Who would make the coffee? LOL

"Man Church is church the way a man expects it to be done."

Hmmm... How about "doing church" the way *GOD* expects it to be done, instead of how the latest "target market" *du jour* thinks it should be done, which, more often than not, results in the watering down and trivialization of Christianity -- to even the most absurd and carnival sideshow levels?

"In Christ, there is no difference between Jew and Greek, slave and free person, male and female. You are all the same in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28) Some Christians are males, some are female, all are human. Deal with it. Interact.

And just what is a "definite manly focus"? Tossing Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, with its turning the other cheek and praying for those who curse you, because that doesn't square with the "kick butt and take names later" macho ethos our culture pushes as genuine masculinity?

It just gets "curiouser and curiouser" out there on the religious marketplace... Not to mention more ludicrous.

Gregory Orloff

Men don't sing? In Manchester before a ManU vs. Glasgow, the pubs were jammed with men singing, mostly sitting outdoors- music conversations, competitions, pub v. pub etc. We sing in church because people sing - except in consumerist culture where people say "I can't sing" or "I don't sing," or...where 'non-singing' men are caught in the musical version of performance anxiety. Is that manly?

So, maybe before we pull the hymnal out of the pew rack, we all need to pour ourselves a pint.

Matthew, that would surely improve the congregational singing, but we choristers will probably continue to wait until after the service to imbibe (our inhibitions are already loose enough, and alcohol really isn't very good for the voice) :-)

Matthew,

You may enjoy recalling this earlier advocate for pulling ourselves a pint and lifting male voices in song, William Blake-

Dear mother, dear mother, the church is cold,
But the ale-house is healthy and pleasant and warm;
Besides I can tell where I am used well,
Such usage in Heaven will never do well.

But if at the church they would give us some ale,
And a pleasant fire our souls to regale,
We'd sing and we'd pray all the live-long day,
Nor ever once wish from the church to stray.

Then the parson might preach, and drink, and sing,
And we'd be as happy as birds in the spring;
And modest Dame Lurch, who is always at church,
Would not have bandy children, nor fasting, nor birch.

And God, like a father rejoicing to see
His children as pleasant and happy as he,
Would have no more quarrel with the Devil or the barrel,
But kiss him, and give him both drink and apparel.

Precisely, Presbyter Donald. The insulting thing about this "Man Church" marketing gimmick is that it presumes men are, by nature, incurious Neanderthals who don't *want* to sing, hear a good sermon or delve deeply into questions of God and our relationship with him -- all the things I want out of going to church, and can't find anywhere else in our secular culture! It's a "selling point" based on a very shallow idea of what men are, and what constitutes manhood and manliness.

Gregory Orloff