Men's Ministry: Finding Community at Trinity | Trinity Talks Podcast

And I am really excited to have Bill and Martin and JP joining me.

And we are going to learn all about the men's ministry that is sort of restarting up, I

think, this year.

There've been a few little things in the past couple of years, but we're going full force,

I'm pretty sure, into the next couple of months.

Is that right?

It's great to be here, Elizabeth, and represent a new intentional focus of the men's ministry.

We've been doing beer and banter for the last few years, which is an informal social time

for guys to get together to chat.

And we've done the men's retreat for the last couple of years.

But now we're trying to be a little bit more focused and to reach some more intentional

goals around bringing men involved in the church and sending them out.

Alright, so that's Bill.

Why did you want to get involved in this ministry?

And I'm going to ask all of you the same question.

Well, I guess one answer that we all share is that we're all men, men of Trinity, involved

in the church.

I think over the years, I have benefited a lot from the church.

I've grown in my faith.

I have met with older men in mentoring relationships that have helped not just in my faith, but

in my career choices, and I think it's a little bit about giving back and creating those kind

of experiences, opportunities for younger men and for all men of the church.

That's awesome.

What about you, Martin?

I agree with a lot of the things Bill said.

For me personally, I recall when the men's ministry was more active back in the late

nineties and early aughts.

I was unemployed for a while.

The men's ministry, we had a men's prayer group, we had the breakfasts, we had other

things.

Lots of time for me to interface with some of the men, and they helped me greatly in

my discipleship because I had a lot of time, more time for that than I did when I was working,

and also in helping me in my career choices.

Oh, wow.

Thanks for sharing.

That's great to hear.

And JP, you're a little bit newer to the church, so why it encourage you to join the men's

ministry.

Yeah, for me, prior to coming to Trinity, which was about a year and a half ago, just

never had the opportunity to be part of a men's ministry.

And that all changed since coming to Trinity.

Just immersed myself in a lot of different things, starting with the men's retreat last

spring, which was great.

My sort of view was just, I was new here, and just dive right in and just made some

excellent friendships and started building great relationships.

And then got involved with beer and banter and attending those.

And then got invited to join one of the men's life group.

And all these things have just really impacted my life in such a positive way and just made

such a difference that, yeah, it's important and I want to do what I can just to help grow

it and so that others can experience the same thing.

That's exciting.

And I know there's some fun things planned, but before we get into too many nitty gritty

details about the men's ministry, it wouldn't be a fun Trinity Talks without a fun Trinity

Talks game.

So I'm going to pick my first victim, I mean, volunteer first here.

And I'm going to actually choose, JP, you were just talking, so maybe what I'm going

to have you do is just pick up that piece of paper that you have in front of you and

show the camera and then show it to your viewer.

I'm not looking at it, right?

You're not looking at it.

Is that right, Soda?

Yeah, so no, so there's the word up, no, flip it.

There you go.

Keep, yeah, there you go.

Show this camera right here.

All right, you've got a name of a famous man in the Bible.

Can you guys see that there, Bill and Martin?

Yep, yeah, we see that.

All right, now you're going to just give JP a single word and see if he can guess who

that person is.

And if he can't get it, then we're going to give him another word.

All right.

You first.

Bullrushes.

Oh, Bullrushes, yeah.

That's a good one.

Baby Moses.

Moses suffices, well done.

All right, I wasn't actually sure Bullrushes is a single word or hyphenated word, but we're

going to give it to you anyway.

Well done, all right.

You guys are great.

All right, Martin, you're next.

OK, my dad, I move here.

Yeah.

OK, without looking.

Now these weren't that challenging.

Maybe they are.

I don't know.

We'll see.

Single word.

Apostle.

John.

Another word.

All right, that's a good guess.

Go ahead, JP.

Blinded.

Temporarily.

On the road.

Paul.

All right, so that's done.

All right.

I think blinded temporarily on the road is all one hyphenated word as well, right?

I think so.

I think so.

Now it's my turn.

It's your turn.

No, I should have given you like the third son of.

Oh, I know.

I know.

