How I’ve Tinkered with the Men’s Team Ministry Model Over the Years

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The men’s team ministry model is just that, a model

In my seminar on men’s team ministry to the widowed and single parents–which I’ve done probably 200+ times–when I get to the place where I describe the actual men’s team ministry model, I always emphasize that it’s just a model and every church is welcome to modify it according to their needs.

The model that I then describe, for those who are not familiar with it, is as follows:

• Men are formed into teams of four.
• The teams are permanently assigned to someone with a long term need, such as a widow or single mom.
• The men donate three hours of time one Saturday morning a month.
• On that Saturday morning, all the teams meet together at their church at 7 AM for prayer, bible study and last minute planning
• Then at 8 they split up and go to the home of their care receiver.
• They work at the home of their care receiver until 10.
• At the end of their work, they spend some time in prayer.
• Each month the team returns to the same care receiver, for years long ministry.

What I want to do now is explain how I originally arrived at that model and then describe some of the changes I have made to it at the church I currently attend.

The original men’s team ministry

Men’s team ministry began around 1992 in a small church in Lincoln, Nebraska. Grace Community was a church of 220, with 70 men and a large group of widowed, divorced, single and abandoned women.

Co-Pastors Rico Kotrous and Stan Schrag met this need by forming teams of 8-11 men and assigning the teams to 3-5 women in the church who then did home and car repairs for them. The men’s ministry proved to be so successful, with almost 100% of the men in the church participating, that it was listed as an example of a model men’s ministry in a Promise Keepers publication entitled, “Focusing Your Men’s Ministry: A Strategy for Layleaders and Pastors” (pp. 46-48).

My first adaptation of that original men’s team ministry

As a pastor who was struggling with and praying about how to better minister to their widowed and single parents in my church, I happened to pick up PK’s publication at a PK stadium event in Indianapolis in 1996. When I came across the description of the men’s ministry at Grace Community Church, I immediately realized I could apply it to their widowed and single parents in my own church.

But I made some major modifications. I formed smaller teams of 4 men each. Each team was assigned to only one care receiver instead of several. The teams met every Saturday morning, alternating service in the home of their care receiver one week with prayer and Bible study the next. In this way, we were able to cover everyone in the church who needed and wanted a team.

This model worked well in the small town setting of Quincy, Illinois, because time was not as much of a factor for the men as it is in major metropolitan areas. This was due to the fact that their daily commutes to work were very short, usually only 5 to ten minutes each way.

My second adaptation to a more time-sensitive model

My next church was in a large metropolitan region just outside of Denver, Colorado. Broomfield is a growing bedroom community and the men in my church had much longer commutes to work, making their time extremely valuable.

I knew I had to lower my expectations if we were going to initiate a viable men’s team ministry in the church. So I reduced the frequency of our meetings to one Saturday a month and combined the Bible study with the service time by meeting at 7 am for an hour of Bible study and prayer and then working in the homes from 8-10. Again, we were able to cover everyone in the church who needed and wanted a team.

This iteration of the model became the standard model that I present in my seminars.

My ongoing changes to the model

As I’ve mentioned above, I encourage churches to first implement the model as is and then adapt the model over time to their own needs. In my own church, for ten years I kept closely to the model I present in my seminars. But over the last four years I’ve made some changes. Here’s how that process of adaptation has happened at Crossroads Church in Northglenn, Colorado.

I began to notice that, despite my exhortations not to do it, some men were skipping the first hour and going directly to their care receiver’s home at 8 am. As I analyzed the situation, I realized this was happening for several reasons.

• First, men use the weekend to catch up on their sleep. Asking men to show up at 7 am on Saturday is asking them to get up earlier than they normally would to go to work. So not only are they not able to catch up on their sleep, they actually get less sleep than they do during the week!
• Second, over the course of 10 years, these men had been given over 100 Bible studies on the importance of serving the widowed and single parents. Obviously, they had been saturated, maybe even brainwashed!
• Third, they had other ways of getting their spiritual input at church: through the church service, small groups, men’s breakfasts, special events, etc.

So I knew I had to make some changes. The first thing I tried was meeting for prayer and Bible study at 7 am once a quarter, and the other months the teams went directly to their care receiver at 8 am.

That didn’t work.

So then I tried having the men meet at 7:30 am once a quarter.

That didn’t work.

So now I’ve made a third change and this seems to be working.

I have all the teams meet at their care receiver’s home from 8 to 10 am one Saturday a month, with the exception that every month I ask one team to meet with me personally for breakfast (usually at a McDonalds) at 7 am. I review in depth with them how their care receiver is doing and how their team is doing. I also review some of the biblical principles guiding our ministry. In this way I’m rotating through the teams about once every 16 months. (We have 16 teams at Crossroads.)

This post originally 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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