What Is The Crucifix Ministry

A Little Bit of History

The Men of the Cross Ministry began about 8 years ago with someone wearing a St Benedict Crucifix and carrying one in his pocket to share with others. Others were encouraged to do the same. After several months, we had about 20 men wearing and sharing a St Benedict Crucifix. It was decided to call our group The Men of the Cross. Since that time, the ministry has grown to over 25,000 members! This has truly been through the grace of God since we are ordinary men with no evangelization expertise or marketing skills. We are a low-tech organization. We evangelize the “old-fashioned” way of “one-on-one evangelization.” Our plan is to “Just show up” and ask the Lord each day what He wants us to do and that has been the way we have developed the ministry.

The Three Pillars

The three pillars of the ministry are:

  1. Relationship– Wearing the Crucifix reminds us of the Lord’s presence with us always and encourages us to enter into dialogue with Him throughout the day. This helps us to grow in our relationship with Him.
  2. Identity– As we grow in relationship, we grow in knowing our true identity as beloved sons anddaughters of our Heavenly Father. Wearing a Crucifix is a badge we wear to remind us of our identity.
  3. Mission– Once we enter into a relationship with the Lord and learn our true identity, we can know our mission to share that love we have received with others. By wearing a Crucifix in public, we are showing that we are not embarrassed to share our identity as Christians. This opens the door to conversations where we can share our love for the Lord with others and offer them a Crucifix necklace to share in the Ministry. Someone may never talk to a stranger about religion or politics, but if you are wearing a Crucifix necklace you are telling others that it is all right to talk to you about religion.

The Women’s Crucifix

The ministry started out intended for men only. After about 5 years of the Men of the Cross Ministry, we had so many women wanting a St Benedict Crucifix that we decided to make crucifix necklaces for women. Still, our primary focus remains “Men of the Cross”.

Growing in Love for Jesus

We are in the business of growing in love with Jesus and sharing that love with others. We have a group of men we call “The Crucifix Assembly Team” that meets at Nativity Church on the First Friday of each month after the 8:00 am Mass. This team of volunteers assembles about 600 crucifixes each month. In the past 8 years, we have given out thousands of crucifixes.

How To Obtain More Crucifixes

You can obtain as many crucifixes as you would like from the Nativity Catholic Church (1825 11th Street South, Fargo, ND 58103) or email us.

Become A Member

We encourage you to become a member of the Men of the Cross Crucifix Ministry. There is no greater joy in life than sharing Jesus with others; that is what you do when you wear and share a crucifix.