So, why are men the minorities in church?
“There’s quite a few reasons behind that,” Thompson said. “Unfortunately, church has gotten a (reputation) of being a gathering place for women. That’s not biblical; the church is about everyone.
“There definitely are roles for men and for women in the church and also in the family. What’s happening in families is a direct result of inactivity of men in church.”
Where is the God of the Bible?
3 The LORD is a warrior;
the LORD is his name.
4 Pharaoh’s chariots and his army
he has hurled into the sea.
The best of Pharaoh’s officers
are drowned in the Red Sea.[a]
5 The deep waters have covered them;
they sank to the depths like a stone.
6 Your right hand, LORD,
was majestic in power.
Your right hand, LORD,
shattered the enemy. ~ Exodus 15:3-6
Where is the God that David sang about and that inspired me when I served in the military?
1 Praise be to the LORD my Rock,
who trains my hands for war,
my fingers for battle.
2 He is my loving God and my fortress,
my stronghold and my deliverer,
my shield, in whom I take refuge,
who subdues peoples[a] under me.
~ Psalm 144:1-2
I certainly never hear about Him in a Church! He is conspicuously absent. I miss my King and the Lord of Hosts. When I hunt, I feel Him near me. When He delivers game into my hand, I feel His approval. When I work hard at my job, doing some dangerous task with high voltage, or potential radiation leaks, or free climbing on a tower…and I do my job well, I feel His hand upon me. He is my rock and my fortress in whom I put my trust.
In Church, we sing what sound like homosexual anthems of love…it’s nauseating.
My God released His dunamos Person, the Holy Spirit, and created the stars which shine with the brightness of millions of atomic bombs going off at the same time…and He made them with an explosion that still echoes across the universe. My God is the Son of MAN that came to challenge the authorities and to fashion whips of cord and BEAT THE RELIGIOUS MONEY GRUBBERS OUT OF THE TEMPLE!!! My God isn’t that pasty effeminate passive milksop that we sing love songs to. He is the LORD of HOSTS and KING OF KINGS. His name echoes in the thunderclap. He shakes the mountains and boils the seas. To look into His face is death. And He calls me His friend. He calls me by name and counts me among His own. He even has a secret name for me that He will reveal at the End of Days, when He gives me the white stone that says I am acquitted because of His BLOOD SACRIFICE for me. I would DIE for my God and King. I strive to live valiantly by His Code, His Law…and when I fail, He yet calls me friend and brother. He holds up His nail-scarred hand and says to me: “SEE, HERE HAVE I WRITTEN YOUR NAME, YOU ARE MINE BY RIGHT OF BLOOD!”
What god do these other people worship? What building can contain the ONE TRUE GOD? Who is like HIM?
#1 sounds like you should go to another church that you will be motivated to promote. When you say “we,” you can only speak of the people in the church or churches you are in and not the ones you are not in.
Yeah, that must be it. It’s just me and my Church. No one else has that problem. Check. I guess the article is just a red herring. That bit about asking why men are the minorities in Churches was just for dramatic effect. Nothing to see here. Move along. Of course, there is that niggling issue of the break down of the family in society and the chronic problem of the Church having less and less influence on how people actually conduct their lives, and that continuous overall loss of attendance. But as you say…it must just be me in my particular circumstance. That’s a relief. I’m planning on leaving my Church in May, so let’s hope for the best.
You have written well, S and T. If we peddle Mother Jesus in ANY form, however disguised, we will simply be telling men that they are as useless in church as they are redundant out of it. When you say “we,” you should be speaking for all of us.
