"SURVIVAL: Why Men's Ministry is INEFFECTIVE!"

Our nation's restaurants and coffee houses are overrun with Christian men on any given Saturday morning with fellowships, bible studies and "hugging sessions." We sit around and beat our chests and pontificate over the scriptures to each other week after week, month after month and totally ignore the dozens of men that sit in the booths right next to us who are crying out in silence for their voices to be heard! IHOP, Starbucks and Panera Bread are making a small fortune off of Christian men who are content to sit on their butts and do nothing but talk to each other! And they wonder why the church has no power!

The Institutional Church (IC) has taken a serious public relations "hit" primarily because Christian Men are AWOL when it comes to "serving" God's people in the marketplace! In short, the IC is "impotent" because its men have been spiritually castrated; they have lost their ability to reproduce glory for God in the earth by duplicating Him to "the least likely of these."

I know this is hard to hear, but this is not solely my opinion.  The Barna Group, Pew Forum and the Washington Area Men's Ministry Coalition all cite that:

1. Fewer than 10% of U.S. churches are able to establish or maintain a vibrant Men's Ministry;
2. Fewer then 1% of churchgoing men participate in any sort of ongoing Men's Ministry Program;
3. 90 million men are not involved in any kind of discipleship;
4. On any given Sunday, there are 13 million more women than men in America's churches;
5. Over 70% of boys being raised in the church will abandon the church by their 20th birthday;
6. Midweek church activities draw 70-80% female participants (bible study, rehearsals, etc);
7. This Sunday, almost 25% of married Christian women will worship without their husbands;
8. When a father receives Christ, his entire family joins him at church 93% of the time.

Wow! These statistics are staggering! So you might argue that there are hundreds of men who attend your church every week and totally disagree with these numbers. The overwhelming majority of these men are there in "body" only...if they go at all! Why are so many men AWOL?  I'm glad you asked.

1. Men are ineffective in the IC because the messages that are preached are not relevant to their lives;
2. Men report the "feminization" of the church and the catering to female members as a turnoff;
3. Men cite "spiritual maturity" as their number one goal as believers. This point is lacking significantly in many IC settings because the Pastor is not spiritually mature.  You can't teach what you don't know!
4. Men fail to "Accept their Humanity"; we put too much pressure on ourselves to be a "MAN" without fully understanding what it really means to be a "FATHER";
5. Men do not understand the 'Spirit of Condemnation" and how to manage it without guilt;
6. Men are not challenged in the IC; men need to have a purpose and a goal; in my opinion, a man can only find his gift and destiny in the Kingdom of God through "service" in the marketplace.  He has to put his hands to the plough. A man has to produce something!

No amount of preaching, men's conferences, flag football games or fish fry's can change the dynamic of men fleeing the church.  You cannot replace "ministry" with "activities"!  Men might come to the activity, but they will almost never come back for the ministry.  Men must engage one another.  Engagement leads to empowerment and empowerment leads to spiritual maturity.  Spiritual maturity leads to service and extending the love of Christ to ALL of God's people...not just Christians!

The simple answer to this dilemma within the IC is to identify opportunities in the marketplace to serve God's people...and JUST GO! Selah...