Quitting Church: The exodus of single people and men (NOT HERE FOR THAT ONE) and Blind Followers

The exodus of single people and men

I'm a single woman who is NOT in her 20’s and apparently my demographic along with men are out the door. If there are no single men,  single women are a lot more likely to look elsewhere for mates.  It’s like we’re Killing two birds with one stone!

From Quitting church:

Men and singles have abandoned the church in large numbers because they are fed up with their needs never being addressed. singles are the largest demographic among the unchurched. A Third group, working moms is about to join them.

As a single who wants to get married I had a suspicion that I didn't want to marry a fundamentalist Christian man. As with everything in life I had to experience it first hand and it was everything I thought it would be.

It was everything I did not want in a man or a relationship.

To make matters worse, when I was in my 20’s and 30’s I hardly ever saw men I would be attracted to in church. I would try because it seemed like the right thing to do but no.

I've observed this and I've talked to others about it but: Why were There hardly any attractive single men in church if you were over 22?

You could forget it if you were in your 30’s and single If you missed the boat in your 20’s, then your chances were very slim.  You may have gotten lucky if a guy had a starter marriage that didn’t work out and was now divorced, but then you could get into trouble over the divorce and remarriage issue.

The Attractive Ones Didn't marry church girls

What happened to all the young men that were at the youth events that everyone had crushes on?  Where were they?  Most had left the church in their 20’s and the ones that remained...:Let’s put it like this: The most desirable ones that remained tended not to marry single women from church.

All the preaching to young women remaining pure because it would make them attractive to Christian husbands turned out to be lies because those young men were never taught that they too, should be pure and marry in honor as well.  

On my feminist soapbox for a moment: Women shouldn't be doing that anyway. If they choose to remain abstinent, then both men and women should choose to make the decision to abstain from sex outside of marriage for their own personal convictions whether it is to be obedient to God and to marry in honor. It really shouldn't have anything to do with trying to be attractive to another person.

What i've noticed is that some of these hardcore “christian” guys go out and find women that either can further their social positions (whether they are Christian or not) or they go out on rescue missions to find some poor wayfaring woman that they can redeem and save.

These women who remained Virgins are left on the pews single and waiting for Godot wondering what is wrong with them and then they get bogged down in the forever alone mindset. Either that or they do the same thing as the guys and go out trying to rescue a man often with disastrous results.

I came to the conclusion that my husband has to have strong faith but I don't care if he attends church or not because quite honestly I like alpha males. I like leaders.  I don't see too many alpha male leaders  in church. The ones that I thought were the most attractive and desirable quit church early on. My Observations have merit because there's a book entitled why men hate going to church.

People shouldn't attend church to hook up with people but there's something wrong if marriages and families are not happening within the church. Otherwise what will happen when the older folks die off? There's also a problem if there are no single and vibrant people in a church. It will be lacking a certain energy and be filled with hopelessness.

There's also a problem if there's no alpha male leaders. If the men are passive, weak, and not seen as leaders then very little will get done and the respect factor goes down to zero. Like attract like. Passive and weak leaders attract Passive and weak blind followers which is also an issue.

Blind Followers

From Seth Godin’s book Tribes: 

it is a mistake to believe that the best recruits are blind sheep
These people are too busy following the playbook to do any leading or take the inactive. They will not contribute to local leadership
These people will also not recruit any new members because evangelizing people requires leadership.

To add my own two cents evangelism also requires conviction. Maybe this is part of the issue with church. There's not enough conviction on the part of the members or leadership to really be risky and go against the status quo. That's part of my issue with most churches. It's all about preserving what was and the status quo rather than what is and taking new risks

I have been in churches where people are blind sheep and Seth Godin is right. They don't recruit anyone and I have always believed it was because unconsciously they knew something was wrong but they were too scared to leave. I knew that was the case for me. I have stated on record that I used to attend a church I would never bring a friend to but I went because I didn't want to go through the uncomfortable process of leaving

Unfortunately I have been in churches where the preacher could shoot members of the congregation or say outrageous things and the people would still go because they were blindly following without doing any introspection. These church members and leaders have zero impact outside of their church and aren't effective.