Nuts, a basically pornographic magazine has seen its circulation fall by 22.5%.  Zoo has fallen by 32.1% and FHM by 19.2%.

People love big events. You get a buzz,  big sound, big names, big crowd…you leave feeling ready to take on the world. I’ve got nothing against a big event or a mega church. Both are great for a preach! I just don’t think its where the real revolutionary work happens.

The first time I entered a church for a ‘typical’ Sunday service, I was scared. Don’t get me wrong; I had been to weddings, christenings and remembrance services before, but going to church for no reason was something different.

It all happened around eleven years ago, and by this point, my wife Shelly had become a Christian at Holy Trinity Church in Ripon.

Unbeknown to me she had been taking our two children to Sunday school. However, this particular Sunday she was going shopping and wanted me to take them to church instead.

To be honest, I was reluctant to do this, but for our children’s sake, I agreed.

I can remember planning a strategy of how not to spend much time in church. My plan was to drop the kids off quickly, head to the nearest pub to read the paper, and pick the kids up afterwards.

I thought it was a foolproof plan but didn’t count on a fiery blond-haired woman welcoming me when entering the church. I entered the building with much unease. It didn’t help that my two children Tayla and Curtis ran off downstairs leaving me to be led by one of Shelly’s friends to a seat inside. I couldn’t refuse. It was so awkward. I would have felt more at home entering an adult shop or a casino in all honesty.

During the nest two months I witnessed the change that God had made in Shelly’s life. I knew I had got to the point where I also wanted to give my life to God. The walk towards God wasn’t an easy one, and the decision to follow Jesus wasn’t easy either, but now I wouldn’t want to be on any other path than the narrow one.

I soon learnt one of the most popular teachings in the Bible for myself. As the angel said to Mary: “Do not be afraid” so did the Lord whisper that same thing to me. Everyday I am discovering more and more what it means to live with God on my side. The Bible says that because I gave my life to Jesus, God is now “For me and not against me.”

I am sure that many more guys would jump at the chance to know more about this God.

Why not join us on the 21st of this month at the Forum Hall, Wythenshawe, Manchester, for a National Men’s Day in partnership with New Wine. It would be a great place for any blokes to take their first steps with their creator. It will also be a cracking event for Christian men to develop their walk with God.

Get yourself booked in here.

See you there guys.

Deano.

As the guys say in our typically bizarre Boxing Day film, why not do something epic today and reserve your place for the CVM Gathering! Take full advantage of the Early Bloke booking and get the whole weekend for just £65. Hundreds of guys from across the UK will meet for banter, laughter and solid teaching on what it means to live LIFE IN FULL.

(CVM Men’s Camp is June 29 – July 1 @ Lynt Farm, Nr Swindon)

Don’t miss out on the discount and book now for The Gathering 2012

Here’s what some guys thought last time:

“Great bunch of speakers, very down to earth and practical but with a real live Jesus message.”

“Fantastic! already getting more guys geared up for next year.”

“I thought the whole things was a blast from start to finish. What an ACE idea to have the teas & coffees going all day for free. That’s a cracker of a facility and was so good to just have the place and space to catch up with folks not seen for ages. Nice One! I’ll be back despite living 12 hours drive away!”

“As a Vicar I found I could relax and really chill out, I loved every main session and laughed so much. Minsitry can take it out of you and CVM stuff always builds me back up. To be honest I think you did very very well and I can’t wait to tell others. In fact that is what I have been doing ever since with every man I meet – I say “Do you know what I did last week?” and tell them.”

See you there guys!

Alex Willmott’s thoughts on Christmas.

If you don’t have audio, please find the Splog content below.

God on Earth

If I’m being honest, like, really honest, I struggle with the Christmas story. I understand why it’s the heart of the Christian faith. After all it’s a time when we reflect on the arrival of the King. It’s a time when we marvel at God’s masterplan to direct, inspire and save humanity from fear, faithlessness and sin. I do not struggle with the notion of the Christmas story, but the practicality of it. I mean, if I was an onlooker at Jesus’ birth, I would have been so freaked out I’d have probably got a nosebleed. I’d have probably looked at the wise men, glanced briefly at the baby boy wrapped in rags, and then back at the wise men, many times, before saying: “Gents, if you’re telling me this boy is actually God on Earth, then I think you three need straightjackets. Put the gold, frankincense, and Myrrh back in the bag, and leave the child alone. He’s not the messiah, he’s a very tired boy.”

