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:
- David, you have a low regard for men’s intelligence.
- Short sermons “dumb down” the gospel.
- With Biblical illiteracy such a problem, we need more teaching, not less.
- We don’t need shorter sermons; we need better ones.
- My pastor is so interesting I wouldn’t mind if his sermons were longer.
- The apostle Paul preached for hours, and many were saved.
- Men just need to learn to pay attention.
Let’s take these one at a time.
Continue reading In Praise of Short Sermons
 A recently released study seems to have blown a hole in one of the central premises of my book: that women are more verbal than men, which makes gals more comfortable in our wordy churches.
The study, published in Science found that men and women spoke virtually the same number of words during the course of a typical day. Researchers studied college students by placing an electronic recorder in their pockets. The device took a 30-second sample of conversation every 12.5 minutes.
At the end of the day researchers added up the words spoken, multiplied by 25 and had their answer: women outtalked men, but only by a little bit: 16,215 words per day vs. 15,669. The study also found women tended to talk about people and relationships, while men discussed concrete objects.
So this the final word on the subject? I suspect not, for several reasons.
Continue reading Say What? Men Talk as Much as Women?
 Second Chance Church in Peoria, Illinois, a church that publicly and unashamedly targets men, is growing. Pastor Mark Doebler concludes his worship services with something he calls The Men’s Huddle. At the end every service, “Coach Mark” calls the men forward for that week’s game plan. Here’s what Coach Mark has to say about the huddle:
“I must be honest…there are times that you have an idea and you know immediately in your heart that you just have to run with it. The huddle was not one of those ideas! I had a strong suspicion that it might just come off as cheesy, or hokey….I don’t care for either. But, in the spirit of an entrepreneur, I decided to give it a try.
Continue reading The Men’s Huddle
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.
Continue reading College Gender Gap Mimics Church Gap
A sporting venue is masculine territory. The key value is competition. Somebody wins, somebody loses. Yet women feel perfectly comfortable there. Many women follow sports with rabid devotion.
However, men generally do not feel comfortable in feminine venues. Men avoid places like fabric stores, flower shops, and women’s boutiques. A few years ago it was popular to invite men to baby showers. That trend was short-lived, because the men didn’t come.
Even sporting events that feature women competitors are shunned by males. A survey by the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) found that only 2% of the men who attend their games come without women. Most of the men in the stands are fathers bringing their daughters. Only 6% of U.S. men identify themselves as fans of the WNBA.
What’s this got to do with church? Lots of men perceive the church to be a women’s thing. So they avoid it. On the other hand, lots of women perceive the church to be a men’s thing. So they love it.
Continue reading Women do Masculine, but Men don’t do Feminine
Let’s say immigrants from a faraway land began moving to your city, and you wanted to reach them with the gospel. Few of them speak English or understand Western culture. Would you walk right up to them and start explaining the four spiritual laws? Of course not. Instead, you would learn their language, familiarize yourself with their customs, and discover their real needs. Then you would tailor your presentation of the gospel to make it meaningful to them.
This was the apostle Paul’s strategy as he encountered different cultures. In 1 Corinthians 9: 19-23, Paul made it clear that he tailored his presentation to the needs of the audience he was trying to reach. He never compromised the message. However, he was not afraid to make it understandable to his hearers.
We live among the world’s largest unreached people group — men. Guys have their own needs, expectations and culture. They speak a different language. Yet today’s Christians do almost nothing to make the gospel comprehensible to them. On the contrary, many of the terms we toss about in our churches have turned Christianity into a puzzle for men.
Continue reading How to Speak Man-ish
Men and boys don’t need teaching as much as they need discipleship – the kind of intense, one-on-one leadership Jesus provided his disciples. Unfortunately, the modern church has discarded the discipleship model in favor of a classroom model.
Have you noticed how many church programs are built around a school paradigm? We offer adult classes, seminars, Sunday school, Bible Studies, etc. The centerpiece of our worship is a lecture (sermon) from an educated person with a seminary degree. Christianity has become an educational pursuit. The path to Christ now leads through a classroom.
Why is this academic approach to faith so discouraging to men? Simple. Men are less comfortable in a classroom. Figures from the U.S. Department of Education indicate that women are more likely than men to go to college and earn 57 percent of all the BA degrees and 58 percent of the master’s degrees. Boys drop out of high school at a rate 30 percent higher than that of girls. Girls outnumber boys 124 to 100 in advanced placement courses.
Continue reading Church as a Classroom…
|
Visit our affiliated sites:
|
