Why Men Hate Going to Church with David Murrow SD 

I'm over 40, never married, no kids, I'm an outcast in church.

For many men, it breaks down to many categories. One, they do not need another job. Most churches only tap into their men for task and labor. Secondly, most men's groups or study's are "you suck 101". They tell men that they suck as fathers, being a husband, your are addicted to porn, you don't have work-life balance. Who wants to show up for that constantly? Thirdly, it is missing where men are in life and there is very little discipleship. This requires more than go read a book. For those of us who have been in the military, you were constantly training and teaching. I think that many churches tend to lack in giving directives or setting reasonable goals. In many ways it is like being in an ADHD circus. Those are some common points that I have seen.

I remember being a kid and watching all the members of my church during worship, raising their hands and singing and couldn't help thinking how stupid this was, I couldn't make myself go back as an adult

Great conversation… I spit out my coffee at “praise-gasm”. Very apt and theologically balanced.

A big part of the problem here is that countless pastors are afraid to confront the women in their churches, especially when one woman or a woman and her group of followers wants to run the church. Evangelical women over the past several decades, have gotten a free pass in churches. They're not called in for church discipline. If they are running down their husbands or trying to steal their husband's God-given headship they are never confronted and discipline.

Most men don't go to church because they seem to feel ,men from the pulpit are going to preach to them how they need to step up to the plate, and be a man to their family, in their own home, and what the Bible said. That's how I see it. The MAIN reason on point for most is , NO MAN, wants to hear another men tell him how to run his house ,other than Jesus HIMSELF.

This is interesting. I quit going to church in 1974 because I felt uncomfortable going.

I'm a long time church musician. The music has gotten soft, flabby, repetitive and lovey dovey. Also older musicians have been phased out for the skinny jean knit beanie crowd.

Women like church because the pastors display a type of power over the congregation.

Men are held to traditional roles and values. The Church doesn't know what to do with modern women's roles, so there's no BALANCED accountability. The Church is also struggling to balance a merciful/ graceful God and a feared and just God. Although He's our heavenly father, God is a lot less warm and fuzzy than many think He is. ... also, y'all need to pay the light bill. 💡

I dislike long worship, a guy standing up front always telling how it is and my wife always agreeing with him and me always having to be agreeable.

The trend towards man shaming sure is not helping.

I love how they have such a serious setting but come up with the funniest lines.

“The Jesus is my boyfriend gospel” has to stop for sure. One time me and my wife attempted to join a house church and in one occasion a sister in Christ had a problem with the idea of a men always being the head of the church. All men had to pretend like the Bible doesn’t already address that 😑 annoying

The modern church s created for the younger man and women in general, but not for the mature man who has got a mind of their own.

With True Love comes correction

Wow Dave completely owned this conversation.

When I first stumbled across this conversation I was surprised at the fact that it was 7 years old. And right on target. These guys are saying things I know to be true. I grew up in Southern California where there was a good sampling of high school students. It was the crystal cathedral. I really didn’t like the Sunday service cuz it just wasn’t my thing. But either Friday or Saturday night there was pizza and ice cream. And during the football games there were video recordings which were randomly on the walls. It was packed. Nowadays (I live in indianapolis now) and once you’re past high school you are on your own. Hint: church is probably a thing of the past. Not a lot of traffic jams. A whole generation has seemingly been lost

It,s not about quantity it,s about quality and love of God.

Man, this guy finally calls out Joshua Harris' bullcrap!! Hero!!!

Couldn't agree more.

Positively wonderful discussion. Clear, informative, but most of all, biblically sound. Good to know the issues surrounding our men are looked at again from a Biblical understanding. Bless you guys for standing up!

6 years later it’s worse, the guys are talking about mgtow. I’m fortunate to have found a reformed Presbyterian church that actually in the prayer asks wives to respect their husbands. It’s the first church I have ever felt there was something for men.

I live in a small town qith really only one church. The " worshipteam" are all young ladies, the church board has 5 women and one man,and the pastor selected a young woman to be assistant pastor about a year ago. I rarely attend now.

The 4 s is what church always was....the difference is that contemporary churches have lukewarm message and bad music....go back to liturgical services....truth before emotions...hymns instead of contemporary music and its how it was and should be. Men don't stay home because we have to sing and sit still. We don't like standing to ambient sounds even while a "pastor" talks. We don't mind a long expository sermon and sound doctrine. We like a challenge. We like to have something worth defending.

The music thing is a big reason why I went back to a traditional Catholic Mass. If I see electric guitars and drums, I'm outta there. I don't like singing traditional hymns, much less the love songs to Jesus that so many churches are into now. The best word to describe it for a man is "Cringe".

Church just hasn’t been the same since we stopped crusading :(

No... I was never a knucklehead:) Inexperienced yes. Very mature for my age in certain areas. And immature in others, yes. But the big thing was Jesus. Coming to Him. With all of my faults, all of my sins. And realizing that I was a good man, as I am now. I’m just not sinless or faultless. And that’s why I need Him so much! I wish the church would just let me alone sometimes in pointing out, not my faults, but my potential faults. That is enough.

Great conversation.

