Sunday, June 11, 2006

What's Happening?

Next weekend is Father’s Day. May we take some time to consider the following facts?

1. On any Sunday morning in America, all churches, all age groups, most denominations, attendance figures:61% women, 39% men in the pews.
2. In 2005, it was the first year in the U.S.A. that more women than men were ordained as pastors.
3. One out of four married women attend church without her husband
4. Ninety percent of American men believe in God; 5 out of 6 call themselves Christian, 2 out of 6 attend church on Sunday.
5. Data from Brookings Institution Policy Brief #5, out of wedlock births for whites: 1965 – 3%; 1990 – 18%; 2000 – 27.1%. The rate is rising faster in the white ethnic group than any other group.
6. Last years’ Fathers’ Day lead story in the Minneapolis Star & Tribune—gay marriages, gay adoption.
7. School boys in every category, every group are falling behind.
8. College students: 3 out of 5 are girls
9. Christina Hoff Sommers, PhD. wrote a book entitled Raising Boys said, “It is a bad time to be a boy in America.”
10. Custody cases for custody of children: uncontested cases—men get custody 10% of time; Contested cases—men get custody 15% of the time.
11. More women than men get post-graduate degrees. Jewish rabbinical students –35% women.
12. 90% of boys raised in church will abandon the church by their 20th birthday. Many never to return.

The previous information taken from Church for Men website (www.churchformen.com), Whistleblower Magazine, June 2006; Brookings Institute Studies; and a personal interview with Arnie Engelby, Executive Director, Resource Center for Fathers and Families, Minneapolis, Minn.

As Christians, does any of the previous information bother us? Slumber on church—even while our own flesh and blood goes to hell!

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