The other day I read an article by the Barna Group about Women and Faith. In their research, they found that since 1991, church attendance by women has dropped 11% and weekly Bible reading has plummeted by 10% - to just 4 out of 10 women. The saddest statistic was this:
"The only religious behavior that increased among women in the last 20 years was becoming unchurched."
That statistic was raised by 17%. However, there was an increase in women who say that Jesus Christ is their personal Lord and Savior - an increase from 38% in 1991 to 44% in 2011.
While the same study was conducted on men as well, the findings were not as drastic as the women's statistics.
So why are more women professing to be believers, yet not involved- or even attending- their local churches?
I read through 52 comments on this study, and came up with a few theories of my own. I'm not saying these are all true, but in 15 years of working in ministry, these are a few of the things I have seen:
- Women are relational. If they have been hurt by someone in the church, they are less likely to get involved again. Many stop going to church all together. In addition, with the rise of technology, women are communicating online more than ever. Tonight on KKLA, Dr. Larry Rosen, who is an expert in technological psychology shared that with the rise of online communication, many people are connecting less in person. Online relationships often replace personal contact. This may also make women stay away from church; they simply just don't see the need, as they are in contact with their friends in other ways.
- Women feel overworked at church. If a woman is working all week long, and then feels the pressure to give more of her time and effort at church, she may feel it is easier just to stay home. Some women give and give and give, feeling guilty if they say no, and eventually they get extremely burned out in ministry and don't have anything left to give. It is the church's responsibility to give volunteers times and seasons to rest, as well as make sure that one person isn't doing 10 different jobs. Small churches in particular need more help, but it should never be at the expense of an overworked volunteer.
- Men are not spiritually leading their wives. Many women want to go to church, but their husbands don't. I personally know of many, many women in this situation. Maybe the woman married an unbeliever, or maybe she & her husband have different styles of worshipping. Either way, if a woman feels she has to beg and plead with her husband to go to church, she may just give up altogether. I cannot tell you the many conversations I have had with brokenhearted wives who show up at church alone. It takes a lot of strength to continue going to church, especially with your children, without the support of your spouse. Men, it's time to step up.
- Women are frustrated. Maybe they have leadership gifts, yet feel their gifts are not valued by their church. They are continually told that their role should be something else. They are not encouraged, and so they don't feel valued. Many times these women are leaders in their communities, yet are not given the same opportunities in their churches. One commenter said, "The fact that many churches and parachurch organizations emphasize males as automatic leaders (an unbiblical view) and bar women from leadership roles (including that of pastor) also are turning more women off. If we want to keep from losing women, perhaps we need to take a fresh look at scripture and how Jesus treated women and adjust accordingly."
- Women are busy. Society has told us that other things are more important, and we have believed it. We will sign our kids up for after school classes, multiple sports, playdates, etc.. and pretty soon we have crowded out time for church. It is just not a priority anymore. Friends, let me tell you - if you are not involved in church right now, at least get involved for your children. Your children need to see your family place an importance on going to church together, on worshipping together, on fellowshipping with other believers together. Your kids need the consistency of learning about God as a family, even if they go to Christian school. Christian school is not church. Home school is also not church. (Take it from me, I was a Bible teacher at a Christian school.)
- A lack of childcare or Sunday School. This is probably the #1 thing moms are most concerned about when visiting a church. If the children's ministry is low-functioning, or barely there, moms will be less likely to return. However, this should not be an excuse for not going to church. There are other churches out there with tremendous kids' programs - find one. This is of particular importance for single mothers, who need good quality children's ministry so they can relax and be fed when they attend church - which may be the only break they have.
- Some women don't think they need church. This is classic. Women are professional "know it all's" (I'm one myself), and if we've grown up in the church or participated in XX number of Bible studies or retreats, we think we know it all. We make up excuses as to why we don't need to go to church anymore. This is a sinful mentality - a consumerist mentality. This is a person who says, "I go to church for what I get out of it. Since I don't get anything out of it, I won't go." Instead, we should have the attitude that we are a part of the Body of Christ, and the Body is less effective when even one of it's members is missing. This is the beginning of a hardened heart - one that thinks it doesn't need what Christ has commanded.
I fully understand that there are "house churches" and missional communities that may not fit the traditional church model. The point is that we are all to be in community with one another, on a regular basis, in a place where we can weekly be fed spiritually and serve others, using our spiritual gifts. I won't extend this post by including the many, many Scriptures that exhort us to do this.
