I thought it might be helpful to quote, in full, a section from a book I recently read that led directly to the thoughts I shared in my previous post about men and open formats. The book was Megashift by David Rutz. Awesome book, I highly recommend it. Take a moment to read my brother's review of the book and see if it interests you. I picked it up based on his recommendation, and I didn't regret it.

In chapter 4 of Megashift, "The New Church," Rutz shares "thirty hallmarks of emerging, scripture-based fellowships." This includes house churches, but Rutz is more focused on open fellowships than he is on size or structure. Anyway, enjoy.

In open fellowships, men are a slight majority.

Men go to open meetings:

to get their marching orders from the Commander of the Hosts of Heaven.

to model true discipleship by telling how the Lord strengthened them that week.

to stand up and proclaim the awesome wisdom and love of the Creator who has spoken to them in Scripture.

to take their rightful place as men learning to be leaders in the household of God.

In open churches around the world, men have a role to play, a man's role.

Men feed on challenges. Can't live without them. We grew up and thrived in a boy culture where I double-dare ya'! was only slighly less impelling than cries of Chicken!

Someone recently wrote an update on Karl Barth's aphorism that "The Word became flesh - and then, through theologians, became words again." The new, improved version reads: "Jesus Christ turns wimps into men. And then the church turns them back into wimps again."

You don't grow strong men by making them sit in rows. You grow strong men by whacking them on the shoulder and saying, "On your feet, Pete! What has God been showing you this week?"

Strong males who are forced to be pew warmers are like the bench warmers in football: They're aching to grab the coach by the lapels, get in his face and yell, "Jus put me in the game! Just gimme the ball!"

In team Christianity, as in war, everybody is in the game, and everybody gets his hands on the ball. Typically, men will do roughly 60% of the talking and women 40%. That's not something we aim for, it's just what happens - and everyone seems to like it that way.

SIDE NOTE ON BOYS: Step one in God's plan for re-establishing fathers and fatherhood is to have a boy sitting in church next to his parents when his dad stands up, and every eye in the place is on Dad as he opens his Bible and says, "The Lord showed me something in Galatians yesterday, and I think we need to hear it..."

As I said before, lions don't grow in small cages. And after a lifetime in a cage, it does no good to set them free, either. Zoo-born animals fed by keepers never learn to survive in the wild.

Rousseau observed that men are born free, yet are everywhere in chains. I would add that men are born wild at heart, yet our churches are filled with captured lions, tamed pew-sitters who no longer know - if they ever knew - how to feed themselves spiritually, how to defend their families from evil, and how to attack their true prey, the devil.

Labels: books, church, house church, open formats