Interview with Patrick Morley

PM: Easily the biggest take-away would be what we call the all-inclusive concept.  If you have a hundred men in your church then the size of your men's ministry is a hundred.  The second is very similar: the senior pastor of the church really needs to be personally involved in men's discipleship. I used to think that the senior pastor really needed to support men's ministry. But there is a big difference between support and involvement. The churches that really are dynamically successful in discipling men - in the vast majority of cases - the senior pastor is personally involved.   He is the final champion for discipleship of the men in his church and his vision needs to be that no man would be left behind - which is where we got the title for the book.

BMC: One of the things that I hear from pastors is that they often feel overwhelmed by the number of programs they need to personally champion.  How do you deal with that reaction when you get it?

PM: At this point we're not really trying to change their minds on this. There are already so many pastors who know they need to be the champion of their men.  They just don't know how to do it.  Those are the leaders we are focusing on. 

I will say, though, that we're thinking strategically, too. Once a student has graduated from seminary and has 5 or 10 years under his belt as a pastor, their view of how the church works is pretty well formed and the chances of changing it are pretty low. Not that it can't happen or doesn't happen; it just takes a lot more work.  One of the five priorities that I have for the next five years is to help develop a strong men's discipleship training at the seminary level. There are 90 evangelical seminaries in the United States with 30,000 students on a given day.  I'm very intent on developing a strategy to have someone - preferably someone from the community who is a pastor, who is passionate about men's discipleship - be in each of those seminaries at least once a year. 

BMC: It's been 17 years since you wrote your ground-breaking book, The Man in the Mirror. What are some new insights that you gained about men since you wrote that book?

PM: I would say that I was on the right track on all the things that I wrote about, so I wouldn't change anything in the book.  Most of the really big ideas about Christianity take 10-20 years to sink in; like grace, for example, and the sovereignty of God.  My own personal understandings of those two concepts have certainly become deeper and richer. I've learned that because He's good, my life is not going to turn out like I planned.  You see, I spent the first 20 years of my adult life working and praying to achieve something that would have destroyed me.  Of course, I was disappointed when I was spared.

And so it took me a long time to understand that God is gracious. The price of getting my own way is getting my own way. So God in His grace doesn't let us destroy ourselves. He saves us - He rescues us. Just like the little three year old child who sees the surf and thinks it would be fun to go play in the surf that's pounding against the shoreline.  He doesn't realize as he runs across the sand that he's rushing to his own destruction. When the father sees what's happening, he comes over and scoops up the child and rescues him from certain death. And what does the little child do?

Does he says, "Oh, thank you daddy, for seeing that I was in danger and saving my life?" No, he throws a little temper-tantrum. That's me. How God's sovereignty is orchestrating all of the seemingly random circumstances of our lives - every man's life -  are some of greatest insights I've had.

BMC: What's been most personally rewarding for you to hear from a guy who's read some of your books?

PM: Well, all of this is quite to God's glory. I don't really feel any personal ownership of these stories, but we have good reason to believe that there have been tens of thousands of men who have become Christians.  And there have been tens of thousands of marriages that have been restored where men have made decisions to stop the self-destructive behaviors, such as workaholism, that were going to ruin them. Many ministries don't get a lot of encouragement or much positive feedback. We're in one of those fortunate ministries where we do get a lot of positive feedback and encouraging stories all the time.

BMC: In another book, Second Wind for the Second Half, you wrote 'the greatest ally of mediocrity is habitual thinking - it's not a critical, creative or careful thinking that spawn mediocrity, it's our habitual thinking.' What are some of the bad thinking habits that you find men have in particular?

PM: That 'I don't need help,' or 'I don't want people to know I need help.'  Either they think they don't need help, or they know they do, but think it's unmanly to ask.  Men pick up on the idea from our culture that they are to be resistant to need or pain.  My own observation is that men are generally extremely sensitive. They just respond to hurt feelings differently than women do. If a woman has her feelings hurt she's going to express her emotions and say what's wrong. If a man gets his feelings hurt he's likely to withdraw.  A lot of men who appear to be loners are really just very sensitive men who have been wounded and don't know how to process their pain.   Part of the way you overcome that kind of habitual thinking is by getting guys involved in small groups.

BMC: You've had the opportunity to speak to thousands of men across the country. What's at the heart of Patrick Morley - the life message that you want to imprint on every guy who hears you speak?

PM: The most important thing is that you must be born-again. And then, secondly, to learn how to live out of the overflow of a vital-growing relationship with Christ - that there is the God we want and the God who is.  They are not the same God. The turning point of our lives is when we stop seeking the God we want and start seeking the God who is. I know in my own life - having learned that lesson in quite a hard way - I realized that I had been trying to change God and God was wanting to change me. So I realized that what I must do is come humbly each day to the foot of the cross and there negotiate the terms of a full-surrender of my life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

BMC: Pat, thanks for sharing yourself with us today.