As new research points to a shift in church attendance with men showing increased engagement in many age groups, Josh Smith believes the moment calls for more than celebration.
“We’ve had such low expectations for men,” said Smith, senior pastor of Prince Avenue Baptist Church in Bogart, Georgia, and author of a new book, “The Man for the Day.” “It’s almost like we’ve given this entire generation of men a participation trophy. Like, we’re so glad you just showed up.”
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Scott Sullivan, discipleship catalyst for the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, said the time is right for such a book, as recent research from Barna shows growing spiritual engagement among men. “Pastors and men’s leaders have been asking for resources that will encourage and challenge men,” he said. “Josh Smith has written a men’s ministry resource that every leader can benefit from reading.”
Smith’s book challenges churches to focus less on outward participation and more on what God is forming within a man over time, what Smith calls the “internal man,” before influence, leadership or public usefulness.
“Over the years, pastors and churches have been content with external faithfulness,” Smith said. “Meaning, if we get a guy to attend church, give, and serve, we feel like we’ve won.”
But lasting strength, he said, is built slowly.
“Life is messy, and sanctification is long,” Smith said. “Nothing in our culture is geared toward the long process of sanctification, and nothing in our church is really geared toward that. We want easy, quick fixes.”
Smith pointed to Matthew 7, where Jesus warns against building a house on sand. The lesson applies to discipleship, he said, when men are taught to perform outwardly without being rooted inwardly.
“I think we’re building men on sand — the sand of external faithfulness and external actions — and there’s no internal root and depth,” he said. “We’re not developing the Psalm 1 deeply rooted men.”
The consequence, Smith believes, is visible both inside and outside the church.
“When storms come, if they don’t have those deep roots, they’re not going to be able to withstand temptation or power or money or influence,” he said. “We’re seeing it on large scales.”
In “The Man for the Day,” Smith returns often to the prophet Elijah who appears suddenly in Scripture, speaks boldly to King Ahab, and then is sent into years of obscurity before Mount Carmel.
“God sends him away for three years of absolute obscurity,” Smith said. “But I think the reason is because God knew what was coming.”
Those hidden years, Smith said, weren’t wasted years. They were preparation years.
“That kind of cultivation happens in the mundane. It happens in the obscure,” he said. “Every small thing is preparation.”
Real courage
Asked how he would define courage for a Christian man today, Smith put it plainly: “Courage is the spiritual strength to do and say what is right no matter the cost or consequences.”
“Courage is spiritual. It’s supernatural,” he said. “A courageous man says, ‘God’s made it clear what I’m supposed to do, and I’m going to step in it, and I’m going to leave the consequences up to Him.’”
For pastors who seek to cultivate deep roots in the men of their church but feel overwhelmed by where to begin, Smith’s advice was simple: just start.
“There’s no magic formulas,” he said. In his first church, Smith said he invested in groups of 10 men at a time. Over time, that approach shaped more than a hundred men.
Even now, he said, he is taking a small group of men through a yearlong process.
“You just need to start something,” Smith said. “Read a chapter a week and discuss it. Don’t get overwhelmed. Don’t overcomplicate it.”
And for the man who feels discouraged by slow growth, Smith offered three words: “This is normal.”
“Spiritual growth is slow,” he said. “The only way to look back and see that you made progress five years from now is if you’ve just been faithful along the way.”
His counsel for achieving that growth was direct: “Be the man today that you want to be someday.”
“Just walk with the Lord today,” Smith said. “Allow that to become one day and two days and three days and then a lifetime of faithfulness.”
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Henry Durand and originally published by the Christian Index.
