Yesterday, a pastor on the west coast with a successful, years-long men’s team ministry called me with a question. He said three families in his church had asked if they could serve a widow or single parent as individual families. He asked me if I knew of any churches that had done this.
I told him that I hadn’t heard of any but that it was an interesting idea. Certainly God is pleased when anyone serves a widow or single parent.
On the positive side, an entire family to spending time serving someone in their church or community in need on a monthly basis is a great bonding opportunity. Parents could capitalize on all kinds of teaching opportunities with their children. It would also be an intergenerational ministry, which is often missing in churches. (Check out Dr. Chuck Stecker’s website, A Chosen Generation, for ideas on how to encourage intergenerational ministry in your church.) And widows and single moms would benefit socially and spiritually from a family ministering to them.
On the negative side, it would be difficult to maintain consistent ministry over years if you assign only one family to a care receiver. When the family goes out of town on vacation, or has conflicting commitments, their service may become spotty. And if you assign two or more families to a care receiver, you may have too many children running around needing attention to be of much service to the care receiver.
Also, if families attend the prayer and Bible study time at the church prior to the service time, then suddenly you change the entire character of the ministry. It’s no longer a ministry to men and through men, it’s a ministry to families and through families, which will have a very different feel to it. Men’s issues, per se, will not be addressed, an important consideration if your church has no other regular men’s ministry events.
As I’ve thought about this issue, one possible way to utilize the strengths of whole families ministering to widows and single parents while at the same time maintain the male-centric focus of the ministry is to have men only meet for the prayer and Bible study time prior to going out to serve their care receiver, and then have the families join their husbands/fathers at their care receiver’s home. You could also assign a couple of men to serve with each family on its team. This way you can achieve the consistency we want to demonstrate on a monthly and yearly basis when the family can’t be present for a service day.
What are your thoughts? Do you have any families serving their widowed and single parents in your church? What other ways has your church modified the “model”?
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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