audience. So, I didn't, I'm not in ministry and I'm not a theologian. I am a business owner. And I'm building an international business right now in the US and Canada with plans to expand to other parts of the world. And it's in the financial services world. So nothing to do with ministry other than I spent all my time wrestling rich people to the ground on their very distorted and broken worldview of money and the theology of it and who owns it. So that I actually think of that as my ministry even though it's vocational. But I'm a man, living in the 21st century. And my journey of masculinity started with a cultural Christian as a father who did get saved when he was 19, but grew up in a very abusive environment. And I had that father for 14 years who always struggled to trust God and take him at his word. And that was his legacy to me. And then I watched him drown in front of me in a very tragic scuba diving accident where although I got him to the beach, I was not able to save him. And that kicked off a journey of homelessness, despondency living in my car, in a tent after my stepfather came on the scene in my late teens to literally, quoting "An Officer and a Gentleman," in the Canadian Armed Forces. I got no place to go. This is a warm bed and a hot meal, and I don't care what you do to me, I'm not quitting. Which led to quite a bit of success in the Armed forces. If you can call the Canadian Armed Forces Armed Forces they certainly aren't anymore after Mr. Trudeau's done his good work for 10 years, but at the time, we actually had a respectable army that went wherever you guys went. And then I forged into entrepreneurship and built something 'cause I didn't wanna live into my car anymore. And here I am now, you know 25 years later and I've had a wife who, I got saved. And she didn't like it. She had an affair with one of my clients, took my kids. Found myself struggling where the church had no understanding of how to help me navigate that. If anything, I became a pariah. Whereas in the secular, I'm just one of the guys, let's have a beer, life sucks. But within the church, it was like, I may as well sit with my back to the wall and the last pew is in sinner's row and be thankful that they still talk to me even though she had the affair and I was like fighting, to fight for my marriage and honor my vows. And thankfully by the grace of God, I got shared custody of my kids, which in Canada, only 13% of the time do men get shared custody. And it was totally God's hand because the judge presiding got sick. And I ended up with a Christian judge. Which in Canada, finding a Christian is kinda like finding an Easter egg in June, long after Easter. And so it's been a real pilgrimage for me of fatherhood and fatherlessness." And I had no mentors other than Psalm 68:5 says, "I'll be a father to the fatherless. And when I look back on my journey, I had all these men that God sent into my life who mentored me. And, ironically, even though I wasn't Christian, we're all Christians and they're all forces of nature in my life even now. And so, I started Fathers For Fathers a year ago, a little more than a year ago, 15 months ago, because I was like, okay, who's going after these men? Like, there's no ministries for men in the churches. It's all women and young adults and children. And then we say the men aren't doing their job. They're not coming to church, they're not showing up, they're not leading their families, but we're not doing anything to help them support them or enable them to succeed. We're just browbeating them. And it's not like we're not getting enough of that out in the world. And so I really felt called by the Lord on a hike to build a parachurch, if you will, to be a stretcher bearer, an ambulatory service for men like me. And I mean, I hope we're advertising on PornHub by the end of the year. So like I'm, I am an evangelist. I learned a long time ago, entrepreneurship and evangelism are exactly the same. It's just who's your end target and how do you convert them? And so this is a side hustle for me, if you will, although it's very consuming and I can't get over how much it's grown in one year. Mostly what I'm excited about is we had 187 men give their lives to Christ in the first year of our ministry. And I would've never seen that coming. And look, I'm just excited to be connected with other guys that have a heart to go after the guys, because I was one of those guys. And I mean, the reason why I started this ministry is 'cause I just didn't think there was anything out there. Like, I read John Ridge's books. "Wild at Heart," in my opinion, was the only good one he produced. But it was like, okay, you've got a wound. I'm like, yeah, no kidding. I got a wound, but like, now what, right? Like, he's telling me what I already know. And that's my story.

Warren Mainard: And well, let me, let me jump in there. We can give other guys an opportunity to speak in as well.

Jonathan Lewis: Yeah.

Warren Mainard: But I mean, I think probably all of us we're enraptured by that story, you know? And just going, wow, here's a guy that's gone through so much, and yet he's still scratching and clawing for Christ. How can I get behind that guy? How can I be a part of what he's doing? Those are the, and so I think that's a, it's a powerful example of story and how you can use your story or the story of transformed lives in your ministry to help cast vision. I'm gonna call on my friend Gary, who's leading IMPACT Players in Seattle. Gary, one thing that I hear a lot, I wonder if you're hearing it a lot as well, is guys saying, "Hey, I really love what you're doing, but..." and then there's some kind of reason why they can't be involved or it's just not their thing or whatever. But I guess my question is, how do you get guys to go from kind of thinking about this as like "Gary's thing" like, oh, this is the Gary thing to be in, like, something like, I'm a part of this army of men in Seattle and we are doing this together. Any thoughts on that?

