How to Make Sure Men Hate Your Church

Many churches and families struggle when it comes to men attending church. Maybe you’re a pastor and you look around and don’t see a lot of men. If you do see them, they are uninvolved, not passionate about their faith and are simply taking up a seat. It’s great they are there, but you want so much more for them.

Maybe you’re a wife or a mother who wants nothing more than to see your husband or son become engaged in their faith. You want it to be more than talk or more than simply showing up. You want them to take initiative, to pray with you, pray on their own, read their Bible, anything so that it doesn’t feel like they are doing it simply to make you feel better.

I’ve written before about ways for your church to reach more men, and while there are a number of things your church can do to reach more men, there are lots of things you can do to make sure men hate your church.

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With that in mind, here are some ways to make sure men hate your church, don’t engage in their faith and ultimately don’t come back:

1. Make it about women. Let’s be honest about church and spirituality. Women tend to be more open to spirituality and church than men. They tend to be more involved, take it more seriously, be more engaged in what is happening, and they are more likely to volunteer at a church. So it is easy to make church geared more towards women. When we do this without thinking about men, we communicate to them, “This isn’t for you.”

Now the answer isn’t to make church all about men so women hate it. That would be absurd and get our churches nowhere. As we’ll see in the rest of the list, there are some simple things you can change to help men stop hating your church.

2. Give them nothing to do. One way to make men hate your church is to give them nothing to do. Make them feel unneeded outside of writing a check or giving their wife and kids a ride. If that’s the extent of what they can do, they’ll check out. The answer also isn’t more serving opportunities. It is communicating how important their presence is in the church, how important it is to take their faith seriously and take that faith into their lives.

3. Don’t give them any tools. Maybe you’ve sat in a church and heard, “Men should lead their families. Men should pray with their wives and kids. Men should lead family devotions.” And then after the pastor has made every man feel guilty, he stops. No tools. No, here’s how to do it. Just do it.

Yet for most families, devotions are a train wreck. A fight to keep kids engaged and focused. They go terribly wrong more than they go even close to right. Many couples are unsure of how to pray with each other.

The last thing men need is more guilt about what they aren’t doing. They want to do those things; they just don’t know how. They need tools. Someone to show them, to walk with them, to help them.

Honestly, the best way to make men love your church is to help them with tools in their faith.

4. Sing songs that are too high. I’m going to step out on thin ice, but the reality is most men don’t like to sing. Think for a minute, where else do you sing in public with a group of people? It can be weird. Then when you throw in songs that get too high for men to sing or talk about how beautiful and amazing Jesus is, it starts to get uncomfortable for men, especially men who don’t follow Jesus and are guests at church.

5. Don’t expect them to succeed. This goes right along with #3, but when we don’t give men tools, we also communicate, “You think you can’t do this and so do we.” Expect men to succeed and give them a high bar.

One reason men hate church is that it isn’t worthwhile. The bar is so low. The bar in many churches is come and we’ll entertain you. Give a check once in awhile and feel good about yourself.

That isn’t succeeding and that isn’t worth getting up for.

Here’s a great example. Think of the average Mother’s Day sermons and Father’s Day sermons. Mother’s Day is about how amazing Mom is (and she is). Father’s Day is often a punch in the face to men. So men walk out hearing, “You can’t do it and we don’t believe in you.”

6. Think that all men are tough, manly men. Most men’s ministries in churches today are geared towards manly type men. Men who want to get dirty, eat lots of raw meat and go camping. And while there are a lot of those men, they aren’t the only men out there. Too many churches and pastors think all men are the same, and so they zero in on one man. It’s easy to do, and often it is done without thinking about it.

7. Only talk about a couple of sins men commit. I know one pastor that when he wants to talk about sin, he calls it “drinking and carousin’.” Many pastors, when they want to talk about men and sin, will just talk about porn. Do men struggle with porn? Yes, but so do many women. There are a bunch of other sins men commit and struggle with. Talk about those just as much. Talk about the father wound that many men carry around, the drive to succeed and the emptiness that comes from our missed opportunities. Don’t just focus on one sin.

9 Things I Wish Worship Leaders Didn’t Say

We’ve all been in that worship service. The one that got really awkward, really fast when the worship leader said the wrong thing. He didn’t mean to. He was trying. But it happened. He said something, and the feeling got sucked out of the room. The pastor covered his mouth because of the heresy coming out of the worship leader’s mouth.

