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.

In our first talk, we established that while the Church is in need of godly men, men by and large are disconnected. Why is this?
First, we have a truncated view of worship. We view worship as one activity during the week rather than understanding that worship is the basic orientation of all of one’s life. Consequently, we have separated men from their labor.

But there are other reasons men are disconnected. One of these is that we do not understand corporate worship. Consequently, we have separated men from the Church.

We have established that all of life is worship, service offered up to the service of one god or another. There are two potential errors that could proceed from this observation. First, because all life is worship, we might reason that corporate (public) worship unnecessary or unimportant. So some men retreat from Church life and focus entirely on self or on their family. A second error, is that we could understand this worship in the wrong way, view it through feminized metaphor that empties the observation of all its power. It is to these two potential errors that we speak in this talk.

In the first two talks we have established that we need godly men but that men by and large are disconnected in the modern Western church. Why? So far we’ve explored two reasons that have separated men from their labor and from the church. The third reason men are disconnected is because there is a crisis of identity in the home. Men do not understand what their calling is or what God expects of them as husbands and fathers. Consequently, we have separated men from their families. So let us take up this last matter briefly. What is our calling as men – in particular as husbands and fathers?