MEN AND THE CHURCH: Texas churches strive to help men belong

Imagine you are a man who hasn’t attended in church in years. You enjoy such activities as golfing, hunting and fishing on Sunday mornings. You think it’s more beneficial to spend time outdoors with a few of your closest friends than it is to be cooped up in a church building.

Now imagine that your wife has asked you to try going back to the local Southern Baptist church one more time. Do you think the average worship experience will entice you to come back?

Upon entering the service, worshippers sing what sound like sappy love songs to Jesus. The lyrics say things like, “Hold me close, let your love surround me,” “Jesus, I am so in love with you” and “I’m desperate for you, I’m lost without you.”

After the singing, church attendees hold hands for prayer and hear a sermon emphasizing concepts such as a “personal relationship” with Jesus, having “intimacy” with God and “sharing” their feelings with other Christians.

Finally, at the end of the service opportunities to serve in the church are announced. But these opportunities include only such things as singing in the choir, keeping the nursery, decorating bulletin boards and baking desserts for the next church potluck.

Would you, an unchurched man, find a church like this appealing and comfortable?

If you said no, you’re not alone. Increasingly, men are not involved in church.

The U.S. Congregational Life Survey tells us that while the U.S. population is split almost evenly between men and women, only 39 percent of all churchgoers are men. Speaking of Americans in the mid-1990s, pollster George Barna wrote that “women are twice as likely to attend a church service during any given week. Women are also 50 percent more likely than men to say they are ‘religious’ and to state that they are ‘absolutely committed’ to the Christian faith.”

Lance Crowell, a church ministries associate with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, said the story is not much different across the Lone Star State.

“Even though there are men attending church, more women are connected to their churches at a level beyond mere Sunday morning attendance,” Crowell, who oversees men’s ministry for the SBTC, said. “Men are not coming at the same rate as women, but even beyond that a large percentage of those who are coming are not truly connecting, serving, and especially not leading.”

Many churches, Crowell said, do not realize their ministry style caters almost exclusively to women. But Baptists must reprioritize to reach men and, in turn, transform the church, he added.

“Several leaders in men’s ministry have noted how so many churches have catered to women in their style, look and programming,” he said. “This is largely because the ones who care the most in the church are often the women. We need to help churches, leaders and, of course, men, see that they are the first step in changing our churches and making a difference in the community.”

Leon Podles, in his book “The Church Impotent,”argues that the feminization of Christianity began in the Middle Ages. As a new, feminized piety increased in the church, men began to exit, he wrote. According to Podles,this feminized Christianity is dangerous for both the church and society.

“If the feminization of the Church continues, men will continue to seek their spiritual sustenance outside the churches, in false or inadequate religions, with highly damaging consequences for the church and society,” Podles wrote.

Despite its feminization,Podles argues thatChristianity has the resources to attract men without compromising its message. He suggests that in order to reach men,churches emphasize initiation rituals, the struggle of the Christian life and brotherly love.

“Christianity has within it the resources that allow it to appeal to men, to show that not only will Christianity not undermine their masculinity, but it will also fulfill and perfect it.”

Suggesting guys get together to talk about their feelings won’t cut it, according to Navigators leader Geoff Gorsuch.

“The word ‘feelings’ is a bad word for men,” Gorsuch told men’s ministry leaders attending a Discipleship and Family Week at LifeWay Glorieta Conference Center. “You avoid that word. You just don’t go there if you are trying to start a men’s ministry group.”

Instead, he said, “Give him a challenge. Tell them we are going to meet together because we want to take the Christian life more seriously; we want to build better families or we want to change this community. You can’t get them there by saying you want to develop a deep, intimate group.”

Men’s Fraternity provides one avenue for addressing topics of particular interest to men. Available from LifeWay Christian Resources, the curriculum draws the work of Little Rock pastor Robert Lewis, offering three year-long studies.

At least some Texas churches are taking the challenge to reach men with the gospel and then disciple them using programs that cater to their unique needs and personalities.

Buddy Griffin, minister of men and prayer at Sagemont Church in Houston, said portraying Christianity as weak or unmanly misrepresents Scripture, and his church has designed a program that trains hundreds of men each year to be disciples of Christ.

Sagemont strives to gear evangelism and discipleship programs uniquely to men. The church started a Men’s Fraternity program three years ago that has ballooned to more than 700 participants. A recent fishing tournament was designed to reach lost men and served as an entry point through which at least one lost man started attending the church regularly. Sagemont has even decorated its men’s restrooms according to themes that might interest some men?including bass fishing, duck hunting and golf.

Sagemont currently has an average worship attendance that is 55 percent women and 45 percent men. But Griffin, who has worked with the SBTC to help other churches grow their men’s ministries, has a goal of reducing that gap each year until worship attendance is 51 percent male in 2014. Other goals include filling 70 percent of church leadership positions with men and matching 95 percent of the congregation’s fatherless boys with a man for mentorship.

“Where do men go to be cheered on for the noble and righteous things in life? ” Griffin said. “Men always go where the noise is. So we try to make a celebratory atmosphere among our men when they make godly choices.”

Rodney Thompson, a layman at First Baptist Church in Katy, emphasized that excellent men’s ministry is not only for mega-churches like Sagemont that have a full-time minister for men. First Baptist, which averages approximately 1,000 in worship, began a Men’s Fraternity program last year and plans to begin the program’s second year this fall. Additionally, the church holds a weekly morning men’s prayer time.

Thompson, who serves on the men’s ministry leadership team at First Baptist, said the key to reaching and discipling men at smaller churches is the pastor and other staff members. If men see staff members who have a strong work ethic, it will motivate them to join the work of ministry as well.

“It’s easier for staff to be involved in programs at a church, because that’s their job,” Thompson said.
“Laymen are here working at another job and then have to switch gears and dedicate time to work and volunteer at the church. It’s asking more of laymen to work and volunteer.”

When men see ministerial staff “doing more than just the normal doing the announcements during the service and leading the music” and “not sitting behind the desk,” they will be motivated to make extra effort in church activities themselves, he said.

Scott Moody, pastor of First Baptist Church in Silsbee, has found Thompson’s thoughts