Men's and Women's Ministry

Our Ministries for Men and Women:

Del Rey Church is blessed to have amazing ministries for our men and women. To learn more about our men’s ministry or women’s ministry, just click on the tabs below or in the menu.

Men’s Ministry

Women’s Ministry

 

Our Approach to Discipleship for Guys and Gals

At Del Rey Church we firmly believe discipleship happens in community with the body of Christ. Within the body, we believe it is vitally important to intentionally organize cell groups for discipleship, most specifically groups for men and women. This belief is an outflowing of our theological commitments in the Danvers Statement and years of practical outworking of the teaching of the Bible. Overall, we passionately believe that it is imperative in discipleship and healthy community life that men train men and women train women. God has uniquely designed men and women for this, and He has offered the family unit for the most logical place for this to occur, with fathers training sons and mothers training daughters. Unfortunately, most of us come from homes where this did not occur, and some are in homes that due to tragedy or circumstance a mother or father was absent. Hence, the call of discipleship for men and women is so crucial in our day.

While we believe that men are to lead the church as a whole, we complimentarily maintain that women need to lead the women. It would be foolish and even dangerous for a man to gather a group of women to train and teach them. Likewise, it would be foolish and dangerous for a woman to gather a group of men and make disciples of them. In many liberal churches today, radical feminism prevails, and women are allowed to lead the church. They caricaturize us biblical Christians as being oppressive or discriminatory since we believe in male leadership, and yet they miss that we are consistent in holding that men should not disciple women and women should not disciple men. 

This approach to ministry is seen quite clearly in the ministry of Jesus. Overall, Jesus led a group of men and women, as do the male pastors of our church. However, Jesus chose to intentionally organize a cell group of twelve men for discipleship. He did not choose twelve men because he considered men to be superior beings, as radical feminists today attack complementarian churches like ours. No, Jesus chose men because He knew it would be foolish for Him to disciple women.

This approach is seen in Titus 2:3-5 in which the Apostle Paul instructs the older women to teach the younger women. It is their responsibility to help the younger women to develop true Christian character. This is especially true in a church with a lot of women. In a society with a lot of widowed or divorced women, it would be foolish for men to take responsibility for discipling them. Where men disciple women, and women disciple men, gossip and temptation follow closely behind. In addition, men do not know what it is like to be a woman in order to contextualize and apply discipleship.  Furthermore, men and women have been given different roles by God, so it is helpful to be trained by one in your role as opposed to an outsider who has a different role.

With all of the above said, it is important to not assume the opposite, that is, that we don’t see value in men and women learning together. We firmly believe that guys can learn from the ladies and vice versa. In addition, we believe it is important for men and women to be together in community. After all, we are brothers and sisters in this family, and what sort of family would we be if only the brothers hung out and excluded their sisters, and vice versa? We need each other. Hence, we encourage everyone to be in a Community Group that has men and women, in addition to attending the gender exclusive disciple training that we offer.

 

Our Rationale in Church Programs for Guys and Gals:

We allot about 40 weeks of the year to men’s and women’s groups combined, which we intentionally stagger so that we don't overwhelm families with the overlap.  We also schedule these with other ministries in mind like our Community Groups and Bible Institute classes, which we want our men and women to join.  

The overall aim of the church weekly calendar is not to overload people with meetings, so that they have no time to be on mission during the week with the lost. Many Christians attend churches that keep them busy for the majority of the week (e.g. singles’ group, men’s group, mid-week Bible study, Sundays, volunteering, etc.), leaving no time to dwell with the lost and share Christ outside of the church's programs. And for many church-goers, this is an excuse for not living on mission for the gospel, because discipleship is canned and done for you. The challenge of radical discipleship in the world gets lost in the comforts of prefab church programs.

Anyway, we're sensitive to all of that and careful with our limited resources, so that's why we don't have men's and women’s gatherings running on a more regular calendar schedule. However, not having programs should never deter a man or woman from having relationships with other men and women for community. We all need bonding with members of the same gender, so we hope you will, and we encourage you to form organic relationships with others that sharpen your faith and glorify God. If you are in need of some help finding relationships for discipleship and fellowship, just let us know and we will connect you with a fellow brother or sister for discipleship, fellowship, accountability or whatever you need.