By KEVIN CHIRI

Editor and Publisher

LAPLACE – Dr. La Fayette Scales has never been one to shy away from what he believes is preaching the truth.

As the pastor of an inner-city church in Columbus, Ohio, he has spent 35 years preaching, with an emphasis on encouraging and teaching men to be strong in their Christian faith.

That was never more evident than one night in Columbus at his home church, Rhema Christian Center, when he taught on the message of men not “shacking up” with women, but only living together if they are married.

“I believe that at one point this gentleman in the audience got elbowed by the woman he was with, who he was apparently living with although they were not married,” Scales told a room full of men this week at New Wine Fellowship in LaPlace.

The result was that the man in the audience headed up to the stage to confront Scales after the service was over, obviously so incensed that anyone suggest he shouldn’t be allowed to live together—married or not.

“It took a couple of my men to take this man outside,” Scales said with a laugh, “but it showed how the word of God can make an impression on you. Ever since then, some of the elders in my church have insisted that I have some men ready to watch out for me, since you can imagine the crowd we preach to on a regular basis right down in the middle of Columbus, Ohio.”

Scales brought that same charged message to the men in attendance at New Wine on Tuesday night, where the church hosted a special service night for men only, hoping to encourage and challenge them to be strong in their Christian faith.

Scales, who trained for many years under nationally known men’s ministry leader Dr. Edwin Louis Cole, feels the same calling to stir up men to be strong and serious in their faith.

“God said in the Bible that if he could change a man, he could change a spouse, a child, a family, a church and a nation,” Scales remarked. “But it first has to start with Christian men standing up.”

The message this night was about strength and courage, two character traits that are similar, but not quite the same.

Scales explained that strength is something contained inside us, while courage is the ability to act on that inner strength, especially when those actions are not the popular thing to do.

“When we as men have courage, it makes us a hero to our wife and children,” he said. “And every man in here should be the biggest hero your children knows.”

He talked about men who find their wife or girlfriend constantly complaining about their actions, noting that the problem might not be where they think it is.

“When a man acts like a child, he forces his woman to act like his mother,” Scales said. “We need men to want to excel, to go further than they’ve ever gone before.”

And he challenged men to be truthful, a quality too often lacking in some men.

“It takes courage to tell the truth,” he added. “But the problem with lies is that once you tell one, it’s easy to tell others. The next thing you know, you’ve told so many lies that you don’t know where you began with them.”

He concluded by reminding the men that “champions are not those who never fail, but those who never quit.”

“Remember,” Scales said. “Being a male is a matter of birth. But being a man is a matter of choice.”