But why are you leaving your church? Larry
#1, YOU ARE THE MAN!!!!! Thank you for that! I am inspired and grateful. #2 – first, he didn’t use the pronoun “we” one time; second, he was speaking as a man, not for all churches everywhere. #2, your response is very typical of what I have seen and heard anytime I mention men’s ministry – which is so lacking in our Episcopal Church. The only men’s ministry in the Episcopal Church is the Brotherhood of St Andrew. Except in Diocese of TX and in NY area, there are very few chapters in most dioceses and in some, especially out west, there are none. When I have gone to ministry fairs, representing the Brotherhood, and asked priests about my coming to talk to their men about forming a chapter, very few are interested, and I have even had some female rectors tell me straight out, “you can come, if you can get the men to show up, but I won’t support you or a men’s group.” I attend a parish that has over 100 men in our chapter – we get between 30-40 men every other Saturday morning for breakfast, Bible study, and service projects – Brotherhood life is one of “prayer, study, and service.” We are known derisively in our diocese as “that church that is run by men.” We are growing and contributing more than our 10% to the diocese.
Until men reclaim their place in the church, in Christianity, and in society, we shall all remain in this world of only talking, experiencing, and relativity – without principled decisions and standards of Christian morality to guide our lives. I say that because right now and for the last 40 years the church is doing precious little to guide society in the way the Lord would have us live. Rather the church is doing all it can to accomodate society and that is not why we are here.
Parting note: When was the last time you heard “Onward Christian Soldiers?”
Hi Larry (comment #4),
It isn’t absolutely certain yet, but I give it about a 95% probability that we will. There are three fundamental reasons for leaving.
First, We have been members of this Church for nine years now. A little over 2 1/2 years ago, our pastor felt called to go to another Church, and we felt his loss keenly. For the first year, all was well. Our search committee was making inquiries, we had a fine interim pastor (whom I love), and Church membership stayed virtually unchanged. In the beginning, our youth programs continued as normal, and our outreach programs continued as well, with some new activities helping in the community being sponsored.
When we joined this Church, we had only one child and she was a toddler of just 2. We now have 3 children ages 11, 7, and 1. After the first year, we dropped our mid-week youth program due to a lack of support from the congregation. We also stopped our Vacation Bible School. We struggled getting enough people to volunteer to teach Sunday School. (And leadership support for our community activities dropped to near zero.) This year, Sunday School started 2 weeks late because we didn’t get volunteers in time to start at the normal start date.
My beloved wife and I home school our children (with her carrying the vast majority of the load), so our children’s involvement with their peers at Church is an essential dynamic for our family’s spiritual development. We are also aware that statistically, if children are not firmly planted in the Faith by age 14, they are likely to leave the Church and never come back. Our time is short!
Despite the fact that our Church has finally called a pastor (and he starts next month), we believe that it will be many years before our Church has an effective youth ministry again. There will be a time of rebuilding and I do not believe that we have the luxury of waiting around while that happens.
Second, our denomination’s national leadership used a “bait & switch” tactic of “refreshing” the language of our statement of faith (the one I had read and agreed to upon joining the Church) from 1950’s vernacular to a contemporary use of language. The “refresh” ended up being a complete re-write, it was a push down from the top, and there were some very cynical votes cast by the assembly that refrained from certain changes that they believed would split the denomination (70/30), with the determination that eventually, they would make those changes…despite the fact that they currently affirm the existing statements and must do so to maintain their credentials to preach.
Third, the senior leadership of my denomination holds membership in and has voting rights on the board of the National Association of Evangelicals. The National Association of Evangelicals was rocked by scandal a few years ago when it was discovered that its president had had a 3 year relationship with a male prostitute and had purchased meth-amphetamines. The next year, I believe, one of the VPs of that organization was forced to resign for publicly (on NPR) coming out in support of same-sex civil unions. That same leader had been pushing a “Creation Care” agenda in the denomination which panders to all the cultural environmental craziness (not that real environmentalism is bad…I support that). These disgraced leaders were in charge when the current policy and direction of the NAE was established and the leadership of my denomination were closely affiliated with them and were impacted by their strategic vision and judgment.
Since then, the NAE has publicly supported and even testified before congress for an amnesty for illegal aliens in our nation, and has supported partnerships with pro-abortion groups to advocate prophylactics usage for unmarried couples. The leadership of my denomination are voting members of the board of the NAE. They were not able to pull my denomination into those positions, but they are working with the NAE and trying to push that agenda in our denomination.
