When I first began New Commandment Men’s Ministries fifteen years ago I had two primary concerns: safety and improper relationships.
With regard to safety, the idea of thousands of volunteer men doing handyman projects in hundreds and hundreds of homes conjured up images in my mind of men with broken limbs and missing fingers, not to mention all kinds of liability issues. I’ve dealt with the problem of liability in this post. But I still had the nagging question of whether anyone has actually been injured. That’s why a couple of weeks ago I surveyed you, my readers (about 6,000 of you), many of whom have been involved in men’s team ministry for several years, and discovered to my surprise that to date no one has hurt themselves! Of course, this could change any week, but I believe the Lord has had his hand of protection on us.
Besides safety, improper relationships was another area of concern. We would be sending men into the homes of (mostly) women, not just once, but on a monthly basis for years. Wouldn’t this create situations that could easily lead to immoral behavior? But I reviewed scriptural teaching, where we have clear examples of men serving the widowed and single mothers (John 19:25-27; Acts 6:1-6). I also built into the training an emphasis on team ministry and having a policy of no man going to the home of a care receiver alone.
To date, the team ministry concept and the policy emphasis seem to be working. I haven’t had any reports of improper relationships developing. But then, I have never surveyed churches and actually asked whether improper relationships have been a problem.
So now I want to ask specifically, has your church experienced a problem with its men’s team ministry in this area? If so, let me know by replying to this email. Please do not leave comments in the comment section so no one will be embarrassed.?Your honest and frank emails will be of great help to me.
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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