How The Church Fails Men

Welcome back to Clearcast. I'm your host, Tim Dukeman, here with Pastor Dave. Clearcast is a ministry of Clear Note Church in West Indianapolis. And today we're going to talk about men's engagement with the church. And we had been discussing, to set up the next few episodes, what we wanted to talk about. And Pastor Dave really has a burden to discuss this topic. And so, we'll just start there. Pastor Dave, why do you want to talk about men's engagement in the church? Why do you think this is an important topic that people should think about? Well, the first reason is that I think the question of what a man is or what a man should be is an open question in society. And I also think it's an open question in the church. What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be a Christian man? And downstream of that, what does it mean to be a Christian husband or a Christian father?

We've talked in past episodes about the manosphere and how it's trying to meet a perceived need in that past episode. But one of the things I like in the manosphere, too, was a parachurch ministry. It identified a problem within the church and then said, well, we're going to solve the problem outside of the church. And I think this issue of men not being in church is actually a problem. Sometimes people say there's problems when there's not a problem. They just don't like what's going on. But there is actually a real issue with men in church. I didn't grow up in the church, and I have a very limited experience of what the broader Christian church in America, what worship is like there, what their priorities are. I've read about it. I've heard about it. I've not experienced it as much, except for when I first came to church. When I first started going to a church, I went to a very large megachurch.

I would not have known it or I couldn't have articulated it at the time, but I wasn't there for the ministry of the word. That was not the predominant thing that was going on. I was there for relationships. I was there for hoping to be discipled. But over the course of time, that wasn't what was happening and ultimately led to me leaving that church. And I don't know that if God hadn't brought me to a church with fathers in it, fathers for me, I don't know that I would have continued in the church because I didn't see any real value in what I was doing before. The men that were there were not the kind of men I thought I should become.

do more. It's not just about the relationship. The relationship is more of a side piece to the larger goal that you're striving toward. Yeah. I mean, I get what you're saying. I think I agree. I don't want to discount the necessity of male relationships. I think it's worth saying or what I'd add to it is simply to say male relationships function very differently than male-female relationships or than female-female relationships. And so, if you try to gather men in a way that it's unnatural to them in terms of relating, then they're like, well, I don't know what to do about that, so I'm not going to engage in it. And so, I've been thinking about it from my own experience, just kind of processing, but also just hearing a lot of people talk about like, what's the church supposed to do? And there's been lots of, there's been responses. In our church circles, the responses seem to be centered around, let's do guy stuff. Let's shoot guns. Let's drink beer. Let's talk about our weightlifting or our beard oils. Let's do man stuff, in the air quotes. And then maybe we'll do it together or we'll compete with each other in those areas. And that's how we're supposed to attract and disciple men. But I don't think that any of those things are particularly

aimed at discipleship. And while men may or may not enjoy any one of those things, I don't think that should be the church's focus. But the question is like, why is the church focusing on that? How did we get to the point where churches were conceiving of men's ministry in terms of, well, I think that what we need to go do is have a barbecue and have good beer and have cigar parties as the way to reach men. I think that's a problem. And so, in thinking through this, I was trying to figure out how do you articulate the question that we're trying to address in a succinct way? Why are there more men in the church than women? Or, I'm sorry, I said that backwards. Why are there more women in the church than men? Or why aren't men interested in church? Or how do you make church a priority for men? Or why don't men like church? Why have men fallen away from the faith? These are all sort of the getting at a sentiment that's real.

So it's not a simple answer and then it's over, but if we sort of boil down a nuanced and varied answer into something succinct that we're going to get into over the next couple of episodes, I think I would boil it down to saying that church has become a place that's marketed and designed to attract women. It prioritizes women or feminine desires or priorities as opposed to men. I think that's the problem. You don't have men because you don't – there's no place for men who can be men. I'll start by telling a bit of a story. I had a friend who's a law professor. He's a brilliant man and was an atheist his whole life and came to faith and was grieved over going to church. And it wasn't an evangelical church. It was a Catholic church. And he was grieved because he comes in and he's – He's been an atheist his whole life. He's a law professor. He's legally blind. So for him to be a law professor and to be legally blind means that reading is a lot of work for him. And so he's a hardworking man. He's a thoughtful man. And when he went to church and started to get interested in it, he was just grieved because his words were, I will have to check my manhood at the door to come and participate at this place.

