Pastor Jacob Birch and "Church is for Girls"

Tim Wright has written a provocative article about The High Cost of Bored Boys. Not specifically for or about church - per se - but with so many overtones and implications for local parish ministry i just had to comment.

Quoting Robert Bly's Iron John "the church wants a tamed man—they are called priests (authors note—ouch!); the university wants a domesticated man—they are called tenure-track people…"



His advice at the end is illuminating:

What can we do about it?

1) We need to re-value boys. We’ve poured (and continue to pour) lots of energy into our girls over the last 40+ years. That’s a good thing. But our boys are lost, and we need to put that same energy into them.

Couldn't agree more. The emphasis on "classroom management" in both the secular and sacred educational spheres has resulted in an astronomical increase in boys on Ritalin and other mood altering drugs to help them "focus" which is edu-speak for "sit down, shut up and listen" to the woman at the front of the classroom. If those models are out-dated in public elementary and secondary systems just imagine how out-of-touch the average Sunday School classroom with an amateur teacher, using recycled curriculum just trying to survive her 40 minutes of torture each week. Keeping the kids "quiet" while they learn is a recipe for making Sunday School and discipleship at best boring and at worst down right antagonistic to the vast majority of the boys who want to explore, play, connect and compete. My 19 yr old son complained throughout his educational experience that "school was for girls". My unspoken fear is that as a pastors-kid he never admitted what i have always known he was also saying "church is for girls" as well. 

2) Educators need to learn more about how a boy brain learns and fight for getting our boys caught up in school and parents will want to insist that their local teachers learn to teach to boys. (One great resource is the Gurian Institute.)

So i suggest - as a bare minimum approach - that Sunday School and other forms of children's discipleship be segregated by sex right up to and until the completion of high school. Along with this, i ask that only models and curriculum which embrace my 4 priorities for boy's discipleship be used: Exploration, Play, Connecting and Competition. I have more to say about these in later posts but my wife's Ph.D. research at the University of Toronto in gamification is confirming and altering some of my longest held beliefs about how best to disciple boys. 

3) Men need to step up and start mentoring boys, pouring good masculine energy into them. Men need to model for our boys what it looks like to be a man of principle, character, and vision. The church, by the way, is filled with men looking for something world-changing to do. Men, this is your moment. You can change the world by mentoring a boy into manhood.

Absolutely. Marc Driscoll's new book (i know i know he is a Calvinist... i am praying for him) The Resurgence includes a section on Men: The failure or future of the family. Worth a listen. 

Further to this i advocate for and use what i call "The Arrow Vision" of discipleship. Here is a picture of what it looks like: 

Not my idea, nor a new idea. It comes to my through Leighton Ford and the Arrow Leadership folks. Though i am not sure if either y advocate or use it any more. I took the Arrow Leadership Course at Ontario Theological Seminary in the late 1990s before the whole Arrow Leadership internship stuff got going. Anyways the idea is that every disciple needs 4 key relationships each with a different purpose. 

God - each disciple needs to cultivate a daily walk with God. It starts and ends with this. Purpose is character development through the disciplines of fasting, study, silence, prayer and solitude. 

Mentor - each disciple needs a mentor or a coach who is 15-20 years ahead on the life curve to help ask those tough but tender questions we all need to hear from time to time. Purpose is the development of self-awareness.  

Team - each disciple needs that small group of other disciples to study, laugh, cry and serve together. Purpose is the development of accountability for the ends of my life in Christ. 

Congregation - each disciple needs a church of other men and women to worship and reach out together with. Purpose is the exercise of spiritual gifts and the practice of the spiritual discipline of worship.