Church Design, Philosophies Target Men

In a Christian Church where women are currently outnumbering men and are 20 to 25 percent more likely to attend church every week, many churches are putting men at the center of their outreach.

The Pensacola News Journal reports that leaders of 121 Community Church in Grapevine, Texas, actually designed their worship building to appeal to men’s aesthetics. They installed a stone floor with hunter green and amber décor spread through the interior, as well as rustic-wood ceiling beams. Even their Web site, with its wood-panel background, was created to appeal to men.

Ross Sayers, founder and pastor of 121 Community Church, told the News Journal that the importance of men is in the statistics. “I have read that if a child comes to Christ, 12 percent of the time the whole family will follow. If the mom comes, there’s a 15 percent chance the family will. But if the man comes to church, 90 percent of the time the family will come behind. That’s the reality and that’s why we do this.”

The recent U.S. Religious Landscape Survey from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life revealed that women outnumber men in 21 of 25 denominations.

Another trend, particularly among Sun Belt churches, is to host “Beast Feasts.” The idea is that church outdoorsmen will actually hunt for the meal and then invite their unchurched male brethren to come to the church for the banquet. One church doing this is Spring Baptist Church near Houston.

“Men are driven by activity, by events, by doing,” Mark Estep, the church’s senior pastor, said. “That’s our nature.”

For more techniques and philosophy change ideas necessary to reach men, check out “Reaching Out to Men Creates Challenge” from the July issue and “Want Men in Church? Deliver Excellence” from the March factbook.