And then, the wise men may tell me that this boy was not just God on earth, but that his birth itself had been at the heart of the greatest prophesy ever spoken in history. And that this little, tiny human was going to live a perfect life in every way, before submitting to a six hour execution all because the human race had wrecked their relationship with their creator. The wise men may go on and explain that his perfect life and horrible death, would grab the attention of millions and millions of people across the planet. And at the moment someone gives their attention to this God on Earth, and decide to follow his Way, their relationship with their creator would be restored.

At this point I would have probably taken two or three steps away from the wise men and contemplated getting the mother and child far away from them. Lets be honest, this story is off the charts of weird. But how much more weird is it that this baby boy, began to claim he was God on Earth just 30 years after he was born. And even weirder, all the hype and prophesy about his birth, life and death, was 100% accurate. He did go on to direct, inspire and save humanity. He did go on to change the world forever. He did go on to live a perfect life, and ultimately die a horrible death.

I struggle with how morbidly perfect the Christmas story is. I struggle with how painfully relevant it is. And as I sit here sipping a glass of sherry, in a world of financial chaos, why is it that the Christmas story makes more sense that anything else?

Peace

Having spent nine years working for Age Concern I feel just a little qualified to know something about growing older – and according to Age Concern you are an older man when you reach the age of 50! Now before you start complaining, I did not say OLD – I said OLDER! Older is a relative term used purely to distinguish you from someone who is younger.

Sadly, however, it was always hard to engage with older men. Even when events were specifically designed for them, very few seemed to attend. Does that say something about how independent we men like to think we are? How solitary? How self-assured?

This being said, it is interesting that our CVM group here in Northumberland attracts high numbers of older older men – repetition intended! Many of these men live alone and are less able to get out and about on their own. However, good friends and neighbours bring them along to our regular breakfast meetings and, although having led lives of independence, they are welcoming being included and are open to talk about spiritual matters.

I often wonder about the age profiles of other CVM groups around the country. Sometimes I get the impression that we are a ‘young guys’ movement, which is brilliant – reaching men in the younger bracket. But are we missing out on having a word to say and a message to deliver to older men? Men who may be considering more ‘end-of-life’ issues? Men who are still looking for what life – real life – has to offer.

After all, when Jesus said that he had come to bring life in all its fullness, I am sure he meant it to include those living in the fullness of years.

First posted on December 20, 2011 at carlbeech.com

In truth I’ve actually spent more years as a bible teacher/pastor than as an evangelist. As a pastor I had a deep concern to introduce all types of people, from all walks of life, ages, stages to Jesus and to see them grow in faith and understanding. That concern hasn’t changed. In fact over the years its grown to be a burning passion and one of the driving forces of my life. In turn its generated some of my greatest frustrations. But then, as a much wiser man once said to me; “make your frustrations your friends and they won’t eat you up!”

For the last seven years I’ve been working in a much more specialist field and work predominantly with men and almost exclusively in the area of evangelism by seeking to mobilise, equip and resource the local church to reach all types of men. We also try to tackle some of the ills in society that men perpetrate and create. Because of this I face some tough and somewhat stretching challenges. In the following, for “we” I’m meaning you, me and the church.

• How do we reach the itunes generation whilst keeping in touch and empowering. with men who don’t know what itunes is?
• How do we reach the builders and the geezers (not necessarily one and the same) without being labelled as being a ministry just for blokes?
• How do we reach the gay community?
• How do we reach the retired men in our community?
• How do we create a brand and an image that is accessible to all, or is that even possible.
• How do we reach the businessman on his second sunseeker yacht.
• How do we reach the white working class young men that the middle classes love to call “Chavs”
• How do we reach the opera lovers as well as the drum and bass fans.
• How do we reach the long term unemployed.
• How do we reach the misfits and the so called “geeks”
• How do we reach the man I see every day, chain smoking outside the working mens club who has chronic liver problems.
• How do we reach the family guy as well as the single man, the grandad and the divorced and struggling.
• How do we help the church reach disabled men?

