Welcome to the third video in our series on Starting a Men’s Team Ministry to the Widowed and Single Parents in Your Church. Today we’re going to be talking about Promoting Your Men’s Team Ministry, Planning Your Orientation Meeting, and Recruiting Care Receivers for Your Men’s Team Ministry.

Promoting Your Men’s Team Ministry

Let’s begin by talking about how to promote your men’s team ministry in your church.

The first thing you need to do is write out and memorize your summary announcement, including the correct date, time and place. This is very important. You need to have this down pat so that anyone who stops you in the corridor of the church and asks you what this is all about, you are ready to tell them. Make sure you write it down and have it memorized. It shouldn’t be long. We often call this your elevator speech: someone asks you a question about what you do in an elevator and you should be able to tell them by the time you reach your floor what you do. Same thing with this. You need to be able to tell someone quickly and efficiently and clearly what men’s team ministry is all about and when it’s going to start and where it’s going to start in your church.

Then allow plenty of time for your promotion, about four weeks is probably enough. You want to make sure that your men are hearing this more than once – multiple times is critical. You need to get this into the minds and brains of your men so that they can think about it, talk about it with their wife and discuss it with other men. Start early and emphasize repetition.

In your promotion explain what men’s team ministry is and why it’s needed. You might consider asking a widow or single mom to do an interview in front of the church. Ask her what she thinks a men’s team ministry might mean for her in her life.

Whatever you do, don’t use condescending language. You don’t want to treat your widows and single moms as if they’re helpless victims. Rather, treat them as if they’re heroes. These are men and women who are in a tough situation and we want to come along side of them and obey God and serve with them in their walk with the Lord. Use encouraging language, don’t use condescending language.

Use all the types of promotion available in your church, whether it be bulletin announcements, pulpit announcements, video announcements, Sunday School announcements, maybe a pastoral letter to the men in the congregation. Be creative and find out what are the best ways for you to get this message across in a way that’s compelling and clear and will help our men make a good decision.

Invite your men to learn about your men’s team ministry, not to volunteer for your men’s team ministry at your orientation. You want to make it clear that just by attending the orientation they are not committing themselves. The orientation will give them an opportunity to make that commitment. But the purpose of the orientation is to explain to your men what men’s team ministry is and then invite them to participate.

Planning Your Orientation Meeting

That’s promoting your men’s team ministry. Now what we want to do is we want to talk about the orientation meeting itself and planning for the orientation meeting.

First, you want to decide who is going to MC the orientation. It might be you. It might be someone else who feels a little more comfortable up front. But whatever the case may be, you need to make sure that they know what this ministry is all about so that they can knowledgably lead the orientation. They’re not going to be doing a lot of speaking. They’re going to welcome everyone. They’re going to introduce the video. Then they’re going to let the video play. Then after the video, they’re going to be doing some organization with teams. So they’re going to need to watch the video beforehand before the actual orientation.

Make sure you have the orientation video downloaded, or the DVD purchased. You can purchase the DVD online for around $20 - if you’re a member of Meeting to Meet Needs you get a discount. Have it downloaded, have it ready to go. That video is entitled, “Developing a Men’s Team Ministry to Widows, Widowers, and Single Parents.”

Decide if you’re going to provide workbooks and how you are going to provide them. I encourage you to give your men workbooks. The reason why is because you want them to see the Scripture for themselves. You want them to see the policy statement for themselves. It’s just one more way to cement this ministry in their minds. You can purchase workbooks online. If you’re a member, you get a discount for that. Or you can download a PDF version of the workbook and you can copy them yourselves. So if you want to put in the work you can make free copies yourself. Or, if you want us to do the work of binding the workbooks, you can purchase hardbound workbooks from New Commandment Men’s Ministries.

Allow at least two hours – probably 2 ½ to 3 hours – for your orientation meeting. The video itself is a little bit less than an hour and a half, but you’re going to be breaking and forming teams. Men are going to have questions, so it’s going to take a little longer than that.

Provide name tags as well as pens or pencils for your orientation meeting. You also want to make sure your AV system is working and if you’re using the DVD, that it can play the DVD. I know perhaps you’ve been at meetings where someone comes in and they start the AV system and it’s not working right. So just test out the AV system prior to the meeting - preferably the night before - so that if there are any problems you can get those resolved prior to the meeting so that at the time of the beginning of the meeting you’re ready to go.

Start the meeting on time. Don’t wait for people who are late. When you start the meeting late, hoping that other people will arrive, you’re rewarding the late people and penalizing the people who are there on time. So regardless of who is there, start the meeting on time.

Recruiting Care Receivers

Let’s talk about recruiting your care receivers.

You want to wait until after your orientation to recruit your care receivers. The reason why is because you don’t know how many teams you’re going to have until after the orientation. You don’t want to recruit more care receivers than you have teams. Wait until after the orientation when you know how many teams you have before you start recruiting your care receivers.

However, you want to begin planning for recruiting your care receivers prior to your orientation meeting. You need to be working with your pastoral staff because they know the congregation best when making a list of potential care receivers. They will help you decide who is needier, who should be prioritized, so that you have a list ready to go that you can use when contacting potential care receivers right after your orientation meeting.

Whatever the case may be, do not make a public appeal to invite potential care receivers to sign up for this ministry. The reason why is because some who sign up may not be qualified and that would be awkward if you had to tell them that. Let the congregation know that you will be contacting potential care receivers personally and individually. Also, let your people know that you may not be able to cover everyone initially who needs and wants a team. Ask them to be patient. Tell them that you are going to make every effort, Lord willing, to be able to cover everyone in your church who needs and wants a team.

Then decide who is going to be responsible for contacting your care receivers and make sure that whoever is contacting your care receivers knows what the ministry is all about and contacts them individually and privately starting immediately after your orientation.

We have talked about promoting your men’s team ministry, preparing for your orientation, recruiting your care receivers. Here’s the checklist that you need to go through:

 Write and memorize your orientation announcement.

 Publicize your orientation using all the church mediums that you’ve got.

 Choose your MC.

 Locate your orientation or download it from our site.

 Test the AV system.

 Order your workbooks. (Allow at least a week and a half prior to your orientation so they get there on time.)

 Purchase your name tags and pens.

 List potential care receivers in conjunction with your church staff.

 Prioritize your care receivers.

 Decide on who will contact potential care receivers.

That’s our checklist. You’re all set and ready to go. Be in prayer for your men and your church and your care receivers. In just a little while, you are going to have an actual orientation and you’ll be starting a men’s team ministry in your church. How exciting is that? Thanks so much and I’ll see you in the next video.

This transcript first appeared in New Commandment.org.

Published: November 28, 2023

Updated: August 9, 2026