Hanging out with my two kids is a blast. I love their company. They make me laugh, make me think deeply, and I get to eat burgers. Travelling places with them is however akin to being strapped into a chair and being made to listen to Chris De Burgh sing “Lady in Red” endlessly without a break. The thing is; I love journeys. I love to see new stuff, interact with new surroundings and enjoy the whole experience of doing something/being somewhere, different.

My kids however tend to bombard me with:

“are we there yet (cliché I know but it really does happen), how much longer, I need the toilet.”

They are without mercy in this. There is no respite … no let up, no way out. Any diversionary tactic used to thwart them is usually overcome before you can say, “I’m a parent, get me out of here!”

Here’s the thing. They hate the journey but love the destination.

I’ve noticed that Christians fall into different camps. There are those who love the journey and those who can only think of the destination. Rarely do you meet a Christian who loves both.

Some believers in the UK, typically more reformed theologically, think only of heaven or hell. They preach only about the end game, often accompanied by incredible focus and intensity. Many preachers/teachers from this camp often stay single as their intense focus on the destination allows for little else (however, this could be said to justifiable, according to Paul 1 Corinthians 7:8).

Then there are those from maybe a more charismatic perspective. They love the journey. They love life to the full in the here and now. They long for healing and wholeness, Kingdom power right now and may work hard to see God’s Kingdom in evidence … but they speak little of eternity or judgement.

It seems to me we need both.  Jesus came to give us life to the full (John 10:10). He also spoke of judgement to come (Matthew 11:24, Matthew 12:36) and told us to look for the signs and warn people (Colossians 1:28). It is said that the Kingdom is now but not yet …”

It’s a tension and a tough one to resolve. Now where did I put my car keys?

I want to turn some attention to men and worship culture, writing from the perspective of one who is in the arena and not carping from the sidelines.

I do have things to say but all my comments and thoughts come from a passion to see blokes not only become full on followers of Jesus but to see them integrated into healthy, vibrant, life giving, radical, dangerous churches that are good for everyone involved.  These blog posts are about evangelism … not about the Christian ghetto.

So here we go.  Time to put a head above the parapet!  And boy is this dangerous territory.  If worship is our highest calling then it is no wonder that it’s the area in most churches that causes the most debate, ungodly aggression and immature reaction.

Important: when you start engaging with this, please don’t think from your personal perspective. Remember, these posts are about missional thinking (i.e. doing stuff that isn’t about what we like) so, think for the rest of this article about your bog standard average bloke who walks into church; try to think from his perspective.  It might be useful as well to think about what God likes.  There’s a radical thought!  (More on that point later.)

Here are some subjects I will be commenting on:

• Volume
• The Sexualisation of worship
• Recasting the language of intimacy
• Worship styles
• Alternatives to singing
• The working class and worship
• Who should lead worship
• Small groups and worship

We begin by looking at “volume” a seemingly harmless issue but the cause of so much tension and ungodly reaction in congregational churches.

Volume

I was once invited to go to a classical music event called “Prom Praise” at Christmas with a contingent from my church.  Some of the party were people who were being quite forthright in their complaint that the worship in church was too loud. However, that evening I saw the light! It was so loud in the Royal Albert Hall that I couldn’t hear myself sing!  Man, the hall was rocking! So why weren’t the complainers complaining?  Why were they glowing after?  Why wasn’t the volume in this context offensive?

Of course, the whole time they hadn’t really found the volume in church worship offensive.  They couldn’t have!  After all, I had the evidence in front of me.  What they were finding offensive in church was the style! Drums, bass, lead guitars, jeans etc.  But where there was an orchestra causing the noise by people who were classically trained, that was ok!   It’s amazing how often we aren’t aware of what is really upsetting us and blame something else.

So what about blokes and volume? (Be aware that I write as someone who isn’t always into high volume.  I appreciate peace and quiet! For example I appreciate the subtle tones at the start of Barber’s Adagio for Strings, although I like the volume cranked up later!).  Here are some brief thoughts:

High volume levels are bloke friendly because I suspect that most men don’t like to hear themselves sing. This is because most men can’t sing very well.  When the volume is up it feels safer and better for all concerned!

We will talk about style later but for now I also want to make the point that men like songs that have objective truth in them that speak about who God is and what he is about.  We don’t like stuff that tries to tell us how we feel! The sort of songs that men like to sing need to have a bit of welly! It’s no good singing the praises of the living God who made something as outrageously huge and spectacular as the Eagle Nebula at reduced volume.  What’s that all about!?

