Fathers – Where are you? Part III.
Long read, but worth the time. Nice follow up to the “real man” post from a week or so ago.
Here are some important statistics to share from the link above:
According to the Barna Group in their series on the state of the church:
- Church attendance declined by six percentage points among men, The research showed that the proportion of men who had attended a church service, other than a special event such as a wedding or funeral, during the week prior to their survey interview fell from 42% to 36%.
- Sunday school attendance declined by eight percentage points among men since 1991. Only one out of eight men (13%) presently attends such a meeting in a typical week.
- The percentage of men who volunteer at a church during a typical week has slipped by six percentage points since 1991 to its present level of 18%.
- The proportion of unchurched men has grown by nine percentage points since 1991. Today an estimated 39% of all men can be deemed unchurched – that is, having not attended a church event, other than a special service such as a wedding or funeral, in the past six months.
Additionally:
We are abandoning our homes and families at an alarming rate. In the United States there are 9.9 million single mothers living with children under 18 in 2010. This is up from 3.4 million in 1970.
New View From Here 
I have seven beautiful children. Their father chose not to be their father. He’s in prison til the youngest is an adult. I’m raising them on my own, with ALOT of help from God. Five are boys. I pray constantly for grace and wisdom to teach my boys how to become real men. My dad and brother have no interest in mentoring my sons but our church has been great. They DO see the eternal implications and give support however they can. God is good.
What a great testimony of God’s power in the life of you and your children! And it seems as though you guys are part of a wonderful church… What a blessing!
I’m impressed with your wisdom to get “better not bitter” in spite of the adult men in your life acting in such irresponsible ways. God is indeed good! 🙂
God placed a special man in my life who led me back to church. I’m very, very blessed. It’s great to be among God’s people and to be LOVED.
I’m so glad you are experiencing so many blessings in your life!
I will say that the men and fathers who are in our church take the role of being a father and husband quite seriously. There are many young men in our church also and these older men are setting a Godly example for them as to what a man of Christ looks like–but then, these are the men IN church… It’s more evidence of how Christians need to show the world what Christ is like and in turn, draw people to Him.
Such great examples of godly leadership in your churches being shared here. Very encouraging!
And you are so right…we need to take these examples outside the walls of the church to be a part of God’s great work all around us.
You are correct in saying that we need to be sure that, as men of God, we are taking the proper lead in our families and our churches. How sad it is to see men who are unwilling to take their God-given responsibilities upon themselves.
Lord bless you.
So sad…see it day after day, students who are desperately hurting due to the absence of a strong, loving, caring father.