Do Men Hate Going To Church, Really?

I've been reading a book Why Men Hate Going to Church by David Murrow and for me it really hit home. Here is a summary of some of the key points I found helpful in the book and I hope you will consider them as you think about men's programs in your church and how men react to church in general. Murrow also has a website churchformen.com and there are sections specifically for churches which may be of interest to you.

It seems that men have always been under-represented in the church (except in the clergy). On any given Sunday the audience in most churches is about 60 percent female (up from 53% in the 50's). Nationally, that’s well over 13 million men AWOL from church. But there are other troubling statistics as well. About 25% of married women worship without their husbands. Less than 10 percent of churches are able to maintain a thriving men's ministry. About 90 percent of the boys raised in church abandon it during their teens and 20s never to return. In a Men in Balance survey (http://meninbalance.org) of churchgoing males, only 56% say their family sees them as a strong spiritual leader.

On the positive side, when a mother attends church, the chances of the rest of the family attending are about 17%. When the father attends, the chance that the entire family will attend jumps to 93%. There's good reason to get men more involved in the church.

David Murrow suggests a number of reasons why men do not attend church in larger numbers. While I am aware that many of the reasons men give for not attending church seem flimsy, there are a lot of things which we can do in churches to make them more "male friendly."

The full article is at http://meninbalance.org/articles/menhatechurch.htm

What do you think??? I'd really love to start a dialog about this.

Jerry Hancock, Executive Director
Men in Balance