Developing a Coaching Staff for Men’s Ministry
Steve Sonderman
Great teams almost always have great coaches. The championship teams I remember from growing up seemed to have one thing in common:a man at the head of the team superbly able to motivate and manage players. Players could come and go but the coaches remained the same. The Cowboys had Lan¬dry, the Dolphins had Shula, UCLA had Wooden, the Reds had Anderson, the Steelers had Knoll, Penn State had Paterno, the ’49ers had Walsch, Carolina had Dean Smith and the Packers had Lombardi. They were all men who molded other men into winners, who shaped an environment where players worked and won together.
Growing up in Wisconsin, I heard Lombardi bedtime sto¬ries. “He treated us all the same,” Ray Nitescke used to say of Lombardi. “Like dogs.” Defensive tackle Henry Jordon says, “When Coach Lombardi tells me to sit, I don’t even look for a chair.” No player, no matter how gifted, could upstage Lom¬bardi. “There are planes, trains and buses leaving Green Bay every day, and you may be on one of them,” Lombardi used to say. It wasn’t an empty threat. Jim Ringo. the packers’ phe¬nomenal all-pro center, walked into Lombardi’s office in 1963 and presented his agent. “Let me get this straight,” said Lom¬bardi. “You’re his agent?” The hapless fellow nodded. The coach excused himself and walked into an adjoining room, re¬turning a few minutes later. “I’m sorry,” Lombardi said, turn¬ing to the agent. “You’re talking to the wrong man. Jim Ringo is the property of the Philadelphia Eagles.”
Lombardi was a coach who made things happen.
The Man Who Knows Where God Is Going
Whenever you start a sports team you start with the coach. He’s the man who pulls together a staff, then the team. It’s no different in ministry. In order to reach men you start with the leadership team—the coaches. More specifically, however, you need to start with one man who is going to head it up—the head coach.
This is a win-or-lose truth: Until you have a man willing to be the point person for your men’s ministry you will have a dif¬ficult time making your ministry go. Until you have that person, in fact, you may want to hold off on starting your ministry. Ri¬chard Elsworth Day, in his book Filled With the Spirit, says this about the significance of key individuals in God’s plans:
It would be no surprise if a study of secret causes were undertaken to find that every golden era in human history proceeds from the devotion and righteous pas¬sion of some single individual. This does not set aside the sovereignty of God. It simply indicates the instru¬ment through which He uniformly works. There are no bona fide mass movements. It only looks that way. At the center of the column there is always one man or woman who knows God and knows where He is going.’
Can you identify the head of your team? He may already be in place. The men of your church may be looking around at each other waiting for someone to take the lead. There’s a good chance your leader is the guy holding this book—a man pas¬sionate about men’s ministry. In this chapter we will look at the characteristics of the men you want leading your ministry and how to recruit them. The man who heads your ministry needs these general qualifications. They’re what God expects of any maturing believer. But your head man also needs a clear vision of where God is going and the incredible harvest before us. He also needs some skill at leading, or at least a willingness to Fr learn. Grab a pen and work through Exercise 1—The Marks of a Leader.
Exercise 1—The Marks of a Leader
1. Develop a list of ministries and movements of God that started with an individual. Think Bible, church history, re¬vival and evangelistic movements, and significant happen¬ings in your own church. List as many men as you can.
2. Pick five of the individuals you listed. What characteris-tic(s) made people follow him?
Person: Key characteristic(s):
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
3. What are the characteristics of men you want leading your men’s ministry?
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
4. Given your church’s structure, who decides who will lead your men’s ministry? Who’s the pick?
Building the Team
It isn’t enough to find one man who can see where God is going and motivate and manage a group of men to get there. You need men serving alongside that man. Building that team of leaders is the first big step in starting your men’s ministry.
Ministry happens best in teams. A ministry team sets you up for quality ministry now and positions you for future growth. In his book The Frog in the Kettle, George Barna writes that “Leadership will be a key component if the church [or a men’s ministry] is going to progress. Churches that grow in the ’90s will be those that have a strong but compassionate lead¬ership team. They will be churches that are focused upon God’s vision of ministry for them, and pursue it with passion and excitement.”2
Aim to develop three to five men who will partner to form your key ministry team. There are five qualities to look for in the men you desire to lead your ministry.
Leaders With a Servant Spirit
In Mark 10:42-45, Jesus shares with His disciples the key element in spiritual leadership. He tells them the way up is; down. He tells them the person who will lead is the one who will serve. Our society is obsessed with climbing the ladder, up-scaling, promotions and upward mobility. Jesus let it be known that those who will lead in the kingdom of God will be obsessed with descending the ladder, down-scaling, spiritual demotions and downward mobility. Those that lead will be a servant to all.
