Wild Men

Donald Sensing of One Hand Clapping brings up something that's been nibbling away at me for quite a while; the wimpification of the church. In a post last November called, Would you trust your salvation to this guy? he looks at many of the traditional portraits of Jesus - all of them very effeminate, and wonders about the feminization of the church. Take a look at the pictures on his website. They look familiar don't they?

He also points out a great article by Doug Giles called, Where are God's warriors and wild men? Mr. Giles makes the observation that if you look around in church on Sunday morning you're likely to see a lot fewer men than women. He comes to the conclusion that guys, in general, avoid going to church. As a result, they've abdicated much of the leadership of the church to women. Mr. Giles goes on to give some suggestions that really get to the heart of the issue,

• Put an end to preaching by cheesy, whiny, quiche eating, preening Nancy Boys ... right now! It freaks us meat eaters out. Get it? Hire a pastor who throws off a good John Wayne vibe instead of that Boy George feeling. Know what I mean? And cheer on “Pastor Wayne” to serve up the solid meat of the scripture … the stuff that prods the congregation to biblical maturity rather than prolonging their infancy.
  
• Ditto regarding the worship/music leader. And make sure your new testosterone laden songmeister is outfitted with weighty worship music instead of the saccharine-laced slush we have had to sing ad nauseam et infinitum for the last, oh, 100 years. That’s a pretty simple can-do … don’t you think?
  
• Enough with the Precious Moments prints and figurines -- okay? How about decking out the sanctuary with serious transcendent art work that stops us in our tracks, rather than ubiquitous prints of fat baby angels who look like they’ve got a good buzz going from too much Mountain Dew and children’s aspirin?
  
• Lose the Church’s “I’m in therapy for ever” feel. Yes, yes, we’re all a work in progress but the co-dependant, extended womb the Church has wrongfully created has allowed congregants to not get a life because of some difficult doo-doo in their lives. Sure life’s hard, little Sally, and the sooner, we celebrate the struggle the quicker we will draw men back to our houses of worship.
  

I have another suggestion to add. The next time someone suggests a "Men's Retreat" at your church, suggest that the retreat actually involve something that men like to do! In past years, I believe, the church has taken a womans view of what it would be like to have a retreat and then tried to jam men into that same mold. For women, it might seem like fun to sit around in a room all day and reflect on things like feelings and relationships. They might enjoy discussing all the minutia of their daily lives with other women. They might come away from something like that feeling refreshed and invigorated. As a man, I come away from things like that feeling bored beyond belief and motivated to do nothing but sit in front of the television with the remote for the next several Sunday mornings.

Yet there have been numerous occasions over the years where I've been guilted into going to such retreats. I've decided I'm not going to any more of them. They're designed for someone with different "wiring" than me. A "Man's" retreat would involve doing something. It might involve a camping trip or it could involve some type of work project. The men involved might have time to discuss or reflect on some important spiritual issues, but the focus of the retreat would be men doing things together. Men develop relationships, and even meaning, from doing things together.

The wimpification of the church has been subtle at times, but it's ever present. If we want more Men to become strong leaders in the church we need to think about the specific way they interact and experience the world around them. The sooner the better.

Posted by jdmays at April 27, 2004 07:51 PM | TrackBack