Dr. Tim Clinton: I wanted to take a moment to let you know that we here at the James Dobson Family Institute love you and we're praying for you. If you're struggling and need some encouragement, we'd be honored to pray with you. You can call us toll free at (877) 732-6825. That number again, (877) 732-6825 or simply go to drjamesdobson.org. That's drjamesdobson.org. Thanks for inviting us to be a part of your day. We're going to get through this challenging time together. Let's go now to today's presentation.
Ryan Dobson: Hi, friends. I'm Ryan Dobson and you're listening to Family Talk's 10-year Anniversary Retrospective. Each weekday this month, Family Talk will present a classic from the vaults for your enjoyment. Today we are revisiting an interview recorded in the early years of Family Talk back in 2011. Television producer David Morrow sat down in the studio for an interview with my dad. This is such a terrific interview and it still resonates today.
Ryan Dobson: Their discussion focused on the startling absence of men in the church. There just aren't as many men committed to a church community or attending regular services as there should be. Maybe you've noticed this in your church community. If so, listen closely because my dad and Mr. Morrow offer some helpful insights that you may find useful. With that said, let's dive into part one of this classic program today on Family Talk.
Dr. Dobson: How many times have you heard single women in the church bemoan the fact that there's simply no good Christian men in the pews? Is it just their imagination or is there something behind that perception? I read a statistic recently that said 90% of American men say that they believe in God; and yet, the demographers estimate that only one out of six men are in church on any given Sunday morning. This is indeed a very real problem and we need to take a deeper look at why it's happening, and that is our plan for today on Family Talk. And to help us do this, we've invited author David Morrow to be with us. I just met him a few minutes ago, but I like him already.
Dr. Dobson: David is primarily a television producer. He's produced material for the Discovery Channel and NBC and ABC and The Food Network. Here's a fun fact. He produced Sarah Palin's first commercial back in 2002. As I've mentioned, he's also a writer. Two of his titles, which I'm sure our conversation is going to focus on today, are Why Men Hate Going to Church and How Women Help Men Find God. Now, if that won't get attention, I don't know what will. David, welcome to Family Talk.
David Murrow: Thank you. Good to be with you.
Dr. Dobson: You do live in Alaska, don't you?
David Murrow: Yep, that's correct.
Dr. Dobson: And that's how you met Sarah Palin?
David Murrow: Yeah. Sarah Palin came into my office in 2002, just an unknown candidate, and said, "Hey, I need some TV commercials. I'm running for lieutenant governor." And so that's how we began our relationship. And then she actually hired me to work in the governor's office there toward the end of her time as the governor, and I was actually the person that put together the famous Lakeside press conference with the airplane in the background. That was my responsibility.
Dr. Dobson: Really?
David Murrow: It was a very interesting time working for her.
Dr. Dobson: And you live right near Wasilla?
David Murrow: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I do. I live just near Wasilla.
Dr. Dobson: Oh, that is such beautiful territory. I was telling you before that I went up there with my parents when I was 13 years of age and I fell in love with Alaska. I haven't been back, but I would like to.
David Murrow: And being from Alaska where the men are men, it's a very macho-
Dr. Dobson: It is a masculine state, isn't it?
David Murrow: It's a macho culture and it really brings into stark relief this problem we have with reaching men. Only about 10% of the men in Alaska attend church on a given Sunday. And so that was one of the reasons I began to do my research is because you just realize what a man shortage we have, particularly in Alaska, but really in churches all over the globe. The problem, it's not atheism. There's not even really an antagonism. It's just this feeling that being in church, they feel like they're out of place. They feel like there's something more to God than they're getting on Sunday morning.
Dr. Dobson: Well, you've written these two books with provocative titles as we just said. What kind of response have you had? Do people get mad at you?
David Murrow: A few. There's been a few negative reactions, but I think overwhelmingly positive because there's a recognition that the kingdom of God is not just women, it's men, women, children. It's for everyone.
Dr. Dobson: My grandfather was such a man. He was six foot four. He died a year before I was born. But he was a hunter and a fisherman, and he just would not go to church. My grandmother prayed for him for 40 years because he didn't want anything to do with it. He found the Lord right before he died. But he was one of these macho guys that just did not feel comfortable in church, and that's a shame because it shouldn't be that way.
David Murrow: Well, I mean, my background is in marketing and advertising, and one of the things you realize is that everything has a target audience these days. I was sitting in church one day and my mind was wandering... And that never happens to you I know. And suddenly I asked myself, who is the target audience of this church I'm sitting in? And I looked at the building. It was all decorated in quilts and flowers and ribbons, and there was fresh flowers on the altar and boxes of Kleenex under every pew. The pastor was wearing a robe and there was soft pastel colors. And the words that were coming out of his mouth were, "Have a passionate relationship with Jesus, and he loves you and cares for you," and the imagery.
