One Christian’s Review of “Why Men Hate Going to Church” by David Murrow

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Why Men Hate Going to Church is an immersion in male culture

One way to view David Murrow’s Why Men Hate Going to Church is to think of it as male culture immersion for anyone who wants to effectively work with men.

For example, if you want to start a church for people in Indonesia, you wouldn’t preach in English, sing Western hymns, and use American football illustrations in your sermons. If you did, you would just wind up having a church full of expats who happen to live in Indonesia, not a church full of Indonesian believers.

To accomplish the latter, you would need to immerse yourself in Indonesian culture. You would learn to speak Javanese. You would also read as much as you could about Indonesia and Indonesians. You would learn how Indonesian people think and act, what they eat and how they eat, how they make a living and how they spend their free time.

And then, taking all of this together, you would develop a church that incorporates as much of this cultural information as possible. Why? Because you want to remove any foreign cultural barriers to the gospel by making it as easy as possible for Indonesians to understand what it means to believe in and follow Jesus Christ.

In other words, you would do what Paul did to reach people with different cultural backgrounds from his: “I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22).

Why Men Hate Going to Church explains how men do church differently than women

Contrary to current ideology on the sexes, men and women are different. We think differently, we talk differently, we relate differently, we learn differently. Men and women represent two different cultures and American churches often fail to recognize this truth.

David Murrow wrote Why Men Hate Going to Church to explain that churches are doing a miserable job reaching men because church is primarily designed to reach a female audience; church reflects a female culture, not a male culture. This is born out by the fact that average church worship attendance in America is only 40% men compared to 60% women.

Why Men Hate Going to Church will help you change men from tolerating church to loving church

But not only does Murrow explain why men hate going to church, he tells us how we can get men to love going to church. How? By immersing ourselves in male culture and then making small adjustments in our churches that reflect what we have learned about men.

The result is that, when it comes to understanding men and male culture, I don’t know of any book that does this better than Why Men Hate Going to Church. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that any pastor or men’s ministry leader who hasn’t read Why Men Hate Going to Church by David Murrow is guilty of malpractice when it comes to reaching men. Why? Because they have missed out on a goldmine of information on men that is critical to ministering to them.

The following three chapters are good examples.

• Men and Contemporary Worship – David Murrow argues that modern contemporary music offers a lot to men, such as offering men simple, repetitive lyrics, a modern beat, lyrics on a big screen, etc. But Murrow’s male stumbling block with praise and worship is the very strong “man-love” in some praise and worship songs that makes men uncomfortable.

“Picture two male hunters,” writes Murrow, “sitting in a duck blind, shotguns resting across their laps. One hunter decides to express his affection for the other, using the words of a popular praise song. He turns to his friend and says, “Hey, buddy…

“Your love is extravagant. Your friendship, it is intimate, I feel I’m moving to the rhythm of Your grace .Your fragrance is intoxicating in this secret place.” (Darrell Evans, “Your Love is Extravagant”)

 “Readers, I cannot imagine saying these words to another man—especially one carrying a loaded shotgun. Lovey-dovey praise songs force a man to express his affection to God using words he would never, ever, ever say to another guy. Even a guy he loves. Even a guy named Jesus. The Bible never describes our love for God in such erotic terms. The men of Scripture loved God, but they were never desperate for him or in love with him. Men are looking for a male leader—not a male lover.”¹

• How Churches Drive Boys Away from the Faith – Most of us who have grown up in church remember Sunday School and how the girls always beat the boys in anything related to Bible reading, Scripture memory, even sitting still and listening.

“In Sunday School, it’s very hard for boys to win. The rules favor children who can sit quietly, read aloud, memorize verses, and look up passages in books. A star pupil is also compliant, empathetic, and sensitive. A long attention span and the ability to receive verbal input from a female teacher also help. How many ten-year-old boys fit this description?”²

• Pastors and Men – Pastors, this chapter is worth the price of the whole book. I wish I had read this material before I entered the pastorate at the age of thirty. I would have done some things quite differently.