Gary Shavey: Sure. And appreciate the thoughts of the other guys so far. I think, well one is just empowering the leaders like that I don't step over other leaders as their leading guys or groups, that we have going on. And, I think to add to the conversation here was for me, and I've just been kind of hounding on it for the whole year, and I probably will just keep on hounding just for our leaders to understand, we have our vision statement and it's inspiring men, but if we're not asking guys like the question, do you know how to really lead your, your family spiritually? Do you wanna find out more how to do that? Like come join one of our cohorts, or do you really know what manhood is? I mean, 'cause sometimes we say talk about manhood and all that stuff, and it's like, why don't you come and learn what biblical manhood really is. Do you want to grow as a father? Do you, if you would rate yourself on a scale from one to 10, what, how would you rate yourself as a dad? Would you wanna make that go from a five to a six? Well, that's why we're here plug in. Like, we're all trying to figure this out together. And I think, so that's, I think been helpful for guys to get plugged in for us is asking the questions that really meet, Man in the Mirror, you know this, what does that need? We know what they want, but what do they need? They need to know what it is to be a, a dad, a father. So you're, we're just kind of just keeping it back to the simple things for the men so that they realize like, okay, I'm going to this not because someone told me I had to go to it, or my wife told me I had to go to it, but I'm going to it because I actually want to grow in this role that I have as a dad or as a husband. So, I mean, that's what makes it distinct. Like that's what makes men's ministry distinct from other things that are going on either in the church or maybe outside the church, is it's, we're specifically focusing on men growing in the things that God has called them to grow in. So that's how I think that we've been, and I think the leaders are starting to kind of get that idea, but it, I think they need to, they need to own like, why? Because they go like, yeah, I wanna invite guys, but it's like, yeah, but you're inviting 'em to what? What are you inviting them to? Not just join a group of guys. Hey, it's cool, it's for fun, which is true, but for the meeting that need for them. So kind of pointing it out through that question.

Warren Mainard: That's a good, that's a good word. And Gary, one thing that stood out to me about what you just said is like asking them a question where they have to express what it is that they want. And so do you want to be a better husband? Yes. Do you wanna be a better dad? Yes. Do you wanna be a better follower, man of God? Yes. Okay. That's what we're all about. So you've come to the right place. This is what it's gonna take for you to get there instead of kind of like the stereotypical Father's Day sermon at church, where it's like, you need to be a better husband, you need to be a better father. You need to be a better leader, and here's what you gotta do to do it. Really in bringing that out from them. I think that that's a powerful insight,

Gary Shavey: Right and we wanna invite them to the same journey that we're on. Not, hey, I have it all figured out. I'll tell you how to do it. It's come join us as we're trying to figure this out together.

Warren Mainard: Yeah.

Gary Shavey: And guys will see different guys that have it figured out and that, and it's the impressive part. And, you know, Warren, some of the young guys that have been involved in IMPACT going, I just know I need to be around other godly men. And so I really enjoy being around older guys. It's like pretty rare, but it's pretty awesome. But they're seeing that, they realize, hey, I'm married now, but I haven't had kids. And so, but I know it's coming, so I better start figuring it out.

Warren Mainard: Chris, Mike, Dean, do you guys have any insights on casting vision, how to inspire men towards the vision that God's laid on your heart or for your ministry?

Chris Cannon: Yeah, I'll share one, a couple of thoughts. One is I love listening to all you guys talk. You know the great commission, I start with verse 17 when I try to read it to men, because verse 17 reminds us that some doubted, and not just Thomas, right? So there's gotta be more than one. We don't know who it was, but maybe two, maybe more. But what I remind men before we get to the red letters, is Jesus didn't say, you guys go figure it out. And they come back and join us, whoever you guys are. He, and I think for most men, that blows their minds that, that Jesus invited men who weren't, he didn't have it figured out to join him in this great commission. So I think that tapping into the fears that men have with hey, that doesn't preclude you from being a part of the great work of the King, of the Kingdom. I'm old enough to remember when you had to ask a girl to the prom without signs and selfies and Instagram and videos. And I remember, this is how it, when I speak to men about this conversation, I'll say, for a lot of us who are older, we're like the guy asking a girl to the prom or afraid to be getting rejected. The girls are afraid of not being invited. So we have this standoff between men that are older, men that are younger. The younger men are afraid that they're not gonna be a mentored, discipled. The older men are afraid that they've got nothing to offer. So we have this standoff. So creating conversations and setting the table for men to talk to these things. We, at our men's retreat, we had about 300 men that would gather once a year at Forest Tillman, California. And we, every one of 'em had a dot, a colored dot that showed you what decade you were, whether you were in your teens, twenties, thirties. And so every session we would say, get with five other colors and answer this question. We forced them into basically generational conversations. And then we had 'em pray for each other. And it was, it shaped the culture of our church by creating environments like that. But I think for men, for me, casting vision means reminding them that, that God includes the men who don't have it figured out.

Warren Mainard: I love that. That's great. Mike, how about you? Any, any insights on casting vision?

