At one time not that long ago, every presbytery in the Synod of the Trinity had a Presbyterian Men’s group. When the organization was flourishing, it used the skills and gifts of its members to assist congregations with their properties while also forming a bond among themselves to bring them closer to Christ.
But in 2025, only two presbyteries in the Synod (Pittsburgh and Beaver-Butler) have active Presbyterian Men’s chapters. It’s a troubling situation for Henk Bossers, who leads the Pittsburgh group and is trying to get this organization prevalent again in this region.
“It used to be, in the ’80s, a very strong organization,” Henk explained. “In the ’90s it was a very strong organization.”
But a disconnect happened regionally, and nearly all of the Presbyterian Men’s chapters stopped functioning because new leadership in those groups could not be found when leaders retired.
“Our goal is men’s spirituality and helping men’s spirituality further itself and how to work that out,” said Henk, a former pastor in Pittsburgh Presbytery.
“I take seriously my baptismal and my ordination vows. The baptismal vow is to follow Jesus and resist evil. I want to also be an ambassador for Jesus Christ.”
The Pittsburgh Presbyterian Men meet about every 6-9 months to discuss things like church finances, funding and maintenance. In 2021, the Pittsburgh PM released a 127-page Manual for Church Building Care and Related Operations, an example of the type of work this group has done and can do in the future if it can get enough volunteers.
“It’s the work of architects,” Henk said. “It’s an amazing document on how to do church maintenance. That’s probably the main thing I would say is the gift that Presbyterian Men has given to the whole denomination.
“Men need to know, that if they are good at plumbing, that could be a way of ministering. Someone might ask, ‘What can I do for the church?’ You can help an elderly lady fix her toilet. That’s a nice, kind thing to do.”
Not having a group of people to turn to during an emergency is a huge loss for the region, Henk said.
“I have about five or six people (in Pittsburgh) who are very active and knowledgeable that we’re trying to keep our act together,” Henk added. “We still have architects, we still have people in the building industry that would do anything (to help).”
Henk credits the late Eric Harrison for saving the Pittsburgh PM. His vision for the chapter helped keep it on its feet while other chapters were fading away.
“What he wanted to accomplish was, as a lay person who was working in the building industry, to use the talents of lay people to help local churches with their building programs,” Henk recalled. “From 2000-2010, he by himself basically insisted that males in the Presbyterian Church who did all of the maintenance work in all of the churches would start recruiting people to help other churches with their maintenance programs.”
Henk saw what Eric was trying to accomplish, and since Henk is a former mechanical engineer with skills that could assist this initiative, he teamed up with Eric to try to help get PM going again throughout the region.
“I saw how much was missing, so I started to work with Eric,” Henk said. “We together made sure that both spirituality and church maintenance became the work of Presbyterian Men in Pittsburgh Presbytery. We recruited an awful lot of people; we have quite a history there.”
It was at this time that Henk realized, as he looked around the Synod region, that many PM chapters were no longer active due to a lack of new leaders.
“I saw the incredible weakness of the Presbyterian Men in the Synod,” he recalled. “I saw the incredible dedication of very elderly gentlemen trying their best to get more people involved with their spirituality and getting nowhere.
“That split has totally diminished the presence of Presbyterian Men currently in all the other presbyteries except for Pittsburgh and Beaver-Butler.”
Henk says every presbytery in the Synod of the Trinity has a PM chapter, but they have mostly gone away because no one has stepped up to lead the groups after past leadership retired.
“Philadelphia had a strong chapter for the longest time and then they had so much turnover in their programs, and they lost it,” Henk said. “It’s not so much that it is brand-new, it’s basically busy people losing important stuff.”
Henk says the national Presbyterian Men organization is also in dire straits, with its leader (Bob Abrams) being 101 years old and no one seemingly stepping up to take his place.
“Male spirituality – that’s really what I’m trying to preserve,” Henk said. “My wife is in a prayer group and she’s getting all kinds of males, but they don’t want to have anything to do with the church. There are all kinds of male spirituality but it’s underground.
“Male spirituality is an invisible thing. We’ve been laying fallow. There is so much turnover in leadership and a heavy emphasis on reimagining everything. We need to have two generations of men step up to say, ‘How are we going to follow Jesus?’ or ‘How are we going to serve God?’ in a way beyond our local congregation.”
Henk would love to see a Synod PM bloom one day. But it will take buy-in at the presbytery level first before a regional PM is re-established.
“There are treasured pasts, and a treasured past needs to be preserved,” Henk said. “However, a dead treasured past needs to be dead. People desperately usually hang on to dead treasured pasts and prevent a new future. You don’t want to throw out the baby with the bath water, but we need to get rid of bath water. We have gotten rid of all the bath water, and we still have this baby alive and kicking.”
The Synod has a Presbyterian Women’s organization that has been able to survive through the years thanks to persistence and perseverance.
“The women’s organization was able to fight and separate themselves officially from the missional body,” Henk explained. “That has not happened with the males because they didn’t have anybody strong enough or fighting enough.”
That kind of energy is what Henk feels is needed to get PM chapters blossoming around the Synod region again.
“It’s time for us to pass on men’s spirituality and the significance thereof for the next generations,” Henk said. “We need to restore what was good so that the presbyteries are talking to each other, that male spirituality is important, and if men need to find a place to talk, they ought to go and talk either within their presbytery or to the Synod so that we become resources for local men to develop their spirituality.”
Anyone who is interested in contacting Henk about the work of Presbyterian Men and how to restart a chapter in their presbytery can contact him at 412-400-5970 or by email at bossers77@gmail.com.