There's been a fair bit on this site about being a family and marriage, and if you came to the 300 Men for Jesus night with Mark Driscoll and you were single you might have felt like you were a bit unfairly beat up.
Well, I found some good articles to try to bring some balance to the force.
** Apologies - I've been away, and this is the first time I've been back in the tech-land **
Thanks to John Lew for sending this through, below is a link to an article that appeared in The Australian on the 20 October. It highlights research shows Australian fathers spend around 1 minute a day alone with their kids each day, from Monday to Friday.
Reading the article, the quote that stuck out to me by Dr Craig of the Uni of NSW was this:
"It's a woman's job and a man's hobby. And it stays basically the same regardless of the amount of work women do in the paid workforce."
I was chatting with my wife the other day about the fact that while technology appears to be bringing people closer, it still appears as if society is defragmenting and people are becoming more and more isolated. The conversation didn't get much further than that, because my internet connection dropped out so instant messenger wouldn't work anymore. She suggested that because we were sitting next to each other on the lounge that perhaps we could just talk. I couldn't really understand what she was getting at, because she wasn't punctuating her speech with emoticons.
My point is this - as technology increases, we need to be careful that we don't let it replace meaningful relationships that build Godliness. Men find this hard enough as it is, and technology is often a convenient excuse. As Christians, we need to push back against this trend, and work at building relationships that will sharpen and shape us into men like Christ.
I found this talk from a Mens Convention held in Katoomba. It's a talk from Bryson Smith on Enduring and Trusting, and comes courtesy of Katoomba Christian Convention.
Go to the site , download it from the resources page, or refresh your podcast.
When I first started preaching, someone gave me the advice to be careful about using too many sporting illustrations. Apparently it divides the audience into those who love sport and those who don’t. I’ve never met the latter group. But I’m told they exist. So I’ll respect that.
Anyway, with sport being such a big part of our culture - particularly with men - it's a good idea to know how Christians should interact with such a defining part of our national identity. To that end, I was recently made aware (thanks Pete Hughes of AFES) of a great talk by C J Mahaney on God and Sport. Here’s what the talk description has to say:
Can we worship God by playing sports? Athletics can be beautiful displays of His glory, given the right understanding of grace. Learn how to cultivate gratitude to God for sports and to display godly character when playing sports.
If nothing else, it's a great talking point with Christian and non-Christian friends - but I suspect you'll get a lot more out of it than just that. You can download the talk from the resources page, or refresh your 300 Men Podcast.
There’s a general consensus these days that churches aren’t as effective as they could be in reaching men. Is it because men are less ‘spiritual’ than women? Or do we need to rethink our approach? Former Army chaplain Tim Booker reports from the front lines.
One of the reasons we started this site was that there are very few websites that bring together and deal with issues that Christian men face.
We recently received a link to another site that has also recently started up, targeted at fathers who follow Jesus. It's called The Fathers' Business (www.thefathersbusiness.com.au). Here's how they describe their purpose:
We had a guy visiting our church last weekend who is a man's man. I'm telling you, this guy drinks steak milkshakes for breakfast. He's big, he's built like a life-size tonka truck, and he works in a profession where you've got to stand up and be a man, otherwise you just won't last long.
A guy at church was speaking to him and he mentioned something very disturbing, but very interesting. That while he's a committed Christian, he just couldn't invite the guys he works with to church. It was just too chick-ified, and they just wouldn't cope...
Acknowledging our own past failures, we, the undersigned 300 men, challenge the men of our city to join us in getting serious about following Jesus. We confess we have often worshipped a convenient Jesus who has allowed us to continue unchallenged in our comfortable lives. We have made an idol for ourselves - a small, easy Jesus.