I should have said Saul.

All right.

This is me.

This is you.

Your turn.

Without using any words in the.

I think you understand what I'm saying here.

I'm going to use none of the words on the sign here.

You ready?

Can I call a friend?

You can call Mart.

Locusts.

I think it's a good word.

I can I can actually hear the wheels turning and bills ahead right now.

Yeah, Locusts.

I was Aaron.

It's a good guess, perhaps.

Abraham.

Let's get another word out there.

baptism.

Oh, John.

I was trying to say baptism.

It's New Testament Locusts.

Not Old Testament Locusts.

Exactly.

We could have been more clear.

Yes.

I Locusts appear in both testaments.

Isn't that interesting?

Well done, you guys.

All right.

Those are the famous men of the Bible that I had for you.

But let's get back into fun.

Fun fun fun.

This never ends here.

But men's ministry, for those of you who are just tuning in, we're talking about men's

ministry in a few sentences.

What exactly is men's ministry here at Trinity in particular?

All right.

Well, I guess I'll go first.

The it's basically want to create an opportunity or create space for the men of the church

to participate in the available programs, the stuff that's going on, to step up as leaders

in the church as the opportunities arise or as needed.

And then to be able to send out, to develop and send out men to volunteer and to serve

not just in the church, but in the community as a whole.

So that's kind of the three goals of the men's ministry program.

I think that's great.

But I'm going to ask a question that I think might be on some people's minds is why men's

ministry and not people ministry?

Why men specifically?

That's a good question.

Does anyone want to take a stab at that first?

Well, men, you know, men have certain gifts that not necessarily everybody else in the

community has, the other groups in the community.

I guess there's lots of ways to subdivide.

But men have unique gifts and some of those gifts can be used or nurtured and used.

And I think the men's ministry is one way to do that, to capitalize on it.

So as a church, not just Trinity, but all churches, I think we need to be all things

to all people.

And that's part of the development of healthy Christian community.

But then I think there's also time when you need to get together with a particular subgroup

and just kind of deal or focus on the needs or the wants of that particular group.

And so in this case, it's the men open to all men, regardless of race, age or creed.

We don't care what rock band you like.

And it's just to create that opportunity for guys to get together and to get to know each

other better and to learn from each other.

And like I said, to volunteer and help out together.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

So if you're interested out there and maybe getting involved in men's ministry, what do

you think some of the challenges or obstacles there are?

Like, what are some of the obstacles that men may face before they take that next step

in getting into the ministry?

I think it's usually the common ones are time.

We're all so busy with life, with work and home life and so forth.

So just finding the time.

Which I guess the men's ministry is going to try and address by having events on different

times, different days of the week.

So whether it's a Monday night at Beer and Banter or Saturday morning breakfast or something

midweek so that if the idea being hopefully one of those times works for a particular

person time.

And then probably just kind of call it apprehension of especially if you're new here and I don't

know what it's all about, what to expect.

And just that sort of natural resistance to just trying something new.

So yeah, I think those are probably the common ones.

And maybe just not think or just sort of assuming, well, what am I going to get out of it?

How am I going to benefit?

So just not having that assurance, that desire to go.

And then it's not until.

So that's why I think our sort of message is to men just, hey, just check us out.

Check us out.

Come to event, come and see.

And like I know for me personally, once you start building relationships, which to me

it's relationships are what it's all about.

And especially deep, meaningful ones, which is what I think I've experienced here just

by things I've gotten involved in.

And there's just something really neat about just opening yourself up and sharing what's

going on, challenges you're facing in your life and learning from each other and sharing

and just growing together, praying for each other.

It's just really, really impactful.

To build on what JP you said earlier, I think an obstacle for a lot of men is fear and anxiety

of the unknown.

And they may not be involved themselves in the church and their wives who do come, want

them to engage, want them to become involved.

And they just didn't know what that path forward was.

And with the announcement of the men's ministry last week and with me as the leader, the coordinator

of the men's ministry, I've had a couple of women after the service come up to me with

hope in their eyes that there is now maybe some way that they could get their husband

to make that first step into community through an informal gathering of men, beer and banter

or other things that are coming up.

