July 28, 2026

Meaningful Relationships

By Nate Flynn · 6 minute read

July 2026

Dear Leader,

Do you ever find it difficult being a leader? I don't just mean the challenges of managing people and tasks and expectations. The constant communications, people in need, sermon prep, budget questions, conflicts and questionings of motivation, the constant pressure to always be "on."

What I mean is the difficulty of living the life we're trying to lead others into.

Our mission at Man in the Mirror is to engage men in meaningful relationships that change lives and build the Kingdom of God. This month, I want to hone in on that idea of "meaningful relationships." We know it's a great need for men. And yet, many of us are surrounded by people and still feel alone. We have circles, but not companions. We have teammates, but not brothers.

I've been feeling this tension personally: I can have a lot of friendships and still not feel deeply known. And when I'm not being known, I'm not sure I'm experiencing the kind of life change that produces lasting Kingdom impact.

If meaningful relationships are part of the mission, then isolation can't be treated like a private issue. We can't lead men into meaningful relationships if we're leading from isolation. This month, let's talk about what it looks like to take one honest step towards something meaningful.

In Christ,

Nate Flynn

Area Director

Leader Letter July 2026 Cover Photo tagline

Insights from the Model

What Men Need

We've talked before about the "Five Types of Men." When we understand where a man is on the "Wide to Deep Continuum," - in other words, where he is on his spiritual journey, then we can better understand how to give him what he NEEDS in the context of what he WANTS.

When it comes to relationships, a man on the wide side wants buddies to hang out with. What he really needs is companionship with purpose. He needs to be recruited into the army of God.

Once he has been recruited, he discovers something powerful: an army of men with a common connection in Christ. But simply existing in this commonality doesn't fully satisfy a man's desires. He needs to engage in the battle that Ephesians 6:10-18 calls us to.

As a man engages, he needs to be equipped and affirmed. Within the army, he finds a Band of Brothers who take up arms together and are committed to the mission and one another.

When these men have been through thick and thin, when they have fought in the trenches together and seen the good, the bad, and the ugly - not just of the world but of each other - something deeper forms. They become "Foxhole Friends." Men who stick closer than a brother. Men who don't just attend together, but endure together. Men who truly Leave No Man Behind.

Engage in the Battle for Men's Souls

This past year, one of our Men’s Discipleship Leaders has walked through a season that would have shaken almost anyone.

After the loss of a senior leader, his church entered a prolonged season of uncertainty and change. As challenges mounted, the strain wasn’t just organizational—it was personal. There were real moments when he and his family wondered if it was time to step away and begin again somewhere else.

And yet, in the middle of all that instability, something steady kept happening. Week after week, he continued to show up for the men.

Not because everything around him was healthy or easy, but because he believed God was still at work. While big-picture leadership felt shaky, he stayed focused on what he could faithfully do: meet with men, open the Word, pray, listen, and keep building disciples one relationship at a time.

What’s been remarkable is that the ministry hasn’t merely survived—it’s bearing fruit. Men are engaging. Conversations are deepening. Ownership is growing. The kind of quiet, consistent impact that doesn’t always make announcements, but changes lives.

When we talked recently, he shared something that truly encouraged my heart. He said that in the moments he felt closest to leaving, one of the things that helped him hang on was surprisingly simple: He didn’t want to make the call and tell me he was quitting.

Not simply because he feared disappointing me—but because the relationship and support mattered that much. The coaching, encouragement, and accountability weren’t just “resources.” They were a lifeline in a hard season. A reminder that he wasn’t alone, and that what he was doing still mattered—even when the broader situation felt uncertain.

This is the kind of impact we pray for:
not just programs that run, but leaders
who endure. Not just momentum
when things are easy, but faithfulness
when things are hard.

And by God’s grace, because one leader kept showing up, men are being discipled—and the local church is being strengthened from the ground up.

Celebrating 40 Years of Man in the Mirror.

