{"id":2045,"date":"2011-12-21T17:00:12","date_gmt":"2011-12-21T17:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/?p=2045"},"modified":"2011-12-21T16:40:14","modified_gmt":"2011-12-21T16:40:14","slug":"men%e2%80%99s-ministry-its-just-for-geezers-innit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/carls-thoughts\/men%e2%80%99s-ministry-its-just-for-geezers-innit\/","title":{"rendered":"Men\u2019s Ministry, it&#8217;s just for geezers innit?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>First posted on December 20, 2011 at <a href=\"http:\/\/carlbeech.com\" target=\"_blank\">carlbeech.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In truth I\u2019ve 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\u2019t 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; \u201cmake your frustrations your friends and they won\u2019t eat you up!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For the last seven years I\u2019ve 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 \u201cwe\u201d I\u2019m meaning you, me and the church.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How do we reach the itunes generation whilst keeping in touch and empowering. with men who don\u2019t know what itunes is?<\/li>\n<li>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?<\/li>\n<li>How do we reach the gay community?<\/li>\n<li>How do we reach the retired men in our community?<\/li>\n<li>How do we create a brand and an image that is accessible to all, or is that even possible.<\/li>\n<li>How do we reach the businessman on his second sunseeker yacht.<\/li>\n<li>How do we reach the white working class young men that the middle classes love to call \u201cChavs\u201d<\/li>\n<li>How do we reach the opera lovers as well as the drum and bass fans.<\/li>\n<li>How do we reach the long term unemployed.<\/li>\n<li>How do we reach the misfits and the so called \u201cgeeks\u201d<\/li>\n<li>How do we reach the man I see every day, chain smoking outside the working mens club who has chronic liver problems.<\/li>\n<li>How do we reach the family guy as well as the single man, the grandad and the divorced and struggling.<\/li>\n<li>How do we help the church reach disabled men?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Over the last few years I\u2019ve 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\u2019ve 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\u2019ve produced resources for footy and film fans (and I don\u2019t even like football)<\/p>\n<p>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 \u201cblue collar men\u201d and the itunes generation, we have been trying to deal with this lately but how successful we are being remains to be seen!<\/p>\n<div class=\"linkwithin_hook\" id=\"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/carls-thoughts\/men%e2%80%99s-ministry-its-just-for-geezers-innit\/\"><\/div><script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 897245;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png?w=750\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In truth I\u2019ve 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\u2019t changed.<\/p>\n<script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 897245;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[20,33,39,48,74,83,110,125],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7PoLK-wZ","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2227,"url":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/carls-thoughts\/dads-daughters-and-finding-faith\/","url_meta":{"origin":2045,"position":0},"title":"Dads, Daughters and Finding Faith","date":"3 February 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I was present at the birth of both of my daughters.\u00a0 It was of course an amazing experience and far more exhilarating then the gas and air that I sampled earlier in the labours. (Just checking it was safe of course, much like Nehemiah and the King\u2019s wine). When both\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Carl Beech&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1967,"url":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/carls-thoughts\/god-with-you\/","url_meta":{"origin":2045,"position":1},"title":"God With You","date":"2 December 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"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\"!)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Carl Beech&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2447,"url":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/carls-thoughts\/what-happened-on-easter-sunday\/","url_meta":{"origin":2045,"position":2},"title":"What happened on Easter Sunday?","date":"5 April 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"It was on Easter Sunday that Jesus rose from death. Jesus had told his disciples before he was arrested that he would be crucified and on the third day he would rise from the dead. Sunday was the third day from Good Friday (Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Day). The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Carl Beech&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/team-CVM-blog-640x360.jpg?fit=640%2C360&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2187,"url":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/carls-thoughts\/a-very-british-revolution\/","url_meta":{"origin":2045,"position":3},"title":"A Very British Revolution","date":"18 January 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"People love big events. You get a buzz, \u00a0big sound, big names, big crowd\u2026you leave feeling ready to take on the world. I\u2019ve 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.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Carl Beech&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1838,"url":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/carls-thoughts\/93\/","url_meta":{"origin":2045,"position":4},"title":"93%","date":"10 October 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"In 2003, Evangelicals Now published some research that suggested that in terms of seeing whole households come to faith, the following could be statistically proven. Lead a child to Jesus and 3.5% of the time the whole family will come to Christ Lead a mother to Jesus and 17% of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Carl Beech&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2060,"url":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/uncategorized\/merry-christmas-from-carl-beech\/","url_meta":{"origin":2045,"position":5},"title":"Merry Christmas from Carl Beech","date":"24 December 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Merry Christmas from Carl Beech I have some great memories of Christmas as I was growing up. \u00a0I was walking the dog early this morning and I had a vivid memory of playing a king at the infant school nativity. \u00a0I can remember being dressed up in a blue velvet\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"bible\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/merry-christmas-from-carl-beech.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2045"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2045"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2050,"href":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2045\/revisions\/2050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}