Men’s Team Ministry: Field Tested, Peer Reviewed

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“Why don’t you just write a book?”

That was my wife’s response when I first started talking about starting New Commandment Men’s Ministries.

“Because I don’t want to write about what I just think is a great idea,” I responded. “I want to prove the value of men’s team ministry to their widowed and single parents in a broad context by recruiting hundreds of actual churches to implement it successfully. I want to speak from that kind of experience.”

Actually, at the time I had that conversation with Patti, I already could speak from some experience. I had used teams of men to minister to their widowed and single parents in two pastorates, one in Illinois and one in Colorado. Both were successful. But I needed more. I needed a wide variety of churches from different geographical regions, demographics, denominations, ethnicities and sizes for me to commend it to the church as a whole.

So that is what I set out to do. It’s been a lot of hard work, as well as expensive (It’s cost about $600,000). But fourteen years later, we’ve been able to help almost 1,000 churches begin men’s team ministries to their widowed and single parents. These churches are in every state except Delaware (Pray for Delaware!), nine foreign countries, dozens of denominations, and range in size from small (less than 50) to large (more than 50,000). There are now about 20,000 men serving about 7,000 widowed and single parents. Those men donate 400,000 hours of service every year.

I can now speak with some authority when I say that men’s team ministry is an effective way to meet the long term needs of a church’s widowed and single parents.

But there has also been a side benefit to field testing men’s team ministry over the years: it’s given other men’s ministry leaders, laymen, pastors, seminary professors and heads of denominations an opportunity to observe it. The response has been universally positive. I have yet to receive a single negative review.

In addition, some national men’s ministries have included men’s team ministry as part of their training. More than one denomination has publicly endorsed the ministry. Multiple authors have written books on men’s ministry that reference New Commandment. And national Christian media have produced articles and broadcasts on the topic.

Simple, easy, Biblical, effective…and now field tested and peer reviewed. Isn’t it time you started a men’s team ministry to their widowed and single parents in your church? They’ll thank you for it.

Check out our website for the resources you need to start your own 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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