Churches nationwide are fretting and sweating to reel men into their sanctuaries on Sundays.
Women outnumber men in attendance in every major Christian denomination, and they are 20% to 25% more likely to attend worship at least weekly.
Although every soul matters, many pastors say they need to power up on reaching men if the next generation of believers, the children, will find the way to faith. So hundreds of churches are going for a “guy church” vibe, programming for a stereotypical man’s man.
“I hear about it everywhere I go,” says Brandon O’Brien, who detailed the evolution of the chest-thumping evangelism trend this spring in Christianity Today.
Men tend to gravitate toward male leadership. The less ‘masucline’ a man appears to other men, the less the tendency for other men to follow that man as a leader.
These are simple facts about men and their behavior. I realize that anomalies and cameo exceptions can be found to try and disprove what I just said, but what I said is true of adult male behavior.
Having said what I just said I will now follow with one of my major concerns about a modern innovation in man-line churches.
My concern is about the impact that ordination of women as priests/pastors and as bishops has had and will have on the recruitment and retention of men in those churches. By the way, I am not talking about the ordination of women as deacons.
If a parish has only female leadership, it will be in a weaker position to recruit and retain men.
Working in men’s ministries on a denominational level as I do, this article highlights the problem very accurately. It’s something that churches wrestle with all the time.
[url=http://www.vulcanhammer.org/?p=507]I review [i]Why Men Hate Going to Church[/i] here[/url].
Let’s see. TEC has turned using male references to God into a quasi-criminal offence. The ideal of female leadership and the gay approach is triumphant and there are churchmen that actually wonder why men have disappeared?
TEC has sucessfully created a hostile environment for men. Congratulations, Ye reap what ye sew.
Based on this article, which seems sound to me, wouldn’t a church reach the most people and have the stogest appeal if it had both ordained men and women on staff versus either or?
I notice this alot withe the big, full and growing Evangelical churches where the Pastor;s wife is very often ordained as well and works in partnership with her husband in an egalatarian model. Especially have I noticed this in large African American churches. The largest church in the USA, Lakewood Church, led by husband abd wife team Joel and Victoria Olsteen and attracting 38,000 souls each Sunday. Therefore, I mantain that in an ideal parish both a strong ordained man and a strong ordained woman would lead stronger congregations where both men and women get their needs met.
The feminine, treacly, love song sounding praise music so popular these days is definitely a turn-off for this man. Give me the good old robust hymns, not something that sounds like a poor imitation of John Denver or Michael Bolton.
Preach the Gospel and God will bring people, men and women, to church. I too like the good old robust hymns, because they speak plainly and directly to the human impasse and need for a saviour which God has provided in Jesus Christ.
The feminization of the church is nothing new, of course. My own pastor believes it traces all the way back to the aftermath of the Civil War, when many returning men were disabled and consequently unable to continue in church leadership. Women stepped in to fill the gap, then felt excluded for the first time if they weren’t able to continue in leadership as time went on. Even in my father’s family, the church was something the women kept focus on, while the men kept focus on the farm work and physical, not spiritual, necessities (often they would be working in the field on Sunday mornings while the women and children went to church). The Promise Keepers is, I believe, one attempt to reverse this deep cutting trend.
I myself wonder if the American ethos of total independence and self-reliance doesn’t play into this greatly. This spirit of independence fueled the expansion of the US in the pioneer days, and is seen echoed today in the huge number of independent or loosely affiliated churches — the Baptists are the most notable of these, but look at all the newly sprung up nondenominational Christian churches; they all seem to me to have 100+ congregants within a year of their start! So, if men in our nation are totally independent and self-sufficient, why again do they need Christ? Just an observation….
Oh, forgot to mention, the temperance movement was, I believe, largely led by women. This was closely followed by women’s suffrage (a good and right thing, it goes without saying :^). These, not surprisingly, followed very soon after the end of the Civil War. I wonder if they were led by women who came to leadership in the church out of necessity around the same time….
Facts of human nature to be observed by anyone who will look:
1. Men and women are different in the way they think and relate to one another. [note: this does not equate to relative intelligence]
2. Men will follow other men.
3. Women will follow men.
4. Women are more inclined to follow men than men are inclined to follow women. (let us assume that women will follow women in equal measure to men following men)
From this it follows: A male leader of optimum ability can expect both women and men to follow him in greater numbers than a female leader of the same ability. Ergo, women in leadership will draw fewer followers than men.
