XY Boys: How to keep boys in Church

I’ve got this awesome party trick. I can hold both hands out in front of me and roll one hand in a clockwise direction and the other hand anti-clockwise, at the same time. Go on, try it.

I guarantee most of you will end up rotating your hands in the same direction. I’ve got a few other party tricks like this, all of which were developed around the time that my teacher in primary school tried to get me to write with my right hand. Yep, I’m a slightly ambidextrous left-hander, which brings with it the uncanny ability to swap hands while playing squash and rotate my hands in opposite directions. It also brought about the odd curse. Being a child of 1972, left-handedness was still in some circles something close to witchcraft. I was the last pupil in my class to be allowed to write with a pen (because I smudged everything) and even had a teacher laugh at me in the class because of my ‘crab hand’ style of writing. They tried to cure me, but as with Leonardo Da Vinci and Angelina Jolie, my left-handedness persisted.

Now of course, we would be horrified at the thought of a left-handed young boy being mocked and forced to write with his right hand. It would probably be hailed as a form of abuse and linked to behavioural problems and emotional trauma. But what if I told you that boys are being forced to go against their nature all the time in the educational system and that it was causing them to fall way behind in their achievements? And what if I told you that exactly the same thing was happening in the Church? I’m sure if I could prove it - there would be radical and corrective action, right?

Wrong.

The truth is that for some years now we have seen boys, and therefore men, steadily fall behind educationally and at the same time the gender gap grow in the UK Church between men and women. For the most part, our heads are in the sand. In fact, more than that, if anyone dares to suggest that boys and girls are different there is an outcry and claims of sexism and stereotyping.

Well, you heard it here, loud and clear: boys and girls are different. Not just physically, but in the way their brains work too. Let’s look at some facts first and then think about how this relates to Church, youth and children’s work - and all things to do with raising up Godly boys to become men of God. 

Boys and education

Figures from government tests show that by the age of seven, girls are already outperforming boys in reading and spelling. At 11, 76 per cent of girls achieve level four and above as opposed to 65 per cent of boys. By age 14, 17 per cent more girls than boys reach level five or above. The same thing fleshes itself out when it comes to exams. Over half of girls obtain five GCSEs at grade C or above while only 44 per cent of male pupils achieve the same. According to UCAS, this continues up to university level with a third more women opting to study for a degree than men.

So why is this? There’s a variety of views ranging from:

‘None of this is really true!’ (Denial)

‘It’s skewed figures!’ (Conspiracy theory)

‘But it’s just culture!’ (Can’t face the facts)

‘Here he goes again making a masculine case...’ (Wrong end of the stick)

‘You’re stereotyping boys and men…’ (No, I’m the one saying we’re not all the same)

Through to more thought-through responses such as:

The move away from exams to assessed course work. Experts in education and the brain (not theologians) hypothesise that girls are better organised, are more persistent and less easily discouraged.

Boys have more testosterone than girls and this spikes in puberty. This means that boys fidget and have more steam to blow off.

Boys’ fine-motor skills and cognitive skills develop later than girls’, so they lag behind girls throughout much of early school life, which has a massive knock-on effect later.

There’s now a greater emphasis on feelings, emotions and how we process our lives. Boys often want to burn stuff and play with sticks.

Michael Gurian, the best selling author of The Purpose of Boys and Boys and girls learn differently! has said that a generation of boys has been failed. In fact, I read an article once where he unashamedly proclaimed that, ‘We are truly in the decade of the girl.’ Provocative stuff - but worth thinking through.