These people get a lot of the problem but not enough. Read Dalrock, the pastors continually absolve women of all their sins and blame men for not leading well enough. You want a Church with men? 1- Demand that women cover their heads as they did for 2K years in Church in obedience to clear Scripture. No headcovering, shave your head and declare yourself rebellious. 2- Jettison anything by Beth Moore and other such heretics. Preach sermons from time to time that a rebellious woman is NOT the fault of someone else but of the woman herself. No, it is not the husband's fault if the wife is off the rails. 3- Esteem Truth above relationships. Not once did Christ set rules above people, not once. The woman caught in adultery is not even part of the Bible, it was put in there long after Nicea and is not in the earliest documents. Even if it were a true story, it does not mean Christ set aside any rules. The woman was supposed to be stoned together with the man and he was nowhere around. God made it clear that the male was to lead. That also means that the way of men, rules > relations, competition > cooperation and reality > hypocrisy is to rule.

Thanks for calling out Joshua Harris who turned out to be a false convert

poor lighting

This is not a problem that began in the 19th century. It’s as old as Genesis 3:16, but it began to encroach seriously on the European Christian mindset about nine centuries ago. The courtly love associated with medieval chivalry had the effect of divinizing a knight’s mistress, so that earthly sexual urges were replaced with a pseudo-spiritual abasement and obedience to her wishes, transferring the worship of God to the worship of femininity, which was (and unfortunately still is) assumed to be more righteous than masculinity, thereby sanctifying acts of war. The troubadour poets of 11th-century France, inspired by Arabic sources, began the practice of celibate adultery and the love of women as an ennobling moral force. It’s no coincidence that Marian pilgrimages and French cathedrals dedicated to “Our Lady” began to explode in growth in the 12th century. The mystics Catherine of Siena in the 14th century, who claimed that Jesus gave his foreskin to her as a wedding ring, and Teresa of Ávila in the 15th century, used the concept of courtly love to express their devotion to Christ.[1. The English Order of the Garter and the Burgundian Order of the Golden Fleece were formed in the 14th and 15th centuries, respectively.] Even Francis of Assisi called himself “a knight for Lady Poverty.” As Christians mainstreamed this devious philosophy, it came to be seen as the means of transforming marriage into the perfection of love by spiritualizing it. In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare shows how seeking “love” that is disconnected from family and familial obligations turns into a sociopathic horror that ends in death. In the prologue to Don Quixote, the stated purpose of the book is “to destroy the authority and influence that books of chivalry have in the world,” and in the text Don Quixote tells Sancho Panza, “Religión es la caballería” (“Chivalry is a religion”). Thus, the framework for feminism was erected. The path from there to here is fascinating to trace. It began with Christian men, superior over home, church, and state, seeking to baptize their efforts in allegedly unsullied womanhood, as though this was a blessing from God himself. Christians replaced procreation with romance as the template for marriage. A happy home became the evidence of a man’s faithful obedience to God, and an unhappy home became the evidence of his disobedience to God. God’s law was replaced with a woman’s feelings. It’s important to realize that women demanded social and political equality with men after it had long been established in many churches, contrary to what Christians had always believed, that women are the judges of their husbands, and society is obliged to accept their judgment. This was helped along by men’s natural desire to protect, defend, and support women, and due to their own ignorance, the Bible became less of a guide to them than consensus. Feminism infected the North during the 19th century and worked its way south. Today, distinct sexual roles are considered by the average urbanite to be as valid as a belief in alchemy. At the movies, leather-clad, cross-dressing women with perfect hair easily defeat seasoned warriors. We witness now the comedy of drag queens being banned from sodomite pride parades for fear of offending “transsexuals”! Soon, female scholarships and business subsidies will be treated as a binary assault on civil rights. Unfaithful churches have this foul wind in their sails and are fanatically equalizing sexual roles, having long since abdicated authority in the home and civil realm. Christian leaders patronize the masses, preaching that wives are moral barometers for their hapless husbands. The mania to ordain women is now matched only by that of inventing racial sins committed by departed white men and proudly and loudly repenting of them. The boundaries of race, nation, and sex are being obliterated in the name of “love,” defined not as our Christian ancestors defined love but as the Communist Party, Democratic National Committee, and Anti-Defamation League want it defined. And just as unrequited lust was considered ennobling by French medievals, “gay” Christians (but not pedophiles?) are honored members of godless churches today, so long as they don’t act upon their desires. And if they do, well, don’t-ask-don’t-tell. Chivalry subordinates marriage to romance by teaching that women are inherently moral and the arbiters of manners, and that the wife is superior to her husband. Chivalry requires that after a man pursues a woman[2. Yet the only two books of the Bible that are named after women, Ruth and Esther, are about women who pursued their husbands.] and she judges his merit as a husband, his virtue must continue to be judged by his wife’s emotional state after marriage. This leads to cuckoldry, frivorce, and a host of ills.

Joshua Harris has since repudiated "I Kissed Dating Goodbye".

Where are the churches with so many single women? I have never seen one. Just saying. Been traveling a lot. Lived in different cities and countries and been to different churches. I don't see where there is a lack of single men

I wouldn't write the music men in church off just because they don't engage in physical activity. Instead, I think you should call the church out for catering to one group of men and neglecting the other.

