Where are the men?

By Joel Virgo

Brighton, UK

As a young man, Theodore Roosevelt, serving in a Sunday school, noticed a boy arriving with a black eye. When Roosevelt asked, the boy explained that another boy had pinched his sister, so he’d taken a swing at him and got into a scrap. Roosevelt gave the kid a dollar and a pat on the back. The future president was quietly removed that week.

There is an expression of masculinity – an aggression, protectiveness and a sense of injustice – which is primal in all men. I even see this in my boys, (the youngest of whom seems to have come out of the womb yelling ‘charge!’) distorted by the fall – but it’s there. Men are wired with instincts and it seems we have three choices: (1) let instincts rule, (2) exclude them, or (3) redeem and channel them.

The first option leads to ungodly, ill-disciplined, boastful masculinity (chauvinism). The second leads to what we have had for centuries: churches which, in the words of Leon Podles, are ‘women’s clubs with a few male officers’. The third option is the most difficult and the least fashionable – but it’s also the most Biblical and the most effective.

The fact is that men are the principal (though not exclusive) culture-makers. Statistics prove that if you win a man to Christ, his family are many times more likely to follow than if the woman is converted first.

I sat in my car outside a football ground in my city as it emptied one Saturday afternoon. As thousands of young blokes spilled onto the pavements I imagined the force for God unleashed in Brighton should the vigour, comradeship, belligerence and strength before me be put to use for Jesus’ kingdom. What would have to change for us to harvest and harness this multitude?

A vision for men

What we lack is a Biblical image of redeemed masculinity that attracts, inspires and galvanises fellows into fruitful manliness. The place to start is Jesus – but even here we need to remove some cobwebs. Many aspects of his personality are obscured in popular perception by his safer, more sympathetic qualities. Pagan men in my city are surprised to find out that Jesus spent a lot of his time ignoring protocol, defending the weak, electrifying multitudes with his words, upsetting hypocrites, speaking the blunt truth to politicians, giving his best friends nick-names and getting very angry.

But let’s focus on the idea of masculinity as launched in the Bible’s opening pages. Adam, from day one, was called to a life of industry, responsibility and, when necessary, conflict (Gen. 2:16-17). In fact it was his unwillingness to engage in conflict (with the serpent in Genesis 3) that led to his ultimate failure.

These three callings of culture-shaper, leader and warrior, while not held exclusively by men, are certainly weighted towards them. It is the Bible, and the worldview it teaches, which provides this dignifying and inspiring masculine identity – God-given, by virtue of being created in God’s image, but sin-tarnished. Only the gospel of grace can redeem and restore it.

So how come that the place where this design for manhood should be expressed has alienated rather than attracted men? Where have we gone wrong?

I suggest that we have created church environments that are effeminate – off-putting for most real guys. How can we change and ‘buck the trend’?

Corporate prayer

Who comes to your church prayer meeting? Lots of men? Would you go if you weren’t the leader? Often it is attended by women, a few faithful men and a handful of ‘eccentrics’. I am extremely glad for all the women attending our weekly prayer meetings but I am haunted by Paul’s words, ‘I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarrelling’ (1 Tim. 2:8). A robust prayer meeting is a place to see true masculinity on display. Check it out in Acts.

Therefore, when we re-launched our Saturday morning prayer meeting a couple of years ago, I started with just men. I wanted a manly meeting so I handpicked some guys to join me each week at 8am – about 25 to start with.

For a while it grew unofficially – under the radar. Guys would sidle up and whisper, ‘I’ve heard about this prayer meeting. Do you, ahem, mind if I join?’ and I’d say, ‘Who told YOU about it?!’ Some called the meeting ‘Prayer Club’. It was perfect: a testosterone-fuelled, Holy Spirit-filled set up for the weekend, and when we got the momentum we wanted, we knew we were ready to invite the whole church. Now, I am usually confident that guys will take a strong lead in praying for the gospel to be successful every week in our city; if key guys are not vocal they get mercilessly picked on afterwards.

So intentionally gather guys to pray. They will rise to it and the church will follow.

Parenting

In the Bible, the responsibility for raising children to know God rests squarely on the shoulders of parents, especially fathers (Deut. 6:4-9; 20-23; Ps. 78:4; all of Proverbs; Eph. 6.4; Ps. 127:3-5). This makes every Dad a pastor. Too many children grow up never having their Dad opening a Bible or praying with them. Even guys who would love to disciple their kids lack confidence – some being frightened of ‘ramming it down their throats’, forgetting they have an enemy who has no scruples about what he rams there.

A lot of men simply don’t know what to do and so they do nothing; so another generation of boys may grow up thinking that, since Dad doesn’t talk about Jesus at home, Jesus can’t be very important after all. Learn by prayer, listening, reading, trial and error, and repentance to pastor your own kids.

