And The Band Played On...

Captain Sensible writes: I spent much of last week at the Christian Resources Exhibition, the largest Christian exhibition in the UK.

So many stands! Such an interesting programme of seminars!

Yet just one, poorly publicised, very low key talk on why men don't go to church, which I only found out about by accident.

Watching the greying heads of the visitors milling around the exhibition, examining a chair here, or a communion glass there, you really wouldn't think that in just around 20 years' time we are looking at a statistical projection of ZERO men in the UK church.

In fact, it seems to be a very well kept secret.

I managed to speak to one woman who was there to conduct "research" on the church. I asked her what she had discovered, expecting her to say something about the urgent need to look at why men don't go to church, how we really need to be focusing on men's outreach or (ever the optimist!) maybe something about the problem of singleness. "Oh, church leaders really need to delegate more", or something similarly inane was her main finding.

My mood wasn't lifted by talking to some single women that had just attended a speed dating session. I asked one of them if there were enough men there. No, the women had to each sit out a couple of turns as there weren't enough men to go round, she told me with a resigned smile and a shrug of the shoulders as if to say, ah well, that's just the way it is, there's nothing we can do about it...

Looking up at the impressive venue as I left, I was reminded of the orchestra on the Titanic, who were instructed to keep on playing as the ship sunk...

(And on that note, here is an interesting article I have found on that subject. There are some parallels here that we really ought to pay close attention to. Burying our head in the sand is only going to make us more blind...)