Telling the Story II

"You've got comments!" What a great sound!

Jon Reid comments

"For years my wife & I have said that in any gathering -- whether it is a home group meeting, worship team practice, or a worship service -- the one element that must be present in the gathering is 'sharing the vision.' The vision must be cast again and again, in different ways and highlighting different facets."

It's the journey stupid! (Talking to myself, not Jon)

And Tom Toner comments

I have seen this in just about every Church I've been in. The women outnumber the men. I have wondered why. Do men feel threatned to admit they need something besides themselves? Do they see chuch as a place for "little old ladies"? Or do they feel that there are just better things to do.

What if it is a cultural phenomena? I had a call tonight asking me about 1 Timothy 2 (you know, women shouldn't braid their hair). "What does that mean pastor?" Funny you should ask. Read the whole chapter.

First section -- God doesn't want anyone to perish. He wants everybody to get saved.

Second section -- Paul says, "That's why I'm here... to see people get saved."

Third section -- Let men be unified not divisive. Why? My opinion: because people won't get saved when they see churches acting like jerks.

Fourth section -- Women shouldn't let their beauty come from a bottle; it should come from being a beautiful person (paraphrase for sure, but not too bad really). Why? Because people will get saved when they see something real.

Fifth section -- Eve sinned and then deceived Adam. Whoa!! Stop this train Paul, I want to get off. I have no idea what he's talking about cause it seems to me Adam was right there.

So what is church culturally? And also remember our culture (at least for me and Tom).

1. You have to get dressed up. In our area, men don't dress up for work typically. Lately at funerals you see a lot of blue jeans. A lot of men only have one good set of clothes. (Not true at The Crossover)

2. We sing music that isn't on the radio and never was because they didn't have radios when this music was written. (Not true at The Crossover)

3. We sing and cry and "go forward" and then we claim we are different. (Not true at The Crossover -- we don't see much in the way of response except for communion.)

I'm sure there are more, but I'm getting tired, and yet the (Not true at The Crossover) hasn't really helped us attract men. We did at first, but they have fallen off.

Here is a statement that may not fly: "Women do better at pretense than men." Women can look at an ugly dress and smile and say, "Wow, I love that!" Men can't. Women can shake hands with the saddest preacher and say, "That was lovely!" Men can't.

So you have two problems with men. Your church has to be absolutely real. You can't pretend at all. I don't think that will run the women away. And second men aren't good at accepting part of it and hiding the rest of their baggage. So if you are totally real, the men will have to jump in fully or jump out. Many men are too afraid to jump in so that only gives them one option.

I don't know, this is all off the top of my head. Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

Maybe this will at least jump start this conversation.

Another thought

We may be getting heavily involved with Habitat for Humanity soon. I wonder if men want to see their faith lived out in action not just in a tearful response. We'll see.