Here’s a common problem I’ve seen when churches begin their men’s team ministry to their widowed and single parents:
If the church isn’t clear on what they’re doing and why they’re doing it when promoting their men’s team ministry, people in the congregation won’t understand the nature of the ministry and will consequently develop false expectations because they’re confusing it with project ministry.
Therefore, it’s very important during the promotional period that the church explains that their widowed and single parents in their congregation need long term relational ministry and not just project ministry and that they’re starting their men’s team ministry to meet this long term need.
If the church doesn’t do this, then the church office will start receiving calls that go something like this: “I heard you have a group of men who do things for people. I have a broken window on the north side of my home. Can you send one of your men over to fix it?” The problem here is that the person making this type of request doesn’t understand why some people are receiving this service and why others are not.
If the church office does start receiving calls like this, here is what you need to do.
Educate the person in your office receiving these calls about your men’s team ministry so that they can clearly explain the ministry to the caller and why they can’t do random individual projects for people.
The person receiving these calls needs to have some backbone and learn to say “no” to inappropriate project requests. If the church doesn’t learn how to address this issue properly, their men’s team ministry will eventually devolve into a mere project ministry.
The person making a project request may need a team themselves.
In this case, if the person is widowed or a single parent, simply ask the person if they’d like a team. If the answer is yes, then tell them you’ll add them to your wait list.
Be ready to refer project requests out.
A simple way to do this is to maintain a list of approved contractors whom the church can recommend.
Have a plan to meet emergency project requests.
We define emergency project requests as situations where there is immediate danger to life or property. In these types of situations, it may be necessary to ask your men’s team ministry for help. If your church receives these types of emergency requests often, you can ask your teams to be on call, one team a month on a rotating basis, to address these emergency needs. In this way, you’re not overburdening your teams and still giving them space to focus on their primary task of serving their assigned care receiver in a relational context for months and years to come.
Over time, as the church learns about the ministry and understands why the teams are functioning as they are, this problem diminishes. But if misunderstandings are not handled properly at the beginning, they can cause significant problems.
Has your church had to deal with issues like this? How was it handled?
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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