So, confession time. About 2 years ago I took part in a triathlon, it was a sprint distance tri and it was awful. I consider myself to have incredible explosive power, pushing something, pulling something, or lifting, but physical endurance strength is, well just not something I’ve got. (yet)
This year I signed up to do a half Ironman tri, building on the last one and raising the bar. The point of this was to raise a £1k for the CVM coffers.
I realized early on that I had made yet another terrible mistake and had chosen to ignore that small inner voice of reason and logic. In the end, after trying to get in shape and go from virtually no running, cycling or swimming ability I had to reluctantly throw in the towel.
This was actually a tough decision to make as I had worked hard at training but just hadn’t realized the investment needed and time it would take to get me anywhere near race fit.
The point in sharing this is, that I think we can also go into the ‘Christian life’ in a similar way, without a clear vision and commitment to the cost this is going to have. We can even sell a version of Christianity that prescribes to the same model, and I have done it. This and the next 3 blogs are going to look at the way you train and count the cost for this Christian race we are in!
• Count the Cost
• Fuel up
• Mind games
• Getting the gear and making this social
So that’s the outline for the next 5 blogs, put that doughnut down and get yourself a dry cracker. Lets train.
When I signed up for the Ironman, I was sold on the trophy, the title and the branding. It looked great and something that would be a great head turner to have in the office when people visited. I can ride a bike, I can swim and I can run so what’s the problem?
What I hadn’t realized until very late on in my campaign of terror on the treadmill, was that to get to the fitness level I needed it would mean a 20 hour schedule of fitness each week. This covered miles and miles, hours and hours of training, and I just wasn’t ready to pay that cost, and it slipped away. Eating the right things, not drinking the wrong things, sleeping early and getting going early. Weekends out running and cycling.
The thing is, I think we can buy into a Christianity that leaves us in the same place. We can discover Jesus and the life he has for us. Forgiveness of sin, a hope for today and an eternal promise of life to come, something after death. Amazing, and wonderfully true! But we can quickly turn that into an emotional, needs based message. Jesus will meet your needs, he will nestle you under his wing and you will feel like your feet never touch the floor.
The reality is, to follow Christ is a call which costs the most. To really die to ourselves and pledge your heart, mind and body, your devotion and obedience to him is actually very costly.
A fantastic old school British evangelist was a guy called Leonard Ravenhill, and once he said this ‘the problem is not enough Christians have been to their own funerals.’
Now that sounds harsh, but his point was that we need to know that Jesus and this new life we have, really is something new, the old has died and gone. To put Jesus and his kingdom first will cost and even Jesus tells people to count the cost before getting involved and possibly falling away before the finish line.
Jesus uses strong words and even says that if we follow him this means carrying our own cross! Jesus explains this a bit by using a couple of everyday examples, here is one of them:
“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?
Luke 14:27-29
What does it mean to take up your cross and follow Jesus? What does it mean to count the cost, to really be sure this is for you and that you will not lose sight of the path half way along your life journey with Jesus?
Well, the thing here for me is that this is capturing the reality of what is really at stake. Your life depends on it. My ironman failure caused me a few weeks of ridicule at the hands of my beloved CVM team, but this, this is something very different.
This choice we make will impact our eternity, it changes where you and I will be 10,000 years from now. Jesus makes it so clear that he wants you to be in his kingdom, in his company and to enjoy the place of a son, welcomed back into the family.
Maybe today, just take a moment to think about what the cost of all this is to you. Spend sometime maybe just recommitting yourself to Jesus, your energy, your time, your wallet, your hopes and plans, your family.
Image Credit: Martin Kníže