It happened.

So what did he say?

worship leaders

Here are 9 things I wish worship leaders didn’t say (or said less):

1. Turn to your neighbor and ________. I’m an introvert, so I hate any time that I have to turn and say anything to anyone. I do this sometimes in a sermon, but rarely if ever. Maybe two times in eight years. If you’re a guest at a church, you don’t want to turn to your neighbor and do anything, unless it’s your wife, and then you certainly don’t want to be in church for what you have in mind. Don’t tell them to turn to their neighbor and say something. I was at one church where they put on the screen during the welcome time, “Hug 18 people.” Nope. Time to sit down and check out.

2. Let me tell you what I just heard in the sermon. A pastor spends anywhere from 5 – 20 hours on a sermon. You just heard it for the first time with everyone else. Please don’t re-preach the sermon. Now if you’re prepared and thought through it, great. But almost every time a worship leader says something off the cuff or prays something off the cuff, heresy follows. Not bad heresy, just things that sound slightly off.

Worship leaders, if you are going to talk or pray, write it out ahead of time. Be prepared. You teach your church about God every time you open your mouth. Make sure what comes out is correct.

3. Who’s excited and ready to sing today?! Almost no one. It’s early and we had a fight on the way to church and our kids were difficult and I stayed up too late on Saturday night.

Also, almost everyone hates to sing in public, especially men. You just need to be aware of that.

We also don’t like to clap and sing at the same time because almost no one can do that. It’s not bad, we just aren’t very good at it. We also can’t sing as high as you can, so when you sing really high, and we know you are awesome and have an incredible range, we stop singing.

4. Father God, dear Father God, holy Father God. This one drives me nuts. It is almost like the worship leader forgot God’s name or needs to remind God of His name or remind the church who they are praying to. I don’t get this.

5. Wispy breath prayer. This goes right along with the Father God prayer, this wispy, romantic, Barry White prayer voice. I remember taking a friend to church. He wasn’t a Christian, and when the worship leader broke out the Barry White prayer voice, my friend leaned over and said, “Is he trying to seduce us?” I kid you not. Just be yourself. Use your voice. It’s good enough to sing on stage, it’s good enough to talk to us. Don’t use a British accent if you’re from America. Be you.

6. I can’t hear you. Yes, cause we aren’t singing. We don’t know the songs, so we aren’t singing. The lights and fog are too flashy, so we feel like we’re at a show and don’t need to participate.

7. Let’s give God a hand. This is often a plea for applause for you. If people want to give God a hand or you a hand, they will.

8. Let’s sing this from our heart. What does that even mean? I have no idea what that means. I went to Bible college, seminary, and I’m 80% done with a theological doctorate degree, and I have no idea what this means. Someone please tell me how you sing from your heart instead of your mouth or your gut.

9. Be here now, Jesus. This is one of the worst things a worship leader can say. Is Jesus not there before you say this? Was the Holy Spirit not on the move before you asked Him to be on the move? Or, “God, we just want more of You.” You have all of God you need. That’s not the problem. The problem is we don’t see God, we don’t have the eyes and ears for God, not that He isn’t here.

Worship leader, remember, what you say and do on stage teaches us how to connect to God and worship. It also helps us respond to a sermon we just heard or prepares our hearts to hear God’s Word. You have an enormous task. Many of you take it seriously, for which I and your churches are grateful.

The Weight & Joy of Being a Pastor: You Can’t Change People

There is a weight that pastors feel that I don’t know translates into other jobs. I think that people in churches can know about it but not fully understand it. I know that as a youth pastor I didn’t truly understand the weight of pastoring until becoming a lead pastor. For no particular reason it just worked that way.

While there are many weights that a pastor carries, some of them are just human weights that others carry (including parenting), but I thought up five that I think pastors particularly carry on a daily basis because of what they do each and every week. There is an important distinction here: these are not pains. These are the weights of pastoring. There is a huge difference between pain and weight (so no one misses that).

Over the coming months I wanted to share some of the weights and joys of pastoring.

Weight #1 for a pastor has to do with preaching and the responsibility of opening God’s Word.

pastoring

Weight #2: Seeing people make bad decisions and living outside of God’s design for life.

