One more sharing coming out of our Proverbs discussions last Wednesday morning at our ecumenical Bible study.

What I shared was Proverbs 27:17:  "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."

The verse could be good for not only men, but for women, or any group or two people who talk together or meet in a group setting.

There is a group of guys in Clarion, known as IRON MEN. It had its beginnings in June and July of 2013 with our Clarion Church of Christ minister Warren Curry at the helm.

He shared that he had spent some time in a "dry waste land" and went to the church office and spent the night in prayer, struggling with where he was going to go from here. "It seemed like God wanted me to do this," he said, "but I told God that my plate was already full. He quickly gave me names of 35 guys to invite with this idea of men reaching out to other men, from a variety of local churches."

The first meeting began on a Tuesday early morning in September of that year with 17 attending, so the group of Iron Men will celebrate its 10th anniversary in September. "We never had below 17 in the first nine months of our being together, with a high of 27," Curry said. 

They have now settled in to numbers in the low to high teens, rarely ever missing one week. From those humble begins birthed another group which meets in Clarion on Wednesday evenings. Another one is meeting in Zearing, Iowa. Two more are currently meeting - one in Minnesota and another in South Dakota.

So what happens at the meetings? "We encourage one another," said Curry. "We remind each other as we focus on marriage and family relationships; our jobs, our relationships with God. Any struggles we might be having with any other areas of our lives." He said at one time they did a survey of the top two things guys had learned:  first, they were spending more time reading their Bibles; second, they realized they were not alone in their thoughts and struggles.

"Iron continues to sharpen IRON"..