It Began with a Word

After pastoring, evangelizing, missionary travels and a career in Christian television, it was in February 1980, at a men’s retreat in the mountains of Oregon, where God gave Dr. Cole a word, that Israel’s five sins are those which today still keep men from their personal “Land of Promise.”

The response to repent was so compelling that, within two months, the first citywide men’s rally was held. Drawing only 38 men, the men’s movement was nonetheless started, and four years later, 7,800 men attended the first National Christian Men’s Event in the United States.

In July 1980, Campbell McAlpine prophesied that Dr. Cole’s budding men’s ministry would become “a new threshing instrument with a sharp cutting edge,” based on Isaiah 41:15. At that time, Christians were focused on the ministry of pastors, not men’s ministry. By January 1981, Dr. Cole was still ministering with two Christian television networks, acting as a chancellor for a school of ministry in San Diego, helping establish a worldwide radio ministry and pastoring a congregation. On April 24 1981, at a meeting in California, again God used a choice servant to bring direction. George Otis, Sr. said, “The ministry is running late.”

With twenty-four hours, Dr. Cole resigned every ministry, including the church. The following day he purchased an IBM typewriter, and the ministry to men was underway. In July 1981, the office moved from the kitchen to the Cole’s garage, then finally to rented office space in Corona del Mar, California. In September 1984, the operations moved to the Dallas, Texas area, where Dr. and Mrs. Cole moved in 1993 and spent their last ten years of life and ministry, surrounded by children and grandchildren.