And that was having grown up into his probably 40s as an atheist and then coming to the realization that God is real and that he ought to worship him. Very soon into his church experience, he went, okay, this isn't a place for men. This isn't a place for that part of me. Maybe it's a place for the intellectual side of me, depending on the churchman. Maybe it's a place for the relational part of me, but it's not a place where And particularly male interests and rigors are prioritized. And it was a grief to him. And I was like, wow, it's insightful. And this was 15 years ago. And I think the problem, it predates that time, but it's still a problem today. So, are you drawing a distinction between a church that has, like, the central part of the church is...

And the way that they are presenting and relating is feminine, but they maybe layer a masculine activity on top of that versus a church that actually is amenable to masculinity in its center. Yeah. That's the distinction you're trying to draw. Yeah, I think, yeah, it's a priority of feminine desires and sensibilities over male. And that's not the way it's been historically. One of the things we'll talk about in the podcast. as you know, over the next couple of episodes is the reality that, that women can function in a place that, that targets men much more easily and naturally than men being able to function in a place that prioritizes women. Can you open that up a little bit more? Like why, why do you think that is? And what, what, what sort of dynamics does that produce? I think that men, I think that God's made men to be leaders. And so there's something intrinsic to the way God's made us to where men don't quite know what to do with female leadership or female sensibilities. It's much more natural, if you were to think historically, for men to have to learn how to behave with women around. But there was also this sense that they wanted to go and

There was a desire for them to go and to a place where that wasn't necessary. If you read Chesterton's What's Wrong with the World, he has a long section about comparing what he calls the public house and the private house. The private house being the home, the public house being sort of society or the pub. And the pub in his description represents the place, a men's only place where men can be men and men can sort out their differences or their disagreements. In a way that doesn't have to take into account a feminine presence. And historically, women wouldn't have wanted to be there. But in our society, we've said, no, we don't want those kind of places. And what's come to replace this sort of male leadership or the male prerogative is a female prerogative. And the men are like, well, I don't know. There's no place for me here.

I think it's just hardwired into men's nature that there's things that they don't do or don't talk about or don't – in ways they won't behave when women are around. Or it would be inappropriate for them to. And so it's one thing if men are leading in its mixed company. If women are leading in its mixed company, then the men are – it's like there's no place for them to engage unless they just decide I'm going to behave and adopt the sensibilities of a woman. that type of thinking into the church, men are going, there's nothing here for me. Men and women actually value different things. They say, this is what's important to me. This is what's attractive to me. This is what I want to do. Women can get along in a place where men are taking women into account much more naturally than vice versa, where men are trying to figure out how to orient or engage with.

a feminine sensibility. And I haven't defined what any of those things are, and we'll talk about them. But I think big picture, sort of overarching principle, God made the world for women to be able to function and orient in a man's world, so to speak, in a way that men are not capable to adapting to, if it's a feminine world. Yeah, so basically, to kind of put this together you're talking about how men are not able to adapt and can't reform themselves to fit feminine sensibilities um and that's because god made women to be a helper to men and he's he's designed the world to work a certain way and churches often are going against the grain of how god made the world yeah i think that i to give an example of sort of of this type of thing outside of outside of the church you could you could simply take uh the elementary school classroom and the idea that we would sit down for eight hours, seven or eight hours in a desk being still and being quiet that just those simple requirements are, are, are opposed to what little boys are. Little boys don't sit still for seven hours. And that doesn't mean that there's something wrong with them or that they need to be on Adderall or that they're, um,

