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Maybe your church is a little like mine. We've been pretty good at running ministries for kids (Sunday school, clubs, youth group) and for women (ladies fellowship, MOM's), but we didn't do anything that was geared for men. This bothered me for a long time, so a friend and I started praying for a ministry to men at Forest Grove Community Church.
It was our prayer for two years before anything happened. We prayed that God would move in a powerful way in our church through the lives of men. We prayed that marriages would be saved, strengthened and protected. We prayed that the church would be blessed and that God's kingdom would be built up through this ministry. And we prayed for leaders. Sometimes when God gives us a burden, I guess He wants us to do something about it. So, two years ago, two buddies and I stepped out in faith to begin leading a men's ministry.
And God showed His power! The ministry is growing. Here's what we found that works:
Prayer. This ministry, as any other, needs to be supported by prayer. Prayer must be on the agenda of every committee meeting. Each leader must regularly pray for the ministry. A prayer support team needs to be in place as well. Ours is called the T.G.I.F. (Thank God It’s Friday!) team. We've asked them to pray one day per week (how about Friday?) for the needs of the ministry. Prayer requests are relayed to them with a monthly prayer bulletin.
Persons to lead. Like any other ministry, nothing is likely to happen without a key man to make this ministry his main priority. He needs a burden and a vision for what God wants to do. The key man needs a team of leaders around him who have caught the vision and made it their own. We've got a terrific team of eight guys, including one of our pastors. Each committee member has a specific job, such as finances/ticket sales; food and clean-up; equipment needs and set-up; music and worship; and small group contact and support.
Passion. Without passion, it's unlikely that any ministry will have success. Church, and life in general, are too busy for activities that we're not really excited about. Don't expect excitement or commitment without passionate leadership.
Purpose. What are you trying to accomplish? Be clear. Our mission statement says: "To unite the men of our church for the purposes of encouragement, strengthening relationships, and equipping men to be godly influences in their families, workplaces, church and community."
Priorities. We've learned that you can't do it all at once. It takes time to build a ministry. Determine what your priorities are and work at those. As much as we'd like to do a weekend retreat or a seminar teaching weekend, we don't believe that our group is ready for them yet. Right now our priorities are: promotion of small groups; relaxed, fun events to draw guys together; challenging teaching times at breakfasts and other events.
Planning. Planning needs to be done as a team. At Forest Grove Men's Ministry, we meet as an executive of three to do the basic planning of events. Then the rest of the committee meets with us to fine-tune the plans and assign the work. We've learned that planning events on a month-by-month basis doesn't work. You need to plan several months in advance in order to adequately prepare for and promote events.
Promotion. A one-line bulletin announcement doesn't get much response in our church. We use pulpit announcements, skits, posters, a telephone calling tree, foyer theatrics and more to promote our events. It works. Our Chili, Crokinole and Rook Night drew 65 guys from seniors to college age. A breakfast will draw 80-100 men. Our recent Dad and Daughter Night (bowling and ice cream) attracted over 100 people, with daughters from age 4 to 25. One of our best communicators is a business card-sized calendar of events.
Production. Men like to do something productive. That's why you can get them together to do maintenance work for single moms or seniors in the church. But you may need to be creative. Our work day this May is being cleverly disguised as "Six-Ten Day". Its from Galatians 6:10. We'd rather pique their curiosity than scare them off with a dull name like "work day".
Don't think that we're experts in this ministry. We just have to be dependent on God in this thing. The experience we've gained over the last few years has taught us much. We look forward to seeing what God does in the future.
Rob Neufeld is a member of Forest Grove Community Church in Saskatoon. This article was originally published in Ideabank, newsletter of Canadian MB Conference Christian Education Ministries.
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