Where Are The Men?

Preface- In the 47 years in the ministry I have no doubt directed many of my sermons towards women.  I have often preached on the need for men taking a leadership role in the church.  It could be that I have not been focused on meeting the needs of the men in the church and challenging them to step up to the responsibility of being the spiritual leaders we need in the church today. I am asking the LORD to help me to challenge the men in our congregation to be the leaders they are called to be.

I made a statement in my recent ranting that, I am tired of Christian men failing in their responsibility to be leaders in the cause of the LORD. It is time for the men of the Church to become the warriors that God has called them to be. It is time for men to get on the front line of the battle instead of sending their wives and daughters to fight the cause of Christ.

In our Wednesday prayer meeting, the question was asked what does it mean for a man to stand up and be a man? Here is my lengthy explanation.

First let me give some background as why there are less men in church, in leadership positions and involved in church activities.  In the first 1000 years, the church was evenly divided among men and women.  Men were in positions of leadership and had a major impact upon society.  Then the theology of the Church changed.  There were greater emphases placed on the Church as the bride of Christ which made the Christian narrative less compelling to men; it also pushed the faith’s overall philosophy in a more feminine direction. The values associated with brides, especially in centuries past — love, protection, comfort, passivity, obedience, dependence, receptivity – came to dominate the character of the Christian gospel, and was the focus of how Christians were to relate to Christ over its more masculine qualities of suffering, sacrifice, and conflict.

As religiousness began to be associated more and more exclusively with women’s sphere of life, the proportion of female to male churchgoers naturally became increasing lopsided. Religion came to be seen as more of a feminine thing, in contrast to masculine endeavors. The end results were men were spending more time on business, and recreation because they could outsource their family’s faith, leaving to their wives the responsibility of spiritual leadership in their home and in their children. Men could venture into worldly quests, and rely on women to meet the spiritual needs of the family.

In preparing for a message, one must remember that the core audience will be women.  Terms and illustrations will be geared towards the understanding of women and not men.  Many congregations have women making over three fourths of those in attendance; the message will be geared for them.

For many years women were denied power and influence in the public arena, women developed it within the church.  The more women showed up, the more pastors created programs and positions for them and praised and tailored their messages and services toward women.  Women became the preservers of faith and morality.

The more feminine services became, the more men stayed away; and the more women outnumbered men in the congregation, the more ministers catered to their needs. Today women are around 56% more likely than men to participate in Sunday school and to hold a leadership position in a church.

Does a lack of masculine role models at church negatively affect the recruitment and retention of masculine members?   Our young males are hero-worshippers, and his hero cannot be found in a Sunday school which is manned by women.  By the time a young boys are young men, they cannot see how the church relates to them.

Even in the worship service when songs are sung most men cannot sing because the songs are to high.  To transpose a song so the men can sing is almost the unpardonable sin.  Many men a left holding the song book for the wife and trying to hum the song. 

 The number one reason high-achieving men don’t go to church is they don’t respect the pastor.  I cannot tell you how many times I heard the joke about the three men who were telling what their sons did for a living.  The first man said my son is a lawyer. One man said I have a son that will not tell the truth. The second man said I have a son who is a banker.  One man said, I have a son that will rob you blind.  The third man said my son is a minister.  The other two men said, we have a son that will not work as well. 

Successful business men who do go to church often chose a megachurch because they saw the pastor as their leadership peer. ‘Respecting the pastor is vital to predicting whether a man is actively involved.  Men respect pastors who are properly masculine. They are drawn to men who, like Jesus, embody both lion and lamb.

Statistically speaking, those denominations which have opened doors to female clergy widest and earliest, are struggling more than those which have retained male-only clergy and leaderships boards.

In today’s church, the gospel is no longer about saving the souls of the lost. It’s about finding a happy relationship with a wonderful man.  Ask a woman to describe God, and they will use terms like love, forgiveness, comfort, security, kindness and reliable.  Ask a man to describe God, and he will use terms like powerful, just, in control, fearful, demanding and wrathful. 

When young boys hear the story of David and Goliath, they don’t want to hear David killed him with a stone.  They want to hear how he cut off his head and chased the Philistines.  They don’t want to hear about baby Moses in the bulrushes they want to hear how he fought the enemies of the Hebrew people.  They don’t want to color flowers and cut out pictures of Bible characters that want to make slingshots like David use against Goliath.  The want to make swords and shields.  They would rather act out the story than hear it.  But, when most Sunday curriculum is written and taught by women no wonder young boys are bored.  The same goes for most men.  They want the hard truth, tell it like it is, don’t sugar coat it.  The problem is we have been appealing to women for so long we no longer hear the raw truth of the Gospel.  We have sanitized the message of the Gospel.  With more women than men belonging to Christian churches, it’s not surprising that the religion’s theology, and the messages heard from the pulpit, have come to emphasize the feminine qualities.

