Iron Sharpens Iron: A New Brand of Men's Ministry

Over the past few years, a unique U.S. ministry called Iron Sharpens Iron has grown to where it now is reaching a large number of men. With a passion for developing strong Christian men and a plan for doing it, the guys at Iron Sharpens Iron are following the vision God gave them and waking the church up to the fact that when men become engaged in their faith, everybody wins.

In Proverbs 27:17, Solomon states that "as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." This is the verse at the heart of Iron Sharpens Iron. With a bold yet balanced style and a focus on equipping churches to reach and build men throughout the year, Iron Sharpens Iron is really hitting home with men across the country.

The national organization is actually made up of a collection of smaller, regional men's ministries that work together with local churches in their areas to reach out to men. It's this focus on local ministries, coupled with an emphasis on equipping—not just exhorting—that makes Iron Sharpens Iron stand out.

The Vision
The original group, Vision New England Men's Ministries, held its first local conference in 2001, and over the next few years it developed a model for one-day conferences that really appealed to men. In 2005 director Brian Doyle shared the vision God gave him of expanding this new conference model to regional men's ministries across the country, and in 2007 Iron Sharpens Iron went national, hosting 24 conferences across the country. In 2009, just two years later, the organization will host 41 conferences across the U.S.

The goal of Iron Sharpens Iron, Doyle says, is not only to get Christian men excited about their faith, but to equip them to live that faith out when they go home.

"Our conferences are national equipping conferences," says Doyle, who has worked in men's ministry since the mid-1990s. "There are a lot of men out there with good intentions. But we're trying bridge that gap between intentions and execution."

To accomplish that goal, each Iron Sharpens Iron not only features a big meeting with worship music and a recognizable speaker, but also 16 different small group seminars, also taught by recognizable speakers, which deal with the variety of issues men in America face.

The seminars are designed to appeal to everyone from teenagers to retired guys. Topics can deal with stuff that matters to men, including sexual purity, fatherhood, getting into the Word, mentoring the next generation and marriage.

"The topics are different than you find on Sunday morning, and if they are similar, we're going to talk about it differently. It's going to be in more of a masculine context," says Doyle. "From the outset, we're going to be more vulnerable and open with men, willing to poke them in the face or call them out. We tell our speakers that we don't want Sunday morning sermon material. You're talking to men, so talk man to man."

The Other 364 Days
The conferences are easily the most visible part of Iron Sharpens Iron, but Doyle emphasizes that they are really just a small part of the ministry as a whole. For a man, the conference is just one day of the year, he says. It's what they do with the rest of the year that Doyle feels is actually more important.

For leaders in Iron Sharpens Iron, the other 364 days of the year when they aren't leading conferences are spent reaching out to men on a smaller basis and equipping local churches to do the same.

In the day-to-day work, both the national leaders, like Doyle, and the regional leaders will be answering questions or reaching out to local pastors in their area to help them understand how to reach men. While that may sound pretty obvious, it can actually be really tough and discouraging, especially for pastors who feel that their men won't step up to the plate.

"Ministry to men is bar none the hardest ministry there is to do," says Tom Cheshire, director of Relevant Practical Ministry for Men (RPM) in Springfield, Ill. "Men are slow to act and slow to engage. We're trying to overcome all the passivity that has been bread into us over the years."

RPM is one of about 22 regional ministries that make up the Iron Sharpens Iron network. While serving as one of the co-founders of a local ministry called Businessmen in Christ, Cheshire decided to found RPM after hearing Doyle's initial call for a national network of men's ministries in 2005. RPM hosted its first conference in 2007, and this year will host two.

Between those two conferences, Cheshire is working with local churches and leaders to create a network of discipleship and training among men in his area of Illinois. The whole ministry, he says, was born out of his passion for discipling men, which he experienced firsthand after going through a moral collapse in his past that really hurt him and his marriage.

"I was in a healing church, and thankfully men around men came and mentored me and encouraged me and provided accountability for me," he says. "After that experience, I realized that if I was sitting there as a leader in the church with all this stuff going on under the radar, there had to be hundreds of thousands of other men like me in other churches in my city and across the country."

Cheshire says that at first it was difficult to put that passion for men into practice, because the resources for equipping men were hard to come by. But that's one of the things that Iron Sharpens Iron has been working on, the ways and means of reaching men. Now, just a few years later, says Cheshire, they have strategies, research and resources to utilize.

They also have each other.

All the regional leaders of Iron Sharpens Iron get together on the phone two or three times a month to discuss strategy and encourage one another. They also get together in person once a year for training and fellowship.

"It's a very open environment, everyone is sharing ideas and resources they have developed. There's not really a negative sense of ownership among the group," says Cheshire. "It's also awesome to have the ability to be encouraged by men who are in the battle with you."

Research and Resources
One of those resources that the regional guys can utilize is, Man2Man Express a daily radio broadcast with Doyle and David Beguerie that is designed to equip and encourage men throughout the year. The show often features national men's leaders or authors. Doyle says the show is a way of helping men remember what they experienced at the conference and what they would like to experience every day.

Doyle and the national leaders have also started doing a lot of research and surveys about men and how to reach them. Although still in the early stages, they have learned much about men in America.

"We want to get fresh and real data to understand what is going on with men. What are men feeling? What are the pressures they are facing? How is the local church going to be equipped to reach them?" Doyle says.

The other part of Doyle's job, like the regional leaders, is training. Doyle does it both informally and formally. Every day he works with individual ministries or churches that need help reaching men, but he also does a lot of work in the fall with formal training seminars, sharing his research and experience.

"Maybe the most important thing I do is to create a clear and compelling vision to the church," he says. "My message is simple; when you reach men, everybody wins. Marriages win, children win, churches win, communities win. It's a little more challenging to reach and engage men, but when you do, you've got an incredible situation."

For more information about Iron Sharpens Iron, check out the Web site at IronSharpenIron.net. The site features a lot of the research and resources you can use to reach men in your area, as well as information about conferences in your area and how to get involved with the organization.