A couple of Sunday’s ago I was asked to speak at my local church, and decided to preach about Gospel Legacies. I had discovered that a recent survey suggested that 2 out of 3 baby boomers said they had no plans to leave any legacy and wanted to get on with living their lives and enjoying what they have.
There is even a group you can join of likeminded individuals called skiers. Spending The Kids Inheritance.
Anyway, the point is we looked at how the Apostle Paul intentionally invested his life into a gospel legacy and in particular with a bloke called Timothy. I talked about investing in the gospel, being sold out for Jesus and making him and his rescue mission everything to us, gospel multiplication, salvation for all! The sermon was ok, nothing amazing but what happened afterwards was fan-flippin-tastic!
I finished speaking, which was good news for many, and a wonderful elderly lady from South Africa got up and approached me at the front for permission to share a word. She didn’t need to really ask me at all, but she wanted to and up she got.
She said this. ‘I have been sitting here and I believe someone here is needing to start a new life with Jesus, you can be transformed, forgiven and all the shame and guilt taken away. You can be a prince or a princess, a son or daughter of God.’
At the end of the service she got up again and stood at the front just looking out, eyes scanning the church to see. She knew the Holy Spirit had spoken and was ready to receive that person home. Amazing……but nothing happened, no one rushed to the front, no big rush from the seat at the back somewhere, people just got up and walked away for tea, coffee and a Hobknob.
As people left, I could see 3 older women at the front of church, including our South African friend now, praying and worshipping God as a lady was giving her life over to Jesus. (I’ve actually got tears in my eyes writing this!) This is what its all about! Gospel legacy, people being rescued from the gates of Hell!
These ladies have invested in this ladies life, spent years with her, explaining the Bible, praying, caring, supporting, building faith.
What about you? Who are you investing in? Who is your Timothy? Maybe it’s your children, maybe a mate from work or someone at church you are building up. Maybe you think you have nothing much to give, or the time to make this a priority. Perhaps start with the desire to build gospel legacies, start with the willingness to be THAT bloke and see where God takes it. OK, the tears have dried now, I need to go and break something.

If you came to our Gathering this year then you will know about this and what it was all about. (No not Elvis the King, he was last year!) But if you were not with us, let me explain.
At the end of June, 2,300 men descended onto a field near Swindon for CVM’s annual men’s festival. We had sport, beer, axe throwing, cars, bikes, inflatable’s, an ice cream van and even a kebab stand. The point of doing all this stuff is to create a weekend that we actually want to be at, and a place where we can meet Jesus.
Over the last few weeks since the Gathering, we have been washing mud off clothes, resources and equipment. We have been processing paperwork and paying bills, but above all, and the most exciting bit for me, are the stories I have been reading.
These stories are from the men who came to Gathering and met with King Jesus.
Guys who have been through tough times, and good times, men who didn’t even think they needed to know this King Jesus but met him in a field. Reading this stuff is incredible. These are men who felt the presence of God at the Gathering, men who had heard the Bible teaching, the prayers, the worship, the seminars and have given their life to Jesus. Not only is this amazing now, it will still be the best news 10,000 years from now when these lads are in glory!
Remembering back now, on the Saturday afternoon at the Gathering a load of the team had got together to pray. We stood around praying and I was praying too but asking God for some sort of picture. I don’t get a lot of pictures in prayer but sometimes God does give them, so I ask for them.
On this occasion I had this picture of Royalty visiting the Gathering, but this was no Queen, or even a prince … the King had shown up. Sounds a bit strange I know but I had this picture of the king turning up to a field near Swindon.
Whilst this was going on the group had started to pray for Mike Vickers, who was also due to speak that day. I went over and put a hand on his shoulder to pray and as I did he gasped, I saw it and felt it, bit weird. Straight after the prayer time he came up to me and said that gasp, was at the precise moment he had a picture of King Jesus walking through the tent putting His hand on the shoulder of men.
Why am I sharing this? Well that night it happened! Over 150 men came forward to accept Jesus as Saviour or to recommit themselves to this King. Amazing! The build up, the weekend, the mud, the fun, the mayhem, the cowboy hats, the whole thing is ultimately about one thing, to see the King arrive and do what ONLY He can do: change lives and bring forgiveness of sin.