This does not mean that pastors don’t make stupid decisions or even make decisions so that we live outside of God’s design for life. I make plenty of stupid decisions. However, as a pastor you have a front row seat into people’s lives, whether it is through conversations at church, in a meeting or in a counseling session. You often get to watch the sin unfold in people’s lives, and you know that they know they are making a bad decision.

It is like watching your child make a dumb decision, knowing they are making a dumb decision, but not wanting or not being able to stop them.

I remember numerous times talking with someone about a problem in their life, seeing the pain in their eyes, hearing them talk about wanting freedom, only to have them come back in a week and tell me they were back in it. To see people decide on instant gratification instead of integrity. To see people do things that make you scratch your head and think, “Are you serious?”

Pastors get a bird’s eye view into others’ lives, and because of that we often see the end before it starts. We know how most stories end because we’ve seen so many play out.

At the same time there is also the pain of feeling helpless while watching people bring pain into their lives or experience pain because others have brought it into their lives. We can’t stop people; we can pray and counsel, but ultimately people live and make their own decisions.

This is hard for anyone.

In Luke 15 Jesus talked about the prodigal son and how he left his family and went to a far off country. Sometimes the people around us (and sometimes we) need to go to a far off country. It’s hard to let them. We want to stop them. Change them. Fix them.

But that isn’t our job.

Our job is to be there when they come back from that far off country.

That’s weighty. That’s painful and difficult. It opens us up to hurt and pain. Many times a pastor will meet with someone and know exactly how it will end and what will happen, much like a parent watching their child make the same choices.

Like a parent who wants the best for their child, but who also knows their child must make choices as they grow older.

If you’re a pastor, this is what you signed up for. Don’t forget that. Don’t overstep that and try to work your way around it.

If You’re a Parent, This Is the Most Important Thing You’ll Read Today & 9 Other Articles You Should Read this Weekend

leader

Each Friday I share some posts that I’ve come across in the last week. They range in topics and sources but they are all things I’ve found interesting or helpful that I hope will be interesting and helpful to you. Here are 10 posts I came across this week that challenged my thinking or helped me as a leader, pastor, husband and father:

  1. Why the Christian Philosopher’s case for Same-Sex Marriage is Shallow by Wesley Hill
  2. Eight Ways Pastors Can Cultivate Long-Term Tenures by Art Rainer
  3. 30 Observations About Fast-Growing Churches by Brian Dodd
  4. 5 Reasons for Pastors to Appreciate Their Church by Chris Hefner
  5. How To Define Your Preaching Audience by Brian Jones
  6. 7 Hints You’re About to Make a Bad Leadership Decision by Ron Edmondson
  7. The Two Most Common Practices in Healthy Churches by Thom Rainer
  8. Children and Sleepovers: What Parents Need to Know by Tim Challies
  9. Mom as Unsung Disciple-Maker by Sam Bierig (via For the Church)
  10. If You’re a Parent, This Is the Most Important Thing You’ll Read Today by Justin Barison (via Inc.)

Can Suffering Bring Any Joy or Happiness?

suffering

Contrary to what might be expected, I look back on experiences that at the time seemed especially desolating and painful with particular satisfaction. Indeed, I can say with complete truthfulness that everything I have learned in my 75 years in this world, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence, has been through affliction and not through happiness, whether pursued or attained. In other words, if it ever were to be possible to eliminate affliction from our earthly existence by means of some drug or other medical mumbo jumbo…the result would not be to make life delectable, but to make it too banal and trivial to be endurable. This, of course, is what the Cross signifies. And it is the Cross, more than anything else, that has called me inexorably to Christ. -Malcolm Muggeridge

A Prayerful Response to the Election

As we move towards the election, many of us have different thoughts about it, the candidates and the direction of our country. Some are excited, some are fearful, some are indifferent. Elections create joy and anxiety for different people.

As followers of Jesus, we are to engage politics in a unique, distinct and attractive way.

But how do we do that?

One of the ways we can do that is by focusing ourselves through praying the Lord’s Prayer.

election

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

God is our good and gracious Father who always does what is good, right and perfect. A father cares deeply for his children, and our heavenly Father cares deeply for His creation.

Acknowledging that God is Father also reminds us that God is in charge. That our God is in heaven, and nothing happens without His direction and permission. While we may not always understand or agree with His direction or permission, we can rest knowing His care for us as a Father.

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

We are reminded that ultimately God’s kingdom will come. God’s will will be done. Nothing can thwart that.

