Man Caves or Women's Clubs

Apparently men hate going to church even more than singles in general. So imagine the number of men in the single adult ministry, where women greatly outnumber men in most singles classes. Those who think singles classes = singles scene could not be further from the truth.

There's a whole movement dedicated to trying to get the church to become more welcoming to men. Check it out at ChurchforMen.com. On the Pastors/Leaders page, you'll find this quote:

There are signals in the sanctuary. Let’s say a common working stiff named Nick visits your church. What’s the first thing Nick sees? Fresh flowers on the altar. Soft, cushiony pews with boxes of Kleenex underneath. Neutral carpet abutting lavender walls, adorned with quilted banners (or worse: Thomas Kinkade paintings). Honestly, how do we expect Nick to connect with God in a space that feels so feminine?

I think their point is absolutely valid. I can tell you from writing this blog that men will read the posts with a picture of a power tool, but a picture of a flower? Um, not so much.


Combine the reticence of men to go to church with the demographic disparity between men and women in many of our cities, and you can understand how it's so easy for the older singles classes to become women's classes in the blink of an eye. Check out this map from WhosYourCity.com.

I live in a city where single women outnumber single men by at least 10,000.We're in the hole going in. But that's not enough.

Sometimes we seem to go out of our way to created a self-fulfilling prophecy, to create a place where men feel like they don't belong.

I love to watch Sell This House on A&E. You may have seen it, too. Potential buyers walk through a house that's not selling and their comments are recorded. The comments are played back for the homeowners, and most of the time, it's a painful experience. The strangers who comment on the home don't know the owners, and they see things the homeowners have missed. My all-time favorite comment came from a young man in his 20s who saw the dated furniture and lace doilies and remarked, "It looks like dead people live here."


The 50-something homeowners were horrified.

After I saw that episode a few years ago, I started looking around my church and wondered what the guy who saw dead people would think.

We have areas in our church that have been beautifully decorated...by women. And they look like it.

We have too much artwork that looks like someone's grandmother chose it. We'd probably be better off if we left the walls blank. (In design, blank walls are considered "negative space" and are often a design advantage.)

We have a commitment room where people who make professions of faith meet with a counselor in order to join the church. A room with silk flowers on the tables. The flowers are supposed to make it feel homey.

If the home is a funeral home, then yes, those silk arrangements are doing their job.

Read the New Testament where the early followers of Christ lived with a sense of adventure and excitement. If we want today's men to feel like they're on the adventure of their lives by choosing to become followers of Christ, well, silk flower arrangements aren't sending the right message.

Then I look at the single adult classrooms and I shudder.  I think most men have a harder time with the idea of singleness than most women do. As hard as it is for women to walk into a class by themselves for the first time, it's even harder for men. And too often what we give them when they walk through the door is nothing but reasons to never return.

It doesn't feel adventurous when there are at least 5 women to every man who is in the room.

It doesn't feel adventurous when you walk into a room where people grab a donut, sit in their chairs and stare at a wall until it's time for class to start.


It doesn't feel adventurous when you walk by a singles classroom that is decorated for Valentine's Day. Seriously. A heart on the door, and hearts on the wall. We're not talking about symbols for Wild at Heart here.

It doesn't feel adventurous when your class has dumped a Super Bowl Party in favor of a Valentine's luncheon...and a chick flick.

It doesn't feel adventurous when women take all of the leadership roles and never ask for input from men.

Feeling like an alien who has landed on another plant is not the kind of adventure men are looking for. But that's what we've given them.


Is it too late to create a place where men will feel welcome? I hope not. I think the encouragement we receive from other followers of Christ is just as much needed in the lives of men as it is in the lives of women. But we have to find a way to make our churches and our classes feel more like man caves than women's clubs. It's more than decor - although clearly that's the first message we send. Our attitudes have to change, too.

Otherwise we might as well just paint the walls pink and be done with it.

Parental Unit Recogniton

One of the worst moments for me as a single adult in church was actually caused by another single woman. It was Wednesday night and as part of the prayer meeting, there was kind of an open mic element, meaning anyone could go to a microphone and share a prayer request.

This particular Wednesday, a woman from my Sunday school class went to the mic and tearfully requested prayer for all of the singles saying “the singles in this church are hurting.” Everyone at my table froze for an instant. We knew that every single wasn’t hurting at that moment, and more to the point, we knew what was driving her prayer request wasn’t so much about “all” the singles. She had recently been dumped by her boyfriend, also a member of our Sunday school class.