And that was just nice to see that the women who are faithful attenders of the church and

just would love to have their husbands come out and become involved now see a way forward

for that.

That's great.

And women's husbands or partners or boyfriends, right?

Or father, sons.

Father, son.

Yeah.

A couple of months ago at beer and banter, I knew a young dad came and he brought his

father along.

So that was kind of neat having father and son there.

That's a really good segue into my next question, which is about age.

And I'm assuming that men's ministry is really open to anyone who is a man.

So we're not talking about children or maybe even teenagers.

But for all men, regardless of age, let's say, I don't know, I think there's probably

a parameter on it.

But what are the benefits to having intergenerational men interacting with each other?

The word discipleship came up.

Martin, you had a story.

We just talked about father, son.

So what is the benefit that you've seen with having men of different generations interacting

together?

You guys have any?

Well, we all have things different.

I say strengths that we can bring.

And some of those are to do with your stage in life.

Older people maybe have been through a lot more, have made a lot more mistakes.

We can learn from those mistakes.

And we can certainly help the younger generation with them.

But then what do you mean?

I thought we were the younger generation.

No, I misspoke.

Speak for yourself.

Right.

I agree.

I think just everyone has different life experiences and the perspective that you bring.

So someone who's 25 years old is going to have a totally different perspective on a

particular issue or life experience or maybe a workplace issue.

They're navigating.

And then someone who's twice their age, for example.

So it's just neat.

Despite the age differences and experience differences, I guess what sort of unites us

together is that we're all brothers in Christ and we all want to encourage each other and

help each other and grow and learn together.

And do you see that there's a difference then in men's ministry, say here at Trinity versus

just joining a community group or a sports team?

So what are those differences that are key and important to our church-based men's ministry?

Yeah.

Well, the camaraderie of a sports team is great.

It's a lot of fun.

But I think the focus of the men's ministries goes beyond just having fun together, which

we do have beer and banter when we get together, certainly.

But our focus goes beyond that to learning about being a man of faith and also service.

So, as opposed to just having fun, we have goals beyond that and that's to grow together

and learn more what it means to be a faithful servant of Jesus at home, at work, and in

the community.

And then looking forward to opportunities that we could put out there for men to start

volunteering in the community or maybe as a group helping out and just being more involved

that way or giving opportunities for guys to engage in that way.

Awesome.

So what exactly does Trinity have in store for the men this year?

Do there any particular events that are already planned?

I think you mentioned retreat, you've mentioned beer and banter, breakfast.

What are the events that we have coming up?

Well, I can highlight first beer and banter and the retreat and highlight these guys as

well.

I'm really happy to say that Martin, who was really helpful last year in putting the retreat

together, has taken on a greater leadership role of the retreat for this year because

I'm becoming the coordinator of the men's ministry overall.

So Martin has agreed to step up with regards to the retreat, which is amazing.

All right, I'm just going to sorry to interrupt.

What is the retreat and where is it?

I was going to get to that, but I just want to say JP has agreed similarly around beer

and banter to take on a coordinating role with that.

So that's great.

But the retreat is the big thing that's coming up, and that's April 5th, 6th and 7th.

There are still spots available.

So if there are guys that are interested, I would encourage you to get it.

But they're going fast.

They're going fast.

They are going fast.

So it's a great time.

We get together from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon at a retreat center that's about

two hours north of us here in Mississauga.

And it's a good time of fellowship, of learning, and then having fun together.

So there's a guest speaker this year.

Last year was Rob, did an amazing job.

This year is Rob and myself.

So hopefully I don't drag him down too much in the guest speaker department.

And David Lee is our worship leader this year.

David did a great job this morning, as always, helping us grow closer to the Lord.

And we'll be doing that for us at the retreat.

And then we cook and eat our meals together and clean up altogether.

And then there's also some fun activities like hikes or going to the local cidery or

that kind of thing on Saturday afternoon.

So it's a good combination of fun and learning and prayer and worship and all that kind of

stuff.

Wow.

