I’m on vacation in Southern California. Actually, it’s a workation for both myself and my wife. Yesterday I met with some men from a church in Rancho Cucamonga, a bedroom community forty miles east of Los Angeles.
Their church has had a men’s team ministry to their widowed and single parents for eleven years. They started with just a few men and grew rapidly to thirty. But over the last few years, their teams have leveled off. Despite multiple recruitments, and a church with a thousand members, they barely have enough new men to respond to normal attrition. They were having a difficult time figuring out why.
After some discussion, I asked them what the average commute time was for people in the church. Without hesitation, they responded ninety minutes one way, with some spending over two hours just getting to work. That means people in the church are spending three hours a day – fifteen hours a week – commuting.
Their eyes got really big. That was why they were having difficulty recruiting more men. People were driving longer and longer distances to work in order to afford housing. But the longer commute was cutting into the time they could give to the church.
One of the men at the meeting was a recently retired fireman. He said over the last ten years he had seen the same problem recruiting volunteers for the local fire department. It wasn’t just a church problem, it was a cultural problem.
So men, if you live in a large metropolitan area, plan your men’s team ministry with work commuting time in mind. Understand that a man’s time is one of the most valuable things he has. Do more with less. Make sure you accomplish many significant things for your men and with your men in as little time as possible. When you plan your meetings and events, ask yourself, “If I were working forty hours a week or more and spending fifteen hours commuting to work, is this function something I would want to sacrifice my precious time for?” If you take your men’s free time seriously, your men will thank you for it.
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
What is the average work commute time for men in your church?
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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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