So recently I went out to Brazil to spend some time with Everton, our CVM man in Brazil.
Everton has a faith that inspires you and challenges you whenever you meet him.
I remember on one occasion he came to stay with me in the UK at my place. His flight was long and delayed and he arrived exhausted. We had planned to get up at 6am to walk and pray together for an hour, just encourage each other but with the flight and sitting up late chatting, he was worn out.
I woke up at 6am in a bit of a rush, went downstairs and it was all quiet. I thought to myself, ‘ah, he’s slept in, don’t blame him.’ As I turned into the living room he was sitting on my sofa, bible open in prayer and he’d been their since 4:30am.
This deep commitment to prayer is so tangible in his life, once a desperate drug addict and criminal, he has found a source of life that he just wont neglect, even when he’s exhausted.
On this recent trip to Brazil he informed me that he had be given R$3,000. That’s a good lump of cash for a bloke who lives on R$600 (£1500 a month.)
He set about spending this money quickly and I was absolutely speechless at his radical generosity.
He booked a venue for the weekend, invited over 50 families, ordered all the food, then drove around picking anyone up who couldn’t get there. He worked and worked all weekend, up first to bed last. He paid for it all, no one had to pay a penny. They arrived, relaxed, played with the children, swam in the pool, sat and heard the gospel. A few of us spoke about families, relationships, marriages and the truth of Jesus Christ. I shared our winning men vision and CVM’s heart for winning men to Jesus.
But behind all this I was so humbled watching Everton serve others. He could have legitimately pocketed that 3K and sorted out some of his own financial needs. I asked him about it, and why he did this, and his reply was ‘I want people to meet Jesus Nathan, that’s all.’
I was silenced fellas, I have seen men of God get edgy with each other over 3 Euros change on a meal out. In truth, at times I have been driven by this too, and we must guard our hearts when it comes to money.
Keep your heart soft for the gospel and spend yourself on championing Jesus in any and everyway you can. If it costs you and your pocket then do it. The amount of times I have seen one bloke foot the bill for a men’s event, silently paying the bill because it’s about getting men to hear about Jesus.
Lets operate with a radical generosity, that sometimes hurts us to do it if it means men hear about Jesus.

Have you ever been to a game or been at an event where you have really gone for it? Not worried about who is around you and what they might think, you just shout out or lift your hands, punching the air and giving it some?
British culture can be a little bit, well, stiff upper lip old boy. Self-restraint in the face of emotion, fortitude and courage in the face of adversity. I love all that stuff but actually, sometimes we need to just give it some!
Let me explain.
We are building up to the Gathering now, and there is one thing I love to see there, it blokes giving it some in worship and wonder at how amazing God is.
I remember a young guy came to the front at last years Gathering to kneel at the foot of the cross for the first time. As he did so, behind him were four fellas, his uncles. They were giving it some, in a big way! Punching the air, face full of tears and just celebrating at how amazing the grace of God really is.
Why don’t we see that more? In our churches, factories, building sites, prisons, on the street and in the boardrooms? Maybe you do see it?
As I am writing this I am at the HUB, I was getting updates on Instagram, and a mate of ours called Simon Edwards had just put up a photo of him sharing Jesus in a Prison. 27 fellas gave their life to following Jesus!
That made me pumped, like I had just lifted 130kg deadlift in the gym! (I did this on one occasion and seriously hurt my back, ended my heavy lift career early)
When I read this post, I wanted to scream out, ‘yes LORD, what a result! HAVE IT!!!!!’ But I clicked on the little like button instead, ‘ah that’s nice, well done boys.’
What’s going on? This is the best news ever and we need to get excited about this stuff because Jesus saves! He transforms the hardest of hearts and calls to the deep in us to come alive. That is flippin exciting.
Last weekend I went to the Message Trust where Beechy and Andy Hawthorne are taking ground like there’s no tomorrow. 100 evangelists, all ages, all backgrounds came together to get seriously excited about Jesus and his message of hope.
It was amazing, why? Because this is what we are about, if we follow Jesus our
Captain and friend he is excited about people finding him, so we need to be too. If you have lost that passion, then recapture it’s urgency, the drive and passion for seeing people saved from sin and an eternal separation from the most wonderful creator who made them for more.
Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever.
Hebrews 13:8
Photo Credit: Andre Hunter