David Murrow: I just began to realize the entire institution had this sort of, this feminine bent to it, the way that we were expressing the gospel. And it was very different than the gospel that I read in the Bible, which was you take up your cross and follow me. In the church, the language was definitely more... No other word to say it, but it just had more of a feminine feel to it.
Dr. Dobson: Jesus was a man's man, wasn't he? When he set out to choose the disciples, who did he choose? I mean, he could have found these people that were kind of feminine in their roles. He went out and found rough, tough fishermen.
David Murrow: I mean, Jesus showed us the way. When you focus on man, it's not that you exclude women and children. But when you put that focus on man, you get the women and children in the bargain. The original church growth strategy still works today.
Dr. Dobson: Early in your life, when you were a child, I guess you were a teenager. Weren't you about 13 when you had found the Lord-
David Murrow: Yeah, I was about 15.
Dr. Dobson: ... But you began to get this solution with church yourself?
David Murrow: Yeah. As you know, young men... You've written several books, Bringing Up Boys and stuff about young man; and you know that when a young man reaches a certain age, 13, 14, 15, he becomes anxious to put his childhood behind him. Well, I grew up in the Sunday school. I saw Sunday school Jesus and all that stuff. But when a teenage boy reaches that certain age and he wants to do things that are manly, he'll put away the childish things from his childhood. Well, Jesus is one of the childish things. Because in Sunday school, we show them pictures of Jesus hanging out with children and all this stuff, and so it creates this mental picture in a young man's mind.
David Murrow: I went through that just like every young man. We have this huge attrition rate of young men from the church when they're 15, 16, 17 years old. And the reason is, is because as we bring them up in the church, we associate Christ with children. And then when it's time to put those childish things away, what's the first thing that we put away? Our relationship with God.
Dr. Dobson: Now, I understand what you just said, and it makes sense to me. But we're irritating some people because the scripture does say in Jesus did say, "Suffer the little children to come unto me." And he does love us, and we're to love him with all our heart, mind and strength. And so all those things are biblical and you're really not moving away from those things. But it needs to be in a masculine context if we're going to draw men.
David Murrow: That's exactly right. I mean, I agree with you 100%. Jesus loved women and children, but he focused his efforts on reaching men. I think if the church is going to prosper and grow the way Christ wants us to, we have to step back and say, starting with our boys, "How do we make sure that boys understand that the gospel is for men, and not just for women and children?" And I think that's where we're failing them.
David Murrow: Now, on a positive note, Sunday school is really getting a makeover in our churches today. When I grew up in my little Lutheran Sunday school, it was very much a classroom model. The girls always did better than the boys. Today, Sunday school is changing. It's becoming more kinetic. It's becoming more active. They're putting more boys with male teachers. And so I'm very encouraged what I'm seeing coming out of Sunday schools.
David Murrow: The Sunday school in my church in Alaska, we don't call it Sunday school anymore. We call it Adventureland. I mean, think about two boys. "Would you like to go to Sunday school with me, Billy?"
David Murrow: "No."
David Murrow: "Well, would you like to go to Adventureland with me, Billy?"
David Murrow: "Yeah, I'll do that."
David Murrow: There's just a lot of outreach now to young men, and so I'm very encouraged by what I'm seeing in Sunday school.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Thanks for spending some time with us. You're listening to Family Talk, a radio broadcast of the James Dobson Family Institute. I'm Dr. Tim Clinton, executive director of the Institute, and we've come to the midpoint of today's broadcast. On behalf of Dr. Dobson and all of us here at JDFI, I want to thank you for listening today; and by the way, for your continued support. We're completely supported by you, our faithful listeners. We would not be able to bring programs to you like the one you're listening to today without your generous contributions. Learn how you can stand with us by visiting drjamesdobson.org. Let's get back to today's broadcast right now, here, on Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk.
Dr. Dobson: Everything you're saying about church is true of public schools too, and all schools, because they're designed for girls. They really are. They de-emphasized competition even more now than in the past. You don't want anyone to feel bad or have low self-esteem, so my goodness, you kind of conceal the fact that when they play baseball, they don't keep score. Well, the kids keep score. The boys do. I guarantee that. But girls do better in school than boys. I wrote about that in my book Bringing Up Boys.
Dr. Dobson: Hey, if you guys will permit me, I want to do something. I don't do this very often and it's somewhat arrogant to do it, but I want to read from Bringing Up Boys. I want to do that because we're talking about the nature of males. We're talking about testosterone. We're talking about how boys are different than girls and how that might play a role in what they're drawn to in later life.
