c. 2007 Religion News Service
SURREY, British Columbia _ Ed Trainer serves his Lord by taking men and boys out fishing on the waters of British Columbia, Alaska and beyond.
His group, International Fishing Ministries, rose up out of Trainer’s own passion for fishing, his frustration with traditional worship and statistics suggesting most church pews are populated by women.
“Church is too boring for men,” says Trainer, 51. “For men, I think the great outdoors can be a cathedral. Men open up when they’re out on the water. It’s a place they can share their fears, problems and vulnerability.”
His year-round ministry, which has been in operation for more than a decade, is one of several across North America aimed at luring more men into looking into their souls and committing to the Christian way.
The large home Trainer and his wife and ministry partner, Barbara, keep on their property near a marina is crammed with fishing rods, mounted fish and scores of photos of men holding big salmon, sturgeon and other fish.
Trainer describes how he became a “fisher of men,” a phrase based on one of Jesus’s admonitions to his disciples, because he became bored with so many ministers’ sermons.
“Church is set up like a country club for women. For me, after five minutes of a sermon, I’m off in my mind fishing on some stream somewhere. Other men are thinking about the hockey game.”
Indeed, it was the mid-1990s when former Vancouver Canucks hockey player Ryan Walter, a fellow evangelical, urged Trainer, then a church music director, to start a ministry in which men could gather together in nature, reduce their stress and be offered a sympathetic ear.
“We decided to go out into God’s creation, pointing men to a Christian experience through fishing,” Trainer says.
Trainer keeps an 18-foot Cobra jet boat on British Columbia’s Fraser River, with a 350 horsepower motor. He’ll sometimes lease larger boats or camp out near a river or lake where he’ll teach up to 70 men and boys at a time how to fly fish.
More than half the group’s clients come from outside Canada, including Australia, Europe and the U.S., where both Trainer and his wife were raised. The ministry is largely supported by private church donations, he says, and costs about $140,000 a year to operate.
Trainer figures about 10 to 15 percent of the guys who go fishing with him “make a commitment” to Jesus Christ without later falling by the wayside. But he doesn’t really count. And he doesn’t push too hard for conversion, wanting the move toward Christian belief to come naturally.
Along with his fishing ministry, Trainer says he likes what he’s heard about another novel manifestation of a male-friendly Christian experience: The Church For Men, in Daytona Beach, Fla.
With no women allowed, The Church for Men meets in a gym, features a rock band and a sports “shot clock” by which the casually attired men can tell whether the preacher is living up to his guarantee of a “one-hour-in-and-out” worship service.
David Murrow, author of “Why Men Hate Going to Church,” says studies show the average U.S. congregation is 61 percent female. Murrow says many men see church-going as soft, uncomfortable, “womanly” behavior.
Although evangelicals such as Trainer have put energy into inventing male-friendly ministries, the lack of men in the pews is a concern for most Christians.
For instance, the moderator of the liberal United Church of Canada, David Giuliano, says his 600,000-member denomination must find creative ways to be more welcoming to men and less judgmental of them.
Even some women agree. “The church has been feminized, says Barbara Trainer, who serves as office manager for International Fishing Ministries. “It appeals to women in that it focuses on emotion and children and coffee. It’s not bold enough for men.”
Strolling along the dock of a marina, Ed Trainer says he never gets preachy out on the open water.
“My conversation is my sermon,” he says.
KRE/LF END TODD675 words
Photos of Trainer and other men fishing are available via https://religionnews.com
