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David Murrow has just released a brand new DVD to accompany his bestselling book, Why Men Hate Going to Church. This new DVD is packed with new content, new surprises and new laughs! Take a look: This new DVD gives you more than two hours of great teaching and interviews, including: Why Men Hate Going to Church As I travel the country, nothing I say creates more controversy than this: men would benefit from shorter, simpler sermons. In my Go for the Guys Sunday Action Plan, I advocate a one-point sermon, ten minutes in length, built around an object lesson. People are freaking out over this. I get comments like:
Let’s take these one at a time.
Other punishments have not deterred tardiness, double parking and littering among officers, but acting chief Pongpat Chayaphan believes the armbands will do the trick. “After this policy came out, the police are scared,” he said. “It will be very embarrassing to walk around with Hello Kitty on your arm.” What’s so bad about a pink armband? This seemingly benign corrective strikes a double-whammy at the heart of manhood. Every man fears being perceived as feminine (pink) and childish (hello Kitty). Sadly, churchgoing has become a pink armband for many men. It’s a sign of weakness, childishness and femininity.
John is daily steeped in the feminine teapot of modern Anglicanism. After he read my book he felt inspired to write a guest column for the Church for Men newsletter and Web site. I’ve reprinted it here. Enjoy: When I arrived in 2000, the congregation was warm, faithful — and elderly. Obviously something would have to be done, and soon, if there was to be a worshipping community in ten years’ time. By the grace of God, and with a few changes, we managed to draw in some new faces, particularly families with children, so that despite the losses through deaths, our numbers went up. But here was the problem: although the mums and kids were attending regularly, the dads were not. I’d had contact with the dads. In one case the dad had been the reason why his family started coming to church. But we were not keeping the dads, hence David’s book. What I got from it, however, was more than an insight on my problem. Rather, it was one of those ‘Oh my goodness!’ experiences, like noticing your fly has been open all the time you’ve been giving a public speech. As I read, I realized that the problem is not just with our congregation — it is with our entire denomination, and indeed with our culture. The Protestant church is in the midst of something called, “The Praise and Worship Movement,” or PWM for short. The pipe organ is out – the drum set is in. Even traditional churches have seen the writing on the wall and are grudgingly offering contemporary worship services featuring praise singing in an effort to attract the younger generation. But there’s more to PWM than electric guitars. An effective praise set moves the congregation on an emotional level. It helps the body feel the very presence of Jesus. Many would agree the PWM has breathed new life into the church. But even the healthiest movements have unexpected consequences. I believe PNW is having the unintended result of feminizing the worship experience – and making it harder for men to connect with God in church. Men are not spiritually lazy, as some have suggested. Men want to serve God. The problem is the modern church does not need men’s gifts, or holds them in contempt, equating them with sin. What if Mary had viewed the gifts of the wise men this way? Wise man: Greetings! We bring you gifts from the East. Mary: OK, whatcha got? Wise man: Gold, frankincense and myrrh. Mary: Phew! I’ll take the gold, but you can keep that smelly stuff. This is how the church treats men. We love men’s gold, but we have no use for their smelly stuff. Competition? Goal orientation? Performance? Power? These things stink up the church! I challenge you to answer this question: how might a man use these kinds of gifts in the local church? Your brain probably hurts just thinking about it. A report from the American Council on Education finds that U.S. colleges have lost millions of men in the past decade. In 1996, the male-female ratio on U.S. campuses was 50-50. By 2004, the ratio was 43-57 male-female. The college gender gap is growing by almost 2% per year. Some student bodies are now 2/3 female. USAToday put it this way: “To a data expert accustomed to the drip-drip of annual changes, that’s the sound of a waterfall.” I believe churches and universities are having trouble attracting men for the same reason: both are in the business of dispensing precious knowledge in a classroom setting. Today, fewer men are in the market for this type of experience, which they find boring and irrelevant to their lives. Allow me to explain. Kyle and Bonnie have been married almost twenty years. Kyle hates going to church. Bonnie loves it. This has caused tension in their marriage, as she subtly prays, preaches and prods Kyle toward religion, and he steadfastly resists. But Kyle “does Bonnie a favor” and attends church three times a year: Christmas Eve, Easter Sunday and Mother’s Day. He’s one of millions of men who attend only on these holidays. Bonnie looks forward to these occasions, and each time prays earnestly that God will touch his heart. But nothing ever happens. Kyle feels as out of place as a ham sandwich at a Bar Mitzvah. Why are holiday services, which draw huge numbers of irreligious men, so ineffective at engaging them? I believe that holiday services are, by their very nature, poorly suited for men. They tend to hide the church’s greater mission under a mountain of religious tradition and ceremony. Holiday services also give men a skewed perspective on what the gospel is all about. Some of you will be taking your children to college in the next few weeks. While you’re in the dorms, you might notice a difference in how girls and boys decorate their rooms. Stop your snickering. This is a serious subject. In a young woman’s room it’s not uncommon to find various keepsakes of her childhood, including stuffed animals, baby pictures and dolls. Go to a boy’s room and a different portrait emerges: it’s as if his childhood never existed. There’s nary a Lego, Tonka truck or Mutant Ninja Turtle to be seen. Instead the walls are plastered with the images of sports heroes, curvaceous models and alcoholic beverages. Why the difference? Psychologically speaking, young men have an intense need to separate themselves from childhood. Women, on the other hand, celebrate their childhoods for a lifetime. No shame accrues to a woman who revels in her youth, but in our society men are supposed to strain toward manhood. I’m not saying this is a good thing, but it’s the way things are and have been for centuries. Remember the words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:11: “but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” Young men are still eager to do this. So we have another reason men avoid Christianity: there is a strong psychological link between church and childhood. Women, who are free to enjoy the delights of their youth, attend church without shame. But men are wary of an institution that has strong ties to their formative years. Military base closures are in the news. The pentagon wants to shutter hundreds of installations around the nation, in order to plow the savings into beefed-up national security. But local communities don’t want to lose the bases. They depend on these posts to buoy their local economies, provide jobs and enhance prestige. The moment the list was announced, governors and senators rushed to the microphones, pledging to “save our bases.” But there’s a core truth that’s being lost here. The military exists for one purpose: to defend America against hostile enemies. It does not exist to provide jobs or prestige to localities. But these towns (and their supporters) seem to have forgotten that. Our churches fall into a similar mindset. We forget our purpose: to make disciples of Jesus. The only valid measure of success is this: are people becoming more like Him? |
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