Mission & vision

This is a project by and for men who are seeking a positive and practical doctrine of manhood.

We define manhood as what a male enters into when his body and mind reach maturity. It is undertaking the work of dominion God made him for, striving to rightly order himself and the world by developing the virtues and skills necessary to this task—especially strength, workmanship, and wisdom. Manhood is ultimately about a man building God’s house by building his own.

Patriarchy—i.e., father-rule—is integral to this: it is man’s purpose to represent the rule of the Father in creation so as to rightly order it.

However, the term patriarchy in itself does not encompass the full gamut of a man’s duties toward God and man. For us to image God and bear his name, we must start with rightly ordering ourselves; he who is faithful over a little can be faithful over much. While it is right to speak of Christianity as patriarchal, and to represent the hierarchy of God’s rulership structure as a patriarchy, we are concerned with the whole masculine life, and what it looks like to live out one’s sex in service to God. We also need to know what this looks like when compared to uniquely feminine duties.

To describe this, we believe the best term is gendered piety—i.e., the unique duties to God and man entailed by living out one’s sex.

The masculine side of this piety entails responsibility for right order and right doctrine. We must have a command of the issues, and then take command over them. Men should therefore be builders and problem-solvers. There are many problems in our culture and in our churches that we must understand, and understand well—but more than this, we must fix what has fallen into disrepair. This is not women’s work; it is ours.

In other words, explaining why we’re hurtling to hell in a handbasket is helpful and necessary—but if we aren’t working to slow the basket down and turn it around, we are failing in 50% of what God requires of us. It is useless to develop a command of the issues without then turning it into a command over them. The former without the latter degenerates into a negative exercise.

We are not interested in negative exercises; we are focused on positive building. We are thus not interested in merely analyzing what is wrong, nor becoming embroiled in controversies, nor engaging in endless polemics, nor defining ourselves by our enemies. We are interested in representing God’s father-rule as accurately as we can, and being the most useful tools and weapons in his hands that we can, so as to establish the most of his order in the world that we can.

We are resolved to neither fear nor love anything above our Father in heaven.

Who we are

It’s Good To Be A Man is run by two men: Michael Foster and Bnonn Tennant. We produce most of our content ourselves, but also collaborate with other men whose work squares with our own. We are not interested in building a name for ourselves; we want to bring together, equip, and be sharpened by a worldwide community of men. The only way to reform and repair God’s house on a large scale is by finding ways to build up large numbers of men into godly and effective patriarchs. This is impossible with personality-based ministry because personality-based methods are not widely replicable.

This approach is also reflected in our theological focus. We are explicitly Reformed, but we keep our content broadly Protestant in a historical sense.

Michael Foster, Managing Director

Michael is a serial-entrepreneur who has been in bi-vocational ministry the better part of his adult life. God has blessed him with a beautiful wife and seven children. He is the pastor of East River Church (CREC) in Batavia, just outside Cincinnati.

Dominic “Bnonn” Tennant, Creative Director

Bnonn has a background in writing, design, apologetics and theology. He lives in New Zealand with his wife and four children, works freelance as a copywriter and web designer, and likes learning to build things.

We are both available for speaking engagements; Michael in the US, and Bnonn in New Zealand and Australia. Email us at men@itsgoodtobeaman.com, or connect with us on Facebook. (We’d welcome this even if you don’t want us to speak.)

How to get involved yourself

If you believe in what we do, having skin in the game will increase your motivation and involvement. You can become a paid subscriber via our Discipleship & Dominion Substack, and this will give you access to our members-only Discord. More info here: