It may sound audacious to talk about ten year goals for your church’s men’s ministry. Most church men’s ministries would be thrilled to keep going for two or three years. But by New Commandment Men’s Ministry standards, ten years is itself a brief length of time.
We minister to care receivers whose needs can extend well beyond ten, twenty, or even thirty years. So for us, thinking in this kind of time frame is natural.
But of course, men’s team ministry to their widowed and single parents is just part of the total men’s ministry picture. What I want to do in this post is to encourage church men’s ministry leaders to set ten year goals for their entire men’s ministry.
Why You Should have Ten Year Goals for Your Men’s Ministry.
The old adage, “If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time,” certainly applies to men’s ministry. Aimless men’s meetings with no purpose plague men’s ministry. Pious platitudes like, “We help men be all that God wants them to be,” run rampant. Superficial calls to action, inauthentic relationships and a failure to meet the deeply felt needs men have doom men’s ministries to short lives.
A long lived men’s ministry must have vibrant, concrete goals that men can see and feel are being accomplished in themselves and in the men who are around them. They know why they are meeting, they know where they are going, they know how they’re going to get there, and they can see progress. A clearly expressed and properly executed ten year plan that is biblically based will provide the proper guidance for you and your men.
Here are two questions that will help you formulate your ten year goals for your men’s ministry.
What does God want to Accomplish in Your Men?
Here’s a suggestion, slowly skim through the New Testament looking for passages that explain to you what God wants to accomplish in your men. List every one. You’ll wind up with pages of references.
Now begin to summarize these passages until you can boil down into one or two paragraphs what it is that God wants to do in your men. Be concrete and specific, asking the Lord to teach you His heart for your men.
This will take hours. But it is well worth your investment. When you’re done with this exercise, you will have half of your ten year goals for your men’s ministry.
Here’s the second question:
What does God want to Accomplish through Your Men?
Again slowly skim through the New Testament, but this time look for passages that explain what God wants to accomplish through your men. Like before, make a list of these passages and gradually boil them down to one or two paragraphs that concretely describe what God wants your men to do. This will be the second half of your ten year goals for your men’s ministry.
Make a Plan for How your Men’s Ministry is Going to Accomplish Your Ten Year Goals
Be creative and male-centric here. Don’t just automatically revert to the once a month breakfast and annual men’s retreat routine. What will it take to instill in your men the things God has taught you in His Word about what He wants you and your men to be? And how are you going to motivate your men to do what His Word clearly calls you and them to do?
Take it one step at a time and trust the Lord to guide you. Be willing to change your plan along the way if your goals are not being met. Most of all, show your men that you take these goals seriously by living them yourself and inviting them to follow you in the process.
How will You Measure Progress on Your Ten Year Goals?
If your ten year goals for your men’s ministry are concrete and specific, it will be easy to measure progress.
For example, if one of your goals is that your men have a clear knowledge of an overview of the Bible, all you have to do is ask them to fill out a brief anonymous questionnaire on the subject after a year or two of your teaching. Or you might have your men fill out another anonymous questionnaire on besetting sin, such as pornography.
But if your ten year goals for your men’s ministry are vague and undefined, you will have a difficult time measuring progress.
Don’t think having concrete goals for your men’s ministry is “spiritual”? Read the book of Acts and notice how Luke mentions specific progress, both numerically and geographically, on the goal of the church’s expansion throughout the world.
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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