Starting Point
Having an effective men’s ministry can be an answer to prayer, and this was exactly the case for Bethel Baptist Church in Yorktown, Va.
Kelley Miles, volunteer’s men’s ministry director at Bethel Baptist, has attended the church for more than 13 years. He served the church in a variety of capacities throughout the years, but always noticed there was a gap in the congregation when it came to the men. When Kelley’s term as a deacon was ending this January, he began praying about what the Lord would want him to do next and God laid men’s ministry on this heart.
“If I wanted opportunities to connect with other men, waiting around for somebody else to do it wasn’t the right thing to do,” Kelley said. “I called pastor Doug and told him I was interested in doing something like this.”
What Kelley didn’t know was Bethel’s Senior Pastor Doug Echols had already been praying for someone in the church to step up and lead in the area of men’s ministry. Doug introduced Kelley to Mike Young at Noble Warriors and the two formed a fast relationship. Mike gave Kelley some guiding principles as he was developing a brand new men’s ministry.
“Mike and I met in January and talked for over an hour about Noble Warriors and how they could help us get started,” Kelley said. “I didn’t really have any training about how to direct a men’s ministry and Mike really helped me with us with our structure and gave great guidance on some things we needed to do. He was instrumental in describing what this ministry should look like.”
As Mike served Bethel in a consulting capacity as the journey of their new ministry began, Noble Warriors had already planned to host a men’s conference at the church in April.
“Having the Noble Warriors conference at Bethel was a huge boost for their newly established men’s ministry,” Mike explained. “They launched several BetterMan groups out of the conference and it was a catalytic event for them.”
Mike said that Kelley is focused on creating smaller events and group gathering for men to connect at throughout the year, as one big conference is not enough to truly disciple men.
“The real work of discipling men is not going to happen at a catalytic event,” Mike said. “Those are where you get people excited, but the real work in transforming men comes in smaller groups. What we want to use those bigger events for is gather men and getting them connected to these small groups.”
Kelley echoed Mike’s sentiment that connection has been the key for the ministry. Among the smaller events the ministry has produced is the church’s first ever men’s rally which took place in October.
“Our mission statement is every man connected, and our men are telling me this ministry is making a difference,” Kelley said. “There was a big gap in men’s ministry at the church, so it did not take a lot to generate interest. The hard part was overcoming the inertia of not having anything at all before we started. We could not start at full speed. We had to start slowly, but the Noble Warriors conference was very inspirational to see what could be done. It was amazing to then see a great group of men at our own men’s conference later in the year.”
Kelley, who recently formed a small leadership team for the men’s ministry, credits Noble Warriors for inspiring his vision. “I probably would not have gotten things off the ground without Mike,” Kelley said. “This is obviously Mike’s passion, and getting to experience his passion for reaching men has really helped me.”
Kelley said ultimately the key to starting the ministry was just stepping out in faith. “God laid it on my heart, ‘What’s stopping you from doing this? There’s no reason for why can’t do it in our context, we just had to set out to do it.”
When you give to Noble Warriors, you help to equip men’s leaders like Kelley Miles to build a strategic men’s discipleship plan in their churches.