The latest Barna poll finds that men are not satisfied with their church experiences [1]:
The study found that more than 85 percent of the men did not feel “spiritually challenged” and, when compared to similar studies involving women, men were less likely to take leadership roles at church or set spiritual goals.
This isn’t surprising to anyone who has ever been in a typical church recently. Across the board and cross-culturally, men are lacking in Christian churches.
What I find interesing about this is that respondents didn’t feel challenged. This assumes that they want to be challenged (and rightly they should, as discipleship calls us to lean not on our own devices). Churches that go out of the way not to offend people often (in the same breath) end up never challenging anyone to a higher calling beyond listening to a watered-down lecture on Sunday mornings.
JD Mays has some good thoughts [2] about this trend, and he points to a superb article by Doug Giles [3] on the feminization of the church. Both are worth a look.