Men in the West don’t have an authentic style of worship that enables them to enter into the presence of God.

Readership: All; Men;
Theme: Validation; Awareness and Introspection;
Note: Based on an email discussion with Tubal Cain on 2025/6/10.
Length: 1,300 words
Reading Time: 7 minutes

A Time and Place for Worship

The expectations for us as men are tremendous.  They are all-consuming.  They are unbelievable.  They come in the form of people to see, places to be, things to do, and busy schedules.  They are incessant demands on your time and energy. They are notifications on your phone at all hours of the day and all hours of the night.  And it never stops.

There’s a part of us as men that wants to work, we want to succeed, and we want to get things done.  Men need to run that race.  They need to work out their energy.  They need to work hard towards their God ordained purpose in life.

That’s fine and good, but we cannot always be on the move like that.  If so, then we can’t get enough oxygen. We also need to catch our breath.

That’s what worship is for.  Worship is when man gets to BE before his Creator in a humbled state, being present in prayer, being present with the things that he is speaking from the depths of his heart when he’s reflecting on his life and his choices and his decisions or the future and the uncertainty the things that are happening around him, when he’s just with God.

This is what the modern Christian man seeks and craves.

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The Serenity of Worship

When a man wants to connect with God, he doesn’t go to a Pink Floyd or a Nickelback rock music concert.  He doesn’t go down into the city nightlife.  He doesn’t go to the pub and order a beer. He doesn’t go to a Starbucks, order a cappuccino, and say to himself, “I’m going to connect with God”.

No.  When a man wants to connect with God, he goes to the woods.  He goes to the mountains.  He goes to a secluded cabin.  He goes to see the ocean or the sunset.  He closes the door.  He turns off the cell phone.  He turns off the notifications.  He gets away from it all.

Why?  So that he can be present and he can focus. So that the glory of God can be manifested within his conscious awareness.

Case Study 1 — The Monks on Mount Athos

In a private message, Tubal Cain wrote of a marvelous piece of history that has been overlooked.

“I remember reading about the monks on Mount Athos.  They would go to sleep at 6:00 at night and then sleep for maybe 3 or 4 hours and get up at 9:00 or 10:00, after it was dark, after it was silent, after the whole world had gone to sleep, when you can feel the gravitational pull, when you can sense the darkness, the stars, the beauties of the heavens, when you can see the world peacefully at rest.  These monks would get up at this time and then they would start praying in a very simple, repetitive fashion.

“Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.”

Now, the Gospel warns against making repetitive prayers.  What Christ is talking about is droning on with a bunch of words that don’t mean anything to you, a bunch of nonsense, a bunch of filler talk, talking to God where you’re just blabbering and eventually have nothing more to say after 3 minutes.”

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“In contrast, what the monks were doing is saying the simplicity of the prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me”, but they were saying each prayer with intensity and focus.

When a man prays like this in the dark of night, when he stands before Christ in His presence, when he opens up his heart to examination, praying like this is worship.

This is what modern man craves.  He craves Stillness.  He craves a little bit of Silence in a noisy world.”

This is what the Western World, as well as many churches, don’t understand about worship.  Worship for a man is NOT emotional.  I don’t mean that man isn’t emotional, but that he’s NOT wanting to be psychologically evoked into a state of emotional frenzy like he is at a music concert.  He doesn’t need an emotional experience to connect with God.  That’s not how men work.  No man ever leaves a worship service and says, “Oh wow!  I was digging the guitar riffs. I wish they had more drums!  I wish they had more noise! Rock the hell out of me, for my eternal salvation!”  No.  Men want to be silent with God.

Case Study 2 — Fathers and Sons

When fathers connect with their sons, they don’t just sit down and have a long-winded conversation.  Serious lectures may be one aspect of being a father, but when you’re a father, you understand that a lot of being a father is just BEING with your boys and DOING things together, tackling projects and accomplishing things together.

That’s exactly what Man desires from his Heavenly Father.  He wants to be present with Him.  He wants to know that God is there for him at all times.  He wants to know that Christ is going through his struggles with him, and that He has already overcome them.  He wants to know that he’s loved and that he’s affirmed for who he is (which a woman can never provide).  He wants to feel that connection, Father to Son and Son with Father.

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No Place for Worship

The West has lost this connection to God.  Instead, it’s all about performance.  It’s about making an impression.  It’s about how well you measure up.  It’s about how much impact or noise you can make.  Ironically, it’s also about emotion.  It’s trying to evoke the impression of a participation that you’re NOT actually feeling.  It’s trying to put something on display or using some words or some terminology to push you emotionally, to stir your mind instead of your inner spirit.

Men know this is all fake posture posing and manipulation, yet we play along to get along.  But in our hearts, Christian men know that Real Men need to be in the presence of God.  We need to be still in our souls.  We need to know that God is there.  We need true worship, both alone in solace, and with others in a Divine Liturgy.  We need to be comfortable standing in our space, ruling over our God given domain, and just being present, NOT having a bunch of rational thoughts to explain … whatever, NOT having “a bunch of feelings” that would authenticate our participation among humanity, but just being there with God and connecting with Him in Spirit.

That’s exactly why we can’t give ourselves over to the false premises and promises of the World.

This is why, when you look at the attrition of Evangelicalism and the resultant influx to Eastern Orthodoxy, you’ll find many men who want a quiet, peaceful existence, and a calm, ordered home life, away from the crowds, the sensationalism, and the noise. They aren’t the only ones seeking a reprieve from the World.

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Benediction

I pray for every man who reads this essay that you might find the opportunity to go to a monastery and meet holy men who are wholly devoted to God at the cost of all else in this World.  Or to worship the Lord in a Divine Liturgy, given the chance.  Or that you might attend an evening candlelight service, and to stand in the church among trusted brethren in the faith, and be silent and be present with God, and to fix your mind on nothing but Him alone.

Let it be a foundational firmament of your faith.

To Him be all glory, honor, and worship, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Christ is risen, then, now, and forevermore!

Amen.

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