Traditionally, men were expected to hunt, fight to protect the village and ultimately die if necessary in doing so. That’s why men were honoured, because they were expected to lay their lives down. That of course also gave them a use for their testosterone and bigger muscles and aggression. Now of course there is very little exclusive space for men and not much use for bigger muscles and aggression. In fact, aggression is seen as a redundant and essentially sinful characteristic (unless there’s an armed burglar in your house) and muscles are only good for undoing tight jam jars. As for male space, there’s the odd sexist golf club but for the most part men and women are increasingly occupying the same territory. Women will soon be allowed to be front line combat soldiers, for example, and I suspect that within a generation or two in the fields of medicine and education there will be more women than men. In fact, when it comes to teaching, there are already four times as many women teaching in primary schools than men. Sure - more men are in senior posts but at the current rate that simply won’t continue. The same is true in the Church. The CofE ordained more women than men in 2010 for the first time. To put it frankly, it’s just as  well that the Synod voted in favour of women Bishops, because by about 2025 there won’t be many men available to fill all the Bishop vacancies. Now hear me correctly: I’m cheering women on. I’ve got two daughters and I don’t want them to ever feel excluded from an opportunity because of their gender. I want to see women flourishing at every level. But at the same time, I don’t want boys to feel redundant and purposeless, ultimately becoming ineffective, lazy and good-for-nothing.  I don’t want boys to feel redundant and purposeless, ultimately becoming ineffective, lazy and good-for-nothing 

Boys and the Church

Perhaps it would be good at this point to ask some questions about your youth and children’s work.

What is the predominant activity in the Sunday school under the age of 12? Is it colouring in, songs and craft? Remember, boys’ fine motor skills develop later than girls’.

What is the ratio of male to female leaders?

Have the boys got strong male role models at every stage of the youth work?

What values do you hold most dearly? Is there time given to competition, risk and challenge?

Do you acknowledge that boys and girls are different or are they engaged with in exactly the same way?

Do you give the boys a chance to blow off steam?

When boys fidget or look inattentive do you blame them or critique just how engaging you are being?

Do you make the boys sit still when every chemical in their body is telling them to fidget every few minutes or so? Do you cater for that?

Consider the following. In the box below are two columns. Which column do you think more accurately describes the culture of your youth work?

Now, the left hand list certainly contains gospel values. Some people might contend that they are more female sounding, but I think that is incorrect. We want both boys and girls to embrace those characteristics. They’re certainly biblical! However, what about the right hand list? That’s also biblical isn’t it? Think Nehemiah, Acts of the Apostles, Exodus, the Gospels...I could go on! So why doesn’t Church and youth work more actively embrace the right hand list? If boys and men have more testosterone then it might just be that they would instinctively embrace the right hand list. Following that, if attention is given to the right hand list they will be more accommodating when you’re trying to communicate left hand list values. If you only work towards the left hand list then you’ll get imbalance and frustration. As an aside, girls like right hand list stuff too. Spend half an hour with my daughters and you’ll see that!

THE CONSEQUENCE

If it is true that boys are failing and that men leave the Church at a faster rate than women then it should consume a fair bit of our thinking. Why? Well it will result in less men hearing about Jesus Christ and will result in a catastrophic gender imbalance in the Church. For one thing, Christian marriage will become a thing of the past because there won’t be any Christian men in the Church for Christian women to marry. If you think I’m overstating the point, talk to the Christian dating agencies which have been in touch with us at CVM because there aren’t enough men on their contact lists. And talk to the single women who regularly contact us to cheer us on because there aren’t enough men in the Church. If we don’t get to grips with this, the knock-on effect will be catastrophic and extremely painful.

I’m not calling for something shallow and aggressive when it comes to youth work. Far from it. At events we run there are certainly sports and bonfires, cars and axe throwing. But there’s also heart-felt worship, prayer and Bible study. Many men have come to faith at events where we blend these things because we haven’t over-romanticised the message or the culture. I think you can do the same in your youth and children’s work.

One appeal I would make is for men to step up and get engaged in children’s work. In a culture where there is no effective rite of passage into manhood we really do need men engaged at every age group in Church life. I would love to see more men feeling accepted in leading crèche, toddler groups, and helping in Sunday school. I would commend to you initiatives such as ‘Who Let The Dads Out’ which gets men together with their children in a toddler group setting. It’s UK-wide and very evangelistic. Check it out. Also take a look at a resource called ‘Man Made’, a DVD put together by a number of agencies to help mentor boys into becoming men of God.

I suspect that you won’t agree with everything I’ve said and that’s fine. But let’s not get stuck in the theory and philosophy of it all. Let’s have a go at making some changes. As you rotate one hand one way and one hand the other (or get frustrated trying), remember those lads out there who might not fit in with action songs, colouring in and listening to stories. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll unleash in them something extraordinary