#6 Decline of compassion
I remember being in Brazil and chatting to a wealthy Christian friend of mine and asked him about the poverty all around us. In the region of Brazil where I was living you couldn’t go out without being pressed right up against abject poverty and misery all around you.
People begging, people holding terrible wounded and diseased body parts desperate for money. Stopping at ANY traffic light you are approached by at least 2 street sellers whilst you watch a street performer juggling or spinning a plate for money at the traffic light. (Bit of a different Brazil than the postcards!)
This mate of mine looked me in the eye with a hint of remorse and said ‘mate, to be honest I just don t see them anymore.’
Whilst I was shocked, I also could start to understand how this guy had arrived at this conclusion. There was just a huge disconnect in how he could help, having grown up around this his whole life it no longer seemed like something to be fixed, so it was filtered out. Compassion had almost gone, and a sense of concern for the needs of those around had gradually been dissolved.
But this is the obvious way in which we can sense or not sense compassion, I think they Bible has another way of seeing it. But first there was a great moment in the film Superman returns between Lois and Superman. Superman takes Lois into space and asks her this:
Superman: Listen; what do you hear?
Lois Lane: Nothing.
Superman: I hear everything. You wrote that the world doesn’t need a savior, but every day I hear people crying for one.
Nice one superman but Jesus did it better: ‘When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.’ Matthew 9:36
We might look out and see comfortable people, lives seem to be in order with a new car on the drive and two holidays a year. But the thing is Jesus saw though all of that veneer! A spiritual condition and spiritual need that the Bible identifies as sin. This may seems bit weird but I think when we look out we don’t have much compassion that moves us to pray in this way because we don’t see the same thing. We see stuff that indicates someone who isn’t in need (materially) so no compassion for the eternal path they are on! Does that fit?
I am doing it all the time, but the truth is without Jesus there is spiritual poverty and that needs to be seen, embraced and moved a heart of compassion for the church to respond.

#5 Decline of self-discipline

As you might expect from Proverbs in the Bible, is this wisdom about self-control and discipline: ‘A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls.’ Proverbs 25:28
Cities of that day had just about all their defense in the walls, you just need to read up about Nineveh and how arrogant they had become trusting in what they thought was an impenetrable wall around the city.
If you imagine a field and around it is a wall, at certain point part of that wall is attacked. The wall might get damaged and some repairs go up and the wall is back again. The attack can hit that same spot again, then again and again. Each time work is done to repair but the repairs are getting less and less and the strength and integrity on the wall is compromised. After time that wall has gone and the space has now been occupied, that section of land is no longer owned and the enemy can enter the field at any time whenever they want.
Imagine that field is you and me, our lives. Self-control keeps that perimeter up, of course we pray, accountability and meeting with other Christians too, but outside of those moments when you are at work or in private it’s the self discipline keeping it together.
When sin starts to hit that wall it can turn up in lots of ways. Subtle glances at the attractive women you know, or the channels late at night or the whispers of more money and power if the rules are moved a little. After time and without warning the walls have been breached and that section or area in your life is no longer surrendered to you. It rampages your field without invite and stays for as long as it likes.
I think self-discipline and control is like a muscle that we build, strengthen and notice. Ignored it wont grow but focused on and built up it will start to work, even when we don’t realise it. Kurt Hahn identified this as something g lacking in the society of his time in the young men of his time. Has it changed for us today? Had it changed for you personally today? As Christian men and brothers we can train together to build a core strength of a spiritual self-discipline. Where iron really does sharpen iron, maybe you’ve got a wall to reclaim!

 #4 Decline of craftsmanship

In 2014 the National Audit office suggested that for every £1 spent of public money towards apprenticeships the economy gained £18. My guess would be that equipping, training and developing people with a skill/trade is a good way to secure them work.
When I worked in Brazil at a drug rehabilitation project, and other projects a lot of emphasis was placed on bible teaching and training but very little into developing skills and a craft that could sustain the men in the project after they left.
As you might expect when men left the project, with little skill development they soon found themselves returning to a default place where nothing had enabled them to change their situation.
Now, obviously Kurt Hanh was looking at this decline in craftsmanship in a particular era and with a focus on industry but I think we can apply a spiritual lens here too. If we consider this in a church context, it is so important for us to encourage and identify skills and ability in our younger men and invest and nurture this development. We can encourage and invest in bible training, discipleship courses, leadership programs and more. But I want to extend the term ‘craft’ here, I know it doesn’t fit perfectly but stay with me. As Christian men perhaps our ‘craft’ or our transferable quality and skill or ability or however we word it is the ability to wait on the Lord.
Look around you at the development of technology and the speed at which our society moves today. I remember needing to make sure that when I went out I took 20p to call home from the phone box. If we wanted to fast forward a track of music you had to wait for the tape to get to the bit you wanted and then you would go past it.
We live in a society of immediacy, ‘if you can’t have it now it’s probably not worth having.’ And this can so easily be taken into our churches and our relationship with God. Perhaps, the ‘craft’ we have as Christian men that is so desperately needed today is the ability to wait upon the Lord.
The problem is, for us to model this we need to live it. Are you a man who shuts himself in and waits on the Lord? Do you set time aside alone with God in the stillness and just wait on God? Not your agenda but His, not your timing but His. What a wonderful thing to be able to teach and show to the next generation of young men, rushing through life, but perhaps we need to get this learnt first.

