All posts by amccarty012

I first and foremost a Christ follower. i grew up in the church and have been a part of a plethora of different communities. This in some aspects means i don't feel at home in any one group as I don't quite fit into any of them. After that I am a husband and father. In a life plot twist we never saw coming my wife is a children's minister in a small town. We have a three year old daughter who is just as opinionated as I am and often times just as stubborn. I am constantly learning which leads to me holding many opinions loosely. However, if you hit a subject that I find important I will fight to the death on it.

Introduction

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In the past I have just written posts whenever I felt like writing about something usually just to vent or process some sort of event in my life. However, I have now decided to start writing about Christianity and masculinity. Now to be clear I will not endorse overly masculine Christianity. I believe that there is too much time and money put into making the church “more masculine”. I believe that men need to act like Jesus and while Jesus was at times confrontational and spoke harshly he was also gentle and loving in fact more often than not Jesus erred on the side of grace towards others except for a select few groups.

My plan for this series of posts is to discuss things that we see in scripture as things that we are commanded to do and what that means for men. I will try to use examples from the lives of some of the men I have learned from. For now, I plan on only using examples from those I have had a personal relationship with that have died. Most of these men are family with a few exceptions. I do not expect to waiver from this group but if I do, I will let you all know at the beginning of the post. My goal with this is to hopefully challenge those in the church who have been apathetic about their role as men in the church and to challenge the current understanding of men’s ministry.

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My dad would have been 56 today. He took his own life 9 years ago next month. Our relationship wasn’t great but the day of his memorial service is one of my top 3 worst days of my life. When you lose a parent either in early adulthood or earlier you get a lot more chances to be reminded that they aren’t there for a lot of life milestones. I graduated college the year after he died, I got married 2 years later. My daughter was born 4 years later. These are times when your dad is supposed to come alongside you and give you advice. Then there are all the holidays and birthdays as well as the anniversaries of their death.

That part is hard. Even writing about his death remembering those things he has missed is tough. However, the hardest part about my dad’s death was and continues to be the things that were missed while he was alive. I remember the whole memorial service but the thing that stands out to me was what happened after the service ended. As people got up to give their condolences, they made their way to the two people they could easily identify as family, my stepmother because well that’s obvious and then despite not knowing me they came to me. I am my dad’s first born but what drew then to me is that I look like my dad to the point that many of his lifelong friends remark about it anytime they see me.

The conversations that took place during this time taught me that my dad loved me was proud of me and talked to his friends about me often. Friends of his I never met knew my name, they knew where I was going to college and what I was studying. Some even asked about the internship that was supposed to start the next day. This shocked me. My dad and I had only reconnected over the last year. Before that he had only texted me once a year on my birthday just to say happy birthday but there was never a follow up. Here I was 22 years old finding out just how much my dad had loved me even if he hadn’t known how to show that or say it for several years.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because this story has shaped a lot of my life since and has a major impact on how I interact with my daughter. I went 10 years without being told directly by my dad that he was proud of me or loved me. When I did hear it I had to hear it from his friends. People always say you should tell people how you feel about them because you never know when or if you will see them again. I agree but I want to offer a reframing of that idea. Live and interact with others in a way that they do not have to hear from others how much you loved them when your gone.

This is more than just saying you love someone or are proud of them. This is being intentional in your interactions with them. It means talking them up when they are around not just when they leave the room. This means enabling them to achieve and grow.

Before we end, I want to say two more short things. First, my relationship with my dad was not solely his fault. We both made decisions, and this didn’t happen in a vacuum there were many things that were outside of our control as well that hindered us from building a better relationship. Second, if you need help reach out to someone whether that be a friend or a hotline the resources are out there, and people love you.