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Is Christianity failing to reach men?
The link can be found here.
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What do I think of David Murrow's book published by Thomas Nelson? Let's plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
I'm someone active in ministry and I strive to live a holy life before Jesus, but honestly, church can seem like just doing my duty often. I sit there and I hear the same thing I've heard over and over and think about what's on TV when I get home or a game I'd like to play. I could often easily go with skipping all the music and going straight to the sermon, but then when we get to the sermon, it can be just as boring for me.
If David Murrow is right, and I think he is, I'm not alone. Men don't really care for church. Christianity is the only major world religion that has a shortage of men in it. Why is it that we don't care for church? Is it we don't really believe in God or we don't really care about Jesus?
Murrow contends that one of the most important things in the mind of a man is to be a man. A man does not generally want to do anything feminine. If there was something like that, he would only care if he knew he was connected with other men with a similar interest. Being one of the guys is of great importance to a man.
This is also something that is not just shut off. Men are constantly trying to prove themselves and show what they are made of. Challenges are taken very seriously in the world of a man. The problem is that church often doesn't fit into that. Church has become very feminized.*
Please understand. Murrow is in no way saying the Gospel is feminine. He is also not saying we make any change whatsoever in the content of the Gospel. How we present the Gospel and what we emphasize of the Gospel is often what really needs to be changed.*
Consider what I said earlier. Men hear the same things repeatedly in a church service. What are they usually about? Relationships. It's not that men are opposed to relationships. We have plenty of them. It's that men don't really define themselves by their relationships. You won't have two guys out hiding in some trees in the woods hunting deer and one of them says, "Hey man. I think we need to sit down sometime and talk about our relationship." (And especially not since the other man likely has a loaded gun.)
Many churches become all about the family of God, which is true, but not about the Kingdom of God, which is more outwardly focused. Men who tend to be aggressive want to go out and do things. We don't just want to be internally focused.*
The music is often also not really pleasing to a man. Much of the music relies on an emotional high of sorts and are really songs sung to Jesus that could be sung to your boyfriend as well. Many CCM stations play songs to reach women.*
We also have a problem when we present gentle Jesus meek and mild. Jesus was certainly the Lamb of God, but He was also the Lion of Judah. Look at the pictures of Jesus on many covers of Bibles and in Christian bookstores. This Jesus often looks like a wimp to men. Men don't want to follow a wimp.
This doesn't mean either that we chase out the women. Not at all. Women need to be in church and when men start going, women start going more as well. Statistically, if you want to reach the average family for Jesus, focus on the father. There is even research that one of the leading factors in keeping a teenager of either sex from apostasizing is if their Dad takes his Christianity seriously.
If you're looking at this and thinking it's about the patriarchy or something like that, then you are missing the point. If anything, you're giving men the picture that to be true Christians, they should cease being men. It's not going to work to reach them.
Instead, make church a place that lets men be men. The book even ends with Murrow asking a group of pastors how many of their churches had more men than women. Only one pastor raised their hand. Not only that, that pastor had nail polish on her hand.*
This was a woman who had read Murrow's book and took it seriously. She took out feminine decor in the church and removed a lot of songs and got others like "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" and "Onward Christian Soldiers" and allowed days for guys to even wear sports jerseys to church. She started preaching sermons about guy topics including a series on "God loves sex." Result? Her church grew among men and women both.*
Murrow's book is the kind of book I wish I could put in the hands of every pastor in the country. It's a book I thoroughly enjoyed and when I had to interrupt my reading of it, I was always looking forward to getting back into it. It is one of the most important books I think I have read and I highly recommend it.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
The link can be found here.
----
What do I think of David Murrow's book published by Thomas Nelson? Let's plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
I'm someone active in ministry and I strive to live a holy life before Jesus, but honestly, church can seem like just doing my duty often. I sit there and I hear the same thing I've heard over and over and think about what's on TV when I get home or a game I'd like to play. I could often easily go with skipping all the music and going straight to the sermon, but then when we get to the sermon, it can be just as boring for me.
If David Murrow is right, and I think he is, I'm not alone. Men don't really care for church. Christianity is the only major world religion that has a shortage of men in it. Why is it that we don't care for church? Is it we don't really believe in God or we don't really care about Jesus?
Murrow contends that one of the most important things in the mind of a man is to be a man. A man does not generally want to do anything feminine. If there was something like that, he would only care if he knew he was connected with other men with a similar interest. Being one of the guys is of great importance to a man.
This is also something that is not just shut off. Men are constantly trying to prove themselves and show what they are made of. Challenges are taken very seriously in the world of a man. The problem is that church often doesn't fit into that. Church has become very feminized.*
Please understand. Murrow is in no way saying the Gospel is feminine. He is also not saying we make any change whatsoever in the content of the Gospel. How we present the Gospel and what we emphasize of the Gospel is often what really needs to be changed.*
Consider what I said earlier. Men hear the same things repeatedly in a church service. What are they usually about? Relationships. It's not that men are opposed to relationships. We have plenty of them. It's that men don't really define themselves by their relationships. You won't have two guys out hiding in some trees in the woods hunting deer and one of them says, "Hey man. I think we need to sit down sometime and talk about our relationship." (And especially not since the other man likely has a loaded gun.)
Many churches become all about the family of God, which is true, but not about the Kingdom of God, which is more outwardly focused. Men who tend to be aggressive want to go out and do things. We don't just want to be internally focused.*
The music is often also not really pleasing to a man. Much of the music relies on an emotional high of sorts and are really songs sung to Jesus that could be sung to your boyfriend as well. Many CCM stations play songs to reach women.*
We also have a problem when we present gentle Jesus meek and mild. Jesus was certainly the Lamb of God, but He was also the Lion of Judah. Look at the pictures of Jesus on many covers of Bibles and in Christian bookstores. This Jesus often looks like a wimp to men. Men don't want to follow a wimp.
This doesn't mean either that we chase out the women. Not at all. Women need to be in church and when men start going, women start going more as well. Statistically, if you want to reach the average family for Jesus, focus on the father. There is even research that one of the leading factors in keeping a teenager of either sex from apostasizing is if their Dad takes his Christianity seriously.
If you're looking at this and thinking it's about the patriarchy or something like that, then you are missing the point. If anything, you're giving men the picture that to be true Christians, they should cease being men. It's not going to work to reach them.
Instead, make church a place that lets men be men. The book even ends with Murrow asking a group of pastors how many of their churches had more men than women. Only one pastor raised their hand. Not only that, that pastor had nail polish on her hand.*
This was a woman who had read Murrow's book and took it seriously. She took out feminine decor in the church and removed a lot of songs and got others like "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" and "Onward Christian Soldiers" and allowed days for guys to even wear sports jerseys to church. She started preaching sermons about guy topics including a series on "God loves sex." Result? Her church grew among men and women both.*
Murrow's book is the kind of book I wish I could put in the hands of every pastor in the country. It's a book I thoroughly enjoyed and when I had to interrupt my reading of it, I was always looking forward to getting back into it. It is one of the most important books I think I have read and I highly recommend it.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
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