Posted on 12/04/2010 8:33:21 AM PST by wmfights
A St. Louis pastor and respected church planter raised the alarm about a societal problem he calls “ban,” which are males that are not quite boys nor men in their maturity level.
A ban is “somewhere in between” a boy and a man and can take the form of a 30-something male playing three hours of video games a day.
“I personally believe that the reason we have a societal crisis with men is because we do not have strong churches that draw out trained, equipped, empowered, challenged men,” said Darrin Patrick, pastor of the Journey Church in St. Louis and author of Church Planter: The Man, The Message, and The Mission, in a recent video interview with Desiring God ministry.
“He’s a guy that prolongs his adolescence, really resists responsibility. He’s not trying to be an Ephesians 5 husband … He’s really about himself.”
Patrick explained that he was inspired to write the book because of all the bans – a word he coined – in his own church. Many of the bans in his church do not have fathers in their lives and do not know how to do basic things like balance a check book, read the Bible, or relate to women because they have been watching pornography.
The pastor, who is also vice president of the Acts 29 Church Planting Network, wanted to expose this problem with the aim that churches can raise better men.
“I love them (bans in his church). I would have been one of them. I was one of them and God saved me out of that,” said Patrick. “So my personal belief is, as I read the Scripture, that as we have strong pastors that lead those churches we have hope for seeing a culture of bans become biblical men.”
Patrick, whose church spreads out over four campuses and holds eight services, shared about his troubled past before he came to know Christ. His past life would have resulted in him becoming a ban had he not made drastic changes in his life.
During his junior year of high school, he was suspended from the football team for drinking, suspended from school for fighting, and was sure that his girlfriend was pregnant – all within the same week. As all the important things in his life crumbled, a concerned senior on the football team invited him to church. Through reading the Bible and guidance at the church, Patrick committed his life to the Lord and felt a calling to teach the Bible.
“You (pastors, church planters) really give these guys hope that they can change, not just hope but a challenge,” said Patrick. “You say that it is simply not an option to play video games for three hours a day when you are in your 30’s.”
But he called on church planters, which is the intended reader of his new book, to not confuse physical strength with being a man. King David was a musician and wrote poetry and Jesus talked about flowers and seeds, he noted. A man is someone who is both tough and tender, who has an element of protection but can also emotionally connect with his wife.
Patrick, who has three daughters and one 4-year-old son, named Drew, shared that he has taught his son to pray: “God, make me a man with thick skin and a soft heart. Make me a man who is tough and tender. Make me tough so I can handle life. Make me tender so I can love people. God, make me a man.”
The book Church Planter: The Man, The Message, and The Mission is the first book on church planting by an Acts 29 church planter. Although there are many books about church planting, Patrick said none address what a church planter should look like. The book focuses on the character, message, and mission of a church planter and is partly an autobiography of Patrick’s journey planting Journey Church in St. Louis. Church Planter was released during the Church Planter Acts 29 National Boot Camp in Seattle in September.
As if women today are any more mature.
This whole society has undergone dramatic negative changes since the ‘60s. There are too many such changes to list here, but, this problem of a “man-child” is definitely an outgrowth of the liberal attitudes which have permeated every part of society.
Yes, the women have their own issues. The biggest one may be the whole “baby mama” culture which has taken root among lower classes and spread to middle class girls.
“As if women today are any more mature.”
‘xactly. The whole society is afflicted with Perpetual Adolescence.
Manliness has been driven to extinction by cultural marxism, radical feminism, and political correctness.
Bingo! I think the Pastor was being a bit unfair by failing to mention young women in his sermon. If I was there, I would had walked out. I say this as a 27 years old man.
Agreed....not to mention all the “saggy pants” young people of both sexes are “sharing “ with us all. Skin exposure is at a heightned state...there is no longer any shame for woman, rather the more they flaunt the more they believe they are “acceptable”. The majority of our society has gone the way of Sodom and Gommorah.....I don’t see this turning around any time soon... if ever.
Yes. A man is someone who lays on the couch and watches TV for six hours a night.
Didn’t Jesus tell us to be like children?
One of the reasons I like my church is that it recognizes men as men and encourages their growth as men. It also recognizes that we have needs and interests that are separate form women.
The other churches to which I have belonged (old style mainstream churches) were intolerant of guys who didn’t act like women.
Off topic, but “church-planting” is one of biggest, totally unscriptural frauds perpetrated on the church in our generation.
HUH!?!? It’s totally accepted today and it is the prime method for promoting sects, denominations, and power/position hungry men. It isn’t planting. It’s cloning. Cloning is wholly of man and unnatural.
What do I know? I was into ‘church planting’ big time before it was cool, late ‘60’s. Was close to some of the biggest ‘church planters’ out there. Been there, done that, bought the tee shirt.
Paul never planted a church. Never. He planted “Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” The seed. Because he planted the seed God called him to plant, a church almost always (but not always) resulted. The church was the fruit, not what was planted. You don’t plant an apple, an orange, a pine cone. You plant a seed. If the seed finds fertile ground, water, sun - it grows and produces fruit.
The fruit today is clones. Not mature, rock-solid Christians. The center isn’t Christ. It’s the church. Because that’s what was planted.
When the church is the center, it actually becomes anti-Chrst....it supplants,takes the place of Christ. The church is never to be the center. He is.
Years ago, two Christian women had identical dreams. A bride preparing for her wedding became so fixated on herself in the mirror, fretting over every detail, that when the bridegroom came, she was so fixated on herself, she missed the wedding. I know one of them. A good friend knows the other.
Too much to discuss here, but a major issue, and major deception today - accepted by almost everyone without challenge. Sad. Look at the fruit.
Sorry, but true manliness can't be driven out by anything, and true men don't blame women or Marxists for their problems. Manliness either exists or doesn't.
I assume we’re talking about inner-city feral black males? Good luck with that. If ‘’black leaders’’ were really concerned about this there wouldn’t be a single illegal alien in the country. Because if homey got off his lazy ass homey could be learning to do the plumbing , electrical , carpentry, driving heavy equipment, etc. for 12 to 16 an hour or more instead of illegals. Fact of the matter is between the poverty pimps and the liberals homey has been conditioned to be what he is— a feckless, immature, sexually irresponsible , criminally violent, stunted adolescent child.
OK.
To raise boys to be Men we would first need a DEFINITION of a Man. A DEFINITION by, well, definition is EXCLUSIVE. This is unPC and cannot be tolerated on account of the damage it would inflict upon the psyches of woman, who, as we are instructed, are as good or better at being Men then men are. When our culture abandoned it's traditional definition of Manhood it left boys twisting in the wind to become whatever they would become without any input from the greater society. We will rue the day....
**Didn’t Jesus tell us to be like children?***
And didn’t St Paul tell us it was time to grow up and leave childish things behind?
When I was a child I thought as a child.
But when I bacame a man I put away childish things.
“ban”
seriously? around here they’re just called guys.
it is a progression.... boy, guy, man.
boys become teenage guys who then eventually become men. simple.
And western civilization is in decline.
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