The Need for Better Men

“We are constantly on a stretch, if not on a strain, to devise new methods, new plans, new organizations to advance the church and secure enlargement and efficiency for the gospel. This trend of the day has a tendency to lose sight of the man or sink the man in the plan or organization. God’s plan is to make much of the man, far more of him than of anything else. Men are God’s method. The church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men.”

-E. M. Bounds 1907

The words of E. M. Bounds ring true even today. They were first penned in 1907, but today at the close of 2007 they are a prophetic voice. A century has passed and we still delude ourselves. We tell ourselves that the problems we face in reaching the lost are bad methods, bad programs, bad administration, bad organization, and bad plans. In the past century, we have witnessed the Sunday School Boom, the Mega Church Movement, the Business Model Approach, the Small Groups Methodology, the Emerging Church, and the House Church Shift. All were new ways guaranteed to help the Church reach the lost. While each of these methods and movements has been helpful, they have not been the key to reaching our world for Christ. They have fallen short. Or maybe, it wasn’t them. Maybe, we have fallen short.

Bounds points out “men are God’s method. The church is looking for better methods, but God is looking for better men.” We have abandoned the hard task of being better people for the quick fix of better methods. The task God has set out for us is the hardest task known to man, the task of becoming like Christ. Praise be to God that he does not leave us alone, but sent his Holy Spirit to transform us. But, this transformation is a cooperative event. We must commit ourselves to the hard task of character formation in partnership with the Holy Spirit. Only when we commit to becoming better men can we expect to begin to see God’s method move forward. God wants to use each of us to reach the lost. Are you ready to be used by God? Are you ready to be a better man, woman, teenager, husband, wife, son, daughter, and human being? God is ready. Are you? Am I?