PROBLEM NUMBER 1:
Church meeting styles are "feminine'
Andrew Cameron, Moore College ethics lecturer, believes the major reason men struggle with church is that it is usually in a style of meeting alien to modern men. This can be summed up with four words: silence, sharing, sitting and singing.
"For most blokes I know, sitting is a transient state between getting up and doing something else, or lying down and falling asleep," he says. "The only silence most Aussie blokes endure is on Anzac Day for a minute, and they hate it."
But it's singing that has received the widespread comment. Author David Murrow writes, "Think of the mental gymnastics that must take place inside a man's subconscious mind as he sings lyrics " using words no man would dare say to another, set to music that sounds like the love songs his wife listens to in the car."
For Murrow the same "feminisation' is at play in our sharing times such as prayer: "Today's church is all about safety. What's our top prayer request? "God, keep us safe. Keep our kids safe. Watch over us and protect us.' God's job is to keep our well-ordered lives flowing smoothly."
Murrow insists that "the answer is not a male-dominated church, but a "balanced approach': ways of doing church that encourage both "masculine and feminine'. This may be as simple as being judicious about our songs " those about being "led by the hand' can alienate men.
But for Andrew Cameron, the solution is new forms of fellowship. He can see a place for a once-a-month "bloke's church' " with no singing but plenty of showcasing of the average man's work and ministry " alongside our often vibrant womens' ministry. In addition, a Church in mission mode will create new initiatives and this means more opportunities for men (and women) to take up ministries that fit their gifts.
Solution: Church planting
VINCE Williamson's church plant at Beverly Hills is passionate about being a place that welcomes both women and men.
He says that he first went to church to try to talk his wife out of going, and found the whole experience "pretty ordinary'.
He likens going to church to the awkward experience of going to a lingerie shop with your wife.
"You sit looking for the other men, or enviously through the window to the powertool store across the road. But you can't go there because you're holding your wife's purse!"
He says that men are looking for something solid and authentic about church meetings, and that at Beverly Hills, Senior Minister Peter Hayward had wanted to plant a church that connected with people who have turned their backs on traditional church.
Vince says that an important element of a church that welcomes men is laughter.
"We have a coffee break halfway through, and laughter and fun at the start of the [meeting]," he says. "But we never compromise on the preaching and prayers " that's rock solid. There's no fairy floss."
The church meets in Beverly Hills Public School, and Vince has found that the extra needs in areas like setting up have given more men a chance to be involved.
"Men feel like they've got some ownership in the whole process."
PROBLEM NUMBER TWO:
Church leadership model is weak and not compelling
Tp put it crassly, author David Murrow thinks a key reason men hate church is that too many pastors are gutless wimps who present a "girlie' message blokes don't care to follow.
"Christ's bold, masculine command, "Follow me!', is now "Have a relationship with me.' We've recast Jesus' offer in feminine terms. Men want a leader, not a love object," Murrow says.
While it is certainly worth asking whether we are over-emphasising one aspect of the gospel in our church marketing, Murrow is mixing up pragmatics with theological conclusions.
Morrow's background is in advertising and it shows. The problem, of course, is that the marketer in Murrow has got the problem back to front. For Murrow, the problem is "men want leadership' and the solution: "change our messaging' to meet this need in men.
Yet, we should not let Morrow's sloppy methodology prevent us from accepting a helpful insight into our missionary context.
Indeed, in his Presidential Address last October, Archbishop Peter Jensen cast the whole of Murrow's question about our "missing men' in terms of leadership.
Describing Murrow's book as "irritating and yet shrewd', he added, "don't even ask this question if you are not willing to do something new and different'.
"Without abandoning any of the five chief features of our churches " conversion, preaching, training, fellowship and reform " we also need a leadership which will help to turn outward, to re-engage with the world in which we find ourselves " to study and be committed to the community once again. "
For Dr Jensen, we need the kind of leadership that was provided by Moses: first, an unswerving commitment to the word of God; second, a willingness to lead through change.
Of course our pastoral leadership will be key to our Mission, but should the problem and solution only focus on our ordained leadership?
One assumption that underlies much of Murrow's thinking on leadership is that "If men are to return to Christ, they need strong, godly laymen to help them in their walk." For too long we have asked men to follow our teaching, our methods, and our theology. Men do not follow these things. I'll say it again: men follow men."
It is certainly true that many men (and plenty of women) learn through the apprenticeship model of mentoring. So Murrow insists that a culture of "person-to-person challenge' is the only way to bring men to maturity in Christ.
Solution: Discipleship
Andrew Baartz too sees small-group and the discipleship of one-to-one ministry as a key way to reach and grow men who are "spiritually starving' at church. "I go to church for my wife and children," one Christian man had told him. "I don't expect growth. I do that in a small group of blokes, encouraging each other to be Christian where we are."
After 13 years of ministry to men in Sydney's CBD, Andrew says there is a gap between hearing theology on Sunday and living it out in the rest of the week.