We are no longer hearing messages on hell, sin, and justice. There is less emphasis on the need to suffer, struggle, and sacrifice for the gospel, and more emphasis on how the gospel can be a tool towards greater self-realization and personal fulfillment. The gospel is presented not as heroic challenge, but therapy – the way to “your best life now.” The focus is on rewards over obstacles. All gain, no pain.  Men want battles instead of feasts.

We have changed the message of the kingdom of God to the family of God.  The kingdom of God implies battles, conquests, victories, and defeats.  While the family of God is about relationships.  This change in the message of the Gospel has contributed to the lack of appeal to men. The influence of women on the theology of the church has been tremendous.

Now that I have most of my women readers upset let me answer what it is to be Christian man.

The men of the New Testament were not soft men.  They were fishermen, tentmakers, shepherds, and carpenters.  They were common everyday laboring men.   These men were hard working.  They had calluses on their hands, from lifting stones, hand cutting boards, lifting heavy nets filled with fish.  They were beaten and did not complain.  They were driven from town to town, but they kept coming back.  They were offensive in their message.  It was hard hitting, cutting deep into the soul, and was the raw truth.

Their language was to the point and as my father would say, “earthy.”  In the book of Acts 8:20-23J.B. Phillips New Testament (PHILLIPS)

20-23 But Peter said to him, “To hell with you and your money! How dare you think you could buy the gift of God! You can have no share or place in this ministry, for your heart is not honest before God. All you can do now is to repent of this wickedness of yours and pray earnestly to God that the evil intention of your heart may be forgiven. For I can see inside you, and I see a man bitter with jealousy and bound with his own sin!”

Here is another translations of the same verse.

 Peter said, “To hell with your money! And you along with it. Why, that’s unthinkable—trying to buy God’s gift! You’ll never be part of what God is doing by striking bargains and offering bribes. Change your ways—and now! Ask the Master to forgive you for trying to use God to make money. I can see this is an old habit with you; you reek with money-lust.”

That kind of language would not be accepted in the church today.  It is crude, rude, and uncivilized.  It is not politically correct.

Here is a translation of Roman 1 that would be considered hate language today.  It might even be labeled as a hate crimes for speaking this way.

So God said, in effect, “If that’s what you want, that’s what you get.” It wasn’t long before they were living in a pigpen, smeared with filth, filthy inside and out. And all this because they traded the true God for a fake god, and worshiped the god they made instead of the God who made them—the God we bless, the God who blesses us. Oh, yes!

Worse followed. Refusing to know God, they soon didn’t know how to be human either—women didn’t know how to be women, men didn’t know how to be men. Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another, women with women, men with men—all lust, no love. And then they paid for it, oh, how they paid for it—emptied of God and love, godless and loveless wretches. Romans 1:26-27

I think you are starting to get the picture why for the first 1000 years of the church there were as many men as women in the church.  Christianity was a man’s religion. Men put on armor, took up sword and shield to fight for the cause of Jesus Christ.  They did this because that is what appealed to them. 

Men want their church to be a church of action, doing, not talking and giving opinions but getting involved in the fight. But what has happened is the message of the church today is confusing to most men.  They wonder how they can balance their life and be a faithful husband, a good father, a hard worker, and a dedicated leader in the church. The wife wants him to meet all her expectations and demands, the children want him to attend all their events, his boss wants him to work overtime, and the pastor expects him to be at every service and committee meeting.  He just wants to get away from it all.

The confusion is pushing him to isolate himself from his family and church.  He feels he must take care of his family, so he hides behind his work and feels that no one understands the confusion he is going through. He hates the fact that all these things have stressed him out.  He is running on empty and feels trapped.  He has been told to be a man and stand up and be counted but what does that even mean?

There is a lack of real men in the church today.  The true essence of manhood is in what he is becoming.  It is found in his moral character, values, and integrity.  A true man will do what is right because it is right.  He is “what you see, is what you get” type of guy. He is a man who will stand for justice regardless of who is against him.  He is faithful to the commitments he makes to God, wife, children, work, and church.  The lack of real men in the church is because they are not attending church, it does not appeal to them or meet their needs.

A real man develops a sense of brotherhood among his fellow Christians.  He feels free to share his frustrations about his family, his work, and his church.  He realizes the truth in the Scriptures:

“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” Proverbs 27:17

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 tells us, “Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor: if either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up!  Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”

A real man would rather spend time with his own band of brothers than in a meeting discussing what color of carpet will we put in the fellowship hall.  Men want to belong to a group of likeminded men where they are accepted for who they are, where they can tell their “war” story and share their wounds, a place where their crazy dreams can be shared, their gifts used—without shame, guilt, or someone trying change them.

A real man is committed to Jesus Christ.  He is loyal to his brothers in Christ. He is faithful to his wife, the spiritual leader to his children, a hard worker for his employer and a leader in his church. He is a man that recognizes his weakness and is willing to be trained to become better.  When he comes to the end of his life a man wants to hear; He fought a good fight.”