I’ve found that a very slight uptick in definition, common ground, and goals for ministry networking can lead to making the best use of the time when meeting with other Evangelicals. What exactly is this meeting and why am I going to it? Why are they wanting to meet with me? What piece of wisdom or experience or help can be gleaned from this time? And what can I give to serve them? 

When I was a brand new missions pastor, I was given a great piece of advice from the lead pastors that I reported to.
“Beware Evangelical talk,” they said.
“Given your position,” they continued, “you will have countless opportunities to meet and network with other pastors and people in ministry. Many of them will want to spend precious time talking about what they are about to do, or what they would like to see happen in the future (you will too). Watch out for this, and spend your time first actually getting things done, and then you will have something to talk about.”
I nodded and tucked this piece of advice away. Before long I found out just how necessary the warning was. I was inundated with invitations to meet with other ministry professionals to “connect,” “network,” and get to know one another. Some good came out of these meetings, and some important relationships were formed. But there were also many meetings where it wasn’t quite clear in the end why the meeting had taken place at all, beyond us feeling good about having spent some social time with a new person in a somewhat-related role. Plus, we were in Louisville, so the coffee was often quite good (Sunergos, Quills, Vint, etc.).
Group gatherings of ministry professionals could be the worst in this regard, and not only in ministry contexts in the West. This is a dynamic that also continues on the mission field when groups of workers from different organizations meet together. It usually goes like this. A bunch of evangelical ministry types feel the urge to meet together regularly because “unity” and “the kingdom is bigger than your church” and “don’t be tribal because that’s bad.” But these vague notions don’t often get any more defined than that. So the group meets, and when it’s time to share the bulk of the time is spent by those talking about exciting things that seem right about to get started – or it’s monopolized by someone who has had some measure of success and now believes that what they did is the silver bullet for everyone else’s context.
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We are deeply concerned by the crisis of young men dropping out of society. Despite so much bad news, we see many positives in the future. If men come together to support each other, this problem can and will correct itself. With the right support system, young men can achieve tremendous personal growth. 

There’s a strange thing happening in the American economy right now—what we read in the newspaper or see on TV doesn’t match what we’re witnessing with our own eyes. Job numbers reported in the media seem wonderful. Amazingly low unemployment that hasn’t been witnessed in 50 years! Hundreds of thousands of new jobs created monthly. Yet for all these rosy numbers, when we look at the real world, we see critically understaffed businesses, long waits for repairs, and customer service in the gutter.
America’s young men are in crisis, and the answer to this problem is spiritual, not economic or political. While the media continues to trumpet good news about the economy, the reason your real-life experiences don’t match such optimism is because these reports typically only give you part of the picture. What corporate media doesn’t tell you is that about 11 million jobs remain unfilled right now.
That’s why service is lousy everywhere and you can’t get a plumber. Those jobs go unfilled because millions of young American men between the ages of 25 and 54 aren’t working. At all. As Bloomberg reports, they’ve been left behind, with a lower percentage of men between those ages working than in 1970 — a statistic that emerged before the economic disaster brought by coronavirus lockdowns.
Millions of Young Men Doing Nothing All Day
So, how can millions of men be out of work when unemployment is extremely low? Easy, if you don’t count them.
Yes, the unemployment rate hovers at a record low figure, but this number doesn’t count all unemployed people. It only includes those who don’t have a job and are actively seeking one. This cheery (and erroneous) unemployment rate doesn’t count the millions of young men who aren’t looking for a job. Young males fitting this description are often referred to as “NEETs,” an acronym originating in the U.K. that stands for “Not in Employment, Education or Training.” These fellows aren’t working and, worse, aren’t interested in work.
Of course, this was already a growing problem in the last decade. But unemployment went full supernova during the coronavirus lockdown — and finally smart people are paying attention to it. Mike Rowe of “Dirty Jobs” fame recently hosted a podcast discussion on the crisis of young men not working.
To further understand the problem’s depth, Rowe interviewed economist Nicholas Eberstadt, who wrote “Men Without Work.” It explains the seriousness of this issue, documenting how the unemployment crisis goes far beyond simply not having a job. Too many men in their prime have fallen into a hollow existence. And their parents — and our tax dollars — subsidize such incredible waste.
What do such men do with their copious amounts of leisure? According to Eberstadt, they aren’t only not working. They aren’t going to church. They typically aren’t dating. They aren’t engaging in charity work or civic activities either, or even helping with housework.
Instead, they play video games, binge watch TV and movies, and, perhaps most concerningly, abuse drugs. So many young men are not only lost to our economy, but lost to their families as well. They are at risk of becoming another gloomy statistic in the opioid epidemic.
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This wonderfully expansive chapter of Mark has many challenging pills to swallow, the call to exhaustion and even death in Christian ministry. But what a neat finish Mark gives! Our labors are not in vain. Even if we do not see all God is doing through others, he is preparing the way. He is making the path straight. And though the labor he calls us to is challenging, the outcome is huge!