The other 150 or so in the room that night didn’t know that little detail. Neither did the pastor.

Next thing I knew, the pastor, in an effort to be sensitive to such an emotional request, asked all of the hurting singles to raise their hands. Around the room, single people were sitting on their left hands so no one would notice the lack of a ring. Slowly, a few people raised a hand not so much to admit to hurting themselves but to rescue the woman at the microphone from feeling more alone than she already felt. If I were a more considerate person, I might have raised my hand, too. Instead I sat, frozen in my seat, sitting on both hands, and visually measuring the distance between my chair and the door, wondering if there was any possible way to drop to the floor and crawl out of Fellowship Hall without being noticed.

The couples and those of us singles who didn’t raise our hands were then encouraged to lay hands on the ones brave enough to admit to their hurts and pray for them. As I recall, I chose the woman seated next to me – I don’t remember much about the quickly mumbled prayer. I do remember the intense desire to run when it was over.

Another please, God, let the earth open so I can fall in moment used to be Mothers Day. As still happens in a lot of churches, each year all the mothers were asked to stand so they could be recognized, leaving the childless to sit in our seats, feeling particularly empty, and wondering if there is a way to crawl out of the auditorium without anyone noticing.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate motherhood. I take the Jacqueline Kennedy view on parenting. Raising children is the most important thing any parent will ever do. As Jackie said, “If you bungle raising your kids, I don't think whatever else you do well matters very much.” It’s a simple philosophy that clearly demonstrates the importance of raising children for those who are parents.

But somehow it seems that when we applaud women (or men) simply for being parents, it’s as though church members feel a need to pat each other on the back for procreation. It’s seems particularly self-centered when you realize it causes some in the congregation pain. It’s not just women who are single and childless who have a hard time on Mothers Day, there are many couples who struggle with fertility and miscarriages, there are moms who have lost their children, there are (married and single) mothers and children who are estranged from one another, and there are always children – of all ages – who have recently lost their moms and are struggling with grief. And there are those who chose not to have children who feel alienated by churches who make them feel flawed for that choice.

My church has now reached a point where I feel like we have found a happy balance on Mothers Day. Recognizing that Mothers Day isn’t always cause for celebration, we’ve made it more low-key. This year a mom from the congregation prayed for mothers, thanking God for them and asking Him to grant them wisdom, without the big moment for all the moms to stand so we could applaud.

And after that service, I did the unthinkable, smugly patting the church on the back in my mind for recognizing mothers without going out of the way to cause pain to those who weren’t feeling particularly joyful about the day. I forgot about the men in our congregation until this past Sunday, which was Fathers Day.

I am ashamed to admit that I have never given much thought about Fathers Day services. Fathers Day, after all is different. It’s about ties and cookouts. It’s not as warm and fuzzy. And surely, men don’t have the same issues women have.

This past Sunday it finally hit me that all of those things I spelled out that can make Mothers Day difficult apply just as much to Fathers Day. There are men in those couples who struggle with fertility and miscarriages, there are dads who have lost their children, there are (married and single) dads and children who are estranged from one another, and there are always children – of all ages – who have recently lost their dads and are struggling with grief. And there are those men who chose not to have children who feel alienated by churches who make them feel flawed for that choice.

On top of that, while the church has come around on the issue of single moms, we too often think of single dads as lacking. I think groups like PromiseKeepers - while doing much good in the lives of untold numbers of men strengthening them in their walks with Christ - may have had the unintended consequence of making churches more judgmental about single men. When I tell people I’ve just met that I’m single, they often say something like “I think single moms are great.” They don't ask if I have children – they just assume that I do. But I’ve never heard anyone volunteer to a single man that they think single dads are great. In the church, the assumption is often that single moms are struggling to raise their children alone while the dads are living the high life, oblivious to their kids.

The church has to let go of old stereotypes. There are childless men who wish they had kids, just as there are childless women who are grateful they don’t. And there are single dads who move heaven and earth to provide for their children, spending as much time as humanly possible with them, attending soccer games, school performances, and parent teacher conferences. They work hard to make every moment with their kids count. Single dads are great, too.

We often wonder why, by middle age, there are relatively few single men who regularly attend church. I think a greater mystery is why we have any at all. I have to believe that the church that finds a way to encourage single men instead of making them feel inferior will find a lot more single men who want to be a part of their church family.