The Seven Pain Points of Men Today

Inspired by Man in the Mirror

Pat Morley has one goal — to help every church disciple every man — and he won’t stop until it’s finished. He shows no signs of stopping with over 30 years of disciple making under his belt. His ministry that focuses on men started after he published a book in the 80’s called The Man in the Mirror. The book filled such a large need among men that he ended up starting a ministry called “Man in the Mirror” solely focused on helping men disciple men.

Man in the Mirror is a flourishing ministry today. Their model as a ministry is “no man left behind.” That means that they will not rest until every church disciples every man. Pat focuses on equipping men because he needed other guys at the church to help him during a crucial time in his life.

The Inner Aches and Pains

Since he became a disciple, he’s noticed seven inner aches and pains in men. He often hears men say these things:

1. I feel like I’m in this alone.

2. I just don’t feel like God cares about me personally.

3. I don’t feel like my life has purpose; it feels random.

4. I have destructive behaviors that drag me down.

5. My soul feels dry.

6. My most important relationships aren’t healthy.

7. I don’t feel like I’m doing anything that really makes a difference.

Reflecting on these seven statements, Pat says, “The Gospel has answers for all of these seven issues. So [in our discipleship groups] we just talk about what the Bible has to say about them, in addition to my own personal experience, where I’ve stumbled. God has used his Word or someone else to help me.”

What’s the remedy?

So how do men find the Gospel of Jesus in the midst of their pain? God often uses other men through disciple making relationships.

Pat describes his main message for the Church today with regard to making disciples. He uses the image of a bottleneck. The “bottleneck” of the church in North America today, he says, is spiritual obesity:

“With regard to men at least… most of us don’t need more food; we need more exercise. So paralleling what’s happened in culture, spiritual obesity is now a health crisis in our church. We have so many spiritual overeaters: They’ve been really gorging on good teaching for years but they haven’t been following the Jesus way of discipling others as they have been discipled.”

Written by Chad Harrington

Image credit: Shutterstock