Shortage of Men

Consider the following:

Men under age 30 comprise most of the country's unchurched population, according to Gallup. The least churched regions of the country are New England and the West Coast.
--ReligionToday.com (January 6, 1999)

There are 94 million men in America.

26 million claim to be Christians; 68 million do not.
75% of men do not attend church regularly.
85% of unchurched men used to attend church.
75% of the men in America claim to pray.
80% of the men in America who own a Bible.

Church attendance among men:
1992--43 %
1993--37 %
1994--35 %
1995--36 %
1996--28 %
--George Barna, Index of Leading Spiritual Indicators (Dallas: Word, 1996)

37.6 million American men have not attended church in the last 6 months.

Men are 67% as likely as women to be unchurched.

In the last 18 months, the percentage of unchurched men has gone from 33% to 40%.

--Barna.org, "One Out of Three Adults Is Now Unchurched," February 25, 1999

When a child is the first person in the family to come to faith, the rest of the family will follow 31% of the time. When a mother/woman is the first person in the family to come to faith, the rest of the family will follow 17% of the time. When a man/father is the first person in the family to come to faith, the rest of the family will follow 93% of the time.

--Bob Horner, Ron Ralston, & David Sunday, Promise Keepers At Work (Colorado Springs: Focus on the Family, 1996)

In African American churches...
women comprise between 75% and 90% of the participation.
Men are more under represented in rural churches.

--Edward Thompson, "Beneath the Status Characteristic: Gender Variations in Religiousness," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 30 (1991)

Yet 61% of those participating in the Million Man March were Christian laymen.
--Sojourners

Phone: 650-325-8000

Fax: 650-330-8010

SAINT SAMUEL CHURCH OF GOD IN CHRIST
1199 E. Bayshore Road
East Palo Alto, CA 94303