00;50;25;04 – 00;50;53;17
Wendell
Welcome to the podcast. Act Like Men. Men’s Leadership Podcast. This podcast is designed specifically for pastors and church leaders to help them build out an engaging ministry to and with their men. People have asked us why we’re doing this podcast. Well, it’s for one simple reason because every man deserves an opportunity to become an authentic, biblically based man of God.

00;50;54;21 – 00;51;19;21
Wendell
Well, this podcast is sponsored by Men’s Ministry Catalyst, a ministry and its 41st year is designed to be exactly what we said, helping churches engage their men. Welcome, everyone. My name is Wendell Martin. I am the executive director of Men’s Ministry Catalyst. It’s so good to have you here today. You are the reason we exist. I want to introduce you to my co-host, Dale Eudy.

00;51;19;22 – 00;51;20;23
Wendell
Hi, Dale. Welcome.

00;51;21;06 – 00;51;25;29
Dale
Hi, Wendell. Great to be with you again. Looking forward to today and our special guest with us.

00;51;28;00 – 00;51;53;05
Wendell
Yeah, we’re fortunate tonight. To have again Dr. Jim Grassi, who’s the founder of Men’s Ministry Catalyst. By the way, if you missed last session, it was a chance for Dr. Gross. He talked about the history, his calling, the why of why we exist. Tonight, we’re going to go a little different direction but he has a very specific calling that has had some changes over the years.

00;51;53;05 – 00;52;08;10
Wendell
We’ve talked about some of that. We’re going to focus on men’s ministry catalysts today, specifically and what are the some of the main resources we’ve developed and how they can help you. Dr. Grassi, welcome. Good to have you back.

00;52;08;19 – 00;52;22;14
Jim
Hey, it’s good to be with you and Dale again and and your listeners and followers and, uh, anxious to to discuss my favorite subject. And that’s ministry to men.

00;52;23;09 – 00;52;45;07
Wendell
Amen. Amen. Well, you’ve been doing it for 41 years, Jim, and you’ve been very passionate. And the time I’ve known you, I’ve not seen that passion decrease in any way, shape or form. So I want to congratulate you. Thank you. And encourage you to continue on as you are now. Mr. Carlos, sir, NMC is different than some other ministers.

00;52;45;08 – 00;53;02;18
Wendell
Jim, I know you’ve been around a lot of different ministry these two men. I know you’ve spoken in the last stages with more for church denominations, groups, et cetera. How is this ministry Carlos? Slightly different than other ministries that you’ve seen?

00;53;03;19 – 00;53;31;04
Jim
Thank you. I’m not sure what the number is, is somewhere around 130 250 different types of ministries to men. And you notice I say ministries to men because I think that any effective men’s ministry has to be for the men in the church and those you hope will come to your church. So it’s an expanded version of just the label men’s ministry.

00;53;31;23 – 00;54;04;09
Jim
But of the 130 to 150 established ministries to men in the country most of them are speaker oriented. That is, there’s one person he’s named in ministry after himself or another, maybe a biblical phrase, and he goes to various conferences or goes to a church and is a speaker, and God bless him, Lord, we need those folks out there for sure.

00;54;04;09 – 00;54;28;23
Jim
They get their single topic. Usually they come in, they do their thing, and they leave and hope that the pastor and the leaders of the church will follow up. Then there are ministries that might be conference or event oriented. That is something like a Promise Keepers conference or an urgent desire one day to day, a three day conference kind of thing.

00;54;29;07 – 00;54;59;21
Jim
Then there are other conference people in ministry that might have a camp, or they’ll use a camp for their programs, much like we did when we started What separates us is that we want to be of service of help to the pastor, to the lay leaders, to the church itself in establishing a vibrant, dynamic and long lasting ministry to men.

00;55;00;09 – 00;55;40;23
Jim
A lot of ministries are up and down. When the leader leaves, the thing crashes. Still, the pastor can find another sucker to take it over because sometimes the guys feel that way. There is no one left to volunteers, left to set up chairs. All right. So we tried to build a structure and teach a structure to the church that is far different than I think anyone else is doing in a country You know, Jim, for your 40 plus years of ministry like that, obviously the thing that I think is laid the foundation is your publishing, your a prolific writer and author.

00;55;40;23 – 00;55;49;00
Dale
And you’ve written at least well, and I know the book is in press right now, but you’ve written these targeted things that.

00;55;49;03 – 00;55;51;03
Dale
Help guys to understand.