When William Booth of Salvation Army fame wanted to use music to reach poor, white, working class blokes he used brass bands.  Loud, distinctive and from the street with many colliery bands already in existence, it was the sort of sound that the working class loved.  The rich weren’t the biggest fans but that didn’t matter to Booth.  He wanted to go to those who the church had passed by.  If we were to employ the same tactic today we would have very loud drum and bass music or progressive rap on the streets and in church.  We need to get that kind of missionary perspective back.

Is there a time for quiet?  Yes of course.  Is there a time for reflective worship?  Yep!  Do we need to crank the volume up more and adopt styles that allow for it?  Absolutely.

Getting men into the Kingdom is a topic in itself.  But for now here are a few things we believe as a ministry are crucial if we are to win men for Jesus.  Make sure your church:

• has a long term strategy to reach the men outside the church.
• recognises that in the UK today it takes a man on average five years to come to Christ (three for women).
• realises that men today are miles from the Kingdom and need to hear the Gospel at least 30 times before making a commitment to follow Jesus.
• understands that 80% people who come to Christ are brought by a friend.
• realises that many men struggle with small talk but will open up in the context of activity.
• sets in place a programme to deal with these realities.

Perhaps the biggest lessons I have learned about reaching men have been whilst riding my bicycle.  A couple of years ago, in an effort to transform my life from being an overweight unfit pastor, I took up cycling.  Always being one to go the extra mile I decided to respond to the challenge to cycle from Lands End to John O’ Groats in under 9 days.

After a bit of training, I along with 6 others guys (half of whom weren’t believers) did it.  All the guys who weren’t believers ended up in a weekly bible study. The following year we did the same with 16 guys but this time from Calais to Nice over the Alps. The same positive spiritual outcome took place.  Some of my most effective conversations about Jesus have taken place while side by side with other men in the context of cycling.

In fact, sometimes the most intimate and personal things have been shared.  Why?  Because we are side by side, exerting ourselves, struggling though the pain barrier together with all the guards and defences torn down.  We also used the cycle ride to raise money for a worthy cause thereby igniting men’s hearts with the chance to do something positive for those less fortunate than themselves (in this case, a work in Africa).  The efforts that some went to in order to raise money was extremely humbling.

I’m not suggesting we all go out and cycle crazy distances but perhaps if we in some way made a small effort to walk and journey with men, rather than expect them to come into our world, we may see some startling breakthroughs.

So in conclusion let’s unashamedly gear some ministry towards the men.

Some things to consider:

For believing men:

• Prayer triplets – weekly if possible; 45 minutes will do; accountability among members
• Termly breakfasts – give them some fellowship time, saturated fat, and teach them some relevant Biblical truth
• One on One mentoring by mature men for younger men

For Not Yet Believers:

• Well organised social/sports events with no overt Christian content
• A termly breakfast with a good speaker who gives his testimony and a clear Christian statement.
• “Enquirers’’ courses such as Alpha but occasionally run for men only.  We need to understand that as Jesus shines his light into a man’s heart, the issues that he will be struggling with (perhaps gambling, pornography or hidden stress) won’t be discussed in front of Jane but will be talked about with John and Steve.  Especially if he has been doing some stuff shoulder to shoulder with them.

For Both groups:

• How about a semi retired/retired man being released to serve as an encourager and pastoral worker amongst men, carrying out work visits and giving wise counsel.

That’s far from all and as I have previously said, we have painted broad brush strokes and made inevitable sweeping statements and generalisations.  Hopefully however there are some useful thoughts in the above to get us all thinking and see some more men introduced to Jesus.  There’s a big job to do and a bit of up hill boulder pushing to engage in but when you consider that according to “evangelicals now” in 2003 that when you lead a man to Jesus, 93% of his family follow to Jesus (as opposed to 3.5% for children or 17% for women) we need to get serious about the way we reach out and minister to men.

Let’s think now about the more personal issues that a man faces.  Sure, there will be a façade that most men construct that says, “Hey, I’m doing just great” but behind that there is often a much more raw reality.  Many men are really wrestling with issues such as sexual temptation (Channel 4 and 5 after 9pm and the Internet), serious debt, failure at work, family communication breakdown, rage and anger etc., yet too often we never touch on these matters, preferring to handle only safe subjects such as parenting, studying the Bible, or tithing.

If we don’t get real in church we won’t get men.

How about a seminar for men on a regular basis that tackles issues such as: “Overcoming addiction to pornography and masturbation” (you might not want to give that title but let’s hit the issue because a significant percentage of men who are in church will be seriously struggling with it). Or how about: “Dealing with rage”, “Handling your debt” or “When promotion passes you by”? Let’s engage the men with some solid Bible-based teaching and let them see that being a Christian isn’t for wimps but for those who have real guts and courage.

