Freemasonry, Fellowship and Football

Earlier this year I wrote an essay on Freemasonry and the Anglican Church. As part of this I looked at its attractiveness (in days gone by) and its incompatibility with Christianity.

One of the things I identified was that as a church we are not good at doing the following things for men: discipling/mentoring; offering opportunities for them to use their leadership gifts within the church or directing them to healthy opportunities within the community; and doing fellowship that is meaningful/edifying. Freemasonry does all three well.

I think the beginning of creating a church that can do these things starts with creating good fellowship and recognising that most guys don’t orient well around “catching up”, but instead activities.

One of the things I’ve really enjoyed in the last months is my football (indoor soccer/futsall! I look forward to it every week! It has given me some of the recreational space I’ve been looking for and I come away each week feeling refreshed. My wife loves that I’ve got more to give her as a result of me getting some space and I love it! Win-win! We often head out for a cool beverage after the game – its all part of the deal. We’ll chat about life, talk about the game, talk about faith. All good fellowship and lots of fun!

I’ve realised how much I need this time and I think a lot of other guys do as well! You look at guys who do exercise together (cricket, cycling, running..etc): they’re generally very committed to the time and each other because they love it and the fellowship that occurs there.

Why aren’t more of our churches doing things like this that enable opportunities for guys to share life and faith in ways like this?

I could see this being the entry point leading to discipleship and then men stepping up in leadership… but in order to meaningfully connect we need to do these sorts of things regularly…I’m talking weekly! Not just a monthly card night!