My point is that we should look at the reasons many women are not attending church, as well as the excuses we make for ourselves. If we know of women not attending church, let's do what we can to address their needs and invite them back. If you are a women who is not attending church (yet is a believer), examine your heart and ask God to lead you to the right place.
I'm curious to hear your own theories as to Barna's study and why less women are attending church. Leave a comment and let me know. Are my own theories on or off the mark? I would love to hear from you.
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Giving Up on God
This is a post that I originally posted on MySpace, so some of you may have already read it. I had an opportunity to preach at my church a few weeks ago, and my message was on Mary and Joseph, and how they worshiped God through unexpected circumstances. I wrote this while I was preparing for the message and shared some of this in my message....
Giving Up on God
If you are anything like me, you have a plan for your life. Maybe you've had that plan for your life since you were 12 years old… Something like: you would go to college, meet the man of your dreams, get married, have 2.5 children, 2 girls and one boy (a boy first, of course), live in a nice 4 bedroom house with a pool in the backyard, have 2 cars (at least one SUV), your husband would make enough money for you to stay home with the kids for a few years (if not forever), and you would live happily ever after. Remember that game in junior high called M.A.S.H.? You would get so excited when it would land on all the choices you wanted, and you secretly hoped that the game would work and life would turn out that way.
Now that I am older (and hopefully wiser!), I have realized that I don't know one person whose life has turned out as they had planned. Most of my friends are believers in Jesus Christ, and have followed him most of their lives. We have dedicated ourselves to following God's will for us and obeying him no matter what. We go to church on Sunday, we worship him, we listen to Christian radio (at least occasionally), we try not to cuss, we talk about God on a regular basis and what he is doing in our lives. And yet, when things don't turn out as we planned, we all have something in common. Many of us start to wonder. We wonder, "where is God?" "why is this happening to me?" "has He forgotten me?" The thoughts start out to be rare. They pop in here and there, we rebuke the questions, we keep reading the Word, and we try to have faith. But as the days go on, and our situation doesn't change or gets worse, we struggle more. The thoughts start coming more frequently "doesn't He care?" "maybe He's not even real!" we dare to think. We repent for our unbelief, we confess our lack of faith. But the days continue to go one. Our situation doesn't seem to be changing. In fact, it seems to be staying this way. And we secretly begin giving up on God.
We may not even realize we are doing it. The acts begin almost unnoticeably, but we start trying to take matters into our own hands. "This wasn't the plan!" we think, and so we begin damage-control. We start trying to fix things, to clean things up, to make things look pretty from the outside so that nobody will notice. Instead of praying and reading the Word, we begin researching how to change our situation. We fill our days with searching, talking, phone calls, consultations. These things make us feel like we are moving forward somehow, making our situation better than it was.
I think of Mary, the mother of Jesus. She was between 13-15 years old, just living her life. She had a fiancee', she was loved, she was being taken care of by her parents… all was well. But in the blink of an eye, her situation changed. And it was not what she had planned. She didn't know that:
- She would be a pregnant teenager.
- She would almost loses her fiancee'
- She would be publicly disgraced & ridiculed
- She would leave her home and go to live with her cousin Elizabeth for 3 months.
- She would have to travel 70 miles when she was 10 months pregnant, on a DONKEY, no less!
- There would be nowhere to go when she started having contractions
- That she would have her baby in a barn – probably on hay- ouch!
- After a year or two, she and her family would have to run for their lives to Egypt because Herod was trying to find her baby and kill him.
Through it all, we don't read of Mary complaining or saying, "Why Me?" or "This wasn't my plan!" Instead, when she arrived at Elizabeth's house, knowing what was ahead, despite her fear, she broke out in praise and thanks to God.
What is my response when things don't go as planned?
-When I lose my job and can't find one for months
- When the doctor tells me I can't have children
- When one of my loved ones finds out she has cancer
- When we lose our house for financial reasons
- When my spouse leaves me for another person
- When I still don't have a boyfriend or husband after all of this time
- When I find out I need major surgery
- When one of my kids has a disease or disorder
Do I try to take things into my own hands? Do I try to "show God" how to handle matters and just do them myself? Do I give up on Him and His plan for my life, and just re-arrange things so they'll go my way from now on? Faith is not easy. It is a long road that often takes us down a path we did not intend to tread upon. Many times faith requires us to go the opposite way of what we presently want to do. Faith requires us to go against our need to control, and leave the control up to the Lord. Yet when we give him control, and rest in His care, knowing that he is responsible for the outcome (not us), our faith will be strengthened, and we will be blessed.