Let’s also briefly think about the culture of church:

• We talk of Jesus being our lover when men want a leader and a captain.
• We talk of surrender and going on retreat which carries connotations of defeat (and is only mentioned in the Bible in those terms!) But, men will bend the knee and submit to a higher authority!
• The language of personal devotion time, the “quiet time” is a passive term not suited to those with testosterone.  (Perhaps we can keep the principle but recast the language?)
• Men don’t like to get too close too soon yet we think it really helpful to break into small groups or say “grace” whilst looking into each others eyes.
• Men want leadership whilst the church provides pastoring.
• Men love to declare objective truth about God and yet we sing about our feelings.
• Men want to be challenged yet we wrap the gospel up in fluff.
• Whenever we speak of church we think instinctively of the Sunday meeting not what happens in the rest of the week.
• Most church websites feature activities for children and use religious jargon.  A male turn off.
• Most church decoration is childish or female.
• Teaching styles tend to favour the female psyche.

I’m scratching the surface and you may find cause to disagree with some of what I suggest … but hopefully it will get us all thinking!?

Men today still look for robust and strong environments to forge friendships.  They may not express it like this but men really do desire authentic relationship.  Men want a “band of brothers” that they can stand shoulder to shoulder with.  So, they shoot off to the pub, to the match, curry house or the lodge meeting!  In reality men don’t expect to find a band of brothers in a church, so they just don’t look there.  For the most part, major male driving forces are money, sex, and power.  I’m sure some of you will want to argue that with me (and yes I am painting a broad brush-stroke picture) but before you do, just consider the most popular question men ask when getting to know another man:

“What do you do for a living?”

Why is that the most popular question?  Simply because men instinctively want to work out the hierarchy and the pecking order in the new relationship.  It’s why when you go to an expensive gym you see men place their car keys on the bar with the brand of car on display (unless like me you have an Eastern European car!)  It’s why men say “I’ve got the BMW parked outside …” instead of, “I’ve got the car parked outside.”

Men will instinctively (thanks in part to the media) believe that what the church has to say about those issues will be diametrically opposite to what they want to hear.  For the most part they are right. The publishers of some of the best selling quality men’s magazines know want men want as a result of extensive and expensive research.  You can read some of it in on the internet and it makes for fascinating reading.  Their livelihoods and profit margins depend on them featuring content that men are interested in and so they make sure they have got it right.

By contrast, in the church we don’t research the culture, nor do we even read the magazines and therefore we so often fail to hit the spot.  Call me an old fashioned orthodox Christian, but I truly believe that we have people’s eternal destinies at stake, not a mere profit margin.  We need to engage in some serious thinking and cultural engagement.

Take for instance the issues of status and success.  These are of huge significance to many men, which is why their work is of such importance.  Yet church rarely, if ever, tackles workplace issues head on.  You could easily attend most churches for years and come to the conclusion that God isn’t interested in what happens 9-5 at all!  But where does that leave men?

Carry out an audit; take a look at your church.  When did you last hear a sermon on work?  Do you have a theology of work?  When did the church last pray publicly and seriously for those at work?  In general we are great at praying for the so called “caring professions” but when have you heard a prayer for a Tesco van driver, a policeman dealing with child abuse work, a solicitor handling divorce work each week or a train driver who must spot the red lights or endure the trauma of suicide attempts?

We pray for those in “full time Christian” work and we tend to pray for those in teaching or medicine (because they are perceived to be more Kingdom orientated as they are caring professions) but we leave out the vast majority because we haven’t developed a robust and holistic theology of every day life.  When it comes to teaching in church, Christian men – let alone those yet to believe – will sit under sound and tremendously accurate Bible-teaching only to wonder what’s in the service for them.  The preaching deals at best with generic issues, or with churchy or touch-feely things, and the very things that absorb so much of a man’s time and energy mid-week are never mentioned.  While we sit under teaching about how to pray better or give more, most men will be thinking about the challenges of the week ahead.

Consider the real things confronting a man at work this week:

• Setting Profit and Loss
• Stress
• Fiscal control in hard times
• Negotiating Skills
• Human Resource Management without exploitation
• Empowerment
• Integrity in advertising
• Leadership
• Handling redundancy – each side
• Submission
• Conflict Resolution
• Sexual Harassment
• Discrimination – race, gender, religion, disability
• Time Management
• Work, home, church balance
• Personal ambition
• Debt issues
• Late payment terms
• Negotiating parameters
• Knowing when to close down
• Employing Christians because they’re Christians
• Materialism
• The place for compassion
• Self Image
• Corporate sponsorship of Christian events

Let me emphasise again: Men are being spiritually starved in church and they are voting with their feet! The decline in male attendance at church is almost terminal.  “Believing” men are switching off to church at an incredible rate.  We desperately need churches to engage with men on the real issues they face.