00;55;51;14 – 00;55;57;18
Dale
Not only the things that they’re going to confront in their life, but how to overcome them. And Jim, I just I.

00;55;57;18 – 00;55;58;27
Dale
Guess I wanted to take a.

00;55;59;24 – 00;56;25;24
Dale
Kind of a little bit of a break here to see how is it that God’s laid these things in your heart. You’ve been a prolific writer. What’s kept you going with the energy for that I think to some degree, it’s the father that I grew up with. My dad was at home. He was an abusive he was a kind man of great integrity.

00;56;27;06 – 00;56;57;12
Jim
But our generation really didn’t know how to express love in a way. I guess I needed any encouragement. I needed my dad and mom both came from broken homes that were way upside down and abusive. And so being a provider was enough for my dad. And and so consequently, I grew up trying to look for mentors in my life.

00;56;57;27 – 00;57;31;12
Jim
And when I found some I didn’t realize it, many other guys were just like myself out there. There was brokenness in their hearts from something could be an accident or illness could be a number of things. And so I started to address those needs from the ministry standpoint. The the heart of your question is that I wasn’t a prolific writer, and Jack English was the worst subject of my whole portfolio.

00;57;32;09 – 00;57;59;28
Jim
And it was only through the grace of God and the Holy Spirit empowering me that I’ve been able to do what I could do. But I started writing articles in the fishing and hunting magazines and major magazines and with editors how the story got out there. And I realized that men learn best by story. And so I incorporated that into my writing for In Ministry.

00;58;00;08 – 00;58;02;11
Dale
What a key point. What a key point.

00;58;04;13 – 00;58;25;12
Wendell
Really good. Jim, talk about some of the resources again out of 18, it’s like picking your favorite child, but talking about so the resources, as you say, have had the most impact over the years within the context of the local church or a couple of them. Two or three that you might be able to highlight.

00;58;27;27 – 00;59;27;03
Jim
Yeah I would probably how the 18 pick four children that are my favorites although I don’t have favorites in children we love both our boys equally but as far as the books and that’s because they’re talking about contemporary issues that we’re dealing with and I see men today struggling more than ever ever before and 41 years with things like fear and lack of hope and loss of energy and feeling that their power their authority given of God as the leader of their homes of their churches whatnot is being stripped away because of this walk kind of thing that’s come in and because of men being labeled as toxic masculinity is being labeled as toxic.

00;59;27;23 – 00;59;56;22
Jim
So I would say overcoming barriers Men Face, which I wrote just a couple of years ago, addresses many of those current issues. I think part of that is finishing well and finishing strong, which is the label of my last book I did, which really helped us as men think about not only are our our current work, but what does the future look like?

00;59;57;16 – 01;00;32;08
Jim
And then I think the thing for myself, I know I read a lot of devotionals in the morning or at night, and the latest devotional book we did, besides Still Words, is 366 stories and Bible verses, et cetera, to ponder. And probably the heart of our ministry has to be the spiritual mentor, which we can talk about more later, but that those are probably the four children I most adore.

01;00;32;29 – 01;01;13;23
Wendell
There you go. Hello. It’s I’m actually going through besides the water issue devotional book, I’m using that this year. And it’s it’s refreshing it’s encouraging, it’s biblical, it’s deep. And I, I highly recommend that resource as well on a daily basis. It’s you have a patent. We have a patented six step engagement process that we help walk churches through can you highlight what that is without going into all the detail, the steps, but what it is, the purpose of it and maybe a story of success of a church that’s really tried to adopt it?

01;01;15;17 – 01;01;54;05
Jim
Well, many of the men attending church are very successful in their own either trade or their business or whatever. But when it comes to dealing something with the church, everybody kind of freezes. It’s kind of like they get these big guys like, Oh my gosh, I’m speaking for God. I’m all nervous. And the pastor has no clue how to get a vibrant men’s ministry program going most, though, because they are subjects never talked about in any seminary, but one that I know of in the nation and that’s because we wrote the curriculum for it seriously.

01;01;54;05 – 01;02;34;23
Jim
But we my background and year to window as business people, having a masters in business helped me to really think of things in terms of structure, flow and the organization itself and how best to communicate to the men in the church so that they can feel part of the pastor’s vision, that they can understand that there needs to be some leadership within the organization, that a pancake breakfast by itself once a month is not men’s ministry.

