Will the real men please stand up?
The other day I was listening to a podcast interview of Pastor Mark Driscoll. If you are not familiar with Pastor Mark, I would encourage you to get acquainted. He pastors Mars Hill Church based out of Seattle, WA. Pastor Mark mentioned that over half of Mars Hill is young single men. This blew me away. The ratio of men to women in church is down to 39% men and 61% women. This means Mars Hill is not going along with the cultural trend. I understand that statistics do not tell us everything, but they do tell a story. The research says if the father is a Christian, then there is a 93% probability that the household will become believers. If the mother becomes a Christian, 17% of families follow in that belief, and 3.5% if the child becomes a Christian first. Based on this research, where we put our resources for ministry does not correlate with what will give us the best results. Do we realize that ministering to men equals ministering to women or ministering to men equals ministering to children? When we disciple men we are discipling people who will be the ministers of there own home.