What makes men ineffective in the black church?
You may ask the question, what makes men ineffective in the black church? There are several provocative answers to this question. First, let’s examine the individual man. Below I outline where the breakdown occurs:
1) Lack of Commitment: A man’s heart is compromised when the church prostitutes itself and / or exploits the innate need for people to have relationships with one another. It is a fundamental human need to be physically loved, touched, and appreciated. The church program promotes superficial engagement in which greeters or ushers hug each member who walks through the door. This action is primarily a reflex and after seven hundred hugs and three serves, how genuine can those hugs be? In fact, the person hugging will certainly need a hug before the service is over!
2) Lack of Empowerment – Many men are frustrated by their lack of involvement in the church. When you think about it, what can a brother really do in a church where the pastor, bishop, prophet, or apostle is insecure, selfish, and micromanages the entire ministry? There is an inherent fear that if Brother Wilson is given the authority to orchestrate Homeless Ministry and his gifts and talents draw attention to his service to God and someone forgets to mention the Pastor, all hell will break loose. Somehow we have to correct the cultural expectation that the pastor receives all the attention and all the praise and redistributes the wealth of appreciation due to the men and women who sacrifice so much for their respective ministries. I am not afraid to say that we have passed the day and time when pastors are unilaterally rewarded for doing nothing to ensure their participation or recognition.
3) Lack of Relationship – A man will put up with almost anything to maintain a relationship with another man or other men in the church. Many brethren seek each other out once their feet reach church property and remain until they have been filled or touched by their spirit. A man will come to church to meet his brothers and will never enter the sanctuary to hear the pastor’s sermon.
4) Lack of healing: When will churches start helping men to heal? In many cases, healing is simply talking about what is in the heart and mind without fear of condemnation or retaliation in a safe place or in a place or person that will keep what is said or shared confidential.
5) Lack of ability to produce – Many men have an innate ability to contribute significantly to the financial and vertical growth of the ministry. Due to lack of employment, available cash, limited capital investments, and / or minimal strategic partnerships, many churches face financial difficulties. Pastors have very few dynamic and influential men in their cabinet due to huge egos and huge insecurity issues.
6) Lack of Leadership – Most of the time, the person leading the ministry you are serving in is not the right person for the job. It is probably a single woman who is sold out to the pastor and is an unnatural head over a group of men. I attended a church and was ordained a deacon with about 30 other men and the pastor appointed a woman as a conduit between him and the deacons. In addition, she was the Training Administrator of the School of Ministry that lasted for more than two years without a real agenda. Imagine a single woman with the personality of a paint can conveying the concerns of more than 30 men to a pastor who declined multiple requests to meet with the deacons he ordained. I was a deacon for almost two years and NEVER had a meeting with the pastor. Now, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what a mess this was.
Pastors are the only leaders on the planet who can get away with it! Can you think of a better example of inept leadership than this?