Spiritual Wimps and a Dangerous View of God's Will

Today I'd like to point out two very pointed articles I ran across. The first concerns the spiritual absence of men in our church(es). The second, totally unrelated article (or wait, is it related?), concerns Henry Blackaby, the author of the prevalent Experiencing God study, and a critique of his dangerous understanding of God's Will (which is smattered all over his famous study).

Dan from the Cerulean Sanctum blog wrote the following about the absence of men in our churches. All I'll add is, "Amen!"

I was part of a church at one time that had about 3,500 attendees. That church had a fairly level ratio of men and women. At that time, the church had groups for motorcycle-riding, gun-shooting, and many others with a “just for the fellowship” emphasis that would appeal to men. Fine by me—I’m all for fellowship groups. The only problem was that this same church had one men’s Bible study and about a dozen women’s Bible studies. I was painfully aware of that inexplicably lopsided ratio too. Why? Because I was the men’s Bible study leader. When I asked why there was only one men’s Bible study group, the answer I usually got was that they’d not been able to maintain more than one or two for any length of time. (What made it even nuttier was about half of the ten or so men that filtered through my group on a regular basis didn’t even attend the church.)

It seems to me that men will show up for church stuff when they have a chance to show off their machismo, but flex some spiritual muscles? Not so much.

So I don’t think it’s as much of a case of the Church being feminized as it is a case of men surrendering their God-appointed roles as spiritual leaders within the Church. They’d rather watch March Madness than bow their knees at a 24-hour prayer meeting for the soul of the nation. Meanwhile, elderly grannies are keeping the devils at bay.

So the next time I hear some guy whimpering about how women are taking over the church, maybe a swift kick to the ‘nads will get him to wise up.
Or some spiritual equivalent.

And on a different note, for all of you readers out there who at some point went through Henry Blackaby's study on Experiencing God, where any of you uncomfortable with how he repeatedly speaks about the will of God? He has a very common understanding of how God speaks and leads us today, one which he sets out in detail in a new book How Then Should We Choose? My thanks to the folks at Pyromaniacs for reviewing Blackaby's chapter and pointing out how dangerous and unbiblical it is to expect God to speak to us in the same way in which he spoke to the Apostles.

HT: Cloud of Witnesses & Pyromaniacs

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