Men’s Team Ministry is a Pragmatic Way to Express the Love of Christ
I speak and write a lot about men’s team ministry. But I don’t want to give the impression that I am locked into using teams of men to serve their widowed and single parents for all of time and eternity.
Men’s team ministry is just a pragmatic way to achieve a more fundamental, biblical goal: expressing the love of Christ to people in our churches and communities with long term needs. Using teams of men to do this simply happens to be an effective way to accomplish this goal in our particular culture.
Modern American Culture is Vastly Different from New Testament Culture
If one were to take believers in New Testament times and somehow transport them into modern American culture, they would be shocked on many different levels. For example, they would be amazed at our general affluence. Even people living in poverty in our culture have amenities not available to the richest of the rich in NT times: fruit in the winter, running water, flushing toilets, television, radio, electric lights, stoves, refrigerators, public transportation and on and on.
But they would also be surprised at something else: how impersonal our culture is. Most people in the first century AD lived in smaller towns. Even larger cities had populations of only 25,000 to 50,000.
In New Testament Times People Saw Each Other Spontaneously Every Day
Life in these towns and cities was very compact and pedestrian. People spent most of their time outdoors, much of the time walking to get somewhere. They walked to purchase their daily groceries. They walked to get their water. They walked to wash their clothes. They walked to use the latrine. And as they walked, they talked. They talked with their friends, neighbors, the grocer, the butcher, the shoemaker. They talked with everyone. They may have been physically poor. But they were socially rich.
In Contrast, American Culture is Socially Barren
But in America, these imaginary Christian time travelers would be struck with how socially barren our culture is. They would see that the majority of people in the US now live alone in homes, often not even knowing the names of their neighbors next door. They would observe people commuting to work, oblivious to the people next to them at the stoplight. And they would be shocked as they saw modern people watch the local news on TV about murders and robberies in their town and not even blink an eye.
The Church Must Compensate for Our Individualistic and Impersonal Culture
Over the last few decades, the American church adapted to this growing impersonal nature of our culture by implementing home groups. Normally comprised of 8-20 adults, these smaller groups of Christians meet in homes on a weekly basis for fellowship and encouragement, then join together on Sunday with other home groups for worship and instruction. This form of “intentional community,” as it is sometimes called, has grown rapidly in churches throughout America.
The Needs of Widows and Single Moms Must be Met “Intentionally” Over Time
In the same way, men’s team ministry is an adaptation by the church to America’s impersonal culture. The widowed and single parents have long term needs that, in some cases, last for decades. These needs cannot be met spontaneously in our culture, as they often were in New Testament times. There simply is not enough spontaneous social interaction to do that.
Instead, they need to be met “intentionally.” A plan has to be formulated and carried out over a period of years and decades that provides enough social interaction to form a context for the love of Christ. To last that long, the plan has to be simple and effective. Men’s team ministry to their widowed and single parents has proven to be an example of a simple and effective plan that works in our particular culture.
Check out my free online training: How to Start a Men’s Team Ministry.
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
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Learn how to form teams of men for every widow, single mom
and fatherless child in your church at NewCommandment.org.
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