My Two Cents

I've already posted today, but this is on my mind, and it's my blog, so I'm going to post again.

A question seems to be running around in "blogosphere" lately -- Is there a declining presence of men in the church? I don't have the answer to that question. I have no statistics and no impressions regarding this question.

What's bothering me is the "reasons" that are floating around as to WHY this might be -- if it is.

• John at Locusts and Honey says, "A few years ago, John Eldredge wrote a book called Wild at Heart, which asserted that modern Christianity emasculates men." Now, this is John Eldredge's book, not the assertion of John of Locusts and Honey.
• How about this one at Jeff the Baptist? Men will leave the church as women assume the roles of pastor, because women are doing everything else anyway, and that leaves men with nothing? I'm sorry, but that's just ridiculous.
• This one at Mark's Remarks -- Some interesting stats and a humorous list of how to fix the "problem."

I'm not here to argue whether there is a decline in male attendance in church. I do not have the answer to that, but I can tell you what I think (obviously, I've been doing that on a pretty regular basis):

• Many years ago, we set up a new committee system in our church. We had the regular administrative committees -- finance, stewardship, pastor/parish, etc. and then the programming committees -- Nurture, Outreach and Witness. At the time, I was serving on the Nominations committee. I noticed when we finished "nominating" people, that we had programming committees mainly composed of women, but the chairmen of all three committees were men. It wasn't because only women would serve on the committees, and that they were not willing to chair them. It was because we had ASKED women to be on the committees, and we had ASKED men to chair them.
• At the same time, we were appointing members to the Trustees. There is a rule in the Methodist church that each "class" of three Trustees must include at least one woman. So as we worked on the last "class" (group of people appointed at the same time who would serve the same term), we had found one man for this group of three. The pastor at the time said, "So now we need one woman and one man." -- as if we were only allowed to have one woman in each class. I mention these two instances because I believe much of the committee structure in the church has women involved in programming -- education, outreach, etc, and men in administration because we set it up that way. We expect it to be that way, so that's the way we arrange it.
• I think if we want boys to understand that men can work in any area of service in the church to which they feel led by God, then they need to see men in service in every area of the church. If we want girls to feel welcome to serve as they are called in any portion of the church, then we need to have women in all different roles in the church. That means when we are recruiting adults to lead Children's church, we ask both women and men to do it. When we are looking for ushers, we ask both women and men to do it. Not all men will work with children and not all women will usher, but that's the way it is with all "jobs" in the church.
• If we want boys to understand that it is OK to talk about God, then they need to see men talking about God -- not just the pastor, but the men of the church.
• If we want children and youth to know that women can carry responsibility in church -- or in life -- then they need to see us modeling it.

For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. Galatians 3:27-29 (NIV)

I refuse to have my role in the church defined by my gender. The definer of my role in church, I hope, if I will allow Him to be, is God. I have been and am witness to too many men doing too many wonderful works in our church to believe that "women run the church." Baloney. I am blessed to be a part of a church where men and women both serve God -- and hopefully we are moving toward a church where we don't let our preconceived notions of the "role of women" or the "role of men" get in the way of God's call for our lives.