Newsletters
What is the best way to keep current with Building Brothers? What is the best way to further understand the Process of becoming Spiritual Fathers? The Building Brothers Newsletter is a piece you won’t want to miss! Our desire for this piece is to say what needs to be said and leave you feeling motivated to go out and help men draw closer to God.
Current Issue
- 2014 Christmas Newsletter
It seems the Christian community is afraid or confused on how to address the culture on the moral issues of the time (gay marriage, abortion, a lying government). What is keeping us from doing this? What is required for Christians to engage in impacting dialog on these moral issues with confidence?
Read this issue- Summer 2014. Is The Contemporary Church What it Should Be?
In the last newsletter we looked at God's pattern for judgment and restoration for nations and institutions. In this newsletter we want to take a specific look at the American church and ask the question..."Is the church institution under the law?"
Read This Issue- 2013 Christmas Letter
Merry Christmas
Read This Issue- Fall 2013: Does God Judge & Restore Nations?
In November of 2012 I was in Jerusalem and I had the opportunity to see a part of King Hezekiah's ancient wall. It motivated me to go back and read the...
Read this issue- Fall/Winter 2012
In 1999 I was pioneering the Building Brothers process with a group of churches in Ottumwa, Iowa. In the process, I came to know one of the groups quite well. There was a young man in the group who was newly married in his early twenties just starting his journey...
Read This Issue- Spring 2012-Unity Around God’s Mission for the Church
There was the question again, "Why do we see so many divisions and church splits within the Church? As I was meeting with pastors in Germany the question came up again and again. The answer began to be clear. In order to understand the answer, let me give some definition to the issue.
Read this issue- What Makes Life Worth Living? – Spring 2009
A few months ago, as I was preparing for a trip to Germany, my son Joel loaded a lecture series by Peter Kreeft, a philosophy professor at Boston College, on the IPOD that he had given me to bring me in the 21st century. the lecture series was titled "What would Socrates Say?" It was a survey of the great philosophical thinkers in the last 5,000 years. I wasn't really sure why I was investing time in this but...
Read This Issue- Completing the Call – Restoring the Church. Winter 2012
Back in the summer 1997, I was in the process of leaving the staff of Promise Keepers, national men's ministry that I had been part of founding. I was sencing that the window for ministering to men that had been so open at the beginning of the 1990's was now beginning to close. Fast forward to today, and I see men ...
Read This Issue- The Silver Bullet. Winter 2011
If we want to see the power of the church restored, we must build a pathway...
Read This Issue- Working With God or For God? Summer 2011
We struggle wanting to know God in an intimate and real relationship yet we are not sure how to get there.
Read This Issue- What is the Foundation of Unity and Trust? Summer 2010
We Christians spend a great deal of energy and effort trying to create or maintain "unity and trust," oftern focused on our vision, mission, and purpose. We carefully teach biblical principles and yet the church is awash with conflict and musunderstanding. Why?
Read This Issue- Experiencing God’s Affirmation and Approval-Winter 2010
How many times have I blocked myself from experiencing God's love and care as a father...because I had not seen His provision and was not accepting it in thankfulness?
Read This Issue- Beachheads
Throughout much of our time in existence Building brothers has been building the resources and tools to support the process of calling men to be Spiritual Fathers. We are pleased to have reached a point where those resources, even though they are still being refined and added to, are in lace. Almost two years ago we started to pray that God would show us "beachheads" for the ministry and message of Building Brothers. We sought a "beachhead" that would make a significant impact and establish a model for ongoing partnership and significant reproduction. God has answered our prayers and we are engaged in three "beachheads", two with denominations and a third with CMT, a discipling ministry to men in Germany.
- Building Men Who Renew the Church-Winter 2009
In our last article we looked at the impact of the "seeker church" on the current generation and the essential part Spiritual Fathers play in addressing this need. In this letter we will look at what is necessary to build Spiritual Fathers who can meet the challenge.
Read This Issue- What Is Most Important?
All of us have opportunities and issues that are very important to us but many times the more we focus on them the harder they are to achieve. Could it be that we don't fully understand the most important and foundational focus that enables all the others?
Read This Issue- Renewing The Church
It has become increasingly clear that the church is losing its impact on the culture and its ability to reproduce committed believers in younger generations. What has caused this? Does the Church understand its mission? What really is God's mission for the church? Have we altered the mission of the church to reaching "seekers"? If we have lost the mission for the church how has this affected the impact of the church on the culture?
Read This Issue- Does my life have true significance?
Almost from the moment men are born, we seek to establish our value and prove our significance. Our accomplishments - careers, sports, conquests - and our addictions are some of the things we use to evoke self-worth and demonstrate our value to others.
Read This Issue- What is Building Brothers Primary Impact?
Pastor Bill Hybles of Willow Creek Church recently admitted that the seeker model championed by Willow Creek was a failed model. It served seekers and new believers effectively but was unable to serve those moving on towards maturity. (see source listed at end). The missing element seems to be a pathway the leads to spiritual maturity, evidenced by spiritual reproduction. Spiritual growth as a process falls short of reproduction, even though many are engaged in discipleship training, and Christian outreach.
Read This Issue- Choosing God’s Best
All of us, as Christians, struggle at some level with sin. (1 John 1: 8-9) But, recently I have found myself struggling with an even subtler enemy - the temptation to choose the good things in serving God at the expense of the best He is offering me
Read This Issue- What is at the Heart of a Servant Leader?
