Men Of Today - Why? How?
By: Bill Spencer
The Men of Today has been in existence at Renaissance Unity (formally The Church of Today, hence our name) for some seven years now - formed immediately after what turned out to be an especially powerful and meaningful church sponsored retreat in Ypsilanti. For a number of years, the Church of Today, now Renaissance Unity, had sponsored annual 2 & 3 day week-end retreats for the men of the church at off site locations such as Weber's Inn, Ann Arbor. The last three retreats featured John Lee, Robert Bly, Joe Lauer, and Kip Adato. Those men in concert, all writers and proponents of furthering men dealing with their issues in today's times, took the church retreats to a whole new high. No one, absolutely no one, left those last three annual retreats without being dramatically moved to take their lives, our lives into an entire new level of purpose and meaning. All of us pledged to ourselves to dig deep into figuring out what and who we are. What our purpose here as men, is and not the least of which, what makes us happy? What makes us feel needed, fulfilled and on the trail of our chosen purpose for being here, our life destiny and the pursuit of inner peace for each of us!
Joe Lauer (my personal favorite speaker) defined inner peace as a man taking responsibility for his own life decisions, reaching inside himself in a self imposed quiet moment, and really resolving once and for all what makes him happy and then going forward, acting decisively on those decisions, and then finally being content with his decisions and the outcome! Those last three retreats were SO powerful, and so meaningful to us (and most of us who make up the Men of Today steering committee) that we could not in good conscience come home to our own wonderful church without sharing what we had learned with other men - what had been opened in us by these incredible speakers. We could not tolerate waiting until next year's retreat to resume our work on ourselves and make the progress needed toward total life fulfillment, so we started the monthly Men of Today breakfast! With its fundamental purpose to give
men a chance to come together with other men, to stop the self imposed isolation that many men get into due to their unspoken pain, frustrations or personal shortcomings. One of the speakers said, statistics had shown, that only one man in ten had a friend close enough and trusted enough to confide his deepest sorrow and concerns to while almost all women (100%) have at least one friend they can confide their deepest stuff. Most women have two or three friends that they can confide in. I was the one in ten without! The Men of Today has sought to help foster small support groups of ten men, or less, which we have learned are the proper size for deep trust and friendship to form. Where the real work and progress can get done! The Men's breakfast seeks to publish and disseminate information about other Men's groups around the cit
