Manifesto For Men

There’s a legitimate question that any serious Christian man may have about entering into Covenanted Christian Relationships … where is Christ’s Church in all this?

Let’s talk about WHY this is a legitimate question because too many American Christian men do not grasp the serious nature of Christ’s Church in the first place.

The Church is the Body of Christ. Generally speaking, “outside the Church, there is no salvation”. As mentioned before, we affirm this as Protestants.  A “True Church” in the classical Protestant definition is one where the Word is faithfully preached, the Sacraments, faithfully administered, and Church Discipline is faithfully practiced.

Ephesians 4:4-16 reveals that when Jesus Christ ascended to His Enthronement as the King of Heaven and earth He poured out the Holy Spirit not to create autonomous “Lone Ranger” Christians, but to create His Body… interconnected and built up for a common purpose.

This requires a CHURCH with its own Confessions, Liturgy, and Government. It requires the first gift mentioned as flowing from Christ’s Ascension – the Apostle’s, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors, and Teachers.  These offices are the skeletal structure of a BODY, not providers of menu items in a consumer driven spiritual buffet that can be “taken or left”.

This is another way of saying the CHURCH is the indispensable center of the Reign of God in Jesus Christ as the Father puts every enemy under Jesus’ feet (1 Corinthians 15:25) until the Last Day.

We as individuals, families, nations, and organizations will all be judged for our works - whether our actions served the interest of Jesus Christ and the work He wishes to accomplish through His Body.

For that reason, no man dare enter any relationship, whatever the title, without the full assurance that his actions and allegiances serve the interest of the King of Heaven and Earth, King Jesus.

The question remains how Covenanted Christian Relationship (or a Ladies Quilting Circle at church for that matter)  fulfill a purpose that will not be found fighting against Jesus Christ on the Last Day?

That will only be possible if individual Christians banding together do so for a Christian purpose to enhance one of the elements of the True Church – It’s preaching, sacramental life, or discipline.

These may properly function as Christian sodalities: “In Christian theology, a sodality is a form of the Church universal expressed in specialized, task oriented form as opposed to the Church in its local, diocesan form (which is termed modality).”

A Ministerial Study Group that allows preachers of the Word to gather, study and prepare better sermons may be a legitimate Christian sodality. An “Altar Guild” or “Choir” or organization for Church Musicians who specialize in tasks that relate to promoting the Church’s sacramental worship may be a legitimate Christian sodality.  Likewise a group of men gathered via Covenanted Christian Relationship for the purposes outlined here may also be a legitimate Christian sodality.

To make this as clear as possible, let me resort to a secular example. Not everyone on the Police Force is a member of the “SWAT Team”. But ideally the “SWAT Team” works in coordination with the rest of the police force. The SWAT Team is a “sodality” within the larger “modality” of the Police Force.

How do men gathering in Covenanted Christian Relationships form a legitimate Christian sodality?

In this case, they attempt with God’s help to foster the church’s DISCIPLINE.

When we think of Church Discipline (if we think of it at all), we think of “excommunication” – banning someone from the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. That sanction forbids them to participate in the holy act wherein their perseverance in the grace of Christ is signed and sealed.

Excommunication is the final step in Church Discipline.

Formative discipline trains us to live so that we never come under the sanction of excommunication! It begins with the Church’s ministry of teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work. (2 Tim. 3:16-17)

Covenanted Christian  Relationships likewise are involved what is called formative discipline. Hebrews 3:13 tells us to “exhort one another as long as it is called ‘Today’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” Furthermore,  such relationships exist to foster the fulfillment of Galatians 6:10 - ” to do good to all men, but especially those within the household of faith.”  In Covenanted Christian Relationships, we gather together and formally resolve to fulfill this injunction while likewise formally meeting to accomplish that goal and hold ourselves to that purpose!

In that way, with God’s help, Covenanted Christian Relationships function as a sodality of, for, and in the Church to serve the mission of Jesus Christ. Without Jesus Christ and His Body, Covenanted Christian Relationships cannot exist because they will have no context or purpose!

“Protestant” means to hold forth the truth of God’s Word, specifically, the sufficiency of our Lord Jesus Christ’s saving work and the sufficiency of God’s Holy Word in the life of the true catholic (universal or “Christian”) Church. So yes, of course, we are “Protestant”.

We don’t think using the word “Protestant” to describe ourselves is wrong despite the popular impulse for everyone to “get along” in this “Post-Everything” age.

If fact, we think it’s a positive BENEFIT.

Let’s be honest. At the end of the day when all the ecumenical back slapping and supposed male bonding at the big city stadium for the latest, greatest event for men is over, we can never agree with Roman Catholics that the Pope

1. Has the ability to speak infallibly

2. Is the head of the Church on earth whom every other Christian MUST obey or risk damnation

3. Has the ability to go beyond the Bible to authorize teachings as true and necessary for salvation

And we also deny that salvation comes in any other way than through the merits of Jesus Christ alone!

Judging from our personal interactions, pretty much every broadly “evangelical” Christian agrees on these points but the act of actually calling ourselves “Protestant” sounds so, well, “exclusive” or perhaps even “negative” that we fail to speak the crucial truth about our genuine differences.

We’ve decided we’re tired of people saying that holding forth the Gospel and beliefs of the Reformation is “negative”.  Our message of Jesus Christ is the most POSITIVE thing in the world. That’s why we call ourselves Protestants!