Dr. Dobson: This is what I wrote: In case you haven't noticed, boys are different from girls. That fact was never in question for previous generations. They knew intuitively that each sex was a breed apart and that boys were the more unpredictable of the two. Haven't you heard your parents and grandparents say with a smile, "Well, girls are made out of sugar and spice and everything nice, but boys are made out of snakes and snails and puppy dog tails." It was said tongue in cheek, but people of all ages thought that it was based on fact. "Boys will be boys," they said knowingly, and they were right.
Dr. Dobson: Boys are usually, but not always, tougher to raise than their sisters are. Girls can be difficult to handle too, but there's something especially challenging about boys. Although individual temperaments vary, boys are designed to be more assertive, audacious, and excitable than girls are. Psychologist John Rosemond, who's a friend of mine, calls them "little aggressive machines". One father referred to his son as "all afterburner and no rudder". These are some of the reasons why Maurice Chevalie never sang, Thank Heavens for Little Boys. They just don't inspire great sentimentality.
Dr. Dobson: In an article entitled, "What are Boys Made of?", reporter Paula Gray Hunker quoted a mother named Meg Mackenzie, who's said, "Raising her two sons is like living with a tornado. From the moment they come home from school, they'll be running around the house, climbing trees outside and making a commotion inside that sounds as if our herd of elephants had moved in upstairs. I'll try to calm them down, but my husband will say, 'This is what boys do get used to it.'"
Dr. Dobson: Now, David, if that is true and it is, that is a representation of the differences between boys and girls and their nature. Why should it surprise us that sitting quietly in church singing love songs to Jesus might not be attractive to these guys?
David Murrow: Boy, you really hit it on the head, Doc. I was praising Sunday school a minute ago because they're starting to be more responsive to the needs of boys, but where we're really failing the boys is in the youth group. Youth group used to be a very kinetic, fun, active thing; but, in the last 10 or 15 years, they've brought in long sets of praise and worship.
David Murrow: I'm telling you, these young men, they're not responding well to it at all. They stand there for 15 or 20 minutes with their hands in their pockets in a darkened room singing love songs to another man. It just doesn't resonate with the masculine heart. I'm just hoping for a counter revolution in youth group. We've got to start recognizing that if we don't bring boys along in the faith and don't make it a faith that they can relate to as they're coming up, they're not going to be with you as adults.
Dr. Dobson: Well, what should have been done when you were that age and they were losing you?
David Murrow: Here's the thing, I was not gone long. Precisely because youth group, when I was a kid, really was a kick in the pants. I mean, there was a pie in the face. We did fun things. The Bible teaching was short and to the point. I met Jesus in that sort of an environment because it was geared toward me.
David Murrow: Young Life still is very good at targeting the young men. Whenever people ask me, "Well, what should we do in our youth group?" I say, "Go copy what Young Life does," because they still target that unchurched, young man. And if you get him, you get the whole high school. They know that.
David Murrow: And there's something you need to know about men and women. Women are fascinated by the things of men, but men are utterly repulsed by the things of women. Let me tell you a little story. Back in Anchorage at the Home Depot, they have the Do It Herself Night. They bring women in and they teach them how to work with power tools. And the next day, the women are at work all bragging to their girlfriends, "Oh, guess what I did? I went to Home Depot and learned how to work a bandsaw." Now, right next to the Home Depot, there's Michael's Craft Store. Michael's does not have a Do It Himself Night. I have never heard a man bragging to another man, "I went to Michael's and learned how to make decorative pillow shams.
David Murrow: You see, women are fascinated by guy things, but men are repulsed by women things. If your church has kind of a feminine vibe, who are you going to get? You're going to get the lace doily crowd. Men will do what they're competent at. For instance, when I was a young man, I briefly took up golf. Now, you've heard of Tiger Woods? Well, I spent most of my time in the woods looking for my ball. I had no knack for the game. After a few rounds, I did what men do, I quit because I was no good at it.
David Murrow: Here's the thing, if a boy grows up in a Sunday school program that's based on verbal expression, reading from books, emotional expression through praise and worship, the girl standing next to him will usually be better than he is. He gets the feeling that he's incompetent in church. I mean, God forgive us for letting this be our model of spirituality. We all know there's more to the gospel than just being a motive in church. But if a man feels like he's losing week after week, he wants to put his clubs away and quit.
Dr. Dobson: Let me play... I don't like the word devil's advocate, but let me play the other side on behalf of somebody that's sitting out there, maybe a woman who doesn't really track what we're saying and may even be irritated by it. Love is the centerpiece of the Christian faith. That was Jesus' main theme. You do want to get that across to kids and to men, and you do want to emphasize the importance of giving your heart and soul to this Christ, being willing to give your life for him. Where's the disconnect there?
David Murrow: I'll stray to my third book called The Map, which basically describes the life of Jesus in three journeys. The first being submission, the second being strength and the third being sacrifice. Submission, the first part of Jesus' life is where all the soft things are: Blessed are the meek, turn the other cheek, do not resist an evil person. That's the beginning. That's the foundation of our walk with God.