I do know from experience, though, that what David says about pastors and men squares well with what I have learned about being a pastor and trying to minister to men. In this chapter, David points out that men like a pastor who is a regular guy and who has the trappings of manhood.

I discovered these truths quite by accident when doing marital counseling. I noticed that often the wives did all the talking during counseling sessions while their husbands would sit sullenly and silently, arms crossed, saying nothing.

To get the husbands to talk, I learned to invite them to go hiking with me. I love hiking and the process of hiking with these husbands gradually broke down the wall of silence between us and we eventually would wind up in significant conversation. Why? Because while women relate to each other face to face, men relate to each other side by side.

The problem with men hating church is just the tip of the cultural iceberg

Of course, the church is not the only institution that is having a problem with men. These days, statistics bear out that men are underperforming at school, the workplace, and in the home as well.

Given the maladaptive nature of men today, I suggest David Murrow follow “Why Men Hate Going to Church” with a “Why Men Hate…” book series and trademark the phrase. (Come to think of it, maybe I will trademark “Why Men Hate” myself and charge David a ten percent royalty fee to use it.)

 Here are some suggested titles:

• Why Men Hate Going to College – The ratio of men who attend college to women who attend college is now 40% to 60%. (Exactly the same ratio that David quotes in his book of men to women who attend church.³

• Why Men Hate Going to Work – Almost one-third of all working-age men in America aren’t working. They don’t have a job, and they aren’t looking for one. This trend predates the pandemic.⁴

• Why Men Hate Getting Married – Among men 40 to 54 years old, one in five live with a parent.⁵ Consider also that the marriage rate in the U.S. is the lowest it’s been in the last 150 years because there aren’t enough men with a good income and a stable job.⁶

• Why Men Hate Raising their Own Children – 1 in 4 children live without a biological, step, or adoptive father in their home.⁷

• Why Men Hate Growing Up – A veritable cottage industry has sprung up around this topic. Consider the following book and article titles: “Men to Boys: The Making of Modern Male Immaturity,” “Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys,” “The End of Men,” “Are Men Necessary?,” “The Decline of Males,” “The Death of Macho,” “Women Will Rule the World,” “Is There Anything Good About Men?” “Save the Males”: “Why Men Matter, Why Women Should Care,” “Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man,” “The Demise of Guys,” “The Myth of Male Power,” “Why Men Are the Way They Are,” “Mismatch: the Growing Gulf Between Men and Women.”⁸

I’m thinking that if the church were having the kind of ministry with men that it should be having – the kind of ministry David outlines in Why Men Hate Going to Church – then the rest of our culture would not be having the problems with men that it has.

This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.

Since 2003 New Commandment Men’s Ministries has helped hundreds of churches throughout North America and around the world recruit teams of men who permanently adopt widows, single moms and fatherless children in their congregations for the purpose of donating two hours of service to them one Saturday morning each month. We accomplish this with a free training site called New Commandment Men’s Ministry Learn how to mobilize your men’s ministry to meet every pressing need in your church at newcommandment.org.

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Learn how to form teams of men for every widow, single mom

and fatherless child in your church at NewCommandment.org.

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1. David Murrow, Why Men Hate Going to Church, p. 75.
2. ibid., p117
3. ”Men are skipping college. Here’s why that trend could have devastating consequences.” The Editorial Board, USA Today, September 15, 2021
4. Andy Zerwer, “7 ways men live without working in America,” Yahoo! Finance, September 18, 2021
5. ”Men Are Now More Likely to Be Single Than Women. It’s Not a Good Sign”, Belinda Luscombe, Time, October 5, 2021.
6. ”Fewer people are getting married because there’s a shortage of economically stable single men, says study” Rachel Grumman Bender, Yahoo! Life, September 5, 2019.
7. National Fatherhood Initiative
8. ”The Misery of Modern Men,” by Herb Reese