The resulting character of female leadership tends toward ever greater femininity, which decreases even greater the appeal to men, who, as I mentioned, can be clearly observed to not be attracted to female leadership. Only an ideology that doesn’t care about church growth, that doesn’t mind if the church becomes increasingly feminine and devoid of men, who have better uses for their time than to be members of a Ladies Aid Society, only such an ideology would advocate women in ordained leadership.
Let me give you some other facts related to evangelism.
Convert a child and you have a 10% chance of getting the whole family in church. (I am giving a very optimistic number)
Convert the mother and the chances of getting the whole family in church rises to 25%
Convert the father and the liklihood rises to 90%
Therefore, who should we be targeting in our church to make sure they come and stay? Women with issues? Teens looking for something exciting? HMMMM….. The MEN, maybe?
TEC is thinking the raisin cakes will bring ’em back.
Ask yourself this: Of the priests that you admire as doing Godly works, how many would pass the ordination screening today?
TEC and the ACoC have done their best to neuter Jesus and they have adopted a consistent, but unstated, ordination critera that seeks to do the same to their priesthood..
a good and right thing, it goes without saying
Really? Does it? I think even good and right things do not go without saying. One should know how and why they are good. And one should understand that there well could be rational arguments why they are not so. Much PC thought, and the thoughtless hysteria and censorship that backs it up, is due to people assuming, and demanding, that a contrary point of view is unthinkable. Their intolerance stems from a defensiveness because they have long lost the ability to defend their point of view because they have never been forced to, because what they believe “goes without saying”.
Hi Chris,
I’m often sensitive to a lot of the PC schlock myself. As to women’s suffrage (which is what I was *specifically* addressing), I would humbly submit that it is a good and right thing which *does* go without saying. If you wish to debate women’s suffrage, please go ahead. I know which side of the argument I will stand on.
I was using the phrase you quoted as a rhetorical device. I never meant to imply that speaking to or debating issues should be discouraged.
Something to think about: Islam attracts men.
#14 . . . and?
The issue of men in church predates the Civil War. It could take an amazingly long time in those antebellum sheds to cool down the horses after the trip from farm to church, an entire service sometimes.
Our view may be skewed by the revivals in which we see male leadership and many new or expanded expressions of faith such as the YMCA movement. Of course, often the revivals were in response to troubled time; the “Y,” for example, growing from the urban revivals following the financial panic in the late 1850s.
#15 I just think it’s interesting. A woman friend of mine was bowled over by the “masculinity” present during worship in a mosque. Does Islam attract men because it’s patriarchal, or because women don’t have a role in leadership, or because it requires men to attend and there’s lots of peer pressure? Just something to think about.
If you wish to debate women’s suffrage, please go ahead. I know which side of the argument I will stand on.
Ah, but do you know why you would be there? 🙂 Years ago I might have stood there with you as steadfast, but I have become open to reappraising (gasp!) more of the ideas with which I was educated, and I have seen in history some problematic sociological trends that seemed to coincide with women’s sufrage. So, I am no longer ideologically committed to the idea that male suffrage is bad idea. If male headship is good enough for the church, why should human society be different? That in itself is not a sufficient argument against women’s suffrage, but it is enough to make me at least ambivalent about it. Hence, I no longer think it should go without saying.
Helen, you have your finger on a very pertinent fact. We are in competition with Islam for the souls of our civilization and of others. If men are by nature attracted to male leadership and repelled by female leadership, and if Western churches are becoming increasingly feminine, how are we going to make the Christian faith appeal to their God-given natures?
Please, Chris, it’s as obvious to me as to other readers that you’re trying to box us (me) into a corner. You’re not an intolerant misogynist. The only problem is that the argument you’re slowly and carefully setting up is specious. “If women church leadership is wrong, then women societal leadership must be equally wrong.” Whoop! Whoop! Straw Man Alert! :^D
I try to articulate the issue of ministry and gender in the church as clearly as I can, and to the best of my limited understanding: The ordained sacramental orders in the church are distinctly male in character, as modeled by Christ Jesus in his time and ministry on earth. No more, no less.