being inappropriate. Now, it's possible for the boys to be rambunctious and to actually be causing a problem. But that is an unreasonable expectation that a little boy would sit there and be happy and be quiet. Girls are much more likely to excel in that environment. And you don't have to be a Christian to say that or to know that or to recognize that. And so, that's just one example of If we set up the structure in a way that's more conducive to women, the boys fail. If we set up the structure in a way that is conducive to the men or to the boys in that example, the girls will still succeed. And so in the church, when you come in, you say, okay, so if we're going to pick a philosophy of ministry or outreach or who are we going to prioritize? None of us would want to say, well, we have to make that decision, but we all make that decision.

We all say this is what we care about and this is what's important and this is what's going to guide our decisions. And if we're not explicitly saying we're going to work to create an environment where men can enter in and they don't have to check their manhood at the door, if we're not making that in our society, if we're not making that explicit decision, we're probably just assuming the priority of feminine sensibilities and then we're left scratching our heads as to why the men are Don't sing during worship. Don't come to worship. Don't stand when we sing. Don't participate. Don't have the relationships there. Don't serve. They're just not. They may physically be there, but their hearts and their minds are not engaged there. And I go, well, yeah, it's because we didn't, at a very basic level, you didn't prioritize them. You didn't say, here's where you belong.

A lot of times they're there. I can't tell you how many times I've had guys say, well, we go to church here or there because this is where my wife wants to go to church. And that's a very normal answer. We go to church where my wife wants to go to church. And that typically means we go to church where the kids are prioritized in the way that the mom wants them prioritized. And so dad's not involved in his kids' lives the way he should be because mom's the one who takes care of that stuff. And if choosing a church is, related to the children, then mom's going to make that decision. And dad's just along for the ride if he chooses to be along for the ride. But many times men just opt out of it and say, I'm not along for that ride. I want to go do this. I want to watch the game. I'd rather go hunting. Whatever. It doesn't take much for men in our society to say, I have something that I see more value and have more desire to participate in than church.

And I'm not justifying that sentiment in men and saying that's an okay sentiment and they don't have any culpability or sins in that because they do. However, who's engaging them on that? The only person who's probably engaging them on that is their wife. Is the church ministering to the man who doesn't come to church but his wife and children do? Most likely not. It's probably his wife that is the only one left doing it. Or maybe one of her friend's husbands. They'll say, well, we'll buddy up with them and maybe your husband can help my husband. And I think that's a shame. So, how does a church make the pivot? Like, can you give us maybe in some broad strokes, what would it look like for a church to actually prioritize and develop men and minister to men in an effective way? Yeah, I think you've got to be what you want to – a church has to endeavor to be what they want the men to become.

And to say that is not to say the church doesn't do that. But when I look at the men largely in evangelical churches, and if you were to look at them and say, is that the kind of man you want to be? Most men would say, no, I don't want to be like him. That was my impression when I walked into the megachurch is I'm like, I don't want to be like these guys. And what's really going on is I'm saying, I've taken that man's measure and I don't respect him. And that's what men do. Women do it about different things. They have different ways they evaluate women, but men walk in and go, are you respectable? And if the answer is no, then he goes, well, I don't want to listen to you. And what men would find respectable in other men versus what women would find appealing in a pastor or elders or worship leaders or the men that are visible.

are different things. The things that a man would find respectable in a pastor may well be repugnant to his wife. So, which one of them gets to carry the day? Well, typically, it's the wife that gets to carry the day, and so the man's like, well, there's nothing here for me. So, I think it has to start at the top with the church saying, we have to be what we want. If we're going to go for men, we have to be men first. And we have to be the kind of men that guys who want to follow and serve the Lord want to become. And if their sense of it is they have to check their manhood at the door, we should look hard in a mirror and say, why did they get that impression with me preaching or me leading? What's wrong with what we're doing and who we are that's causing them to have that sentiment? And I wouldn't bring that up if that was a one-off.

