The Rest of the Story
What the story behind Daily Strength for Men?

Chris Bolinger had struggled with being consistent with his devotional, and some other guys in his men’s group had admitted to similar struggles.

“What I wanted was a daily devotional that gave me – and men like me – a shot of strength from God’s Word,” Bolinger said. “But I wanted more than that. I wanted to be challenged to go further in my walk with Christ. I wanted stories of men who had overcome obstacles, who had kept their faith under pressure. And I wanted encouragement, because I felt discouraged by the weight of the challenges and stress in my life and the lives of my friends and family members.”

Bolinger started looking for such a devotional. Months later, he was still looking.

So he went to the Bible and started writing down verses that encouraged him as a man. When his list reached 100 verses he began assembling devotional material to bring these passages to life. Within a year, Bolinger had the beginnings of a new kind of men’s devotional.

Daily Strength for Men is unique in two ways:

1. Daily Strength for Men is drawn completely from the Old Testament.

2. Each devotion spans two days. On Day One subscribers receive a devotional and a prayer. On Day Two they read the Bible passages and grapple with life application. “Two days gives you the time you need to digest a passage of Scripture, especially the Old Testament, which is not terribly familiar to a lot of today’s Christians,” Bolinger said.

The complete devotional will be available from BroadStreet Publishing beginning in November 2018. Not wanting to wait that long to have men read and benefit from the devotional, Bolinger approached Church for Men about a partnership.

“I’ve worked with Chris before and know that he has a heart for helping men grow deeper in their faith,” says David Murrow, director of Church for Men. “A lot of men will benefit from his unique approach to daily devotions.”

Church for Men has reformatted each day in the devotional as an email. By signing up on the Church for Men website, you can have each day’s devotion delivered to your Inbox until November, at which point you’ll get a few devotional excerpts each week.

Bolinger was a tech entrepreneur during the dot-com boom. He’s parlayed that success into several ministry ventures, including Christian films, a church revitalization ministry and the Daily Strength for Men devotional. He lives in northeast Ohio and sheepishly admits to still being a Cleveland Browns fan.