Mobilize Your Men to Meet Every Pressing Need in Your Church

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(Note: This post is an outline of a men’s ministry workshop I’ve done at men’s conferences around the country for many years. The title of the workshop is “Mobilize Your Men to Meet the Needs Spectrum in Your Church.” You can listen to it here.)

As believers, we are commanded to meet every pressing need in our church.

“Let our people learn to engage in good deeds, to meet pressing needs, that they may not be unfruitful.” Titus 3:14

The first thing we need to do in meeting pressing needs is…

Distinguish between pressing needs and non-pressing needs.

Non-pressing needs are requests for help from the church where people are simply trying to save money on labor. Most requests for help with moving fall into this category. These types of requests need to be referred out. If the church doesn’t refer out requests for help with non-pressing needs, it will waste its volunteer resources.

But there are genuine pressing needs in the church. Here is one way to…

Categorize pressing needs.

1. Emergency special project requests.

Emergency special project requests involve situations where there is immediate danger to life or property.

2. Long term needs.

Long term needs relate to people whose normal social relationships have been severed, such as the widowed, single parents, and fatherless (or motherless) children. Long term needs can also refer to the disabled.

3. Catastrophic long term needs.

Catastrophic long term needs refer to situations where someone suffers a catastrophe resulting in total dependence. An example would be children whose parents have died.

So these are three ways (but not necessarily the only ways) to categorize pressing needs. Now we need to…

Develop a workable strategy.

1. Use your men.

Men are often an underutilized resource in the local church and they love to serve.

2. Train them in the love of Christ for relational ministry and not just project ministry.

“The goal of our instruction is love, from a pure heart, and a clear conscience and a sincere faith,” 1 Timothy 1:5. We are not just to serve our fellow believers, we are to serve them in love.

3. Focus on your long term needs first.

The widowed and single parents in your church need relational ministry, not just project ministry.

4. Provide a simple, practical model that will last for years.

Here’s a basic men’s team ministry model that has been used throughout the country in over 900 churches:

• Three hours, one Saturday morning a month.
• Teams of four men.
• Each team is permanently assigned to a widow, widower or single parent.
• The teams meet at 7 am at their church on the service day for prayer and Bible study.
• At 8 am, they split up and go to the home of their care receiver to do chores around their home.
• They end at 10 am with prayer.
• They return every month to the same person for long term ministry that lasts for years.

In this way, the men of your church are providing consistent, long term relational ministry to their widowed and single parents in your church and building relationships among themselves.

5. After you meet your long term needs, start addressing your emergency special project requests.

Ask your teams to be on call each month, one team per month, on a rotating basis. The on call team is responsible for responding to emergency special project requests that come into the church office.

6. Use the lessons you have learned as a church in meeting these first two types of needs to address catastrophic situations when they happen.

As the church learns to trust God in addressing its long term needs and emergency needs, it also learns to trust God to meet any catastrophic needs that occur. “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that at all times, in every way, you will have all that you need for every good work,” 2 Corinthians 9:8.

Go to NewCommandment.org/resources to start meeting the pressing needs in your church.

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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