The "Gender Gap" ... are you making that up?

Hello, friends.

I was a youth minister for 17 years. I have been an associate minister for just a little over 6 months. A big part of the draw to my new role was the opportunity to help lead the men's ministry here at Bammel. One of the reasons I was so looking forward to serving in this area is because of something, perhaps we could overstate it and call it an epidemic, that I saw way too much of while I was in youth ministry. I call it being "spiritually single" and you are welcome to use that term. I'm sure I didn't coin the term, mainly because it's so obvious who we're talking about. Parents, most often women, who are married but have taken on the responsibility of the spiritual development of their children on their own. It's pretty rampant. Maybe it is an epidemic. I'm not sure about this, but I am almost 100% certain it's not an easy place to be. And the sad part about it is that I don't know what to do about it.

So I'm doing a little research. I'm doing a lotta soul searching. I've been reading this book Why Men Hate Going To Church by David Morrow, and what I'm finding is pretty interesting. In sports we use the term "numbers never lie" which is to say that if you look at the stats, they'll tell you the story of what's going on. Not sure that's completely accurate, because the eyes tell part of the story too. It's like when I used to tell my grandmother what the Great Depression was like because I was learning about it in school. I described the horror that some families experienced, the suicides and other "stats" I was gobbling up in my history class. My grandmother was a sweet woman, too sweet to tell me I had no idea what I was talking about. And I was too dumb to figure it out at the time, but my grandmother didn't have to read about the Depression in a  book. She lived it. She was there in the middle of the tragedy. She didn't need it explained to her, certainly not from a smug 14 year old.

I think what I'm trying to get at is that there are two truths, or at least a truth and then a truth behind that truth. There is a truth about "spiritual singleness" that we can quantify. We can look at numbers, such as the "gender gap" Murrow discusses and details through great research tools. A gender gap is defined as a church whose adult membership is at least 56% female. So according to the Barna Group, there's a gender gap in up to 85% of our American churches. Then there is the truth about why there's a gender gap. That is up for speculation, because there isn't a one-size-fits-all answer, and there certainly isn't a quick fix to the problem. The only thing we do know is that churches across the nation are experiencing a widening gender gap, in favor of more women in churches while men stay away. The fact is, there are likely multiple reasons and none of them are readily remedied.

So now let's talk about how this works with me. I see a problem and I want to fix it. That's my nature. I think we'd agree that this is a pretty common male trait. I think that's why we are generally poor communicators. We typically don't listen to problems. We're thinking of solutions. And we also can't understand why anyone wouldn't appreciate that, and don't care for your tone, now that we think about it. The book, which I wholeheartedly think every man should read, is not bible. I'm not saying everything in it is entirely accurate. I know data can be manipulated to make a point. I've been doing it with Dan Marino's career for three decades.

So we may not come up with all the answers, but I want us to wrestle with it. I want us, as men, to be honest with ourselves and at least take a look at why we're seemingly growing less interested in taking the lead in the spiritual development of our families and ourselves and taking leadership roles in our churches. There's a quote from the book that I want to leave you with and maybe we'll think about it this week and it will generate some healthy self-evalution and discussion. Murrow says, "A lot of men have assigned religion to their wives' basket of responsibilities." That quote has stuck with me and is currently haunting me for some reason. Is that true? If so, why? If so, does it bother us? Also, how do we fix it? Sorry, couldn't resist.

I want to make it perfectly clear that I have many more questions than I have answers. But I'm hoping that as men, we'll at least begin to ask ourselves the questions instead of plopping down on the couch, clicking on the game and pretending these questions don't exist. I welcome feedback and look forward to seeing where all this "blog" nonsense goes. Thanks for tuning in.

EP