This talk is the first of three delivered at the Leadership Training Course 2009 sponsored by Trinity Church, Christ Church in Spokane, and Holy Trinity Church in Colville.
One of the passages that has always intrigued me is Ecclesiastes 7:28: “One man among a thousand I have found,But a woman among all these I have not found.” While Solomon’s observation may have been precipitated by the women which Solomon associated with, it seems that there was more to his observation than this. Solomon was shrewd and as he looked on the landscape in his day he observed that righteous men were more common than women.
But would we describe Western Christendom this way?Would we not be tempted to conclude the opposite? To say that one woman among a thousand we have found but a trustworthy man, who can find? Why is this? Why this deficiency? It is not as though men are irreligious. After all, in Islam and Orthodox Judaism men outnumber women.
So why are men in Western Christendom, especially in evangelical circles, disconnected? It is this question that I wish to address this morning by talking about three key issues that revolve around worship.
Why are men disconnected? The first factor, discussed in this talk, is that men have been given a truncated vision of worship by the Church which has separated them from their labor, from the work of their hands. Consequently men have viewed worship as one dimension of their lives rather than the characteristic of their whole life. If we are to raise up leaders for our churches, this mentality must be destroyed.