Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.
~1 Corinthians 16:13-14 (ESV)
As a follower of Jesus and professional pastor for nearly thirty years, I’ve heard and prepared literally thousands of messages, but there’s one I’ll never forget. It wasn’t from a pastor. It wasn’t from a conference speaker. It wasn’t from a famous Christian author. It was a volunteer children’s Bible study teacher.
When my oldest son James was a rambunctious fifth grader he had an equally hyper Bible teacher named Dustin. One night as I peeked through the door to pick up James, the sounds of laughter erupted in his classroom. I immediately recognized the high ratio of boys compared to just a few girls in the class—rare in churches today.
Then I realized why. Dustin was teaching what soon became the most memorable message I’ve heard.
“Listen up! You two over there! Shut up for a second while I finish. Before you go I have a story and question. If I took a little dog poop, blended it into a brownie mix, and baked it—would you eat it?”
The class exploded, “Grooooooss! Yuuuuuuuuuuck! No way! Never!”
“Why not?” Dustin looked at my peeking head and smiled. He knew he had them eating out of his hand (hopefully not poop-filled brownies).
“Come on! It’s just a little poop. You wouldn’t even taste it? Would you eat it?”
Disgusted by his suggestion they screamed even louder this time, “Noooooooooo!”
Well, when you add just a little sin in your life it pollutes your whole body. But Jesus came to make you pure of all sin and remove the poop from your brownie.”
Wow!
Our churches need men to flood the doors of the youth and children’s ministries to influence these young boys as they rise into manhood with a masculine message of Jesus so they can learn to love, live for, and serve the ultimate man—Jesus our King!
We need the laymen (unpaid men) in churches to invade the lives of children and teenage boys, and teach them an accurate view of Jesus—the ultimate man. Are you serving in your church? Are you coaching a sports team in your community? Are you impacting boys in the name of Jesus?
Why not?
