The goal of a men’s team ministry orientation is to recruit teams of men. So the process of forming teams at the end of your orientation is critical.
Don’t obsess over forming your teams
But while forming teams is the goal of your orientation, you don’t have to get obsessive about it. For example, I know of some churches that have gone to great lengths to make sure each team has a “handy man” – i.e., a man skilled at doing home repairs – on it. While that would be nice, for the most part, it’s not necessary.
The reason you don’t need to worry about having a handy man on each team is because almost all of the work the teams will be doing won’t require any particular skill. Most chores will almost always involve yard work and minor home repairs.
Men with special skills can be “borrowed” from other teams
When the team encounters more involved projects that require particular skills it doesn’t have, they can “borrow” someone with the appropriate skill from another team. Or they can contract the work out. In that case, the team would take on the responsibility of getting bids and seeing that the work is done properly.
Form your teams during the orientation break
The orientation video provides an opportunity for men to form teams during a break in the orientation. At the break, we ask men to decide if they want to commit to the ministry. Then we ask these men to stay and allow the other men to leave. During the break we simply ask the men who are committing to the ministry to form their own teams of four. We find that allowing men to form their own teams, instead of arbitrarily assigning men to teams, adds to the longevity of the teams.
When you form your teams, be sure to make a record of each team member and his contact information. Then email a roster of the teams, along with their respective care receivers, to the team members. (I’ve written about recruiting and assigning care receivers in other posts.)
In this way, by the end of the orientation, you will know how many teams you have, who is on what team, and the contact information of each team member. This information will tell you how many care receivers you can recruit and will prepare you for your first service day the following month.
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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