Your Action Step:

Leverage the Current Moment

______________________________

In 2020 Man in the Mirror launched a new division of our ministry called "Mirror Labs." It exists to address the unique cultural challenges facing young men today.

Labs was integral in a lot of the research that went into our Spiritual Fathers initiative, and last year they launched the first ever "State of Young Men" report.

Things have seemingly changed quite rapidly in the years since Covid. When we launched Spiritual Fathers, much of our research was focused on Millennials - men who are roughly 30-45 years old. We talked about the rise of the nones - people who don't affiliate with any religious identity. We reported on the "great de-churching" - for the first time in eight decades of Gallup research, more people were NOT attending church than those who were.

Those realities still matter, especially for Millennials, but something is happening now with GenZ - men who are 15-30 years old. There has seemingly been much ado about Gen Z returning to faith, with suggestions that a revival is happening. I've observed some of this personally, and there are genuinely encouraging signs.

Still, we want to take an honest look at what's happening so we can align ourselves with what God is doing in this generation of men.

From the 2026 State of Young Men report, what it seems to suggest is that there is a "stabilization" when it comes to spirituality in young men. Decline has slowed, and the posture is shifting. It might not be to the point of Revival, but it certainly creates leverage if we meet these men in the right ways.

When it comes to faith and spirituality, young men are:

Less hostile
More curious
Searching for order
Open to formation

There are 5 core signals that we see:

Disaffiliation has plateaued in our recent data
The gender gap in church attendance is narrowing
Many young men are expressing a desire for marriage and legacy
Religious men are reporting a higher sense of flourishing
Women are disaffiliating faster than men in some cohorts

Stabilization changes our strategy.

We are not operating in "decline only" territory anymore, but we are operating in an environment marked by:

Fragile openness
Institutional distrust
Identity instability
Hunger for formation

For churches, we believe there needs to be a core shift. The "old question" that most churches have asked is "How do we get men to show up?" The "new question" we should consider is: "What path of formation do men walk here?"

This communicates something young men are desperate to hear: "We want to help shape you into the man God is calling you to be."

Some practical moves that we can make as churches include:

Creating structured brotherhood
Elevating fatherhood discipleship
Replacing event-driven men's ministry with vision-driven formational pathways
Speaking directly to the male identity - especially in areas like AI, work, and purpose. Silence on these issues will sound like we don't care.

When it comes to AI, this is not just an economic or environmental consideration. For young men, it's existential. Men are subconsciously asking "If my intelligence is replaceable, what makes me valuable?" The Church must answer the problem of identity, not just morality.

There is a Father leverage point here as well. The data shows that Spiritual Fathers multiply generational impact. If you want next-gen disciples, you have to start with dad.

When early signs of a spiritual shift in GenZ started circulating, I observed a troubling reaction among some older Christian men - the very men we've been working hard to equip.

Every young person we talked to said they would like to have an older man walk alongside them in life.

Every older man that we talked to saw the problems that younger men were facing and agreed that they needed help.

But when it came time for those older men to step up and step into the lives of these younger men, only a handful had the courage to do so. I want to celebrate those men!

Other men, however, disqualified themselves, made excuses, or withdrew out of fear. I don't say that to disparage them, but it is the reality.

So, the problem I saw when initial inklings of GenZ returning to church came out was almost a sigh of relief from many of these older men. As if to say "Oh good, now we don't have to do anything."

But that is the wrong attitude and mindset. Even if there is full-on revival with young men, they still need to be discipled. They still need older men to show them the way, walk with them, and care about them.

So let's be clear about this current data and what we mean by "stabilization." It's not revival, it's not momentum, it's not guaranteed growth.

IF churches will respond with clarity, then we can leverage the current moment into something real.

But if we do not, we believe that drift will resume.

There is an opportunity before us. The answer to every problem remains the same - we must disciple our way out. We have an opportunity here to form men into who God wants them to be.

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