2001
Vision New England Men’s Ministries develops and offers two identical One-Day Men’s Conferences to New England churches. These conferences have main sessions with worship and national speakers as well as a variety of equipping seminars designed specifically for men. Conference title is “Light in the Darkness”.
2002
Two new conferences with a change in theme to “Men of Honor”.
2003
Conference theme changes to “IRON SHARPENS IRON” and begins to utilize national presenters with expertise in ministry to men.
2004
It is decided to keep the ‘Iron Sharpens Iron’ conference theme. Two full day conferences and three half-day conferences are offered.
2005
Third year in row for the Iron Sharpens Iron conference theme. All four conferences are full day events with sixteen seminars.
2006
Iron Sharpens Iron is now in its fourth year plans are underway to build a national network of conferences for 2007.
2007
Regional Ministries across the nation collaborate to develop a National Conference Network using the conference model that began in New England. Twenty-four conference cities host an IRON SHARPENS IRON One- Day Men’s Conference with more to come in 2008.
2008-2010
In 2008, sixteen different ministries hosted a total of thirty-six of these one-day equipping conferences as a resource for churches in their region.Twenty-one different regional men’s ministries host forty-nine Iron Sharpens Iron Men’s Conferences with plans to expand in 2011.
2011 to 2014
The Conference Ministry continues to grow as twenty-six different regional ministries focused on men host over 58 different conferences across the nation. Each conference network serves as a champion for the movie, “Courageous”, as they equip the churches in their geographic region to train men for spiritual leadership int the home, church and community.
2015 to 2017
In 2015 Iron Sharpens Iron started developing resources targeted to Men’s Ministry Leaders. These resources include PastorPrayerTeam.org, Breakfast DVDs, The Men’s Bible, The Life Of David Bible Study, and our new resource Engage: Building Your Church Based Ministry To Men.
2018 to 2019
The conference ministry continues to grow and now over 500.000 men have now attended an Iron Sharpens Iron One-Day Men’s Equipping Conference. The different conference ministries meet during the summer at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY for
training and brotherhood.
2020 to 2021
The onsite conference ministry was put on hold but the summer online ministry expanded as men of all ages took advantage of over 100 different seminars on topics that were specific to men. We all recognize that despite challenges, men need tools and training because when we
build godly men – everyone wins!
2022 to 2023
The Iron Sharpens Iron blog was launched by Brian Doyle to sharpens and encourage men. Find it at ironsharpensiron.blog The ministry also launched Fatherhood Tune-Ups for dads and declared the entire month of June as National Fatherhood Month!
2024 to 2025
The ministry continues to expand with a new weekly podcast titled ‘Building Men’ and a ten week Men’s Ministry Leader Training and Certification. All of this while the conference ministry hits the 25 Year marker and a total of 504 one-day men’s equipping conferences.