Regardless of the election results, we know that God is still God and Jesus is still on the throne, on earth as it is in heaven.

This is great comfort to a follower of Jesus.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

This line helps us to remember where our needs get met and what God has done for us.

This also reminds us of where our response comes from, that we are to engage politics in a unique, distinct and attractive way. We can do this because we know that on our own, we live unforgiven, debt ridden lives. This allows us to extend the forgiveness we have received to those around us.

election

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

We are tempted to be evil when it comes to politics. We are tempted to repay evil with evil. We also need to be delivered from evil because there is evil in our world (although not always in the places we think).

This is a reminder of our fallenness apart from Jesus and our need for His grace. This reminds us of not only our need, but also that Jesus is the only deliverer. Not a political party, not a candidate, a policy or a platform. While those are tools God can and does use, they cannot save us and deliver us.

For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever.

This last line sums it up well. God is in control, forever and ever. All the kingdom, the power and the glory go to Him. Regardless of what happens in a culture or election, we can rest knowing we can live knowing that.

Monday Morning Mind Dump…

mind dump

  • Yesterday was a lot of fun at Revolution.
  • I’m thankful for a church that is willing to dive into the hard topics and be stretched.
  • As part of our series in Romans, we unpacked how a follower of Jesus is should relate and respond to the election.
  • The response has been overwhelmingly positive.
  • If you want to listen or watch it, you can do so here.
  • Personally, we are in a crazy busy season with a ton of family visiting us.
  • Once November rolls around, people want to come to Tucson.
  • I get it because summer is horribly hot.
  • I started reading A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix over the weekend. 
  • I’ve been told recently by several leaders I respect that it is the best book on leadership.
  • Hands down, one leader told me.
  • So, I had to start it.
  • With all the reading we’ve done on adoption, attachment and family systems, I’m really interested to dive into it as there’s a lot of that in it and applied to leadership.
  • While I don’t like scary things, I’m really excited for Halloween tonight.
  • It’s the one night a year all my neighbors are out and I can meet them if I haven’t yet.
  • Here’s what our family does to capitalize on Halloween and be on mission.
  • Next week, Katie is going to a photography conference, so I get to single dad it for 4 days.
  • Praying our kids survive on cereal and pizza.
  • I’m excited for her and to see her keep growing in her talent.
  • I’m blown away at what she does and how creative she is.
  • We got to have lunch yesterday with a couple that is about to have their first child in 2 weeks.
  • That season feels like a lifetime ago.
  • But it was awesome to hear their questions and to see their desire to grow as a couple to last in their marriage and make it in parenting.
  • Bottom line, lasting and loving it as a parent and in marriage takes intentionality.
  • It will not just happen.
  • One highlight for me personally coming up is we are talking about starting my next tattoo soon.
  • Something to go along with Katie’s tattoo and the journey we’ve been on together as a couple.
  • I’m still blown away Katie got a tattoo and it is awesome looking.
  • Well, back to it.
  • While I’m not preaching on politics per se this Sunday, I’m talking about the kingdom of God and the values of it.
  • Should be a lot of fun.

7 Thoughts for Parenting a Young Family During the Presidential Election Season & 3 Other Posts You Should Read this Weekend

leader

Each Friday I share some posts that I’ve come across in the last week. They range in topics and sources but they are all things I’ve found interesting or helpful that I hope will be interesting and helpful to you. Here are 4 posts I came across this week that challenged my thinking or helped me as a leader, pastor, husband and father:

  1. 7 Thoughts for Parenting a Young Family During the Presidential Election Season by Ron Edmondson
  2. 3 Shifts Growing Churches Make to Welcome the Lost [The Growing Church] by Brandon Kelley
  3. The Pastor’s Facebook Feed by Lauren Hunter
  4. The Internal Battles of Even the Best Pastors by Brandon Cox

The Weight & Joy of Being a Pastor: Preaching

There is a weight that pastors feel that I don’t know translates into other jobs. I think that people in churches can know about it but not fully understand it. I know that as a youth pastor I didn’t truly understand the weight of pastoring until becoming a lead pastor. For no particular reason it just worked that way.

While there are many weights that a pastor carries, some of them are just human weights that others carry (including parenting), but I thought up five that I think pastors particularly carry on a daily basis because of what they do each and every week. There is an important distinction here: these are not pains. These are the weights of pastoring. There is a huge difference between pain and weight (so no one misses that).