I have found it exceedingly easy to find men who want to be involved in ministry as long as they start at the top and don’t have to do the ordinary, dirty jobs. They want to be up front teaching or around the table making decisions, not in the back making coffee or setting up chairs. Sometimes I get the: impression some men feel they are above certain tasks. They import their marketplace position, power and philosophy and believe it will work in the church.
It doesn’t and it shouldn’t.
My ears perk up when a man says, “Steve, what needs to be done? Just name it!” Just the other day a man from our church who owns a huge construction company asked me if anything needed to be done. I told him we had a bulk mail¬ing-2,600 pieces—to get out yesterday. “It’s done,” he said. He called a few guys, they met at church and went at it. I walked in late that night after another meeting and they were just finishing up. Here’s a company president stuffing and licking envelopes. In his company he pays other people to do that. His servant spirit was contagious to the other guys.
That’s the type of guy I want leading the ministry. The guy who understands to the core of his being that ministry is servanthood. I look for FAT guys. A man with a servant spirit is:
Faithful. Will he follow through on small jobs? Can he be trusted?
Available. Does he offer himself to be used, or are you al¬ways pulling him along?
Teachable. Is he willing to learn, or is he arrogant and un¬bending?
Getting a ministry going creates an enormous amount of work. Some tasks—making calls, compiling surveys, sending out mailings—are repetitious and menial. But they need to get done. One guy on your team who thinks he’s above that kind of work breeds instant division.
Have your leadership team study together Henri Nou-wen’s book In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership. In the book Nouwen says about servanthood, “Christian leadership in the future . . . is not leadership of power and control, but a leadership of powerlessness and humility in which the suffering servant of God, Jesus Christ, is made manifest . . . a leadership in which power is con¬stantly abandoned in favor of love. . . . Powerlessness and humility in the spiritual life do not refer to people who have no spine and who let everyone else make decisions for them. They refer to people who are so deeply in love with Jesus that they are ready to follow Him wherever He guides them. . . .”3
Leaders of Character
It isn’t how you look, where you work, what you have, who you know or what you know that counts. It is who you are when no one is looking. It’s character that counts.
Real ministry is driven by men of character. One of my favorite passages on leadership is 1 Samuel 16:7. God tells Samuel not to look at the outward appearance of a man, the things that people look at. God looks at the heart. What a key principle for selecting men to lead your ministry! Some ad¬ditional helpful guidelines are the lists Paul gave to Timothy for selecting elders and deacons (1 Timothy 3:1-13). And 1 Timothy 4:12 makes one of the best measuring tools for choosing leaders. It provides five standards to measure a man’s character:
Speech. Does he use his tongue to tear down or to build up? Does he lie or speak the truth? Is he sarcastic and cutting—or loving and kind?
Life. Is there consistency between his behavior on Sunday and Monday? Does he visualize what he verbalizes, behave in accordance with what he believes? There is no room on a lead¬ership team for someone who isn’t living faith in the market¬place.
Love. Is his heart interested in the well-being of others? Does he show compassion and tenderness toward others?
Faith. Is he willing to take wise risks and live on the edge? Is he willing to trust God—or does he live purely by human strength?
Purity. Is this man seeking to be morally, ethically and spir¬itually pure before God? That doesn’t mean he’s arrived—but is he striving to do right?
When Bill Clinton ran for president against George Bush he had a sign at his campaign headquarters that read, “It’s the Economy, Stupid.” His campaign team never wanted to lose sight of what they felt was most important. We need a sign in the front of our churches that says, “It’s Character, Stupid.” Remember what’s most important when you select men to be on your leadership team.
Leaders Known for Godliness
The greatest gift your leadership team can give the men of your church is their personal holiness. There is nothing more important in leading other men to Christ than a vital, authentic relationship with Jesus. Men today want the real thing, not secondhand religion. They want reality, not more ritual. In se¬lecting men to be on your team, start with men you know who are in love with Jesus. Some things I look for are:
Strong Private Life. Do they spend time with Jesus on a reg¬ular basis? When I get together with men I often ask them what they are learning in their daily devotions. A long stare after that question is a good clue there isn’t much happening in that area of their life. Unless they drink from Jesus on a regular basis they will have nothing to give to others. What they are in private with Jesus will directly influence what they do in public with other men.
Obedience. Are they seeking to obey God in all areas of life or is there an area where they knowingly continue to sin? Are they open to accountability to others for their life and actions?
Worship. Godly men love to worship. They make sure they meet regularly with God’s people to worship. If a man’s hob¬bies, golf game or favorite spectator sport regularly cause him to miss Sunday worship, he’s making a loud statement of his priorities.
