Men of Faith
P. F. Stack
The typical Christian service, even in so-called patriarchal faiths, is filled mostly with women. Church volunteers are overwhelmingly female. And national men’s movements such as Promise Keepers that once packed stadiums now can scarcely fill an auditorium.
These are the new findings of author David Murrow, whose best-selling 2005 book, Why Men Hate Going to Church, has been reissued with about 70 percent new content. Murrow opens his new edition by describing his experience as keynote speaker at the 2007 Presbyterian Church (USA) Men’s Churchwide Gathering in Louisville, Ky. In attendance? 3,000-plus Presbyterian women and 88 Presbyterian men.
The reasons men give for not going, Murrow writes, are that they don’t have time; church is boring and irrelevant to their lives; they don’t like the pastor; or it just doesn’t work for them. But Murrow thinks the real reasons go deeper. Here are 12 things he believes men really fear about going to church:
1. A bad experience like they had as a kid.
2. Loss of control.
3. That they’ll get stuck with some weirdo.
4. That someone might think they’re gay.
5. That they’ll become “soft”.
6. That church is too tough on single guys.
7. That people will think they’re “not getting much sex.”
8. The church is full of hypocrites.
9. That all the church wants is money.
10. They’re jealous of their wives’ attachment to Jesus
11. The behavioral standards are too high.
12. They’re afraid of heaven.
“Jesus called his followers to be fishers of men,” Murrow writes in the new introduction. “My job is to show you how to get men into the net (the local church) , and to keep them from jumping back into the sea.”
This article “Men of Faith” by P. F. Stack was excerpted from: www.sltrib.com web site. November 2011. It may be used for study & research purposes only.
This article may not be written by an Apostolic author, but it contains many excellent principles and concepts that can be adapted to most churches. As the old saying goes “Eat the meat. Throw away the bones.”
