Where there is a common interestin an activity, there is an inroad to a man’s heart.
Bent against the elements of cold wind and rain and the rugged terrain of Montana, the adventurous spirit of the outdoorsman comes alive. Montana is rugged, and so is the ministry there. In one of the most difficult territories you can inherit when it comes to reaching non-believers, North American Mission Board church planter William Johnson is making inroads by connecting with sportsmen through outdoor ministry.
Time doesn’t matter to these adventurers. Nor does weather. Only a life-threatening storm would stop their stalk and send them back to the safety of camp. Their driving goal is to end the day with a bounty of healthy food for the family and a trophy for the den. They also are hunting the passion, the spiritual experience, of being one with nature. The hunt is almost like a worship experience for many of these wilderness men.>>>
You won’t find too many of these guys placidly sitting in an artificially climate-controlled edifice on Sunday morning. Their sanctuary is the great outdoors. Southern Baptists recognize this void and are making a concerted effort to reach out to outdoorsmen.
In developing their strategy for starting a new church—Gallatin Valley Baptist Fellowship in Manhattan, Montana—William Johnson and his team were intent on making outdoor ministry a massive part of their everyday church life.
“We started using sportsmen ministry just to make initial contact with men in the community and to develop relationships,” says William, an avid hunter and fisherman.
“Our first events were sportsmen rallies. We invited men in the community to come watch hunting videos and bring their favorite wild game recipes. At first we had more men attending the rallies than we had people attending our worship services. Several of those guys from our first rallies are now members of the church.”
William and his wife, Teresa, fell in love with Montana on their honeymoon and following vacation. When they realized the lack of churches, they kidded that when they ran out of things to do, they could move there and plant a church. God didn’t let them forget that, and a few years later William knew God was calling him to Montana.
What sportsmen like William are discovering is that people who routinely are in the outdoors experiencing the wonder of God’s creation may have an easier leap to understanding the gospel message than on mission Christians ever realized. Maybe it’s not Christianity that outdoorsmen have objected to, but rather the separation from God they feel in a worship center shut off from His creation.
Consider what Jesus did. He met some fishermen and said, “Come; I’ll make you fishers of men.” He met a woman drawing water from a well and got her interest by talking with her about living water. He started with their interests. What churches with outdoor ministries are doing is helping people replace the object of their worship—the creation—with the Creator.
“We’ve found a very natural connection between people who enjoy the outdoors and being able to relate that to a relationship with Christ,” says Ohio Pastor Tony Wagner, called 13 years ago to small-town Mt. Sterling Baptist Church. The congregation then consisted of five members; today, it’s about 120. Some have come because of the church’s outdoor ministry, according to Tony. He started an annual wild game and awards dinner in 1995 that today is attended by 250 or more men.
“I knew hunting and fishing and outdoor things were a big part of the culture here,” Tony says. “This is a side-door ministry that gives us the opportunity to share Christ and to share the family of our church. There’s no question the church has grown because of it.”
Tony listed four elements of a successful wild game dinner: good food (with both wild and domestic meats), good speakers (a big-name outdoorsman is always a hit), a good gospel presentation, and lots of prizes. The church’s outdoors ministry also includes a variety of outdoor activities: shotgun sporting clays, winter hikes, fishing trips, big game hunts (such as a recent one to North Bay, Ontario, with 10 hunters who harvested six bears), and the annual frog-gigging event.
Jason Cruise was comfortably ensconced as pastor of the sizable Belmont Heights Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee, when he realized two things: First, he wasn’t alone in his interest in reaching men through outdoor ministries. The concept was birthed by Southern Baptists in the 1970s with the first wild game dinners and is of growing interest in churches across the nation. Second, some churches’ outdoor ministries were ineffective or off to a slow start because leaders didn’t know how to do them. Jason started Outdoor Ministry Network (www.outdoorministrynetwork.com) to share information and develop resources for churches to take the gospel outside church walls.
“I wanted to help men find a way to use the outdoors to find real spiritual meaning for themselves, and to help their buddies find it too,” Jason says. “I know personally that there are men coming to Christ in great numbers through churches who are gearing their approach to speak a man’s language. Moreover, there are men who are finally planting roots in churches because there is, for once, something they can connect with other than nursery work!”
Montana Pastor Mark Hasenyager takes the concept of outdoor ministries to new heights. He and John did little more the first Sunday they met other than grunt from their adjoining stands on the shotgun practice range, but somehow in trying to best each other’s shots they connected. When they came across one another again in Wal-Mart three months later, the upcoming elk season was on both their minds. The talk turned personal during a weekend they spent in the high country, and, the week after that, John came to church, drawn by the offer of a free barbeque meal and having nothing else to do on a Thursday night.
He was back the next week. “You could see in his life the gospel taking hold,” Mark says. “He accepted Christ and began to grow and digest the Word as fast as he could.” After being discipled for a year by Mark—often during weekend hunting and fishing trips together—John’s discipling others and contemplating fulltime Christian service.
“Folks in Montana live here because of the outdoors,” Mark says. “Doing church on Sunday was kind of a threat to them because they had to give up the reason they were living in Montana. So, we started a church with a Montana feel to it—casual, outdoors oriented. We have worship on Thursday nights and use weekends to build relationships with people who aren’t in church.”
After-church fellowships, occasional family outings and three weekly small group Bible studies are bonuses to free he-man meals and a laid-back attitude. Attendance, now at 70 or more for worship, peaks higher in the summer, when other Missoula churches might be at half-strength because of members’ outdoor interest.
“Something else that’s really neat is that we actually have more men than women in the church,” Mark says. “Whenever we do a testimony time, on average it’s all men who stand and give their testimonies.”
It’s a program-free multiplication model church where the emphasis is on each one reach one, and disciple him or her. “Real in-depth ministry happens one-on-one or with a few,” Mark says. “With a program or event, we’ll reach a few folks, but if we look at Christ’s example, the real impact was with individuals.”
Most churches won’t forego Sunday morning worship, but resources exist to help churches reach out to outdoorsmen. Jimmy Sites, founder of Spiritual Outdoor Adventures suggests renovating a sterile Sunday school classroom into a hunting lodge environment with coffee bubbling on an artificial log campfire in the middle of the room. Instead of nametags, give every man a tin coffee cup and write his name on it with a Sharpie. Start the session off with a video, and segue into a Bible session with everyone using the same type of Bible—such as The Sportsman’s [Holman Christian Standard] Bible. In this way the leader can give the page number as well as Scripture reference.
Says missionary William Johnson, “All we’re doing is taking our hobbie and using it to develop relationships with men, and through those relationships we are able to introduce them to Christ.”
Karen Willoughby is managing editor of the Louisiana Baptist Message in Alexandria, Louisiana.
Visit NAMB’s video gallery at www.namb.net to find out more about missionary William Johnson and his ministry in Manhattan, Montana.