I was a little caught off guard (and had that funny, it’s like I’m walking into a trap feeling) when I read your strident and impassioned response to my short, minor rhetorical device. Now I see why. Sorry, but I pulled my foot out just in time :^)
Islam draws men because of its warring past and present, its emphasis on aggression and the rewarding of such aggression. If we actually needed to fight, physically, for our church, men would be there, armed and dangerous. Indeed, I would be there. The emotional sects also use men because their evangelising is violent, aggressive. We are made to fight, while we are taught by the public education system and Mummy NEVER to fight : “Go STRAIGHT to the Principal or counselor and and ask for their help. Do NOT get in a fight with that other boy! No! Bad! {This means: be like a girl]”
And so we have slackers who spend all their days with video games, fighting and fighting and killing and killing. LM
Confirming Chris H (#9) was the Swiss study a couple years ago. Not only are fathers more determinative of family attendance, they also are far more influential on whether kids hold to their faith.
#9…Women with issues? Why aren’t you able to discuss this important topic without making demeaning comments?
Interestingly, last night I had a discussion with a group of very committed christian young men — aged 25 to 35. I asked them why none of them had chosen to go into the Presbyterian ministry and whether they would consider it. The answer was, none of us are THAT wimpy and week-kneed. We want a profession which actually stands for something — not floats around being irrelevant.
There were school teachers, accountants, computer programmers, and other like professionals there — a well educated group, and the comments made were unanimously received as being the view of them all. I wonder how long many of them will stay in the pews of the Presbyterian church? Not long is my guess — they are looking for the real thing, not the sham.
Our church in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod has about equal number of women and men that attend every Sunday. Our church is a traditional and a confessional church in the LC-MS.
cmsigler, I see that I misjudged you thinking that you are a reasonable person open to mintellectual discourse rather than one of the intolerant who prefers ad hominem to rational argument. Your use of the term strident is classic liberal ad hominem. Also interesting is your fake quotation of mine followed by your gross misunderstanding of what a stawman argument is. On that last bit let me educate you, since you seem not to know. A strawman argument is when oppose your idea to a gross distortion of the other one’s argument. Since I was not even referencing any argument of yours, as you didn’t bother to make one, I cannot be guilty of a strawman argument. I was in fact not referencing any argument but posing a question as to why the principle of male headship in church should not apply to soiciety as well. If you have no answer for the question, that is fine. But you only show yourself to be a total ass by attacking the questioner.
Asking questions and proposing various answers is what rational discourse entails. Attacking the other when you don’t like the question or subject is what PC fools do.
writingmom, “women with issues” is a relevant term from my experience, as I have seen that the drive for ordination for many women has been a need to feel affirmed. I call such a need an “issue”, and, to me, subverting the church to bow down to these people trying to work out their problems is what is demeaning. You may find the truth insulting. I could care less. Anyone who puts her desire for ordination above the wellbeing of the church has issues that ought to be addressed in ways other than by surrendering to them. This also applies to men who see ordination as a right. But, unless they are gay, men generally don’t get away with that kind of crap as much.
#26…And as a follow-up to the question about why you make demeaning comments, why do you also call people names when they disagree with you? Isn’t this blog based on a passionate commitment to the truth and a desire to graciously refute that which is contrary to it? How have your aforementioned comments done that?
writingmom, I think I was too quick to answer your comment. I didn’t see that you might have taken from my first comment the idea that I consider all women in ministry to “have issues”. That was not my intent, but rather I see that those who do have such issues often are the loudest to complain and are the ones usually being appeased by changing the church’s nature. I apologize for more harshly construing the substance of your criticism than I should have.
As for cmsigler, well, he, or she, is an ass, and your complaint to me is really relevant to him (her?). For it was he who was not content to simply disagree. I was happy to pursue an argument amicably. (Did you see my smiley face. I have learned sometimes I need to use them to indicate that I am trying to be friendly and non-confrontational, despite the strong nature of my ideas.) Notwithstanding my attempts to make some intellectual points he decided not to respond with his own arguments but instead attacked the integrity of my intentions and my attitude. He made the argument a personal one against me, rather than against my ideas. I simply called him on it, without papering over the fact that his behavior was that of an ass, which it was.
