I can’t recommend the Journey to Biblical Manhood (JBM) enough. Dayton, Ohio, is filled with engineers and process-orientated thinkers, and while JBM is flexible, the process is there and the leaders here love it. 

I have had great success with the event Success That Matters (STM), JBM’s Challenge One Create Value event, in multiple locations in the Miami Valley. 

During the first quarter of 2015, we held a one-day and two-day STM seminar. Combined, there were 140 guys from 14 churches; 9 different denominations; more than 40 recommitments of faith; two first time conversions; and one amazing God. 

Stats are that 80% of those men in attendance rolled into the Capture Momentum follow-up small groups (and those numbers actually grew in the six weeks that followed); 80% of those rolled into the Sustain Momentum phase. Reports are coming in of marriages being healed; the journey to find freedom from porn is happening as men are asking for and finding help from their brothers; and men are learning how to live out their faith and enjoying the journey together with other men. 

Would I or any of the men from the churches in attendance recommend the events and Journey to Biblical Manhood? Without hesitation, a resounding yes!

A man stopped me at a recent seminar between sessions and said, “I gave up my Saturday for this seminar. I don’t give up my Saturdays, but if I do, it had better be worth it. But that last session (on my relationship with my wife) was worth – every – minute. Thank you.”

Clark Miller
Miami Valley CMD

I have had two regional seminars: Success That Matters (STM) and Rock Solid Men (RSM). They both have been a very successful part of the Create-Capture-Sustain engine of the No Man Left Behind Model. In addition, it is a great opportunity and avenue to educate and equip leaders to successfully implement the Journey to Biblical Manhood (JBM). Roddey, Jamie, and Bryan also do an outstanding job of helping walk you and your event director through the process.

Statistically, we had 208 men from 13 churches attend STM and 200 men from 10 churches attend RSM—92% and 91% (respectively) of those who filled out comment cards joined the follow-up groups. Even more important are the numerous testimonies from the men who attended these seminars about the life changing impact it had on their lives.

Needless to say, I would highly recommend taking advantage of a MIM seminar as part of JBM, both valuable resources to disciple the men in your region.

John Williams
First Coast CMD

What I’ve seen in the churches that have held events here has ended with mixed results… 

The churches that follow the step-by-step create/capture process are doing exceedingly well in growing their ministry to men. Men are getting engaged and love being in a small group after the event. Many of these men admit that they were reluctant and not desiring to be in a small group prior to the event. They didn’t feel the need for it and didn’t want to share their personal story in front of other men, but once they realized that most of the men in the group had “skeletons,” the walls came down fairly quickly. 

The leaders in these churches are being diligent to arm the men with the right resources and facilitators to ensure that discipleship is occurring. Church leadership is also taking notice of these successes and this has led to many of the other ministries in the church reaching out to the men’s leadership to ask them what is going on and how they are creating the buzz around church and with men. It’s pretty cool to see this happening!  This confirms that men want to be a part of something and are willing to do so if given the right steps to do it.  Let’s face it—when it comes to small groups and church, men aren’t always willing to jump in with both feet by themselves.

The churches that have not been intentional in following the steps, as you can imagine, are not doing so well. They are not seeing growth in the number of men participating. They are not seeing a buzz around the church related to ministry to men. These churches, despite my encouragement to create/capture, have continued to do what they always have done, which hasn’t and isn’t working. In my meetings with leadership teams post-event, they wonder what they did wrong and why they’re not getting more men engaged, so we work through the process again. Many of these churches do not have table leaders or small group facilitators in place prior to the event, as instructed, and have put the cart before the horse.  Some seem unwilling to invest in small group/table leaders from the onset because I think they feel the need to “just have something on the calendar for men”—even though they are not prepared to capture momentum after the event. I had one pastor tell me that having events on the calendar for men is part of his annual review with the church. In that case, it became more of an obligatory thing than a “let’s get it right” thing. We’re working on that!

Rob Leonard
Central Indiana CMD