Beware the danger of falling into either of two gutters here. Some Dads are brilliant at hanging out with their sons, but you need to ‘instruct’ them too. Others are superb teachers of theology, but without relationship your instruction is not going to land where it should. Let’s excel at both.

Citing a cigarette advertisement with the slogan ‘Where a Man Belongs’, John Piper erupted, ‘To hell with such lies! — Where a man belongs is on his knees beside his wife, leading in prayer. Where a man belongs is at the bedside of his children, leading in devotion and prayer. Where a man belongs is in the driver's seat, leading his family to the house of God. Where a man belongs is up early and alone with God, seeking vision and direction for the family. Men, I challenge you in the name of Jesus Christ our King, be where you belong!’

Preaching

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones was asked publicly why the churches of his day had so few young men in the pews. He shot back, ‘Because there are so many old women in the pulpits.’ Preaching should rouse men to anger or turn them to repentance. What it must not do is dull them. Jesus gathered men by preaching straight – and so did Luther, Wesley, Spurgeon, Moody and Billy Graham. If you want to reach men, follow their example and preach boldly. The best sermons get painfully under your skin in the first two-thirds and then lead to repentance before the day is over. It is never just ‘that was a nice talk’.

Corporate Worship

Do men ever come into a Sunday worship service and reflect ‘this is a masculine environment’? I reckon it’s possible, but you have to work at it. Some of our songs lend themselves to a masculine response – songs full of objective truth that help men know what they’re singing about. Songs that subjectively express our love or longing for Jesus are entirely Biblical. Just beware of unbalance. A normal masculine man is going to be troubled in his first visit to church (even if he got saved at Alpha) if he has to stand for 40 minutes and sing words he would find awkward writing in a card to his girlfriend. You know the songs I mean. Maybe your worship leaders (if they are guys) should be the sort who remind you of Johnny Cash rather than Art Garfunkel.

Community

‘Community’ is an increasingly trendy theme in much western culture, but we need to rescue it from pagan and often effeminised distortions. The concept can become soupy enough to mean whatever you want it to, and this can leave men unreached.

The images we tend to celebrate when considering ‘community’ (certainly in western culture) are: belonging, compassion, care, thoughtfulness … noble and Biblical ideas. But, on their own, they can create an unbalanced environment if we do not include other more robust values such as order, camaraderie, mission, teamwork, brotherhood.

When we talk family, community, do we leave out the bits about protecting each other (especially the weak), snatching each other from sin, speaking the plain truth in love? These, and many other Biblical expressions of community must come back into our language and practice.

Guys don’t want to be in a ‘caring community’ so much as a ‘band of brothers’. Max Hastings, in his book about D-Day, states that allied soldiers who survived, subsequently craved belonging to a fighting force again, despite the danger. In Normandy, they had a cause, their existence had meaning.

Well, I have a cause.

Discipling

To disciple guys like Jesus did, you have to be prepared to leave them. Jesus did sometimes. Although he was more forbearing than we can imagine, he also knew when he was wasting time and kept the bar pretty high. He didn’t do the chasing, the disciples did. Men really need (and want) to be stretched. If disciples are coddled, they become parasites. Some guys won’t follow us until they see we mean business. By letting some people leave, you will cause others to join – people who probably wouldn’t have before (John 6:66-69).

A friend of mine who coaches church-planters knew there were two guys in the group he regularly gathered who were not showing the character or commitment he expected, so he asked them to leave. This kind of thing makes us sad, but there is no way these men would have been helped by pandering. Meanwhile the rest of the group have shot forward in the training, having seen the bar go higher.

Giving

Uncomfortable as it can feel, most guys in my experience like us to level with them about money, and even feel honoured when we go to them with a straight request to support a kingdom project.

Humility

Finally, our concept of humility needs to be a Biblical, God-conscious one, derived from gospel faith – not cowardly inactivity. In the name of ‘humility’ a lot of church men never allow their God-given masculine instincts any space, imagining that their courage will be frowned upon. It is more humbling to try and fail than to ‘modestly’ never try at all. Genuine humility is far more likely to thrive when men encourage, rather than stifle one another.

Conclusion

Where does this leave the women? Ultimately our women don’t want to be surrounded by a crowd of wusses, or a bunch of bullies! Biblical masculinity is such a rare commodity that women are usually attracted to it rather than repulsed (though this may surprise them at first).

At a recent staff meeting we were discussing our need to become more intentional about developing Biblical masculinity. I turned to two highly competent players on our key staff, both female, and asked how they felt about this emphasis. They replied, ‘This is just the sort of emphasis we need.’

That is true. Let it become our strategy. Reach and change the men and you reach and change the culture.