God's plan in ALWAYS better than ours.
Giving Up on God
If you are anything like me, you have a plan for your life. Maybe you've had that plan for your life since you were 12 years old… Something like: you would go to college, meet the man of your dreams, get married, have 2.5 children, 2 girls and one boy (a boy first, of course), live in a nice 4 bedroom house with a pool in the backyard, have 2 cars (at least one SUV), your husband would make enough money for you to stay home with the kids for a few years (if not forever), and you would live happily ever after. Remember that game in junior high called M.A.S.H.? You would get so excited when it would land on all the choices you wanted, and you secretly hoped that the game would work and life would turn out that way.
Now that I am older (and hopefully wiser!), I have realized that I don't know one person whose life has turned out as they had planned. Most of my friends are believers in Jesus Christ, and have followed him most of their lives. We have dedicated ourselves to following God's will for us and obeying him no matter what. We go to church on Sunday, we worship him, we listen to Christian radio (at least occasionally), we try not to cuss, we talk about God on a regular basis and what he is doing in our lives. And yet, when things don't turn out as we planned, we all have something in common. Many of us start to wonder. We wonder, "where is God?" "why is this happening to me?" "has He forgotten me?" The thoughts start out to be rare. They pop in here and there, we rebuke the questions, we keep reading the Word, and we try to have faith. But as the days go on, and our situation doesn't change or gets worse, we struggle more. The thoughts start coming more frequently "doesn't He care?" "maybe He's not even real!" we dare to think. We repent for our unbelief, we confess our lack of faith. But the days continue to go one. Our situation doesn't seem to be changing. In fact, it seems to be staying this way. And we secretly begin giving up on God.
We may not even realize we are doing it. The acts begin almost unnoticeably, but we start trying to take matters into our own hands. "This wasn't the plan!" we think, and so we begin damage-control. We start trying to fix things, to clean things up, to make things look pretty from the outside so that nobody will notice. Instead of praying and reading the Word, we begin researching how to change our situation. We fill our days with searching, talking, phone calls, consultations. These things make us feel like we are moving forward somehow, making our situation better than it was.
I think of Mary, the mother of Jesus. She was between 13-15 years old, just living her life. She had a fiancee', she was loved, she was being taken care of by her parents… all was well. But in the blink of an eye, her situation changed. And it was not what she had planned. She didn't know that:
- She would be a pregnant teenager.
- She would almost loses her fiancee'
- She would be publicly disgraced & ridiculed
- She would leave her home and go to live with her cousin Elizabeth for 3 months.
- She would have to travel 70 miles when she was 10 months pregnant, on a DONKEY, no less!
- There would be nowhere to go when she started having contractions
- That she would have her baby in a barn – probably on hay- ouch!
- After a year or two, she and her family would have to run for their lives to Egypt because Herod was trying to find her baby and kill him.
Through it all, we don't read of Mary complaining or saying, "Why Me?" or "This wasn't my plan!" Instead, when she arrived at Elizabeth's house, knowing what was ahead, despite her fear, she broke out in praise and thanks to God.
What is my response when things don't go as planned?
-When I lose my job and can't find one for months
- When the doctor tells me I can't have children
- When one of my loved ones finds out she has cancer
- When we lose our house for financial reasons
- When my spouse leaves me for another person
- When I still don't have a boyfriend or husband after all of this time
- When I find out I need major surgery
- When one of my kids has a disease or disorder
Do I try to take things into my own hands? Do I try to "show God" how to handle matters and just do them myself? Do I give up on Him and His plan for my life, and just re-arrange things so they'll go my way from now on? Faith is not easy. It is a long road that often takes us down a path we did not intend to tread upon. Many times faith requires us to go the opposite way of what we presently want to do. Faith requires us to go against our need to control, and leave the control up to the Lord. Yet when we give him control, and rest in His care, knowing that he is responsible for the outcome (not us), our faith will be strengthened, and we will be blessed.
God's plan in ALWAYS better than ours.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)