Many men don’t go to church because they have a rebellious ‘I’m in charge of my life. You can’t tell me what to do’ spirit. They are unwilling to sacrifice their weekend plans to attend a service, no less volunteer.
Women have it too.
Depends on what you mean by “volunteer”. Too many churches develop too many programs that will have too few people or resources to run them well. Some of those churches should scale back to their core functions.
Many men feel crowded out when a certain coiterie of folks, men or women are multiple volunteering for the same posts or tasks. The same ones who run the fellowship committee are also running the visitation program and despite the call for volunteers, new volunteers actually end up being politely discouraged by the aforementioned coiterie of the sanctified holy ones.
Then there is the phenomena of when a man does volunteer he may be henpecked by those who say ‘do it this way, do it that way’ to the point that he just throws up his hands and walks away.
False accusers are a problem; too many men may find themselves prey to a false accusation of sexual harrassment or forced sexual act or rape.
Depends on what you mean by “volunteer”. Too many churches develop too many programs that will have too few people or resources to run them well. Some of those churches should scale back to their core functions.
Many men feel crowded out when a certain coiterie of folks, men or women are multiple volunteering for the same posts or tasks. The same ones who run the fellowship committee are also running the visitation program and despite the call for volunteers, new volunteers actually end up being politely discouraged by the aforementioned coiterie of the sanctified holy ones.
Then there is the phenomena of when a man does volunteer he may be henpecked by those who say ‘do it this way, do it that way’ to the point that he just throws up his hands and walks away.
False accusers are a problem; too many men may find themselves prey to a false accusation of sexual harrassment or forced sexual act or rape.
I find that to be very true.
While going through basic back in the early 80’s, our training company ran Sundays like this: You could go to church on Sunday morning or do chores around the barracks. But chores were going to get done whether you went or not. The guys who didn’t go would do most of them, but some would be left for those who did.
“Naw. Go to church if you want. We’ll be cleaning up sh*t here while you’re gone. We’ll save some for you, though.”
So I learned to stop going to church pretty quick. Three weeks in and no one was going to church any more. Peer pressure and their respect for you was a big thing in basic. Not saying it was right by God. But it was a fact of life in (my) basic training.