idea. It's not a one-off idea. Many men feel this way. There's like, that's not respectable. That's not what, this is not for me. Pete The question then arises just like, can you give me some examples of what the things are that a man struggles to respect in leadership in the church, elders in the church? Like, because you've talked, I feel kind of like we've talked around what we're talking about a lot, but like, what are some concrete examples? of what some of those things are yeah i think i was starting to get into it uh it just has to do with with leadership are the are the men who are in positions of leadership leaders and are they leaders of men or are they leaders of women and and can you explain what the difference is yeah so what is what is a man going to to look at and say that's respectable that's good leadership he's going to look at someone who is who uh says what they think who doesn't equivocate who doesn't

nuance all of their sayings. And even as I'm saying this, I'm thinking, okay, so it's either one or the other. It's either you're like knuckles dragging on the ground, Neanderthal man, or you're civilized. And it's like, could we please have more than those two options? Is there something that exemplifies Christ? Are these the only two choices? It's either this or that. That's awful. What kind of man was Jesus Christ? Well, he was direct. He dealt with conflict. He wasn't afraid of what other people thought of him. And yet he was compassionate and he was merciful and he was kind and he loved people. I think you want pastors who are like Jesus, which is like, well, duh. But like he actually was in the Bible. Like what woman would have liked?

Jesus coming in and flipping over the tables and driving people out with a whip. He did it twice. No woman was like, that's the church I want to go to. Okay, you don't have to do exactly that in your church. But the principle behind that should be present in the men in leadership in the church. Men will recognize it and they'll say, I'll listen to him. And women will recognize it and go, I don't know about him. she'll consider it and her husband will lead her in it. She'll realize the value and the benefit of that. Yeah, there's a great passage in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis where one of the children asks, talking about Aslan, who's the Christ character, is he quite safe? And they say, oh, no, of course not. He's a lion, but he's good. And that, I think, is the element that you're getting at.

The problem we have with leadership in the church in America is we have so many leaders where no one can ever imagine that man flipping over a table. That he doesn't even have that gear. That, like, he's civilized himself so much and domesticated himself so much and accommodated himself so much to feminine sensibilities that he doesn't have the gear where he flips over the table. He's safe. And men don't want to follow safe. Yeah. That sounds so simple, but that is the truth, that men, God didn't make men to live their lives always pulling in their horns and saying, there's another fight later that'll be more worthwhile, so I'm not going to stand today. That's just not inspiring. Men want to say, well, when is the day and where is the battle and what are the stakes? Like, why should I care about this? And that's a function of leadership. That's a function of discipleship.

Men, I believe men want to be pushed. They want to be pushed. And they will not have respect for, the easiest way for a man to gain respect for another man is for him to be disciplined. Not in a manipulative sort of half-hearted pulling your punches sort of way, but just say, no, that's not okay. What you said or what you did was wrong. And that's it. And I want you to stop. It doesn't honor God what you just did. You need to repent. Go to your child, go to your wife, go to whoever, whatever you didn't and make it right. He may get upset about being told that or being confronted so directly, but a Christian man will come away from that going, I can respect that. I may not always agree, but that's okay. Christian men don't always agree, but they can respect the love of of God and his truth in other men and say, I can live in this economy. And that's what I think the church needs to become. And you say, if we want men, we have to first have men in leadership who are willing to say and do the hard things with love, motivated by love, not lording their authority over them and these sorts of warnings that the scripture gives, but who will simply stand up and say no and who will push other men. And those men will say, okay, I can.