01;02;35;15 – 01;03;07;13
Jim
You know, and so when they can understand the broader scope of what men’s ministry looks like and then understand their special gifting, each one has one or more gifts from God and how to use those gift gifts within the context of the ministry to men program that church has. So we laid out a six step engagement process, which has been used in churches, literally around the world.

01;03;07;13 – 01;03;36;09
Jim
I mean, we’ve used it in Africa and New Zealand and Canada, Mexico, some places like that. And it’s intercultural, intergenerational. And the thing I like about it, most men, if you hand them a blueprint like this, they respond very well. They go, Wow, someone’s thought this thing through, they built the wheelbarrow. All I needed to do is dump my stuff in the wheelbarrow.

01;03;36;19 – 01;03;51;24
Jim
So when you tell men in a church that they got to build a wheelbarrow and start with the wheel and they they don’t know if wheels must be round or square or whatever, and they don’t want to offend the pastor. It gets complicated. Mm hmm.

01;03;52;15 – 01;04;12;12
Wendell
Excellent point. Excellent point. So one of the biggest reasons for ministry success, if you had to say one thing we’ve done as a ministry, one thing you’ve done as a ministry leader to help us get to where we are in terms of ability to be successful. Can you point to any one of those things?

01;04;13;08 – 01;04;47;23
Jim
Yeah, I would say helping churches and the men of the church understand and just discover the essence of what discipleship is really all about. It’s a relational process. It requires people to interact and to be actively engaged and involved in their faith, not just thinking that their wife or the kids, you know, should go to church or that they’ve gone to church and check that box for the week.

01;04;48;13 – 01;05;26;09
Jim
As I’ve said in some of my men’s groups that have led locally is it’s been the same guy seven days a week, not just the Sunday guy is being that guy every day of the week. And that requires getting in God’s word, praying, being discipled into cycling, others what keys steps. Senator Grassley, before we close out this session, I know as you kind of look back, there are probably some targets that you’ve been hitting through the years that seem to really resonate with guys.

01;05;26;09 – 01;05;59;09
Dale
Is there one in particular of all the resources that you put together? Is there one that you would particularly say start here grab this, begin with this? This is the kind of the the one point, at least in the communications that you’ve written over the years, anything in particular?

01;05;59;09 – 01;06;21;25
Jim
Well, for me, it’s transparency, being honest with people about my successes as well as my failures and not trying to have a hearty spirit, being humble, try to be humble about it. And of course, when you say you try to be humble, you’re you’re you’re you’re being phony right there. But I mean, that humility is important not to feel that, gee, I’ve got this special insight on honor problem or on a sport activity or something and look at it all that. I’m all that and more. No, you got to remember where you came from.

01;06;22;06 – 01;06;49;20
Jim
Remember your roots. And remember that most of people you’re going to be talking to are scared to death of of spirituality and spiritual things. So, you know, just to to be real. That’s what Christ was. I mean, he he just laid it out in a very simple way. He didn’t try to bully them with the Bible, bash them with all this theology, just laid it out clearly.

01;06;50;16 – 01;06;51;01
Dale
Well, that’s a.

01;06;51;01 – 01;06;56;23
Dale
Great place to begin. Again, taking a good look in the mirror maybe is how I was hearing as you were saying that.

01;06;56;23 – 01;07;23;11
Wendell
Yeah, that’s really good. You know, thanks for being with us. This has been rich if you want any of Jim’s resources through men’s Mr. Catalyst, just reach out to the website. That’s Ministry Catalyst dot org forward slash resources. And you can see the list of books that he listed today. And absolutely. And one of those he talked about was the spiritual mentor.

01;07;24;05 – 01;07;47;06
Wendell
Our next session actually is going to be called Spiritual Mentoring. We’ll have Dr. Cross back and have him share about the core of this particular book, but more importantly, the core of the process of sort of mentoring others spiritually, what it means to have a spiritual mentor. Thank you for joining us today. This has been rich. I appreciate, Dale, your help.

01;07;47;06 – 01;08;09;07
Wendell
And Dr. Grassi, appreciate you being here. I think it’s been a very, very good time together. Remember our episodes launch on the first and third Thursday of every month. If you have not yet, subscribe, please hit our website and let us know you want the material again. Next time we’re going to talk about spiritual mentoring, we’ll have Dr. Gross back.

01;08;09;29 – 01;08;26;01
Wendell
Thank you for being here. Thank you for joining us, listeners. You are the reason we exist. We do all this for pastors, leaders and men because every man deserves an opportunity to become an authentic, biblically based man of God.