The 2015 Men's NetWork Fishing Tournament concluded at midnight on September 6. This year's re-stated emphasis on utilizing fishing as an outreach opportunity brought us some interesting entries from guys on the water. We heard from a number of fishermen who took on our frequent exhortations to invite some unchurched friends or family members to go fishing. Of these, we thought the best example of what we were looking for came from Joel Brutcher. In his adventure, Brutcher hit the nail on the head: invite a friend fishing and, as opportunity allows, take some time to share your faith and a bit about Jesus. In his words: "Today before we began fishing as we were sitting in the boat I told Craig (his buddy) I'd like to start the day with prayer, and he agreed. We prayed for safety, the safety of others, that Jesus would be present with us in the boat that day and, of course, that we would catch some fish."
Simple yet profound. We thanked Mr. Brutcher for his story and, as the "group" winner (those who went fishing with at least one other unchurched individual and who sent us a narrative about their adventure), he nets the $500 gift card for his group story. He concluded, "As always the Lord answered our prayers, but we are going to have to be more specific on the size of the fish we pray for next time (ha ha). Craig agreed with me on that one. I am continuing to pray for Craig that the Holy Spirit would work in him and eventually he would come to church with me."
All this is not to say there wasn't some serious fishing taking place this year. To see the top catches for 2015, click on "Check out the leaders," which is a link located on the front page of the Men's NetWork web site at www.lhm.org/men.