I can engage with this guy. So, what are some ways that churches should try to push men? There's sort of this caricature of, I've heard about the difference between Mother's Day and Father's Day sermons, that Mother's Day sermons are always, you're doing such a great job, it's so wonderful, God bless you, it's the hardest job in the world, and all of these things. And then when it comes to Father's Day, it's like, y'all need to man up. And And we're going to talk some about that later. But what I think would be helpful is for some time during the Mother's Day sermon, that the encouragement that exists in the Mother's Day sermon should make an appearance on Father's Day. And the, you need to try a little, like, you're not where you need to be yet should make an appearance on Mother's Day. So, and then I think that those things should be making more than annual appearances.

that a church would be saying those kinds of things to the men of the church on a regular basis. They'd say, no, this isn't good enough. They'd see an interaction between the spouses or they'd go to their house and realize this guy doesn't cut his grass. He doesn't clean his gutters. His car's in disrepair, whatever the problem is. And then they'd say something. What I find is people don't have a trouble seeing the problems. They just have a principle against addressing it and saying, hey, that's a problem and you should do something about it. Like you're causing it and it's your responsibility to fix it. So, and I can help you. It's not just, you're a terrible person who's failed, you know, caused irreparable harm. It's okay. Let's like, this isn't, this doesn't honor the Lord. Let's, let's get this fixed and you need to do it yourself. I can't do it for you. So there's an approach to conflict that has to be different. Yeah. Well, that you will approach conflict that you will say no, when it needs to be, when it needs to be set. There's like a lot of times people,

To avoid the conflict, someone will say there's a problem and they'll say, maybe you're in a prayer group, you're in a discipleship group or something, and there's trouble. I'm having trouble here or there or wherever, in work, in my marriage. And the response, everyone's just supposed to say, well, I'll pray for you. Or then they will pray for them and then that's it. The most awkward thing to do is to pray for them and to say, yes, you do need God's help. But it's also very clear to me that these few things, you actually need to do them right now. And that we don't need to pray about it. You actually need to repent. And we need to be working at changing these things in your life. This is necessary. I mean, I said to you just, what, a few months ago, I was saying, Tim, you should come to Sunday school on time. And you were like, well, kids and new kids and lots of kids. And it's just hard.

And I'm sorry. And my wife's, we're waiting on her. And I said, Tim, help the kids. Like, let your wife get ready. She needs more time on Sunday morning than any other day of the week to get ready. Like, how about you get up and do a little more work so that you can communicate to not just your wife. It's not just we're sitting in the car waiting for you, wife. But make it possible for her to do the things she needs to do by doing more of it yourself. And I wasn't angry at you. And it's not as though I don't understand the problem.

I understand the problem because I have the problem. I think many men have the problem. And what they need are other men to say, get off your couch and off your phone and help your family get to church on time. Do not blame your wife for that. She will come and get herself ready and realize what's important when you act on what is important to you. So that's just an example of a conversation you and I have had. I don't think you were upset at me saying that to you. I think you were a little like, ooh. You didn't resent me for it. You're like, okay, well, hey, there's something I can do. I saw this problem and didn't know what to do about it, and here, there's a thing I can do about it. And I think those are the normal sorts of interactions that men need to be having in the church. If there's none of that, men are like, well, why should I come on time? Like, what is here for me? So there needs to be discipleship. There needs to be something more than I'll pray for you or just sort of glancing blows at the problem.

It just needs to be said plainly and directly, here's what I think, and I think you should consider it. Another point I'd like to make about a lack of discipleship, I said earlier there's male sensibilities and there's female sensibilities, and one of the things that men would want is manly leadership. They want something they can follow. Another thing, what is a feminine sensibility? And don't hear me saying a feminine sensibility is a bad sensibility. It's absolutely appropriate and good and godly and put there by him for women to have feminine sensibilities. It's good for them to be wired the way God wired them. The problem is when you take that and say, okay, well, we need men to run on these tracks as well. One of the things that women would prioritize would as a higher importance or priority than men would be comfort or safety or affirmation. Relationally, because God's made women relational, those things are really important to them. They want to protect relationships. They want to protect one another. And they'll go to great lengths to do it. But one of the things that threatens all of that is conflict. Open conflict is a threat to all of those things.

