What say you?
Thanks for the ping!
Let me check with the wife first.
Where are the men?
Two thoughts come to mind:
-men are turned off by Jesus is my boyfriend songs ("Hold me close, wrap your arms around me..")
-men's ministries are patterned after women's ministies. Men want to jump off cliffs into rivers and fish/hunt. Not sit around and talk about their feelings
my 0.02 cents
A church that doesn't force the men to be the leaders quickly becomes feminized and runs the men off. The women eventually follow.
For example, the PCUSA has had women officers for about a generation (slightly longer in some of its component branches). Now, 75% of the deacons and half of the elders are women. Of course, the men have left, but the women are beginning to leave as well.
Here's some free advice for any preachers who are reading. The men don't like to hold hands with the person next to them unless it is an attractive female, preferably his wife, and he doesn't want his wife holding hands with another men. So knock off the 'holding hands' in unity 'stuff'.
My husband corrected me just yesterday for referring to the Holy Spirit as the "Comforter."
That is imprecise, he practically bellowed. The Greek is more accurately written as "The Encourager." It's only because the church is being subverted by the passivity and feminization found most often in the RC church, the Orthodox and other "softer" denominations that we are told to look to God as a "comforter," one who weeps with us and consoles us when in fact, the Holy Spirit is much more robust and aggressive and militant and certain in His teachings and leadings.
There is a definite pattern to all this -- schools, government, church, all being dominated by women. Why is that? I think it is because women are more easily led, more easily persuaded, more grateful just to be given the job. And so women are quicker to do the bidding of whomever is pulling the strings.
And strings are being pulled all over the place. It can only stop when men stand up and assume their rightful place as heads of their households. Much more error is committed in the name of passivity than bold and confident assertion.
Thanks for the ping. I attend a large Southern Baptist church. We have a gender-balanced membership and have a high number of men participating in leadership. We have a men's ministry which coordinates Saturday morning men's breakfast meeting, local and overseas missions projects, sports events, etc.
I did recently move to a new Sunday school class in our singles ministry because there were no women in my old one. I do find that the men are attracted to the classes that offer more in-depth bible studies where discussion is permitted during class time. I, too, enjoy this type of learning situation --even being a woman: -)