Why we don't need men's groups

I had a lot of extra time yesterday, waiting for students to pick up their portfolios, so I did some reading about loneliness in America. One article claims that loneliness is contagious, like the flu. Lonely people, it says, tend to make others feel lonely, then cut ties with the group—and the process continues as the newly "infected" people make others feel lonely, then leave too. It's like a sweater unraveling. Another article points out that one in four American homes is a single-person dwelling, and that over a twenty-year period, the average number of people the average American discusses "important matters" with dropped from three to two, while a quarter of all Americans have nobody at all to discuss "important matters" with.

But what has all this to do with Grace Fellowship Church? Nothing much, I'd say.

We don't see the phenomenon of grumpy people spreading toxic emotions, then dropping off the edge of the group, do we?

Which brings me to men's groups and to social events in general. Years ago, lonely farmers and their wives yearned for social interaction, so they would go to church, organize potluck dinners, get a Grange going, have square dances, and so forth. If you think of 19th century farmers, you frequently come up with group ideas: barn-raisings, quilting bees, and the group of men who gather on the courthouse steps in Millersburg to simply talk. My uncle, who has lived all his long life in a small town near Wooster, gets up every morning to have breakfast at 6 a.m. with the same gang of cronies he's eaten with for four decades.

We do very few of those things (and we always feel awkward when we try) because we simply don't need them. For years, GFC was taught (sort of informally and quietly) that friendship bonds between men were only appropriate for those who weren't married yet; a married man was to shun all of his former connections because his wife needs 100% of his attention. Do you need to talk with someone about your future plans or job fears? You've got a wife. Is sexual temptation an issue? Talk with your wife. Would you like to just kick back and tell a couple of jokes? You've got a wife. Not only does nearly every man over 25 years old have a wife to talk with, but nearly every important person in the church has other peer groupings. The elders have other elders. The music ministry people have other music ministry people. Not only that, but many of the men in the church have started their own businesses and work with other Christian men.

The needs of men in this church—at least the men who count—are already taken care of. No need for men's groups.

Now, I'm somewhat at a loss to explain why women need groups. They always seem to have something going: retreats, prayer groups, worship meetings, and so forth. Maybe the answer to my question is sort of graphical. Imagine an old-fashioned wagon wheel, minus the rim. Just the hub and the spokes. The women are the cohesive hub, tightly bonded together, caring for one another's needs. Each woman has a spoke attached: her husband. There's no rim, so the husbands don't have any natural association with one another, but that's OK because they have their wives. And that's the picture of the church.

I'm having trouble fitting the single men into this model, but maybe that's OK because there aren't many at all (three or four over 25 years old), so the majority of the men's needs in the church really are being met. As I read back over the article by the two psychiatrists in the Utne Reader, though, I keep hitting quotations that resonate and I'm not too sure what to do with them:

We treat socializing as if it’s a frivolous diversion from the tasks at hand rather than an activity that is essential to our well-being as individuals and as a community.

Parents who don’t have relatives or friends to help them gain perspective on their offspring are more likely to over-scrutinize the strange, quirky symptoms that are part of normal childhood development and to start wondering if their child will grow up to be a strange, quirky, and abnormal adult.

Loneliness was never the goal. It’s just the spot where too many people wind up. We get stuck because the world we have wandered away from is so frantic and demanding. We get stuck because we have dreamed about lonesome heroes who stand defiantly apart. We get stuck because we feel left out and stop looking for ways back in. We should remember that the outside was not meant to be our final destination.