Mike Mattes: Yeah, I mean, I always like to... I love what I'm hearing here and taking it back to the big story, the grand story of scripture, thinking about it in the framework of creation, fall, redemption, restoration, and allowing space for imagination in that, like, how are we created? How have we fallen from that? How is Christ work of redemption at play? And what does a restored fatherhood, what does a restored manhood look like? And that imagination can then cause some great conversation spurring on from there.

Warren Mainard: Yeah. So give them a bigger picture, a bigger story than just my ministry or your group. But...

Chris Cannon: Isn't that what Robert Lewis would used to call transcendent vision, right? In the original cult classic version of "Men's Fraternity" was men need a transcendent vision. And I think that's so key when God, when men see that God has a plan to include them in their, in their blemishes and imperfections, that that changes a lot of men's lives.

Warren Mainard: Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned that, Chris. And I'd love to just maybe take a couple minutes to see if anybody has any thoughts about how do you cast vision to the man that kind of feels like he doesn't measure up. He is disqualified. He's not good enough for this job. I could never, I could never be a leader. I could never do this because if you knew what I've done or my past, then you would never want me. So like, what would you say to that guy in terms of trying to cast vision for him to say, "Hey, God's not done with you. God's got a plan." How would you speak that vision into his life?

Dean O'Bryan: I really love 2 Timothy 2, in verse one, we typically jump to verse two because that's the discipleship command from Paul. But, verse one is, "Be strong, therefore, in the grace that is in Christ Jesus." And, I think our need, our great need is to help men understand that the grace of Christ is enough for them. One of the guys I heard recently said, the beginning of that chapter is take responsibility for where you are spiritually. Own your spiritual life, receive it from Jesus, receive from him all that he has to offer. And then verse two, then you have something to pass on. And so growth in that sense, discipleship is a two cycle engine. It begins when a man understands that God has sent his son. For me, it's the prodigal father has come running for you, and it's time for you to come back to him and then pass it on. Because you will grow more when you're engaged with a younger guy than you ever will when you're sitting, one of the guys I knew said, we want men to sit around and suck their thumbs for 10 years be part of the same men's group forever and ever and ever. And that's the last thing men need. They need challenge. They desperately need challenge.

Warren Mainard: Good word, Dean. Thank you. Anyone else?

Don Wolfe: Yeah, I was gonna share that I really liked what, gosh, who was it, Scott was sharing with the older guys? I think part of the challenge we've had is the church Christian organizations have turned learning into a spectator support. And we have developed a whole generation or a couple generations of men that have just been spectators, and we haven't, so it's not they don't want to, they just don't know how to, but they've also kind of been groomed to just sit and watch. And I think the casting the vision, we can talk till we're blue in the face, but we gotta bring guys alongside us and have them observe and catch it as we do it. And as they catch it, I believe they'll start to do it. But also, I have talked with so many guys who just feel like, oh my gosh, I couldn't possibly do that. I don't know enough about the Bible. And Warren, I love what you were saying about story is one of the things I've done with men is make sure they know kind of their salvation story, and they've got it down almost like an elevator pitch I would do in business in the day, where that's their experience. And I said, then when you meet with people, my gosh, you just, hey, this is my story. This is what God's been doing for me. And as people start to come together in small groups and they see that trust and vulnerability and authenticity, they catch that and they go, oh, I can do that. But older guys, they need that model to 'em because they haven't had it younger guys. It's really a fatherless generation and they need it. And so I think we can do it together, but we have to invest in having, bringing people along saying, catch it. And I think that's how the vision gets cast.

Warren Mainard: Yeah. That's a powerful insight. And one thing you said that's so true is if a guy can see it and experience it himself, then you really don't have to do much work to actually cast the vision. Casting the vision is hardest when they can't see it, and you're trying to describe it, you know? And so if you can get a guy into a cohort, into a mentoring relationship, into a gathering or an event, a space and say, what if we did this in your location, or with your community, or with your family, or whatever it might be, it, they can then go, oh I understand that. I get that. And so I think that's a great thing to think about is how can we pull men into something that we're already doing, let them taste it and see that it's good and then say, what would it look like for you to do that or to experience that in your environment. Well, hey, we're about to wrap this time up. Are there any just final thoughts, burning nuggets that you guys would like to share before we wrap this up? And then just open it up for some sharing conversation?

Daniel Grossman: Just wrapping up with Don, and some things are taught. Most things are caught, meaning. Men are ex, I had it when I said it in my head, they gotta have experiences and they've gotta be in the mix and, and get their hands dirty per se. And I think that is, that's when the vision gets sticky and that's when it becomes real to them. And that's when they do what they're called to do. And then here's the verse. He that reads the vision, write down the vision. Yeah, write down the vision. But then he that reads it can then run with it. And so it's, it is a matter of putting it into action and having opportunities for men to put the vision into action. I think you're gonna see your 2025 visions in action then.

Warren Mainard: Well guys, we've just scratched the tip of the surface with the topic of casting vision. There are conferences, books, blogs, and seminars galore on this topic. But as it comes to men's ministry, I think we've got some really good things to think about.