Over the last few years I’ve been asked what we are doing for every single one of these examples and more and to be honest with you all, its a constant source of frustration and angst. We recently had a long meeting as a team, addressing some of these questions and hopefully we will stay balanced whilst trying to address the lack of balance in most churches outreach activity. So far we’ve managed to resource a group reaching the over 50s, developed some resources for the itunes brigade, fathers, students, builders and geezers and dabbled in working in the business community. We’ve produced resources for footy and film fans (and I don’t even like football)

Theres so much more we want to do but with very limited resources, people, time and crucially money there is only so much we can do at a time. With the church having been largely chronically unsuccessful at reaching “blue collar men” and the itunes generation, we have been trying to deal with this lately but how successful we are being remains to be seen!

The winner of the Yorkie Bar prize for naming the CVM ’50 plus group’ was Keith Harper from the Netherlands … he wisely suggested that we keep it as it is – 50 Plus -

“it does exactly what
it says on the tin”

Our thanks to Roger Leitch, Mike Stenbrook, David Entrican and Oliver Street who gave some good ideas and encouragement.

The message that I keep hearing from lots of guys who want to reach the ’50 plus’ is what Jesus said, “… go and make disciples …”, this means both being discipled and making disciples: we are talking about small groups of 3 or 4 men meeting up regularly to encourage each other and gradually develop their gifts. This is a command of Jesus and not an option.

If you would like to share your experience on this theme, please contact me on eddie.james@ cvm.org.uk or make comments on the blog.

God bless you, Eddie

As you may know, I have two daughters Emily and Annie. When Karen was pregnant we spent months thinking about what we would call them – obviously there were a few names we had to avoid with Beech as a surname! (Please don’t email in with suggestions such as “Sandy”!)

Jesus’ parents didn’t have to spend any time deciding on his name as an angel told them to call him Jesus (Matthew 1 v 21). Actually, in the bible, Jesus has over a hundred different names or titles! The one I like best, and the one that we sing about a lot at this time of year in carols, is a name he was given over 700 years before he was born. The prophet Isaiah said he would be called “Immanuel” (Isaiah 6 v 8).

Immanuel means “God With Us”

This year there are men all over the UK who know for the first time the reality of Immanuel – that God is with them! The reason they know this is that someone told them the truth that Jesus came to save them and they believed it. Each of these decisions is a miracle and that’s what CVM exists to see happen.

Here are a couple of amazing quotes from messages we have received recently:

“My husband went to a CVM event. I knew he was different as soon as he got home. I slept next to a Christian man that night for the first time in our marriage…”





”A paramilitary guy met with Jesus after your talk in Northern Ireland. He gave everything over to Jesus that night and since then has taken his family to church every week.”

Some other words in Isaiah that have a massive impact are: “Whom shall I send and who will go for us?” (Isaiah 6 v 8). At CVM our answer to that is “send us!” The CVM team has spent this year travelling up and down the UK telling men that Jesus came to save them and we have been helping other men and churches tell their friends and contacts the same. The reason more men in the UK know Jesus as Immanuel this year is because this men’s movement, that I count you a part of, is willing to say “Send Me!” In the last 12 months, this movement has connected the message of Jesus to thousands of men all over the UK through CVM events, groups and evangelistic resources.

This Christmas would you be able to send us a gift to help us keep our small team on the road telling men about Jesus and equipping and inspiring churches, individuals and groups to do the same. Please make a off donation or set up a direct debit via JustGiving.

Thank you for supporting us. My hope and prayer for you this year is that you will know that God is with you and that you would be willing to say “Send Me!”

Happy Christmas from all of us at CVM. God bless and strengthen you!

Your brother in Christ,

Carl Beech

Who are these guys? 50 plus … that is ancient! I suppose it depends on how big the plus is! We are a group who meet twice a year to chat and pray together to encourage the churches to reach every man in our age group. Our next meeting is in London on 14 March 2012. We also ‘skype’ conference six times a year and post on the CVM Blog every two weeks so you are welcome to join us. This is the first blog.

At our first meeting in York in October we discussed how to encourage more social projects by working in small teams of all ages, to encourage groups of guys to do DIY, gardening and garden clearance for folk in our community who may be ill or in great need … for details see the Besom website.

We reminded ourselves of Jesus’ command to ‘make disciples’. How could we help this become a core activity of the local church? Again to be done across all age groups and by every member. We felt that by testimony and stories we could encourage discipling on this blog.

The 50 plus group is not a fringe activity, it is at the core of CVM. We are sure that you could think of a better name for the group, so to win your prize of a Yorkie bar please submit your brilliant ideas to me by next week at eddie.james@cvm.org.uk

God bless you – Eddie