David Murrow: Eventually though, we have to turn and become like he was in his second journey where we see him casting out demons and battling the Pharisees and doing great miracles. That's where the more masculine parts of his-
Dr. Dobson: The money changers and-
David Murrow: ... Throwing the money changers out of the temple, yeah. Cursing the Pharisees. That's where all the masculine stuff is. And then there's a third part of his journey which I call the journey of sacrifice, where he actually goes passive. He allows himself to be stripped, beaten, crucified, et cetera.
David Murrow: This is the pattern of developing men. You develop your soft side, then your hard sign, and then you go back to your soft side. And if you think about the great men of scripture, their lives all follow this pattern, this pattern of submission, strength and sacrifice.
David Murrow: The great men you've met Charles Colson. He rose to this prominence in the White House, and then God humbled him and he went through a journey-
Dr. Dobson: He was a Marine before that.
David Murrow: Yeah, then he went through a dark journey of submission where he was humbled by God in prison, and then he went into a journey of strength, and now he's pouring himself...
David Murrow: I mean all the great men that have pushed the gospel and advanced the gospel in our time, followed this pattern. And so when you say, "Well, how do you balance that soft side of Jesus and that tough side of Jesus?" This is my attempt right here, this new book, is to help men see that, yes, you have to get in touch with your feminine side. You do have to become soft. You do have to become broken, but brokenness is not the destination.
Dr. Dobson: Okay, it's Sunday morning, David, and you have 600 people coming to a church service and you're the pastor. What are you going to do for them?
David Murrow: Talk to the men. Talk to the men.
Dr. Dobson: Men respond to stories.
David Murrow: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Absolutely.
Dr. Dobson: And Jesus told stories, parables. That's where you capture the heart of a man. It's not with a loving words, it's with illustrations in real life.
David Murrow: And even the metaphors you use, tell the stories of battle and the things that capture men's hearts. Some pastors are starting to use video clips now from men's films and it's really effective in reaching men.
Dr. Dobson: For the women who are listening to us now who have been concerned about the spiritual life of their husbands, you don't get them to do the right thing by nagging them. Maybe you ought to read this book, maybe ought to read both of them, Why Men Hate Going to Church and How Women Help Men Find God. David, thanks for being with us. It's really fun talking to you. You're onto something here-
David Murrow: Thank you, Doctor.
Dr. Dobson: ... and let's do it again tomorrow.
David Murrow: All right.
Ryan Dobson: What an insightful discussion about the startling disappearance of men in the church. I'm Ryan Dobson and you've been listening to the first part of Dr. James Dobson's interview with author and TV producer, David Morrow. This is still such a relevant and needed topic, which is why it's included in Family Talks' 10-Year Anniversary Retrospective.
Ryan Dobson: Men must step up and be spiritual leaders in their homes and in this society. Learn more about David's book and ministry by visiting the Broadcast Page at drjamesdobson.org. There is so much more to this pertinent conversation, so be sure to listen to part two of this interview tomorrow. Thanks for listening to this Family Talk broadcast. Have a blessed and safe day everyone.
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Dr. Dobson: Much has been written in recent years about men who go through midlife crises and the condition is very real. It's brought on largely by the sudden awareness that youth is passing and that old age is just around the corner. That simple thought creates a kind of panic in some men. They exchange their suits and ties for silk shirts, which are left unbuttoned about down to the navel with a lot of gray hair showing, which they blow dry, and then they do weird things with their hair. Trying to make a little look like a lot. In serious cases of baldness, this means whipping the sideburns up over the top and then cementing everything in place with super glue or they grow at 12-inch ponytail, which flows down their backs.
Dr. Dobson: Men and midlife crisis then try to beef up their images with racy automobiles. Their cars have to be sleek, fast and hot. A Porsche or a Ferrari gets the job done, but a guy with financial problems might have to settle for an old Volkswagen with mag wheels. Thus outfitted the aging gentlemen and his shaky ego set out to find a younger woman. This specter is not so humorous to the loved ones who are watching their husbands or fathers search for the fountain of youth. It rattles the very foundations of the home. All they can do is continue to love him and hope he'll come to his senses before his family is destroyed; and indeed millions of families have ended just that way.
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Roger Marsh: Hey everyone, Roger Marsh here. When you think about your family and where they will be when you're no longer living, are you worried? Are you confident? Are you hopeful? What kind of legacy are you leaving for your children and their children? Here at Family Talk, we're committed to helping you understand the legacy that you're leaving for your family. Join us today at drjamesdobson.org for helpful insights, tips, and advice from Dr. James Dobson himself. And remember, your legacy matters.