As I’ve mentioned in a recent post, Patti and I love watching the home remodeling channel, HGTV. One of our favorite shows is Good Bones, where Mina Starsiak and her mom, Karen Lane, remodel dilapidated homes in the southeastern suburbs of Indianapolis.
At the beginning of each show Mina’s husky brother and his friends show up to help her and Karen demo whatever house it is they are remodeling. As they start tearing out walls, cabinets, and kitchen sinks, Mina often encourages everyone on by shouting, “Teamwork makes the dream work!”
Biblically speaking, Mina is exactly right. God almost always accomplishes his work through teams. Moses had his Aaron, David his Jonathan, Elijah his Elisha, Daniel his companions, Mary her Elizabeth, Jesus his disciples — whom he sent out “two by two” — and Paul his Timothy (and other “fellow workers.”)
A couple of times we do see men of God serving alone, such as Elijah when he confronted Ahab and Jezebel, and Paul when he was in deep legal trouble. Both of them felt overwhelmed by the opposition they faced (Elijah, “I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too;” Paul, “At my first defense, no one stood with me.”)
But while God sometimes uses us alone, his normal MO is teamwork.
And this brings me to men’s ministry. Again and again I see the effectiveness of accomplishing tasks by using teams of men. Whether it’s leadership, ministry execution, fellowship, or service, men are naturally built for team membership.
Teams of men have worked extremely well for New Commandment Men’s Ministries. We have many teams now that have been serving their care receivers for well over ten years. Teams provide consistency of ministry, fellowship and camaraderie, accountability, and ease of service.
If you’re not using teams of men in your men’s ministry, then your ministry is lacking a critical element, because teamwork truly does make the dream work.
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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