Over the coming months I wanted to share some of the weights and joys of pastoring.

preaching

Weight #1: Preaching God’s Word Every Week

One of my favorite parts of my job is preaching every week, and for your pastor, this is probably one of his favorite parts of his job. Yes, I call it preaching, not teaching. For me the goal of preaching is life change, not to pass on information or to make people smarter.

There is this weight of knowing that each week you are standing in front of a group of people and trying to communicate in an accurate way what the Bible says. The idea of God using you and speaking through you is incredibly weighty. The idea that in our church every week there are broken marriages, addictions, pain, hurt, questions, doubts, people who are struggling with their faith, people who are trying to piece together their faith, and people who don’t know Jesus and are going to spend eternity without Him.

This is weighty.

It keeps me and other pastors up during the week, it humbles us as we read, as we pray, as we think through the faces and the stories every week of our churches.

While we don’t decide for people, and we don’t make people change, the weight is the part that we play in this. The idea that God can and does use preaching every week is weighty.

The weight that if we’re not prepared, we dishonor God and the call He has placed on our lives. If we’re not prepared, someone may think their suspicions of God, church and pastors have been confirmed, and they move farther away from God rather than closer.

One of the things that I try to do every week, and it doesn’t always happen, is to stand up at Revolution and preach like it is the last time I am going to preach. This is pastor talk for leaving it all on the field.

I’m often asked by people how they can help me or support me (or support their pastor). Here are some ways:

  • Pray during the week when I’m studying.
  • Pray on Saturday night. I rarely sleep well on Saturday nights as I am thinking about Sunday morning.
  • Come on Sunday expecting God to show up.
  • Don’t bring something up on Sunday before church; wait until after church. That sounds rude, but for me personally, if I can stay focused on my message before church, it goes so much better for me.
  • Pray and support Katie. The best way to serve and care for a pastor is to serve and care for his wife. While I carry a weight and have a target on my back, Katie feels it even more, and it is often lonelier and heavier for her.

Tuesday Mind Dump…

mind dump

  • This past Sunday at Revolution was one of those days that pastors love.
  • It was a topic that has so much relevance to people, challenges people and is helpful.
  • How to forgive.
  • If you missed it or want to hear it again, you can watch it here.
  • For me, it was very timely.
  • Sunday morning I got a nasty anonymous comment on my blog that was really painful.
  • So walking onto the stage to preach about forgiveness with that hanging over me was hard but also a reminder of God’s grace to me.
  • I’ve been forgiven for things that are so much worse than someone lashing out at me on my blog.
  • I’m thankful for the RC leaders and elders at Revolution who pray with me and over me on Sunday mornings.
  • Especially this past Sunday.
  • Pastors, remember this: when someone lashes out at you in an email, a blog comment, conversation, a tweet, they are hurting and they don’t know how to process that hurt. Don’t take it personally.
  • It has way more to do with them, not you.
  • Easier said than done, but possible.
  • Last week was awesome for me, Katie went and got a tattoo.
  • It turned out amazing.
  • I love the imagery behind it and the story it represents in her life.
  • It was a lot of fun too.
  • We’re in the middle of a busy season of family coming into town.
  • Over the next 7 weeks, we have 5 weeks of family either coming to see us or Katie and I traveling.
  • Lots happening!
  • I’m preaching on politics this Sunday as part of our series in Romans.
  • It should be a lot of fun.
  • These books have been really helpful to me while I’ve prepped: Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel and Jesus Outside the Lines: A Way Forward for Those Who Are Tired of Taking Sides.
  • You might not agree with everything in them, but they’ll at least make you think.
  • Which isn’t always a bad thing for a Christian to do.
  • I’m probably taking one of our sons to see the U of A homecoming football game on Saturday.
  • I’m hoping it’s at least close.
  • We started sharing about our Christmas offering and some of the ideas we’re doing this year as part of our series Being Rich in What Matters Most. 
  • I think it’s going to be a challenging series for our church.
  • I love the idea of people in our church sharing God’s love on a daily basis for 30 days in December.
  • My hope is that it is the start of a simple, daily habit.
  • Don’t forget that Halloween is next week.
  • Great opportunity to engage your neighbors and meet them and share the love of Jesus with them.
  • Well, back at it.
  • Have a great week!