Women have always been the backbone for a successful church. They’re the glue, they’re the organizers, oftentimes the administration leaders, and to my astonishment – Pastors. They make the church activities run. But it’s gotten ridiculous at my church and other city churches.

Women are overwhelmed, too busy, pulled in too many directions trying to spin all the plates and somehow find time to pursue their own spiritual journey. They also don’t have time to think and really look at a big picture what is happening.

At any service it averages 70% – 75% women to men. I like to periodically do a head-count when I’m bored. I don’t know what’s listed in the directory but it’s probably closer to 50%/50%. That’s a problem because Men congregants retain children in the faith a lot better than Women (there are reasons for this, I don’t know if Progressives would allow themselves to listen to data and facts that is inherently sexist. It’s another weird bent in their ideology.)

We have a problem that is just cascading – the church desperately needs to realign around Fundraising and Building maintenance. It is aligned around the Music program and Social Causes. To be fair, that’s mostly what the congregation wants as well. Everyone likes ice cream and cake too if they had a choice.

We are staring into a recession and a bad winter. Building supplies are running low and the costs are increasing due to tariffs. We have exhausted plenty of our funds due to a plethora of causes (housing migrants, repairs, etc). Anyone that understands a spreadsheet can tell you that a lot of the city churches are on the edge of insolvency in the next 2-3 years.

Unfortunately, our church is a Not-For-Profit run in a committee fashion for decision-making. It’s literally the least-effective form of management to exist ever. In fact, it’s a management style developed not to make important decision – those get kicked upstairs to the Board – but to allow everyone to be heard and head up things like seasonal events and monthly operational issues.

I know, I know – there are people who will protest my dim view of this management style. I have sat on NFP Boards for 20+ years, President for 2 of them; I’ve formed my own NFP. I get to be cynical about this style of management because it’s a lot of sleight of hand when it comes to getting any decisions done. This works if everyone *understands* that and their role. Our congregation’s leadership seems very unsuited to the major issues coming. In the past few years all the leadership have suffered from combination of member attrition, burn-out, and whatever passes for church politics. There’s no “team-depth.” It’s very Jenga – you pull any two people off the leadership team and the organization doesn’t just wobble, it ceases to operate.

Where ARE the men? I don’t know. I have a Masters in Finance and 20+ experience working with NFPs, 10+ experience building fundraising and member-recruitment solutions specifically for Christian organizations – I could easily do a turnaround of a $500k/annual business in like 3 months. Well, maybe 6 months – I don’t understand the politics and goals. There’s at least 4 other men who could do a suitable job, especially if they’re supported and empowered. I know of 1-2 women that could too, but they’re busy keeping the church operations “above water.” The point is – we have what we need to turn things around, we just aren’t activating the congregation.

I’ve visited 8 Churches in April, 4 in May, and I’ve already attended 2 in June. I go to black churches on the West and South side – there’s something special going on over, btw. I go to Lutheran churches in the suburbs – doing extremely well. Any Lutheran church in the city is teetering on the edge – just take your pick. Pilgrim, Wicker, etc. Churches from other denominations are thriving right now and expanding. Ours are stagnating and limping.

The ELCA organization knows there’s a problem. But they keep promoting Social Causes instead of activities that would engage men. I’ve presented to whatever is the Men’s Ministry and they’re very Progressive and fret over “Toxic Men.” Whew, boy – the folks in charge of Men recruitment are “out-to-lunch” and act like Men are a Problem. I dunno what to say about that except…..beggars and choosers, my man. Beggars and choosers.

I see dozens of easy ways to push up attendance up. The church is doing a few of them, in a somewhat haphazard fashion, but it’s mostly women leading these things. They giving it everything they got, but at the end of the day it’s a volunteer organization.

I can’t blame the women’s work at our congregation – they’re holding the line the best they can. I do fault the mentality – I don’t see much in the way of encouraging/shaming/nudging men to get involved.

At our trajectory, I give us 2 years to resolve the issue before church consolidation becomes the only conversation worth having. I continue to pray for change and for the women in charge of leading it.