#3 Decline of imagination

So I am 36 (and a half) and would still argue that I fit into a generation that operated a ‘free roaming’ adventure and imagination. We went out on a Saturday afternoons and explored the woods with catapults and Swiss Army knives creating imaginary enemies and setting traps and dens to build on the game. Imagination was alive and really fuelled afternoons of action and danger (some accidents too.)
We can often hear and even say that ‘the youth of today just have lost all that imagination we had!’ Now this spark of creativity and imagination, which some research does show a decline in certain areas of childhood today, is argued to actually be innate by the experts and it just needs to be nurtured for it to thrive. I personally don’t think technology is the beast that is suppressing this creativity in youth either, as lots of young people are incredibly creative, perhaps it’s just the way this is expressed has changed.
The call into the wild where I would find and shape the best and strongest stick to be my imaginary sword has maybe now become things like creative mode in Minecraft!
So what? What’s this got to do with you and me? Well if there is a creative vacuum in our younger men today I want to take some responsibility for it and action to counter it. I believe we can model a wide range of imagination right in the heart of our churches to young men. (Of course this doesn’t exclude the young girls, my daughters would ensure that, but this is about boys becoming men!)
Remember we are looking at men disengaged with the church, faith and discipleship. We are seeing men falling away from church and statistics that show young working class men being the most unreached in the UK
Can we enable environments to create imagination? Can we be Christian men who don’t complain about the youth of today not being as imaginative as us, but be ready to explore and nurture their own avenues for imagination?
What’s this got to do with Christianity and evangelism to men? Lots! If we miss this and fail to invest in these ways in the young men in our pews we will be missing a generation of men in church. When these young men get to 15, 16 the social call on their time and lives will continue to rob churches of their influence, creativity and voice and that will be a travesty of our doing.
We can inspire, we can help these young men create, build, explore, grow and know Jesus and who he says they are in incredible ways. That’s worth investing in! What have you got to lose….? Only the leaders, evangelists, preachers, Christian husbands and dads of tomorrow.

#2 Initiative and enterprise

So whilst this would perhaps be more situated on your CV when you’re applying for a job the question is; what’s this sort of thing got to do with a blog to Christian men?
At CVM we have partnered with us loads of men’s groups and guys on the ground that are continually creating incredible ways to connect with men and facilitate relationships and environments to share Jesus. We love it! They range from fishing groups, 4×4 guys to quiz masters and maybe the odd fruit tea-drinking group. (odd group not blokes of course!) The exciting thing about these groups is that together we are constantly operating with initiative and to a certain degree some enterprise.
Now, whilst these terms might conjure up some business models in our heads, we can see their impacts outside of that too! Thinking outside the box, creating possibilities, new ideas and resourcefulness. Being able to move past fears and limitations and challenge models and systems that might perhaps have been in place for years but just aren’t working.
If we equate that over to the church, to our men’s groups, to the churches vision on reaching out to men with the good news of Jesus it can start to get exciting! I was on my way to church the other day and a mate of mine in his 4×4 drove by on his way to a quarry for the day off-roading, and shouted out ‘hey mate, I’m just off to my church! You should come sometime!’
If we want to reach out to these guys we need to get creative and CVM’s strategy for winning men helps us to do that.
If we wanted to wrap this idea of initiative and enterprise up spiritually I think it would be called ‘Apostolic’ and we need loads of it. Take a look through Acts in your Bible and see the way the first group of disciples had this apostolic equipping. Stuff happened around them, when they showed up they made mistakes of course, but they looked around them, and engaged the crowds, they created gospel opportunities and boldly enabled people to hear about Jesus. That’s exciting and I think we can do that today in our towns, cities and villages.
I was once told as an young pastor finding my way in a new church, ‘just open the doors on a Sunday and preach the gospel, people will come.’ Well guess what, they didn’t……new ideas, bold moves forward were needed and still are today. We have the incredible, life changing good news of Jesus and our investment in enabling men to hear and encounter this news is essential. Perhaps if your reading this and you’re a church leader, how much of your website, newsletters/pray bulletins or services will engage men in the community? How much budget is assigned to reaching men in the community? Have you ever come across a church with a full time men’s worker? Interesting stuff hey?