http://www.whychurch.org.uk/gendergap.php
In light of your podcast with @bethany when I stumbled on this I thought of you
This is pretty distressing reading and very blunt - "Men will be absent from church by 2028 at the current rate" and the departure of men is, according to statistics anyway, "speeding up"
It states Mentioned that men are increasingly not applying to be priests/vicars/ministers etc
Church attendance in the UK has dropped by 50% since 1950, and "has become a place by women for women"
Also, that two thirds of the UK Christian populations do not attend a church.........
Those few quotes made me re-read them several times!
@Berrybunchfamily @bethany I spend a lot of time in Swedish Lutheran churches these days and the majority of priests is now female and the percentage continues to grow. At the same the number of overall attendance in the Swedish Lutheran church continues to plummet. An argument can be made that the two are not connected, but not a convincing one.
@sinbach @Berrybunchfamily I wonder what the cause and effect situation is there? Are there more women priests ("priestesses"? I don't know, that sounds weird) because there are less men in the church, or are there less men in the church because there are more female priests?
@bethany @sinbach there's a quote in the next post along from the one I posted by a "fr" (a friar or father?..am not sure..) stated, in the telegraph, that men had given up applying to become priests due to too many female priests...don't know about his reasoning, 'cos it's a just a quote in the middle of the article, but that one struck something in me, but I'm not quite sure what....
This topic has increasingly got my heart and brain focused on something...but I'm not quite sure what that is, just yet...
@Berrybunchfamily @bethany @sinbach This whole subject has had me pondering for years. I can not help but believe that the increase we see in divorce also has something to do with the confusion of gender roles?
@bethany @sinbach @Berrybunchfamily Very interesting thought!
@Berrybunchfamily @bethany @sinbach Have you considers a home meeting? Unchurched people are much more likely to come sit around your kitchen table and talk about God than to go into a church to listen to a preacher.
@Berrybunchfamily @bethany @sinbach Using the gifts God gave you where He calls you is the best place to be!
@bethany @sinbach yep...some of those quotes are really upsetting
Especially that 2/3 of british Christians don't attend a church... We're currently part of that 2/3 while we continue to get past, well, lets just call them 'troubles
My passion has historically been to reach the lost in church...maybe I need to start thinking about the 2/3...especially since we're part of those numbers