Matthew 14:21
The
Voice (VOICE)
21 There were 5,000 men
there, not to mention all the women and children.
Sylvia often reads to me while I’m
driving. Riding down to the beach on a scorching August Sunday afternoon, she
read an article in the Adventist World
announcing a new international ministry for men.[i] The
author, Consuegra, used two pages of the church’s official news magazine to promote
and defend an outreach to men. Ever since the 19th century the
church has a history of launching ministries to various groups of people
including ethnic groups, children, women, and nations. Some were launched with
great fanfare, some even at the urging of Ellen White.
“Why men?” I asked myself. You may have noticed that there are usually
significantly more women than men that attend your church every week. This may
be a reason for starting a Men’s Ministry. However, read on.
Some years ago we attended a
large institutional church. I confess that I was not receiving the spiritual
nurture I craved. Our family sat in the front row of the back balcony each
Sabbath. In boredom I counted the worshipers below me. In fact, I counted the
males and females separately and noted down the numbers. This little exercise
went on week after week for four years. Eventually I entered the numbers into a
spreadsheet. Its software easily drew a graph showing the weekly rising or
falling of attendance. It also calculated and plotted lines of regression that
showed long-term tendencies. After all, I am a mathematician.
On the street one day I happened
to meet the pastor, whom I regard as a personal friend and whose preaching I
value. I pulled out the graph as an intellectual curiosity and showed it to
him. He stopped talking, he even stopped breathing. His face turned as white as
a sheet. I began to fear for his health. He walked away in a daze.
The next Sabbath a deaconess walked
down the outside aisles of the church quietly counting the attendees. This went
on for a few months. Then the pastor announced that he was transferring to
another continent and left us.
The graph showed a slow and steady
decline in attendance. What’s more, it showed that average female attendance dropped
off every year by 3%, but average male attendance had dropped off every year by
7%. In other words, at the end of about 4 years, 10% of the women and almost 25%
of the men in our church were no longer attending. Coincidentally there was
significant emphasis on women in ministry at the time, and we ordained our
first two women to the ministry on December 2, 1995. How much effect did this
emphasis have on the men’s decisions? I don’t know.
Since that time, huge changes
have taken place in the institutional church. I believe that many of these
changes are for the better. It’s high time that the church recognize that its
men are an irreplaceable asset to the church. They are also people for whom
Christ died and whom he chose to be leaders in His church.
Lord, grant Your church wisdom to serve all of its members no matter
who they are.
[i]
Consuegra, Claudio “Another Ministry? Why a ministry for men makes sense,” Adventist World—NAD August 2014, p. 14.
When I completed my o-level studies at Ikizu in 1972 I headed for Dar es salaam city to look for a job. The city was vibrant with life though it had only 270,000 people. I quickly got a job as an 'electrical technician' in the Min.of Foreign Affairs after I produced a recommending note that had been given to me by Gary Marsh. I found the city amusing.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand there were only two Seventh Adventist Churches namely Magomeni and Temeke. Indeed Temeke church had no building for Sabbath worship. Pastor David Dobias had enabled erection of a dispensary in a dominantly moslem neighborhood and out of this worship services were conducted. As of today, Temeke has not only built a very big building which gets overcrowded every Saturday but has given birth to 6 pastoral districts each with four churches. Magomeni which was built by an American known as Cleveland has many more. If what was Tanzania Union has divided it self into 6 semi-autonomous conferences, Dar es salaam city itself intends to become one by itself. Of course the city population is now 4.5m.
So while you encounter negative growth in America the growth here is unprecedented. There is a great shortage of Pastors and thanks only in that God brought you guys across the oceans to train us at Ikizu. Majority of your students act a lay workers of the churches in the city, serve for the contradictions that come by it. I wish someone from amidst you could stow away into Dar to salvage the situation.
You see, while you in America ordain women, out of necessity, the same fails to befit here. Women ministry is found unacceptable. In majority of the cases Ikizu products are blamed for sticking too much on the old testament tabernacle male dominance as they were brought up to understand.
I sometimes wonder, who abolished Missionary activities ? It is very much rife with the Roman Catholics and is no wonder than they now number 10m amidst 50m Tanzanians.