Wild Kingdom: The Rage in Men's Ministries - Street, JOFMM Spring 2004

It may surprise you to hear that Christian men have lost their
masculinity. It is considered to be such a serious epidemic that a
growing number of churches are retrofitting their ministries to
help men find it. In the aftermath of the feminization of the postmodern
male, men’s ministries are redefining their purpose to be
the therapeutic guide in this adventure of masculine self-discovery.
“I am searching for an even more elusive prey…something that
can only be found through the help of the wilderness…I am simply
searching, as many men (and hopeful women) are, for an
authentic masculinity,” John Eldredge writes in Wild at Heart.1 It is
literally a walk on the wild side that takes the Christian male back
to nature in order to rediscover his inner man (or boy, as the case
may be).

Women may look around and bemoan the absence of the men
at church now-a-days. Where are they? The men’s ministry has
taken them to wilderness. They have gone on a search for what it
means to be a feral man. Eldredge describes deep masculine longings
as being the “core to who and what I am and yearn to be…in
the heart of every man is a desperate desire for a battle to fight, an
adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue.”2 Subsequently churches
are planning ministry events for men to fulfill this “desperate
desire.” Events such as special army-like boot camps, wilderness
retreats, rugged backpacking and mountain climbing trips, cliff
repelling, paint-ball wars, whitewater canoeing and rafting, skydiving,
bungee jumping, etc. no longer as activities for men to enjoy
together but as therapeutic events meant to help men find their
distinctive gender-identity within...