"At church they expect the big issues of how you get to heaven, but they don't hear how to be God's man in his kingdom while I wait for heaven," he says.
"I spent a lot of time with blokes who would learn a lot of good things from their ministers, but they would not know how to confidently bring them into reality."
After serving as a minister at St Philip's, Church Hill, Andrew now runs a men's ministry from his Bridge St investment bank boardroom. He says that churches need to engage with men on the practical, everyday questions of how to follow Jesus.
"It's not so much big ethical crises; it's how do I hire and fire people in a godly way? How can I shape the culture of my business so that Jesus would be happy to work here?"
PROBLEM NUMBER THREE:
Church is boring and safe. There is no risk.
One of the key conclusions of David Murrow's book Why Men Hate Church is that the church has let men down: that men are drawn to risk, challenge and daring, but our churches have too often become oases of stability, comfort and predictability.
"There has to be some stretching and risk or you're not going to get men, and I think you're not going to get the upcoming generation of women either," Murrow says.
This is an observation that resonates with Jim Ramsay, head of Sydney Diocese's Evangelism Ministries. He says it is a key issue churches need to tackle.
"Men like adventure as a rule," he said. "Men warm to challenge and to leadership and to responsibility."
Andrew Cameron describes the problem as our church's culture of "niceness'.
"We think it "ungodly' to rebuke and correct, to deal with sin, and to take misunderstandings head on. But our current habits of conflict-avoidance de-skills and stunts men, and women too."
Another issue, says Dr Cameron, is that our churches suffer from too much routine, without the one-off projects men like to get their teeth stuck into elsewhere in their lives.
"It's every week. It just keeps coming at you, forever. But men seem to prefer projects " that cycle of planning, activity, achievement, celebration and rest. The men who run our church meetings [get to] enjoy that cycle, but not the men who participate."
Solution: Plan a mission
Ken Noakes says focused, short-term missions offer men a challenge that they can't refuse. Serving at Naremburn-Cammeray Anglican Church, he found many men were reluctant to step into leadership roles.
"How do you get men empowered for ministry?" he asks. "They'd say that they didn't have enough training, but when I put training on, they'd find that they were too busy at work."
But he discovered that while many men can find building relational networks awkward, offering them something with a focused task, a straightforward agenda and a clear time-frame proved very attractive.
And so he ran a short-term mission to India, where both men and women would train pastors in Moore College's Preliminary Theological Certificate after studying it themselves first.
Ken says focused short-term missions like this " not even necessarily overseas " can make a dramatic difference. A big turning point for Ken's team was when they realised how rich they were in skills.
"Everyone who's gone has been more involved in some way, and the guys particularly," says Ken. "They found a new confidence in their abilities."
Mission in a different context helped.
"When they realise the passion [Indians] have for the gospel, they see it, and come back with a similar passion."
PROBLEM NUMBER FOUR:
Church doesn't relate to a man's world
As Andrew Cameron puts it, our churches treat most men as if they are "spiritual incompetents' (see article below). Pastors are failing to teach men the skills they need to become the "theological expert' for their own field of endeavour.
The result, believes Dr Cameron, is that many men leave church on Sunday unsure how the Bible connects to their real life.
Jim Ramsay from Evangelism Ministries puts the same issue slightly differently: "If we are going to get more men, we need to get men to live intentional and disciplined lives for Christ. That is to say, we ought to help our men to be consistently Christian seven days a week."
It's important, he says, to help men to talk about God in ways suitable to their work context.
"I think we can encourage men to be more intelligently open about their commitment to Christ."
Dr Cameron agrees, adding that our churches need to find ways to provide "training time' for men so they can face up to the tougher issues in life: anger, sexual control, fatherhood and work.
Solution: Run a workshop
Start with a simple barbecue, finish with a good dessert, and have a solid chat about fatherhood in between. This was the recipe for The Fatherhood Project, a series of three workshops run by Craig Schafer at Springwood and Winmalee Anglican Church.
At MBM Rooty Hill, the menu is different but the substance similar. At the breakfasts, topics that are normally taboo, like masturbation, get discussed.
"We meet monthly and we try to encourage men into prayer triplets," says Ray Galea from MBM, adding that it was important that difficult and unspoken issues were dealt with in this context.
Honest and practical advice is key. Run on three Friday nights over six weeks, Craig Schafer said his Fatherhood seminars spent one night outlining the Bible's "big picture framework' about fatherhood and then two nights with short talks from men in different situations describing what their kids need from them as Christian fathers.
"People kept coming back," says Craig. "They really valued the "rubber hitting the road' aspect of the thing."
Hard-working dad Peter Morison admits that he was challenged by the workshops on how to be a better father.
"It's shaken me up a bit to think about the time I spend with my kids," he says. "It was said that if you spend more than 60 hours [a week] away from your kids, you are not really cutting it as a father."