I had recently come across a book that deals extensively with the issue of legal and illegal immigration from a Biblical perspective. It is [b]The Immigration Crisis: Immigrants, Aliens, and the Bible[/b] by James Karl Hoffmeier .
http://books.google.com/books?id=F8pERDlTYWgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+immigration+crisis&source=bl&ots=2XFVklKdRf&sig=KBGqdC3WZtulKMGM2x6R5wXwUSU&hl=en&ei=RmVdTKmRI4T58AaPu_i0DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CD4Q6AEwBg
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7GGLL_en&q=inauthor:”James+Karl+Hoffmeier”&sa=X&ei=RmVdTKmRI4T58AaPu_i0DQ&ved=0CD8Q9Ag
You may recognize Dr. Hoffmeier’s name: Reforming Immigration: Watch Your Words | Christianity Today |
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/march/9.54.html
I highly recommend his book as a counterbalance to the one-sided (eisogesic) presentation of Scripture found in the NAE resolution. Dr. Hoffmeier extensively documents the Scriptural distinction between legal immigrants (the ger) and those that were not (the nekhar, and the zar). The NAE resolution (and my denomination’s own document) takes no account of this Biblical distinction, makes no legitimate argument that the current US laws are contrary to the expressed will of God, and also does not take into account multiple Scriptural commands that we Christians must obey the laws of the land that are not contrary to God’s Word.
This one-sided presentation is especially troubling in view of the fact that (according to an email exchange between Dr. Hoffmeier and me) the president of my denomination has read the book and the leadership of both my denomination and the NAE are at least aware of it. That makes the omission of this significant Biblical distinction from the resolution a deliberate act. These men are educated men and would understand the importance of this Biblical distinction. There appears to have been a deliberate attempt by them to skew Scripture to support Comprehensive Immigration Reform, and that skewed view was used in testimony before the United States Senate, and it was done using the weight of our Church’s membership!
The NAE’s (and our denomination’s) viewpoint were presented in congressional testimony advocating for legislation called Comprehensive Immigration Reform. The NAE’s claim to be a representative voice of Evangelicals on this issue is belied by the fact that only 14 of the 40 denominations they “represent” endorsed this resolution. Fully 65% of the denominations that the NAE “represents” do not endorse this resolution. Although the EFCA did not endorse the resolution, it is very troubling that our denomination’s president did endorse it personally and used his title in the endorsement. (Remember, he is also a voting member on the board of the NAE.) http://www.nae.net/immigration-2009-endorsements
You may also be interested in reading a report from the Center for Immigration Studies that extensively cites a recent Zogby poll of religious likely voters and shows a significant disconnect between the leadership in Churches and the membership of Churches in regard to illegal immigration. I was especially interested in the report’s conclusion that it apparently never occurred to the religious leadership that illegal immigration perpetuates an injustice to US workers by depressing their wages, taking their jobs, and creating poor working environments. Here is the link: http://www.cis.org/ReligionAndImmigrationPoll
The Zogby poll was recent (December 2009) and one of the largest of its type ever conducted. I found it to provide significant insight into the disconnect between religious leaders and the people they purportedly lead. The leadership seems blinded by the prospect of adding the illegal immigrants to the Church’s rolls.
I had submitted a resolution to our Church membership at one of the business meetings to separate our local Church’s financial support of the national denomination from the general fund. Those wishing to support the denomination could still do so by designating their offerings/gifts to do so. Those not wishing to support the national denomination due to concientious objections would still be able to give to the local Church without having their money support a national agenda that they disagreed with. The measure was not approved. Since then, we have designated our giving to missions and other line items on the budget so that our support will not go to the national denomination (or the NAE). I view this as a bandaid on a spurting artery.
ADD all that with my general irritation at the issue I commented on in my first post on this thread, and you can see that I am seriously agitated at the state of my Church, denomination, and movement. (I forgot to mention that the Men’s Ministry has all but died as well.)
I’m sorry for the lengthy reply, but it was a legitimate question and I wanted to do it justice.