Part three will be published on Wednesday 12th August.

Men believe themselves to be self-sufficient, all-capable and in no need of a crutch, so why be a Christian?  That’s for wimps and women isn’t it?  And nothing at all happens in church that is of any relevance to men, does it?  And lets face it, frankly a church meeting on a Sunday is just boring and filled with romantic sentimentalism isn’t it?

By now, after just a few lines you are either outraged and want to email me to complain or you are starting to get excited.

We need to face hard facts and ask tough questions!  We have all seen the statistics and we know there is a problem.  We are quite simply haemorrhaging men from the UK church at an alarming rate. In fact, according to Tear Fund research, 75% of men in the UK are either antagonistic or apathetic towards the Christian faith.  It’s those men I have in mind as I write – the men who are way outside of our churches and don’t even have it on their radar.

In 2006, further Tear Fund research showed that the profile of most churches is typically about 35% male (after polling 7,000 British adults).  Anecdotally our own less scientific research backs that up.  We find that the percentage is often 30-35% male.  If you have more than 40% men in your church you are doing quite well.

Most men completely by-pass church.  They see it as a place that according to a BBC radio survey is for wimps, women and irrelevant!  Let’s not make the mistake of thinking that when the “wheels come off” in a man’s life they look to the church.  A small minority might, but for the most part their perception of what/who Jesus is and stands for will be quite the opposite of what they feel they need in a crisis.  So what are we going to do to put hairs back on the chest of the Gospel?

Part Two will be published Monday 10th August.

Most men don’t like small talk. But talking about stuff that has an agenda is no problem. A bunch of engineers confronted with a task or a technical problem to solve might be incredibly animated. Take the problem away and the awkward silences begin.

I for one struggle massively with this. If I have to go to a party or reception with a bunch of people I don’t know, I just want to hide in the corner. At parties, I’m the bloke propping up the bar staring into his drink all night, hoping that no one drags him onto the dance floor. Cheese and wine receptions as a school governor were a nightmare for the same reasons.

Of course, not all men struggle with this. I have mates who are amazing at talking to everyone and anything with incredible ease. This isn’t for them.

The problem is that as a man who follows Jesus, our standing orders are to “GO!”. Matthew 28:18-20 is where the orders are written down.

Sharing our faith is at the heart of the gospel. But how do we do this when we find talking and conversation so difficult? (Even more so when it’s about emotional things, like faith, life and death?)

So here are my top tips for all you blokes out there, written by someone who feels just like you do:

1. Pray for opportunities. Sounds simple but it’s so true and devastatingly effective. When I was in banking my “switch” was going up the escalators at Oxford Circus tube station every morning. Half way up I would simply say to God, “Please give a chance today to share my faith, even if it’s in a small way, and I’ll go for it!” Whenever people told me that God never answered their prayers, I would tell them to try that one! (They usually got an answer pretty quickly. I suspect because God likes that prayer.)
2. A lot of faith sharing is about listening. Don’t do the classic “life, death, resurrection, creeds, all of the gospel in one breath” approach. People need to be listened to. I can’t emphasise that enough. Effective conversation often means you hardly say anything at all. In fact, it’s amazing how many people will tell you they really enjoyed talking with you, when all you said is:
   
   “Hmmm, yes … I know … hmmm … right … really … wow … yes I saw that … hmmm.
   
   All it might take from you is a comment like, “well I pray a fair bit and if you don’t mind I’ll pray for you and this situation.” The seed has been sown. Follow it up a week or so later with a comment like: “I’ve been praying for you, so how’s it going?” Be prepared to share more!
3. Build up to this slowly. Don’t expect this sort of thing to happen overnight.  You may need to build your faith. So next time you are both in the garden cutting the grass, pray that you have a chance to chat. That’s all; just a chat!  Pray that next time, more of life is shared or that you have a chance to have a mug of tea together. Pray that the deeper things going on in life are spoken about. Be prepared at anytime to implement the offer of prayer.
4. Have your story ready. It doesn’t have to be dramatic! You don’t need to be an ex-government assassin or crime baron. Your story is hard to beat and it’s a great way to share about Jesus.
5. Have some guts and invite your mate to a CVM style level 1 or level 2 type event. Or just go out somewhere and do some stuff.  I’ve led a mate to Jesus whilst sitting down by a river doing some pike fishing. Getting shoulder to shoulder in the context of an activity is when men talk most. Look at most men when they walk into a room. They cross their arms and speak whilst looking over their shoulders at each other. Over the shoulder whilst doing stuff works.
6. Be prepared for the long haul. On average it can take 5 years from point of first hearing the gospel to come to faith, having heard the gospel (according to Billy Graham) about 30 times.

So get talking over the hedge, it’s a great way to start.