Why Men Hate Going to Church by David Murrow

Ok, headline first: every church leader should read this book.

Why Men Hate Going to Church is broken into three parts, basically explaining why it’s important that men are stuck into church, why they aren’t, and how to get them. Murrow frequently uses convincing statistics, stories and other facts to demonstrate to his readers that he’s not just some chauvinist sounding his trumpet, and to my mind succeeds – I’m thoroughly convinced but probably wouldn’t have been beforehand!

The truth is that everything about church is heavily ‘feminised’, and we’re caught in a vicious circle of a church made up predominantly of ladies who therefore influence what church looks like, resulting in a church that’s unattractive for men to join or invite their friends to. From children’s work to the way the church building looks to the songs we sing to the way we preach the Gospel, everything is designed with women in mind, and churches are shrinking and failing as a result. Murrow explains clearly and carefully why this is and what the specific problems are, before suggesting (very) practical ways to swing things more in men’s favour. He takes the time to answer critics and address peoples’ concerns.

If I had one criticism of the book it would be with its structure; the problems are listed one at a time before the solutions are presented which means that at the last sentences of most chapters in the first half of the book are something like: ‘What can we do to make things better? We’ll find out in Chapter 25.’ But to be honest, that’s me being picky.

For me, five stars. Every church leader should read this book – if you think you don’t need to, the chances are that if it isn’t already, your church is at the start of a decline.

I got this book for free from BookSneeze.com. I’m not required to give a positive review.

It is not good for a man to be alone

 

Husbands and Wives (song) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On behalf of all men everywhere can I admit: men need help.

Now I’ve cleared the air, Rick Thomas, a trained counsellor, has written a great article basically assessing the fact that men act like they can do fine on their own (because they’re men) but they really need help from their wives.

What do you think?

Female bishops

I read a story in the newspapers recently that the Church of England had started the process of potentially enabling ladies to serve as bishops. Of course there are two sides to the debate – one side didn’t ever want ladies to become vicars so will vote against this move (and likely lose), the other side believes in equal rights.

Now, I don’t want to start a massive argument here but I would like to genuinely ask a question of those in favour of female bishops & church leaders. Jesus appointed leaders over the early church in the form of his twelve disciples, all of whom were male.

My question is: why did he choose only men if he wanted us to have both men and women leading? Whenever I’ve asked this question before I’ve been answered in only one way, which is that men were leaders in the culture at that time…but the last time I checked Jesus wasn’t the biggest fan of conforming to society!

Genuinely, I’d like an answer – thanks