As Christians, we love our Roman Catholic friends and wish them well. But – honestly – we don’t buy into the things we’ve outlined above. Warm fuzzy feelings just won’t change that. And Jesus Christ and His Word are too important to let our differences go unstated! To fail to speak this truth would be absolutely unloving!

Hey, it’s not like there aren’t plenty of Roman Catholic men’s groups that wouldn’t let US join because we can’t swear allegiance to the Pope and won’t. Let them do their thing, we’ll do ours – as Protestants upholding the truth of the Bible and the Reformation!

Covenanted Christian Relationships require a voluntary vow.

What is that nature of that vow? And what is it’s Christian (i.e. biblical and theological) justification if it is to remain truly “Christian”?

In our antinomian age, those who have no faith will ask out loud with all seriousness what difference a “piece of paper” or a “church service” mean in order to make a series of sexual liaisons and cohabitation into a “marriage”? Christians may sneer at this and consider themselves to hold higher views of living in God’s World, but, when pressed, today’s lukewarm Christians are programmed to consider voluntary vows and too much talk of obedience as “legalism”. “We’re under grace” they chime as if those words make the cross Jesus’ calls us to bear vanish into thin air! Obedience to any holy norm, so the thinking goes, is “Old Testament” and passe – unbefitting the “New Testament Christian”.

But consider for a moment this “New Testament” truth: In the sacrament of Baptism, Christians are “raised to walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:1-4). That reality of which Baptism is the sign and seal – the resurrection of Jesus Christ Himself which imparts new life to us – implicitly requires all the recipients of Baptism to live by certain holy standards. That implicit requirement is made explicit in the Baptismal vows most Christians affirm – belief in the cardinal doctrines of the Christian Faith (The Apostle’s Creed) and the pledge to walk in a morally upright way (i.e. Observe the Scriptures overall and, in particular, the Ten Commandments).

The voluntary vow(s) connected to Covenanted Christian Relationships are nothing other than voluntary pledges, with God’s help, to walk in newness of life in the fellowship of other Christian Brothers in a way distinctively different than evident in the lax and lukewarm Christianity of our age. Such vows are an extension and amplification of our baptismal vows as they relate to others who pledge themselves to the same standards.

For example, many groups these days call themselves “____________ Anonymous” to emphasize the ordinary confidentiality of their conversations (except of course when the intent to participate in serious crimes is revealed and confidentiality would involve the hurt of another) . But this is only common Christian courtesy for those who recognize the scriptural admonition not to gossip (Proverbs 11:13). Like common sense, common Christian courtesy isn’t so common! A vow of confidentiality (conditioned on the innocent intent and Christ following intent of the speaker) allows Christian men to escape the natural isolation and friendlessness plaguing our culture, and enter more fully into Christian friendship, fellowship, and mission. By including such language in the form of a vow, the expectation of confidentiality is expressed openly and upfront. Men then recognize their obligation to maintain confidences and nobody can say “I didn’t know” as they can in most “Bible Study” and “Fellowship” groups they come to in the average church.Through a vow they are reminded, in the words of our Lord (Matthew 7:12) to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

When we are betrayed and confidence is broken, then trust is shattered. In the taking of a vow we call ourselves in advance to understand the shame of betrayal, it’s steep cost terms of broken trust, and to pledge ourselves to Christian self-control lest the damage we may wreak on others come back to haunt us. In this way the vow restates our Baptismal Covenant and applies it’s dictates to the particular life we share in fellowship with our “Band of Brothers”. In the practice of such Christian diligence among God’s household, we trust that similar faithfulness will overflow to all we encounter (Galatians 6:10).

Learn more at: Protestant – Of Course!

In a society where marriages are made with lifelong promises yet evaporate in days, weeks, or months, many Christian men are craving stability.

They wish to pledge themselves not only to God and to their bride, but also to the community of God’s people. Having been “burned” by cult like dictatorial “shepherding” churches and bored to tears by effeminate “let’s all be nice” churches, these men crave the freedom to express themselves and their gifts in the friendship of other Christian men. They wish to work for Christ’s kingdom. They long for their own “safe place” amidst a “Band of Brothers” who watch out for one another.

They recognize that such relationships are costly to all concerned. True Brotherhood in Christ cannot be coerced… it must be voluntary. When found it is truly precious. Many claim they want such fellowship and brotherhood only to disappoint when it comes to fulfilling their end of the bargain!

Is there a solution?

Yes.

Men will gladly give of themselves when they know that they are part of something larger than themsleves… when the group is bound by something greater than coffee and donuts… when the nature of the community of brothers has a mission and a vision larger than any one man…when the challenge implicit in joining this band of brothers is to godly values that transcend time, touch eternity with their ramifications, and call forth virtue from a man that cannot be realized unless the man surrenders himself completely to Jesus Christ, the Lord.

One name for such relationships is “Covenanted Christian Relationships”… voluntary rules of life and conduct that save us from surrendering to our own sloth and isolation. They are oaths taken voluntarily and with God’s help that commit us to engagement with Christ, His Church, Our Brothers, and those who need the gifts, graces, and stability God’s Word offers!

Covenanted Christian Relationships… Brother, where do these exist in your own life?

If you’re seeking Covenanted Christian Relationships, contact us today! We’d like to help you find this missing element in your walk with Jesus Christ!

Want to know more? Read “The Nature of our Vow”