That sounds great.

And then JP, do you want to tell us a little bit about Beer and Banter?

So some people may not know what that is.

Sure.

So Beer and Banter is monthly gathering on the...

It's the first or second Monday of each month, from September to June.

And just very informal, just the opportunity for guys just to get together and share what's

going on in your life, your week and common interests.

And it's neat.

Well, usually it's about anywhere between maybe eight to 15, 15 guys that come out.

And that's just neat.

The conversations get going.

And we talk about all sorts of stuff.

It's a great event to bring friends and neighbors and people, men who are not part of the church

to get that first step into meeting some guys and stuff.

And if you don't drink beer, can you still go?

Absolutely.

And there are people that don't drink beer.

So that's totally fine.

Just guys that have tea, coffee, water, soft drink, whatever.

It's not about the beer.

It's about the banter.

We tell people it's beverage of your choice.

But beverage of your choice and banter doesn't really roll off the tongue as well.

So we're not going to change the name.

No, no.

It's just a neat way for just guys to hang out and just start building relationships.

And you run into, you just get to know people and get connected with Trinity.

And it's a great outreach event, too, like in Words Health and Kukalans.

We've developed a great relationship with them and the staff there.

And there's other guys that are doing the same thing, guys whatever after work or hockey

teams.

They see us.

You're out in the community.

Yeah.

Which really ties into that talk that Kyle had, getting connected in with our community.

Yeah.

All right.

So while we still have a few more minutes here, Bill, what else is in store?

OK.

Well, thanks for asking, Elizabeth.

It's on my list.

So I've got to get to it.

And I read your list, so I knew that was coming.

There's lots.

Yeah, there's lots.

Stay tuned to have us back for part two.

After the retreat and on Good Friday, so the end of March, the, I don't know, sorry, before

the retreat, because the retreat is the weekend after Easter.

So on Good Friday, we are starting up or restarting for those guys who have been around a couple

of decades, the men's breakfast.

So we'll do a Good Friday men's breakfast.

And so there's opportunities to come and help, to cook breakfast, to set up, to clean up.

And then, of course, we'll put it out there for people to sign up for the actual breakfast.

And so the format for that will be, of course, breakfast, but then we'll also be a facilitated

discussion or a guest speaker that will come in and talk about a topic of faith or, again,

some connecting our experience, either family or work with our faith and how does it all

interact and work out.

And so the kickoff is on Good Friday, but we will be doing them.

We're still trying to figure out whether it's monthly or bimonthly, but we'll be doing them

on Saturday mornings, the last Saturday of the month, either every month or every second

month going forward after that.

And then in the future, we're looking at a dads and kids event, so recruiting some younger

dads and their kids to just go out on fun activities, going for a hike or biking or

going to a sugaring off event or just all sorts of different things.

Same idea, though, just creating that space for the young dads to get together and have

a social time, not just with each other, but with their kids interacting with each other

as well.

And encourage one another, I suppose, in that shared experience.

Yes, of course.

Yes.

That's really exciting.

And so a lot to look forward to.

So if you're interested in joining the Men's Ministry, and I'm going to talk to the camera

here now, but if you're interested in finding out more about the events or participating

or helping out in any way, you can contact or get in touch with Bill directly or contact

the church info at trinitystreetsville.org and the church will get you in touch with

Bill or one of the guys on the team and they will let you know everything you need to know

and get you connected in ways that you want to connect.

So I just want to say thank you for joining me.

Well, thank you for having us.

This is a lot of fun.

You're welcome.

We will have to have you back again.

We'll find out how the breakfast go.

For sure.

I know.

I just have to say, last time I remember there was a breakfast, there was a smoke alarm went

off.

So I think we just need to make sure that we don't set any toast on fire.

I was there and there's one guy who tells a story saying that the fire went off at the

men's breakfast and a whole bunch of firefighters showed up.

And I think his comment, this is not mine, but his comment was that it was a missed opportunity.

It really should have been a women's breakfast to properly appreciate all these handsome firefighters

that were coming in through the building.

Missed opportunity.

I have no comment.