10 July 2024

The Revd. Will Pearson-Gee was an Army Chaplain rising to the rank of  major in 1999. He is now the rector of Buckingham where he said that some of the services for which he is responsible were ‘overflowing with widows’. So Kaya Burgess has reported.

He has been so concerned about the lack of men in church that he raised it at the Church of England Synod in York. ‘What resources has the church developed to help people think about and practise evangelism among men?’  Two facts justify his concern.

Firstly, 59% of worshippers in the Church of England are women. In some kirk congregations, this would be an under-estimate. Secondly, the British Social Attitudes Survey found in 2019 that at every age men were less likely than women to say they had a religion, went to church or believed in God.

In his address to the Synod, Will Pearson-Gee argued that men who became Christians were more likely to bring their whole family with them. He also argued that the language of faith mattered. Having a personal relationship with Jesus may attract women but men would be more likely to respond to the invitation to follow Jesus.

From my own observations, men were very good at attending church at family worship, when their children were participating in events, and when we were doing things out of doors like barbecues or climbing a hill on Easter morning. The focus on all ages and the outdoors  introduces a less intense and open environment for expressing faith.

The way the Gospel is framed is important. At one point, people were  sensitive to the military imagery in hymns  and excised some of our favourites from the hymnary. By contrast, the theology of the cross and Paul’s theology of weakness  may be heroic in one context but disempowering in another. It challenges the image of the alpha male. This needs correcting.