Today at church, the ‘men’s ministry’ was responsible for the service.
Along with singing three great hymns (Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, and God of Grace and God of Glory) in the mixture of the worship music, it was a great service.
What made this service great was two things:
(1): It edified, encouraged, and uplifted men with the testimonies of healing, helping, and hope of the power of Christ and did not do the typical Christian charismatic man-service of belittling men as nothing more than deadbeat dads who love covert Internet pornography and love to take excessive business trips to treat clients out at a swanky strip joint but needs to learn how to ‘butterfly-kiss’ their daughters and learn how to become a woman in a male anatomical package (if you lived in the South East, during the Clinton years, many of these services also branded you as ‘racist by default’).
(2): A very clear emphasis was made concerning the time of the weekly men’s breakfast but heavily emphasized that if you were working at that time that it was ok and everyone understood why you didn’t go.
Number two was a huge relief with taking ‘the pressure’ off. The point was emphasized at least three times.
In the past Pentecostal / Charismatic experiences, those who didn’t attend were usually ’shunned’ but the ones who did attend and seen as being ‘less spiritual’ than the ones who did attend. Reading some different ‘men’s only’ sections of some Christian forums, I had heard stories of men who were told by their churches that these ‘early morning’ breakfasts were so important that they just needed to tell their bosses or rearrange their schedules to where they would have to be late once a week for this and if necessary, get ‘fired for Jesus’ because “God comes first’ or ‘find another job’.
I know the time frame for such a early morning breakfast is very limited but I still wonder if (in many cases) this is really ‘catered’ towards the self-owned business / financial / banking / sales / marketing / political / real estate sector career professions (the type most churches only want as members) or retirees to where morning schedules could easily be arranged to accommodate such a fellowship and therefore appear as if the “relational’ can only be accessed by the ones with ‘professional’ career paths?