As a manager, Peter spends long hours away from his family, and says he is now trying to renegotiate his hours.
"It was very helpful to hear from one of the local dads, David Blanch, who does a Bible study with his kids after dinner," Peter says. "I found it amazing how helpful that has been, not just how it has helped his children grow spiritually but how it has bonded them as a nuclear family.
"I'm now trying to get home for dinner with my kids and do what David does."
Men were encouraged to be teaching the Bible to their kids at home and not to think they could "sub-contract' away this responsibility to kids' clubs, Sunday School teachers, or even to their wives.
"What Craig is doing is a fantastic initiative," says Peter Morison. "It was encouraging to see that there are guys in the parish and beyond the parish who are really struggling with being a father."
Craig Schafer says that, like Peter, a number of dads were really challenged about the way they were being fathers.
"They realised that you can't just drift through parenting, and that God has a perspective."
PROBLEM NUMBER FIVE:
Blokes like to get their hands dirty
THE story of the Backyard Angels ministry and their impact on Beaconsfield, Tasmania, is a dramatic example of how God uses the skills of ordinary working men and women for his purposes.
Andrew Cameron believes that if churches pursued a range of mission activities that gave men " especially working-class blokes " something to do, "we might not have to change Sunday meetings much'.
Solution: Get dirty like ‘Backyard angels’
The miraculous rescue of Brant Webb and Todd Russell from the Beaconsfield mine will be one of the enduring images of 2006.
But behind the headlines, God was working in the backyards of "Beaky'. Hard yakka by a team of faithful servants had a direct impact on the mine miracle. And now the work is bearing fruit.
Since a new contemporary service was launched in late November, the local Anglican Church has seen half a dozen new people coming every week.
"They are not the people you would usually see in church," says local minister, the Rev Chris Thiele, pointing to the colourful backgrounds and tattooed bodies of some of the new congregants.
Turn back the clock just nine months and things may have seemed bleak for this battling parish.
Then there was the accident. Chris went to the mine, and met mine management and union officials.
"People started asking me profound spiritual questions of faith. I had people crying on my shoulder that surprised me: tough miners, union officials, police officers."
Chris Thiele admits he was a "doubting Thomas', certain the pair were dead. After all, he had been given an insight into the geologist's report, which clearly stated that no one could have survived a rock-fall of that magnitude.
"In the midst of this knowledge, I, like many others, thought that all three were dead. Yet when I prayed with one of the families I suddenly felt compelled to pray for a miracle for the two that had not yet been found. I even felt guilty praying because I was offering false hope. Yet the Spirit of God compelled me to pray that way."
So early Sunday evening, the first person the family rang to tell news of the miners' survival was Chris Thiele.
"They screamed and screamed, "It's a miracle! It's a miracle!'," he says.
What is also extraordinary about Chris's role in the unfolding events is that he had only commenced ministry in the West Tamar region four months before. How could Chris respond to the accident when he knew so few people?
"When the mine [accident recovery] was going on, people would say to me, "Yeah, I know Steve East and Backyard Angels.' The Anglican Church and my message had more credibility because of Steve's work."
Steve East, a self-described "rough truckie who got converted', launched Backyard Angels a couple of years ago after spending twice that time building equipment and wading through the required red tape.
But Steve says it was all worth it. He explains that by "getting their hands dirty', the Anglican Church in Beaconsfield is no longer seen as something "for the cafe latte set'.
"This community is made up of forestry workers, truckies and miners. The men are men's men. We don't take fools lightly. You have to get in and get the job done.
"People here want you to walk the talk," says Steve. "The usual church activities float around the edge of people's lives. They never get their hands dirty by going into people's lives and helping them."
Last year, Backyard Angels fixed up over 350 backyards. Potential clients are assessed by Steve and Chris Thiele with the team mostly taking on jobs for the aged, or those people who have a disability.
It's not a gardening service," explains Steve. "We go in and do one big backyard blitz," he says.
"One of our toughest jobs was for a couple in their 90s. All their children are on the mainland and no work had been done on the property for two years. It had been completely let go and was overgrown with blackberries. It took us three weekends to complete that job."
Right from the beginning the aim of Backyard Angels was to reach out to the "unchurched', says Steve.
A typical work day will start with a prayer and devotion from Steve.
"Everyone welcomes that," he says. "They know it's a Christian ministry. We find that by having a casual prayer together over lunch the clients will bring up God. We don't even have to say anything " the comments about God just come. It's a great opening for the Kingdom."
Steve, who has just been accepted to train as a Church Army evangelist, agrees it is important to provide ministry opportunities for working-class men.
"Today's society wants us to be a bunch of snags. Sometimes I am even confused about what I should be. This kind of ministry provides an opportunity to be yourself and be a man."
The Bishop of Tasmania, John Harrower, has asked Steve to design a prospectus so Backyard Angels teams can form in Hobart, Launceston, Burnie and Devenport. Wait a few years and we may see Backyard Angels on the mainland.
