Why are blokes not in church?

Feminisation has left men out in the cold

By John McNeil of Challenge Weekly, New Zealand
Special to ASSIST News Service 

CHRISTCHURCH, NZ (ANS) -- Churches in New Zealand are starting to ask themselves why they are attracting more women than men. A strong theme that ran through Promise Keepers conventions around the country lately was the need to develop a bloke-friendly Church.

Three of the speakers who are raising the issue have put the principles they have developed into practice. In two of their churches men now either outnumber women, or at least have parity. If you walk into the foyer of the average church, you will rarely see anything about men, says Mark Beale.

“The predominant things you see are about children’s work. There’s usually a vase of flowers, something about overseas mission and maybe one or two things about women’s groups. “You will rarely walk into a foyer and see something about men. You won’t even see pictures or notices to do with men.”

The Rev Beale is the vicar of St Elizabeth’s Anglican Church in Clendon Park, South Auckland, at which half the congregation are Pacific Island people. And it has a 50:50 ratio of men to women.

“Walk into St Elizabeth’s and you will see a lot of male stuff in the foyer as well – pictures about men’s breakfasts, pictures about men’s studies, not just notices but pictures of the events themselves. “A Baptist guy came into our church the other week and he was quite blown away by it. He said, ‘I could come here; there’s stuff to do with men here’.”

The senior pastor of South City Christian Centre in Christchurch, Don Ferguson, has not yet seen the imbalance between women and men corrected in his church but he’s asking the hard questions. “On a Sunday morning all the values that are espoused – although there are male pastors and it looks to the outward appearance like the church is dominated by men – the fact is it is dominated by men who are actually espousing the feminine values the women relate to - love, nurture, a loving God and so on,” Mr Ferguson says.

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