Ministry to men.
Ministry through men.

Visible men’s ministry at your local church may look like a quarterly event like a Men’s Breakfast, Fathering Seminar, ISI Men’s conference or service project. These events are announced on Sunday morning, show up on the church website and find their way into every man’s email inbox.

Invisible ministry is different. These are the different men’s small groups throughout the week, the one-on-one discipleship between men, the shepherding of men who are going through tough times and the training of future elders and deacons.

Biblical men’s ministry is both visible and invisible in the local church and both need to be intentional to build godly men.

Men’s ministry can easily become event oriented. Retreats and breakfasts, conferences and seminars, fishing trips and softball games are all events that may serve the men of the church. The key in the fruitfulness of these ‘events’ or entry points is how well it builds brotherhood among the men.

The danger of a busy man living a busy life in and around a busy church is that he may be busy with others but he is actually still pretty isolated. The primary goal of the entry points is to assist men in moving from acquaintance to friendship to brotherhood. This means that the how, when, where of most everything in men’s ministry should focus on relationship, relationship, relationship.

This means ‘quality’ trumps ‘quantity’. A busy ministry calendar may look impressive but it is hard to impossible to pull off a high quality men’s ministry entry point for men every month. This is why we suggest quarterly or less instead of monthly.

Men are saved by grace but they tend to truly extend very little grace. If your event is not worth their time and energy they may silently nod approval but will not join you at the next event. Most men demand excellence Monday thru Friday and these same men show up to the men’s ministry event on Saturday. We suggest churches cater the meals for men as an example of doing things better.