Set Line — Set It and Let It Do the Work
Notes on Fishing for Men
“The fish might not be there when you set the line. But sometime in the night, they’ll pass by.”
My grandfather used to come up from the Chicago suburbs every other weekend in the summer to fish the chain of lakes near our home. He only had two days before it was back to work, so he made every hour count. One of his favorite methods was the set line.
A set line is a long main line with 10-15 hooks attached at intervals, weighted at both ends to hold it in position, with a float at each end for identification and retrieval. You set it, you leave it, and you come back the next day to see what found it overnight. The bait could be positioned on the bottom or suspended, depending on the species you were after. The fish don’t have to be there when you set it. You’re banking on the idea that at some point in the next several hours, they’ll pass within range and the bait will do its job.
That’s a picture of a certain kind of Kingdom fishing — the long game. The ministry programs and support structures that a church maintains not for a specific targeted person but for a variety of people at specific moments of need. Men’s groups, women’s groups, recovery programs, grief support, divorce care, mothers of preschoolers, single parent ministries.
These aren’t designed to catch everyone. They’re designed to be in the water when a specific kind of hungry person swims by. Someone whose marriage just fell apart finds the divorce care group. Someone whose drinking has finally broken something finds the recovery program. Someone who just lost their mother finds the grief support circle. The line was already set. The bait was already in the water.
The catch comes when the hunger meets the provision.
If one of these ministries connects with your own story — how you came to faith, what you walked through — that’s not an accident. That’s an invitation.
Get involved. Commit to the long haul. This kind of fishing takes longer but reaches further. -This is The Way
Here’s the link to the entire series:
https://www.thisistheway.live/t/fishing-proverbs