Maintaining Boundaries in Your Men’s Team Ministry

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He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Matthew 15:24

These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.” Matthew 10:5-6

Several years ago, a widow and her adult daughter, who was living with her, contacted Patti and me. They said they were being evicted from their apartment and had nowhere to go. Of course, Patti and I both felt the need to take them on and find them some temporary housing.

But what we didn’t realize until it was too late was that they both had severe mental and emotional problems. After getting them into their temporary housing, we located an ideal permanent location for them, but the widow and her daughter refused to move. The entire situation wound up in court and my wife and I were out over $2,000.

The lesson we learned was that we had gotten in way beyond our depth and we needed to refocus our efforts on the actual ministry God called us to do: helping churches recruit teams of men to serve their widowed and single parents.

Knowing the boundaries for our God-given ministries is critical to fulfilling them. Jesus himself had a boundary for his ministry. His boundary was the “lost sheep of Israel.” Yes, he did make an exception for the Canaanite woman. But his primary focus was “the house of Israel.”

The goal of men’s team ministry is to demonstrate the efficacy of the love of Christ in meeting the long term needs of their widowed and single parents (and others, such as the disabled) in churches.

Why? Because as believers we are in a covenant relationship with each other and, therefore, we have a responsibility toward each other to meet these needs. But in order to accomplish this, we have to observe two important boundaries.

The Boundary of Meeting Long Term Needs

Meeting the needs of their widowed and single parents over years and even decades requires discernment and focus. Discerning between pressing and non-pressing needs and focusing on the long term needs of care receivers maintains the integrity of the ministry and guarantees the well-being of our widowed and single parents.

The Boundary of Church Membership or Church Participation

Men’s team ministry focuses primarily on obedience to our New Covenant relationship with other believers. Thus, while we make exceptions for their widowed and single parents outside the church, we give priority to believers within the church. “Let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.” Galatians 6:10

In other words, “the poor we will always have with us” in the general population. But in the church there is to be “no needy person among us.” Keeping our boundaries in mind will help us accomplish this important goal.

This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.

Since 2003 New Commandment Men’s Ministries has helped hundreds of churches throughout North American and around the world recruit teams of men who permanently adopt their widowed and single parents in their congregations for the purpose of donating two hours of service to them one Saturday morning each month. We accomplish this with a free training site called New Commandment Men’s Ministry

Learn how to mobilize your men’s ministry to meet every pressing need in your church here.

 

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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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