And on the one hand, it's like, well, men need to be pushed and exhorted, and there's going to be conflict as a part of that. And a natural feminine tendency is going to be like, I don't like this. This isn't good. You guys are ruining things. You're breaking it, and it's not going to be able to be fixed. And so, if a church says, oh, we recognize that, you can prioritize that, but you're going to lose the ones who need it, and the ones who need it are the men. So, this idea of sympathy in terms of addressing a problem. If we prioritize sympathy over responsibility, that's one example of prioritizing a feminine priority over a male priority. Sympathy's good. And Jesus was sympathetic, but he wasn't sympathetic to the neglect of people taking responsibility for the things they did, both men and women. But men are going to plug into talk about responsibility, they're going to be much more likely to desire that than they are someone saying, well, I'm so sorry that you're going through that. That's really difficult, and it's just awful. It's not that that's a bad message, and it's not that men should never, ever say that sort of thing to one another, but they're not going to say it with that sort of affect. Man, that really stinks. I'm sorry that's going on.

here's what I think you should be doing to keep it from getting worse or fix it or to work on it. Men are problem solvers. It's what causes a lot of conflicts in their marriages. Their wives come and talk and they're like, well, let's solve the problem. And she's like, there's no problem. But when men talk to men, men don't bother talking to other men unless they want help with solving the problem. They've banged their head against every solution they've come up with and it hasn't worked. So they say, well, will you help me? Or will you consider it? And so that's important to men. Other things that are lacking generally in the church is this whole like Jesus loves you as you are. That's just not attractive to men. If we can just say it plainly, that's just not inspiring. That'd be like showing up day one to boot camp and then being like, you're in great physical shape and we're just so glad you're here. Because the guy's like, aren't we like the best military in the world? Aren't we supposed to be able to kick everybody's butts? And I'm not sure I know how to do that yet.

And you're actually taking away some of the fun because you're taking away some of the difficulty. I actually want you to push me. Right. Yeah, if there's no challenge, then there's nothing to sink your teeth into. There's nothing to push against. There's no substance there. There's no depth. You just get bored. Yeah, and so if a church lacks that sort of depth, as you say, whether it's theological depth. I was talking to a neighbor of mine a while back. And he goes to a big, you know, broadly evangelical mega church. And he's just like, well, I'd like to, I like a new church. I want to go to a new church. And I said, you know, well, why, where do you go and what's going on? And I know the church and I know what's going on, but I want to hear his perspective on it. And he says, well, they don't, they talk a lot about your feelings. They talk a lot about your hurts. They talk a lot about the hardships and how they're really

burdensome and how Jesus can help you with all those things. But that's really, that is the message of the church. That's every Sunday, every sermon series, that's sort of the refrain of everything. And he's just like, I want more than that. And he's saying that as someone who had gone through real pain in his marriage with his wife, like real life hard stuff. And all the church could say was, we're real sorry about that. That's just too bad. And he's going, my marriage is falling apart and I want some help as to how to work, fix on it, fix it, work on it. And y'all don't have anything. You're not saying anything to me about it. I made the mess. Please don't presume I know how to clean it up. And so that would be an example of a church lacking depth, a theological depth. It may seem strange to say that's theological depth, but that's what it is. They don't have.

an understanding of the word of God or counsel of God, or if they do, they're not willing to say it, anything more than, well, we will pray for you. And here's a card for a counselor that might be able to help. That's lacking depth in the church. And this guy's like, no surprise, he's like, I don't want to go there. And both men and women are suffering in that situation that you're describing there. Yeah, that's actually not, that's one of the sad things is that a lot of the sensibilities that the church has, it's like, On the one hand, we say, well, the church is hemorrhaging men, or the men aren't coming to the church. But it's generally true that churches are declining in attendance overall, and it's not because the men are just leaving. It's because men, women, and children are leaving. So the problem affects everybody. This isn't just a man problem. And if I could boil this down in the listening, it sounds like to me that you're saying that women in the church there, they're looking for certain emotional needs to be met, maybe even a need for affirmation on some level.