This is good stuff, but there's a lot of misconceptions about the Old Testament (Torah + Tanakh) vs New Testament. The Bible says God's word was/is perfect and the new covenant is God writing that very same word on our hearts. There was grace and mercy and love in the OT. There was a great emphasis on being circumcised IN YOUR HEART in the OT.

1. We are the Church. The institutions are not. 2. Start meeting together in each other’s homes. 3. Stop trying to get 501c3’s and start doing what the first church did with their money: make sure no one in the congregation has any need. 4. Stop acting like the lifeblood of Christianity is MONEY. It’s the Holy Spirit. 5. Start looking to each other as family instead of “members.” You will be spending the rest of eternity together, so act like it. Men aren’t leaving the Church, they’re leaving religious institutions. There’s no need to go get them and bring them back, they’re already the Church.

Great Interview - thanks. Its now 2023 and Im from a church ( a progressive pentecostal ) doing a good job at cutting out its men and Im gutted as I watch men falling off the wagon and giving up. So, I have a question. One of you mentioned Hillsong capturing the young men. Its now 2023 and I would say the Hillsong type of church only captures most of its men until they reach the responsibility years when being a dad and work and sport becomes more attractive. My question is, do you really think they have captured the men? I think not - they just distracted them. I am standing on the sideline watching 40-60 year old men leaving saying It no longer works for me. However just recently one of my friends upon leaving said to me "I dont really understand it - its just like Ive lost my awe of God" ... now I think that explains it.

Mega churches are full and will not grow anymore than it is now. (Not with men) The current model of praise and worship is the problem. Bands, coffee, hands up high swinging. The message is sometimes good. But guys don't want to hold hands and put them up high for all to see. And this video was 8 years ago!!!

The youth group leader he talks about @6:40 sounded suspect lol

8 years later and the only thing that has changed is churches are splitting because of various sicknesses. I have watched alot of videos on the subject and none of them identity the real reasons men dont attend church. Sad and pathetic

True

It is misleading to say men do not like going to church. It is based on the false premise that "going to church" is a legitimate phrase that describes a reality that can actually happen. We are part of the church. We are part of our marriage. We are part of our friendships. You can go meet with friends, but you cannot go to your friendship. You can go to lunch with your wife, but you cannot go to your marriage. You can attend believers' meetings, but you cannot go to church. Now, with that out of the way, the question needs to be recrafted like this: Why men hate going to feminized, religious social club meetings.

We had woman in the 80-90’s were dating Jesus I had a gal in the early 1990’s came to my house every Sunday after church for lunch after 6 months she would not return calls avoided me at church she and paster falsely accused me of all kinds of stuff they called me fat ect few months latter she Marie’s another man who was 4” shorter and 50 lbs heaven than me found out latter he was making 150 k a year it was about money

7:09 "when I was a kid, praise and worship was a couple of songs (...) and then we'd get back to the pizza" It sounds like what he wanted was a club and not religion.

Need a little lighting. :)

The church system is no different than the secular school system.

20:36 2023 just entered the chat 😂

We don't go because we don't need too

I'm not a big fan of people it's just me being autistic

What's the point, if you're a single average bro you'll never meet your future wifey there, they all seem to want Mr Church Chad and his long guitar neck.

These fellows sound like they had been listening to Rush Limbaugh ranting about “feminazis.”

This video is old but it’s still an interesting conversation. All this talk about “feminized” churches but I have yet to see a woman being the head pastor of a church. I have yet to see a trustee board with predominantly women, if there are women involved at all. Most of the executive decisions are made by men who lead churches, not their wives. This seems like an issue that MEN have with the MEN making the calls. I suggest you take it up with them. Bc at this point, it’s ridiculous complaining about church culture when you won’t even attend consistently Additionally, the main problem I’ve seen with men in ministry is arrogance. Every man thinks he’s the smartest and shouldn’t be told what to do, even by the pastor. He doesn’t want to be obedient and listen but expects to be listened to by every woman he encounters. These men are often rebellious, lack consistency and resist pastoral authority. They hate when their wives listen to another man (meaning, the PASTOR) simply bc it isn’t him. This is a problem when women are constantly told to be submissive just bc she’s a woman… So yeah. Men do leave the church bc they don’t want to submit to another man. They do it all the time at work but somehow at church, it’s different. A whole lot of male ego has ruined families in the church and caused some to leave the church, all bc the husband was upset he was being held accountable by another man. That’s something that should be dealt with. Sure churches have been feminized but it’s mainly bc the men left. Abdicated responsibility, hated being obedient and held accountable. Now the only congregants are women willing to do unpaid work at the church for the pastor.

the denomination churches are "pastor-ruled" thus the falling away of Men (not) Christianity !!!

Most men don't know their God given role, function or place.

If people follow the bible every need will be met. That is why we as Jehova, s witness SEEM different

We need a new Pope

Men dont need jesus, they can live a good life without any religion, even a spiritual life if they so desire

Love ,Grace and Forgiveness feminine attributes?....Lets see you go to the cross David Murrow