Whatever It Takes?

Some of the guys in my church have stumbled across a new ministry opportunity to reach men ... paintball. It all started when one of the men in my church, John Fuller, and his son, Zach, set up a small paintball course in the field next to their house. Over time, the course has grown as they added more and more obstacles and cover. They have even extended part of it into some adjacent woods.

John talked to me yesterday morning about the church officially backing their "Paintball Ministry." He reminded me of our motto that we have repeated over and over since we planted the church, "Whatever it takes."

I was intrigued. They invited me to play late yesterday afternoon, and I had a blast! There were thirteen men there, and six of them were not members or regular attenders at our church. John is convinced that this is a huge opportunity to reach out to the men in our community. We live in the hunting and fishing epicenter of the universe! And Fort Campbell is very close by. We have many military men within the vicinity of our church.

John's passion and his obvious success in outreach to men have started us thinking. We are even considering adding a paintball battlefield on the "back forty" of our 39-acre campus. We know that it is very different, and not very churchy. The more traditional churches in our area will probably verbalize a few negative comments about it. But if it reaches the men in our area, isn't it worth it?

What do you think? Isn't this the kind of "out of the box" thinking that we need in planting new and growing churches? What are some other creative, maybe even outlandish, ways that we could reach men? Please share your ideas.