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Mission

Where are the Men?

image290Last Sunday, Sue and I went home to Southampton to be at Above Bar Church for the Evening Service when our friend Zillah was being commissioned to go and work as a missionary-physiotherapist in Uganda.  Zillah is a remarkable woman has become a close friend over the last few years; it was a real privilege to be part of the church family standing to pray for her as she heads off into a new life serving Christ.

Tomorrow, I’m driving up to Leeds to take part in a service where Helen Robertson will be commissioned by her church for two years work in language analysis in support of Bible Translation in Papua New Guinea. We got to know Helen this year as she trained at the ETP courses on the Wycliffe Centre.

Two Sundays; two good friends heading off to serve God around the world. But, where are the blokes?  It continually surprises me how few single men set off to be involved in mission work around the world: either short or long term. I’d be interested in your thoughts as to why this is so and what can be done about it.

8 replies on “Where are the Men?”

All I can say is “Amen, Brother”.

Perhaps you need a video of me on the Wycliffe UK site explaining how Singles Bible study is just me and 8 women! (I will leave out the bit about us studying Beth Moore this go around.)

Well, I am off to dinner with 6 women and 1 other guy so I should run!

Okay, Eddie. Is there some cosmic reason why the anti-spam word just “happens” to be “broad”?

my question is why r so many of the men who DO set off around the world on mission so weird;-)? it seems for some reason that this kind of work attracts a small number of men who tend to have rather extreme personalities…what do all the normal blokes do with their lives?

A question that has been apparent in overseas mission for a number of years. Is it because UK based men become involved in UK based ministry? UK women find few opportunities to serve/work in churches and so go overseas? Probably not, but perhaps there is some small truth there.

A VERY good website exists http://www.generationnext.org.uk/ which has asked this question and done a lot of research into the subject. I highly recommend you read and ponder what it has to say.

Same question from 20 years ago, when I was one of half a dozen single men at All Nations, alongside nearly 40 single women.

We reckoned:
a) there were more women in (UK / western) churches than men – still seems to be true, and obviously raises its own questions.
There was then some argument as to whether women were more sensitive to hear God speaking; you can imagine it was difficult to gain consensus on that! So then,
b) churches – especially evangelical ones, more likely to send people to WBT – have more “places” for men to serve in the UK, so tend to steer more men that way & more women “away”. That last part would be partly unconscious, through role models, and partly very concious & deliberate.
As one of our experienced single women missionary students said: racism; it’s OK for women to plant & lead churches oversees, but not to teach in them here. That still persists in some/many places.

And btw, my reason for not joining WBT as a single man? You wouldn’t have me! Perhaps God led through this, to ten enjoyable (& hopefully fruitful) years with The Leprosy Mission. Oh, and I was baptised at ABC in 1982 or 1983 – and have just started working in Southampton again.

A million reasons for this. I’m sure PhD papers have been written on this topic.

I just wish more men were willing to follow Jesus in a vocational sense.

You women often times make men look bad.

Eddie, it seems you have all the single men missionaries or wannabes among your readers. I was one too (and probably a weird one, Niffer, but Eddie can comment because he remembers me from when I was training), from 16 until 9 years ago. I can’t add much on why few go, but I could suggest why few stay on the field. The problem is that single men are usually loners. So it is hard to get them together as teams or partnerships, especially as the abundant single women are ruled out. So men like me tend to be sent out alone into situations with inadequate support. Then when things get tough they can’t cope and come home. That more or less happened to me, but by God’s grace I was able to continue work on the project from a distance until the end, which is now there apart from the printing and celebrations.

Delighted to report that we have seen more guys express interest in Wycliffe Engage summer teams this year – whoop!

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