Women outnumber men in attendance in every major Christian denomination, and they are 20% to 25% more likely to attend worship at least weekly. <\/p>\n
Although every soul matters, many pastors say they need to power up on reaching men if the next generation of believers, the children, will find the way to faith. So hundreds of churches are going for a “guy church” vibe, programming for a stereotypical man’s man. <\/p>\n
“I hear about it everywhere I go,” says Brandon O’Brien, who detailed the evolution of the chest-thumping evangelism trend this spring in Christianity Today.<\/p>\n
One church, 121 Community Church in Grapevine, Texas, outside Dallas, was even designed with dudes in mind, from the worship center’s stone floor, hunter-green and amber decor and rustic-beam ceilings to woodsy scenes on the church website.<\/p>\n
No pastels. No flowers. No sweet music. No sit-with-your-hands-folded mood. Women are welcome, but the tone is intentionally “guy church” for a reason, says Ross Sawyers, founder and pastor of 121.<\/p>\n
“I have read that if a child comes to Christ, 12% of the time the whole family will follow,” Sawyers says. <\/p>\n
“If the mom comes, there’s a 15% chance the family will. But if the man comes to church, 90% of the time the family will come along behind. <\/p>\n
“That’s the reality, and that’s why we do this.” <\/p>\n
He couldn’t cite his source, but recent surveys show:<\/p>\n
\u202252% of women and 48% of men say they identify with a particular religion, and women are the majority in 21 of 25 Christian denominations, according to the recent U.S. Religious Landscape Survey of 35,000 people by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. The survey found 39% of U.S. adults \u2014 45% of women and 34% of men \u2014 attend worship at least weekly.<\/p>\n
\u202231% of men and 27% of women say they never go to church, not even on holidays, according to a new survey of 1,007 adults by Ellison Research, a market research firm in Phoenix. <\/p>\n
It found 62% of those who attend regularly as adults say that as children they went to church with both parents. If only one parent went, usually the mom, the likelihood of the adult regularly attending dropped to 50%. If neither parent took them to church, 33% now attend.<\/p>\n
“Dads need to model the behavior,” says Ellison president Ron Sellers. <\/p>\n
\u202277% of women but just 65% of men say their faith is very important in their lives, according to a 2008 survey of 1,006 adults by Barna Research in Ventura, Calif. <\/p>\n
Decades of traditional men’s ministries and fellowship groups within most churches, even the stadium-packing 1990s all-male rallies run by the Promise Keepers, haven’t made a dent.<\/p>\n
Blame the church, not the men, says David Murrow, author of Why Men Hate Going to Church<\/i>. <\/p>\n
Warm, nurturing congregations ignore men’s need to face the epic struggles of living for Christ, writes Murrow, of Chugiak, Alaska, on his website, churchformen.com. He trains leaders for Promise Keepers and writes on his website: “We’ve wrapped the Gospel in this man-repellent package.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Check out the rest<\/a> and see what you think. It’s fascinating. And sobering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When was the last time you saw a church — Catholic or otherwise — packed with more men than women? USA TODAY takes note of a curious phenomenon, and what some churches are doing to change it: Women outnumber men in attendance in every major Christian denomination, and they are 20% to 25% more likely…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ripped-from-the-headlines","category-the-people-in-the-pews"],"yoast_head":"\n
"We've wrapped the Gospel in this man-repellent package" - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/07\/weve-wrapped-the-gospel-in-this-man-repellent-package.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""We've wrapped the Gospel in this man-repellent package" - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When was the last time you saw a church — Catholic or otherwise — packed with more men than women? USA TODAY takes note of a curious phenomenon, and what some churches are doing to change it: Women outnumber men in attendance in every major Christian denomination, and they are 20% to 25% more likely…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/07\/weve-wrapped-the-gospel-in-this-man-repellent-package.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-07-24T10:47:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Deacon Greg Kandra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"\"We've wrapped the Gospel in this man-repellent package\" - The Deacon's Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/07\/weve-wrapped-the-gospel-in-this-man-repellent-package.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"\"We've wrapped the Gospel in this man-repellent package\" - The Deacon's Bench","og_description":"When was the last time you saw a church — Catholic or otherwise — packed with more men than women? USA TODAY takes note of a curious phenomenon, and what some churches are doing to change it: Women outnumber men in attendance in every major Christian denomination, and they are 20% to 25% more likely…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/07\/weve-wrapped-the-gospel-in-this-man-repellent-package.html","og_site_name":"The Deacon's Bench","article_published_time":"2008-07-24T10:47:00+00:00","author":"Deacon Greg Kandra","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/07\/weve-wrapped-the-gospel-in-this-man-repellent-package.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/07\/weve-wrapped-the-gospel-in-this-man-repellent-package.html","name":"\"We've wrapped the Gospel in this man-repellent package\" - The Deacon's Bench","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-07-24T10:47:00+00:00","dateModified":"2008-07-24T10:47:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/5a7b3c6e9d155e382842aa310ff9b1ee"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/07\/weve-wrapped-the-gospel-in-this-man-repellent-package.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/07\/weve-wrapped-the-gospel-in-this-man-repellent-package.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/07\/weve-wrapped-the-gospel-in-this-man-repellent-package.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"“We’ve wrapped the Gospel in this man-repellent package”"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/","name":"The Deacon's Bench","description":"Where a Roman Catholic Deacon Ponders the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/5a7b3c6e9d155e382842aa310ff9b1ee","name":"Deacon Greg Kandra","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/114\/1144d939be636f641ea021e1d347f9fdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/114\/1144d939be636f641ea021e1d347f9fdx96.jpg","caption":"Deacon Greg Kandra"},"description":"A Roman Catholic deacon serving the Diocese of Brooklyn, New York, Greg Kandra is News Director for the diocese's cable channel, NET (New Evangelization Television.) Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3051\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}