Why Men Hate Going to Church

How did a faith founded by a man and His twelve male disciples become anathema to men? Here is how to restore the balance between the feminine and the masculine in our churches.

Welcome to Lakeside Church, the statistically average U.S. congregation.

• This week Lakeside will draw an adult congregation that’s 61 percent female, 39 percent male.1 
• Almost 25 percent of the married women who attend will do so without their husbands.2 The 
• church will attract a healthy number of single women but few single men. 
• The majority of men who actually show up for Sunday worship are there in body only. Their hearts just aren’t in it. Few will do anything during the week to nurture their faith.

Lakeside is the norm in Christianity — in the United States and around the world. Next time you’re in church, count noses. A 60/40 gender gap (or larger) probably affects your worship services, midweek meetings, Bible studies, ministry teams, youth group, and so on. Overseas congregations often run 80 to 90 percent female.3 In today’s church, women are the participators, and men are the spectators.

How did a faith founded by a man and His twelve male disciples become anathema to men? Why is Christianity the only major religion with a worldwide gender gap? Why are churchgoing men so hesitant to live their faith, when men of other religions willingly die for theirs?

Many church leaders seem unaware of the gender gap — or if they are, they don’t really see it as a problem. After all, if you want a smooth-running congregation, women are the key. They sing in the choir (or the worship team), care for children, teach classes, cook for potlucks, and serve on committees. They’re more pleasant to deal with and more likely to volunteer. Researcher and author George Barna puts it this way: “Women are the backbone of Christian congregations.”4

It would seem that men, on the other hand, are like hood ornaments on cars: nice, but not necessary.

Over the long term, however, a lack of men will doom a congregation. Multiple studies have shown that a lack of men is one of the strongest predictors of church decline.5 Denominations with the fewest men are the same ones that have been losing members and shutting churches. For example, the United Church of Canada, that nation’s largest denomination, is comprised of 80 percent female worshippers — and overall attendance has dropped by half in the past decade.6

But there’s an encouraging flip side to this equation. Churches with robust male participation are generally growing. That’s the secret megachurch planters such as Rick Warren and Bill Hybels learned a generation ago: grow your men, and your church will grow. This was Jesus’ strategy. It still works today.

There’s just one problem. Men hate going to church. Keep reading