The lack of biblical servant leadership may be the greatest hindrance in the Church's ability to be what God has called it to be. You may be asking, "Is it really all that important?" Christ certainly felt it was. In Matthew 20:25, Jesus gives one of the clearest and strongest commands in the New Testament. In essence He tells the apostles that they are never to lead by "lording it over" people, but they are to lead by serving and choosing leaders who have demonstrated by their lives that they are servants.
Read This Issue- How Seven Dwarfs became Seven Samurai
We look at each other differently now. We know that something great has happened to us. The little boys who long ago lost their pearl handled revolvers, or in some cases, light sabers, are now assembled as a team on the battlefield that is American culture. Our intent is to live, not as dwarfs anymore, but as fierce warriors - standing firm, Christian champions for righteousness and truth
Read This Issue- The Power of The Blessing
In the late 1990's, God began to impress upon my heart the need to leave my wife and children with a "specific" blessing. Each time I was separated from a family member, either at school or as I left on a ministry trip, I felt the need to consciously give them unique words of blessing. If something were to happen to take me away from them I wanted the last thing that they heard from me to be words from my heart. At this time I don't remember understanding the reason that I was feeling this need, but within two years of this I was to understand it on a much deeper level.
Read This Issue- Safety Within the Church?
Have you seen this man walking the hallways of your Church? Twenty-something, married to a lovely woman, child on the way - he seems to have it all together and be on his way to success in balancing both godliness and the "American dream" of happiness and comfort. Those that look into the window of his life see a "good Evangelical" who has his "Bible speak" down pat.
Read This Issue- The Power of a Spiritual Father
I have yet to meet a man that hasn't spent a major part of his life trying to prove his value and significance. We put everything into accomplishing goals and accumulating possessions that will prove that we are valuable. But, almost all of us have a nagging feeling of insecurity that says if people really saw us for who we are they would see through the charade.
Read This Issue- Choosing the Best
Years ago I remember reading the account of a man who had spent much of his life in Christian ministry. He had been working hard for God and now he was physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted - feeling hopeless and joyless. Have you ever felt that way? What was wrong with this picture? God revealed to him that freedom, joy, and peace were found only in knowing God intimately and doing only what God had called him to. We must ask the same question as this man, how do we find out what specifically God has called us to? I doubt there is any follower of Christ that wouldn't want to know what God's specific calling for their life. So, why do we have such a difficult time finding it?
Read This Issue- The Book (Spiritual Fathers) Arrives in December!
Two years ago we realized we were missing a critical piece as a ministry; having a completed written work that intricately described the Building Brothers year-long process of building spiritual fathers. What an amazing process this has been for our team as we put together a book that pastors and ministry leaders can examine and study. God has used the writing of this book to deepen our own passions for building into the lives of male leaders within the local church.
Read This Issue- Programs or Reproduction
We stand at a crossroad. Will we continue to put our hope and efforts into the next "bigger and better" program? Will we continue to search for the magic bullet that we believe in a short period of time will transform the church and bring God's people to maturity? Or, will we begin to pursue that intimate relationship with God and invite others onto that maturing pathway with us. The stakes are high. Don't miss this opportunity.
Read This Issue- How Do We Meet the Crisis in the Church and the Culture?
1. Can you heal the crisis in the culture without healthy spiritual families? 2. Can you have healthy spiritual families without men who are spiritual fathers? 3. Is the Church the place to build spiritual fathers? 4. Are pastors, elders and leaders, who are spiritual fathers, essential to the reproduction of spiritual fathers? 5. How do we help pastors and elders become reproducing spiritual fathers?
Read This Issue- A Man’s Search for Significance
Almost from the moment men are born, we seek to establish our value and prove our significance. Our accomplishments,careers, sports, conquests,and our addictions are some of the things we use to evoke self-worth and demonstrate our value to others. We tend to search for significance by focusing on ourselves and hoping to create something that will last, while at the same time we fear reaching the end of our lives only to discover that our time here has been insignificant.
Read This Issue- The Reality of Wrestling
Many of us desire a deeper relationship with God, but the way seems illusive. In fact, it's not only with God that we desire a deeper relationship but also with our wives, children and even our friends. But why is it so difficult? In my own life, I have found a universal principle to be true: the depth of our relationships will be determined by the level of conflict that we are willing to work through. Conflict is inevitable in lasting relationships, so resolving conflict is imperative if they are to endure. Avoiding the decision to engage and wrestle through conflict will only sentence us to weak, shallow relationships.
Read This Issue- Reaching the Goal
In our last two newsletters, we looked at the goal or the primary calling of the church, a man, and a woman: to use the power of Christ to bring His people to maturity, unity, and Christlikeness. Yet while we identified the goal, we would be remiss if we did not address a persistent question that accompanies establishing the goal: Why is it so easy to miss?
Read This Issue- Becoming Spiritual Fathers
In our last newsletter we looked at God's mission for the church, for men, and for women as found in Ephesians 4:11-13. It is clear that God's primary mission for the church is to use the power of Christ to bring His people to maturity, unity, and Christ-likeness so that they can fulfill their primary calling to reproduce spiritual children. In this newsletter we will take a much deeper look at the role of spiritual fathering and the level of maturity it requires.
Read This Issue- God’s Church Growth Strategy
The downward trend in professions of faith has plagued the church for more than 50 years. In the World War II generation, 65% made professions of faith; yet, current projections indicate that only 4% of today's generation will do the same (The Bridger Generation). And while church-growth strategies have inundated the church in the last decades of the twentieth century, the collective impact of the church has continued to dwindle.
What has happened? How did the church go from impacting more than half the people in the culture to now less than 4%? It is clear that current strategies, which are primarily programs for church growth, are not fulfilling the call and mission that God designed for the church.
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