I would also add, that had he pursued a friendly, or even a rough and tumble (but honest) intellectual exchange rather than an ad hominem drive-by, he might have discovered that I was not arguing at all about whether women’s suffrage should be taken away. Even if one concludes that it was wrong to grant it in the first place, and you will note that I admit myself to being agnostic on that point, it still does not follow that such suffrage, once granted, ought to be removed. There are legitimate pragmatic and moral reasons against that.
But, alas, cmsigler was not up to such an exchange of ideas and decided to accuse me of not being an honest broker in my argument. As one who loves Truth and Logic relishes the vigorous defense of it through rational argument I take such accusations as seriously as if I was called a liar.
Chris Hathaway,
I’m in complete agreement with everything you’ve said on this thread. Keep at it!
chris hathaway…i am a woman in ministry…i don’t wear a white collar…i don’t have a degree from a seminary…my view is from the pew…i’m a wife, a mom, a daughter, a sister, a friend…my ministries are varied…to my family…to children…to youth…to women…to my neighbors…to those who are broken…i speak…i write…i teach…i lead workshops…i listen…i pray with my kids and their friends on the way to school …attend mom and me bible studies with my daughter…and provide snacks for middle school ministries…and i have written summer curriculum for diocesan church camps…taught children’s programming at international missions conferences and preached at sunday worship services…
i don’t know who you are…i don’t know if you’re ordained…i don’t know what your goal is when you submit an entry on this blog…but as one who has a passionate commitment to sharing the truth, whenever i write anything on this blog…i first ask myself…would i say this to my neighbor…or at my bible study…or at our family dinner table (if age-appropriate)…or from the pulpit…or to a friend…or in any other situation? And if the answer is ‘no’…I don’t post it.
writingmom, what was your goal when you made a false accusation about me in #28? Just curious, since you seem to want to inquire about purposes. Did you perhaps post your comment before carefully reading my posts and the posts to which they were responding so that you had an accurate understanding of the facts? Been there, done that. 😉
My idea of courtesy may not be yours. Mine entails a high degree of honesty and facts. Others may put the emphasis on not hurting or offending others. Though, when some such people then acost me as being strident, angry, mean spirited, judgmental, etc. etc., I find it hard not to be a little offended, which seems quite ironic to me. Not understanding the rules of the game whereby one can offend another for being offensive I instead stick to the rules I can understand: the aforementioned honesty and facts.
But despite my confessed tendency to violate the standards of polite discourse that others may have, I nonetheless did make an apology to you, whereas you have yet to do so to me.
chris hathaway…what i was asking was…on a blog which states that it is a free floating commentary based on a passionate commitment to the truth and a desire to graciously refute that which is contrary to it…and when we were talking about such an important topic…why you found it necessary to say things like ‘you only show yourself to be a total ass by attacking the questioner’…
‘attacking the other when you don’t like the question or subject is what pc fools do’…’you may find the truth insulting. i could care less’… ‘well, he, or she, is an ass’…’i simply called him on it, without papering over the fact that his behavior was that of an ass, which it was’…i wondered how your comments were helpful in stating God’s truth in such a crucial time in our church’s history.
writingmom, perhaps I am not clear about what was the originating issue I had with cmsigler: He was not in his last post refuring any idea of mine, graciously or otherwise. He was instead impugning my intellectual integrity, accusing me of laying traps, making strawman arguments, being strident, etc. Since I was perfectly polite to him previously, nor was I strongly disagreeing with him, I saw such ad hominem attacks as both unwarrented and assinine. Thus my description of him fits and should serve to abraid him for his poor behavior.
May I ask you why you seem to have had no problem with his ad hominem? How is your comment “helpful in stating God’s truth in such a crucial time in our church’s history” ? Again, I will note that you falsly accused me of insulting those who disagree with me when that was clearly not the case here, and yet you refuse to make any apology. How does that behavior help at all.
Two can play your silly game. And it is a silly game which has no clear rules that apply to all equally.
May I add a side issue to the blog topic? How do we encourage the high school young men and women to come and worship with the adults and and to those who can sing to join the choir. Our small church in Western Michigan will periodically have the teen-agers conduct the service and sing for us (complete with drums, guitars and “wiggle” dancing). Any suggestions out there? Our choir is reducing in number as us “old folks” get into our 70’s and 80’s. We have a youth leader that can get the kids to help out in many ways but our choir is fast dissappearing.