Imagine your kids and grandkids “need” to move away, such that you no longer get to see them regularly, that you miss seeing them grow up. This is never easy, but at least there is payoff. Often such a move is because of a career choice, making the medicine go down. Grandparents can bear some of the pain because there is a future to this: “At least our sacrifice will be worth it! The grandkids will attend great school because of extra income. And one day family, since the family will be cashed up, will have money to be with us, they will have a big enough house to have us stay!” These are some of the pros and cons a grandparent will be able to weigh up, Christian or not.
But what happens when none of these benefits exist? What happens when everything (apparently) is negative? What happens when Christians travel overseas to dangerous countries (for example) with little hope of any financial reward? “What on earth were they thinking exposing our grandchildren to this? How selfish! How thoughtless!” Or when it comes to our own kids as they enter the prime of life: “I really wanted my kids to follow Jesus.  But no way am I going to have them waste such a good education on this. They are too smart for Christian ministry. Let someone else do it—someone with lower earning potential anyway!”
What about following Jesus into the dangerous or unstable? Particularly in the West we say we value life highly. But what this often means is valuing our own lives so highly that it diminishes our view of sacrifice for Christ.
How do Jesus’ kingdom demands impact our expectations of friends and family? This is a huge question, one Mark has been subtly developing, now unpacked in Mark 6.  Prior to Mark 6 many of these themes have already been mentioned. We know, for example, from Mark 1:14 that John the Baptist was arrested. That must’ve shaken everyone up. But what happened to him? In Mark 6 we find out, in what Donahue and Harrington in their Sacra Pagina commentary on Mark describe as “one of the great stories in world literature,” the story of John’s beheading:
The cast of characters includes the scorned woman (Herodias), the charming and seductive young dancer (Herodias’ daughter), the powerful and elite members of the Galilean society, the righteous prophet (John), the weak-willed king (Herod Antipas), and that ruthlessly efficient executioner. (p. 201)
Mark 6 is a long chapter.  Why would Mark go into such detail here? Mark wants to prod and poke on something we all must stop to ponder, the cost of discipleship. The most brilliantly written parts of Mark, meant to draw us in, focus on the cost of being a disciple.
Mark has been writing about the cost of discipleship since the beginning of his gospel.  Craig Blomberg, in his book on the Gospels, reminds us how the gospels as biography work:
Ancient Middle Eastern writers were not as bound by logical, linear thinking as modern Western ones are. The Gospels, like most documents of their day, would have been written to be read aloud… so writing had to include repetition for emphasis and rhetorical markers that would make connections between section clear. The modern commentator always runs the risk therefore, of imposing too much structure or symmetry when trying to outline these books. (p. 115)
Mark is not a scientific journal, covering bullet-points: one, two, three. It is a narrative, rich and free flowing, a narrative with wave after wave of parallel teaching designed to hit us enough times to eventually knock us over. And in Mark 6 we encounter the biggest wave in the set!
This theme, the cost of discipleship, begins right at the start of Mark’s gospel, chapter 1:
16 As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 17 “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” 18 At once they left their nets and followed him. 19 When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. 20 Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him. (Mark 1:16-20)
This would have been hard, leaving family business with only the hired hands, a huge financial hit to their father as well as a painful personal loss!
Later in the same chapter Jesus is kind to Simon’s mother-in-law who was sick, with the result that the family home of Simon and Andrew is overrun by the crowds and turned into a mobile hospital for sick and demon possessed:
29 As soon as they left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew. 30 Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they immediately told Jesus about her. 31 So he went to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her and she began to wait on them. 32 That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. 33 The whole town gathered at the door, 34 and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.
I wonder how Simon’s father-in-law was feeling (if he was alive and lived there, too)?
This theme reaches its climax at the start of Mark 6, when Jesus goes back to his home town.  His disciples follow him (6:1), an echo of the first disciples, when Jesus called them away from their families to follow him; this was a call to go anywhere with him. But a very complicated dynamic faces them here:
Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. 2 When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. “Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him? What are these remarkable miracles he is performing? 3 Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. 4 Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” 5 He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. 6 He was amazed at their lack of faith.
The people cannot believe in Jesus because of family dynamics! They almost freeze him in time: “Remember ‘little Jesus’ who grew up here? Remember Jesus who was just like his siblings!” Now the locals still see those siblings and cannot believe that Jesus could go beyond the norm they have created in minds.
Such are the deep complexities of family! We can get so tied up within our families–which is not bad in and of itself–and end up limiting our future because of another’s perception. “This is who you are, not that. You are not a missionary; you are not a Christian worker. You are one of us, so stay like one of us!”
How does one navigate pushback if he or she becomes a Christian out of a non-Christian upbringing? How does one cut through expectations? Verses 5 and 6 paint quite a sad picture. The very power of God was restricted because of unbelief.  Jesus could not do any miracles (verse 5)! There is really no tying up of this mini narrative. It is simply left hanging.
Next…in a bonanza of vivid stories, the apostles are sent out on mission. The shift in storyline could not be more powerful: the narrative moves from the possible ‘stability’ of ‘home’ to utter instability, exactly the kind of issue that makes it difficult for those closest the called one to understand:
7 And he called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. 8 He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in their belts— 9 but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics. 10 And he said to them, “Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there. 11 And if any place will not receive you and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” 12 So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent. 13 And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them. (Mark 6:7-13)
The history of the day helps understand these instructions.
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