And the man in the same situation is like, but that's not what I want met at all. Like, I don't need you to tell me nice things. Like, I have problems that need fixed. The woman has problems that need fixed as well. But one of the things she's wanting is maybe a sense of emotional encouragement that I'm just trying to parse out exactly what we're, that's what I'm hearing. Does that make sense? Yeah. And I think that's right. I'm not, and you got to realize, and us talking about the problem of male involvement in the church is not to say that the church is doing wonderfully by women in terms of ministering to them. I think this is an overall problem. But I think the reason it's important to talk about the lack of men in the church is because they're the ones that are responsible to actually do the work at home. And if you don't get them and teach them how to do the work, it's going to be near impossible for the wife to do it by herself.

And so one of the things when I was training for ministry, one of the pastors in my training said to me is he says one of the principles that his dad taught him about ministry is go for the men and the women will follow. If you will go for the men, ministering to them, prioritizing them, and discipling them, what you're really doing is equipping them then to care for the people that God's placed under their care. You can't be every woman's husband and you can't be every child's father, but you can teach their husbands and their fathers to do that work and then they'll be cared for. And they'll be cared for better in that environment than they will be if you're supposed to be doing all the work directly as the church or the pastor or the small group leader or whatever your role is. So, go for the men. I think one of the other things that...

and we're going to talk about preaching a little more in the future, that's caused a deficit is that the preaching and the discussion or the counsel of the church just lacks practical application. It never gets to the point of saying, and therefore this is what you should do. When Peter got done preaching at Pentecost, the men came up to him. It says they were cut to the quick and they said, what must we do? That's a man question. Men want to know what to do. do them the solid of telling them what they should do. Churches will attract men when they prioritize men. As we've talked about the lack of, you know, the sort of the skew toward women in attendance in church as opposed to men, I think it's worth saying in this episode, that has never been our church's problem or any of the churches in our presbytery. In fact, it's the exact opposite. If you withdraw, if you Take out the married couples because obviously there's an equal number of men and women in the marriages. What you're left with then are widows, which are predominantly women, and then you're left with divorcees and you think, okay, do more divorced men or divorced women go to church? It's typically divorced women that would go to church much more so than divorced men. And then you're left with the singles. These are the only places that are actually going to be affecting the man-woman ratio. And our churches have always had more men, more single men, more young men than we've had women.

And it's the opposite of the normal church. The normal church is like, all the women are going, where are the men? In our church, the men are all going, where are the women? And how am I going to find a wife? And I go, you're a man, you need to figure it out. That's part of the work. And I think part of the reason we've always had men, more men than women in our churches is because we've recognized these problems and said, we're going to go for the men. We're going to talk to the young men. We're going to talk to the sons. We're going to talk to the The fathers, we're going to talk to the husbands about what it means to be a man. And our women talk to the wives about being a wife, about being a mother, about getting married, about femininity and those sorts of things. But as a church and the public ministry of our church, we're going to focus on engaging men. And it's proven to bear good fruit. The men come and the men grow.

and the men take wives, and the women are happy. That's one of the things I guess is worth saying, is that the women in our church, while life can be difficult and all of these sorts of things, and marriage isn't always a walk in the park, the women are happy. And the divorce rate is zero, almost zero, in terms of over the years of our church, how many marriages have fallen apart. There have been broken engagements. There have been boyfriends and girlfriends that have broken up, but the marriages are going and are growing, I think, because the men have gained some vision for what they're supposed to do. And they got that from the church saying they were important and ministering to them. And so that's what I want us to talk about over the next couple of episodes is how do you prioritize the men? How do you actually engage them? We can talk about the differences between men and women, but how do you actually prioritize

engaging the men that are in your church, and how do you attract the men who are not in your church?