In short, look for men whose lives point others to God rather than to themselves, who are becoming more and more like Jesus in all they say and do.
Leaders of Passion
Every once in a while when I least expect it I get a huge bear hug from John. After squeezing all the air out of me he says, “Steve, I just love working with men. I just wish I could do this full-time.”
That is passion for ministry. To have a passion is to be enthusiastic about what you are doing, to not be able to wait until the next time you get together with your men. It’s a love for what you are doing and a thankfulness that God has given you gifts and the incredible privilege of serving Him. When I interview men for leadership positions I ask a few questions that help me gauge their passion for ministry: What is our vision for men’s ministry? What gets you the most ex-ted about serving? Where do you see yourself fitting in? tom these questions and others I can get a sense of whether they really want to do ministry, or if they are motivated by guilt or by a feeling they should just do something for the e of doing something.
Gifted Leaders
The final quality I seek in a man for my leadership team is redness. Every man is gifted, but I want to make sure that a man is gifted for his area of responsibility.
Our natural tendency is to surround ourselves with men just like us—people we want as friends. Men with different gifts think differently. They might laugh at opposite things. They process experiences and emotions in a variety of ways. It can be death to a ministry if everyone on the team is the same. The Packers’ head coach, Mike Holmgren, is a great offensive coordinator but is relatively weak on defense. So he surrounds himself with strong defensive minds, men who compliment his offensive schemes. In the same way, a leader of men needs to surround himself with other men who com¬plement his giftedness.
As you pull together a group of men, think through the following areas to get a well-rounded team:
Is there someone with the gift of leadership? Many times people lead—even pastors—who do not have the gift of lead¬ership. A leader has the ability to develop a vision and get oth¬ers into it. They can mobilize others and get them involved in -making that vision a reality. Every team needs one.
Is there a person with the gift of administration? A ministry start-up generates endless amounts of administrative asks. Find someone who likes administration—keeping ministry details organized and workers on-task and on-time. Any man with the adventurous spirit of a leader needs a guy like this.
Is there a person with the gift of helps? With so much to get done you need to have someone on the team who relishes doing the little things, the behind-the-scene things, that make a ministry work.
Is there a person with the gift of mercy? Sometimes a lead¬ership team full of guys who like to get things done leaves a bunch of battered people in their wake. You need someone who can care for the men, be a kinder and gentler example to overeager leaders and shepherd the other leaders as the team develops.
That isn’t a comprehensive list, but these four gifting’s are keys that keep a team working well. They bring balance to each other. It’s possible, though, to have the proper gift mix but still get nowhere. These gifts are different enough that the team needs to work at working well. Each man must bring with him not just a gift but a deep willingness to be a team player.
As you pull together your coaching staff for your men’s ministry, keep in mind the words of E. M. Bounds:
God’s plan is to make much of the man, far more of him than anything else, because men are God’s method. The church is looking for better methods; God is look¬ing for better men. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machines, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men. It is not great talents nor great learning that God needs, but men great in holiness, great in faith, great in love, great in fidelity, great for God. Those men can mold a generation for God.4
As you build your leadership team you’re seeking men who display servanthood, character, godliness, passion and giftedness. Work through Exercise 2 to see where your team is at right now.
Exercise 2–Us: On a Scale of 1 to 10
1. Each man on the team should take time to rank where he is in each of these areas.
Excellent Average Needs Work
a. Servant Spirit 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
b. Character 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
c. Godliness 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
d. Passion 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
e. Giftedness 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
2. What are the strengths and weaknesses of our team right now? If there are four key gifts that we need—leadership, administration, helps, mercy—which gifts do we have? Which do we lack?
3. If you are a lone leader at this time, what type of men do you need to complement your gifts?
How to Recruit Your Coaching Staff
It’s one thing to know what kind of person you want—even to set your sights on who you want. It’s another thing to get him involved. If your church is like ours, 20% of the people do 80% of the work. All of the church’s key people are pulled in many different directions. So when I started doing men’s ministry a number of years ago I vowed I wouldn’t steal lead¬ers from another ministry. I would instead develop my own from the many who were on the outside looking in.
Here are steps you can take in recruiting men to be on your leadership team:
1. Pray Them Out. In Matthew 9:37-38, Jesus tells the dis¬ciples that the harvest is plentiful. That’s true in our day as well. But what was the first thing He told them to do? Hire a headhunter? No! The first step is to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send workers for the harvest.
Someone shared this verse with me back in my seminary days. It has prompted me to keep a list of men in my journal who aren’t currently involved in any ministry. Whenever I see someone at church that isn’t involved—but who should be—I put his name on the list. I regularly pray through this list, asking God to thrust these people into the harvest, maybe in the men’s ministry, maybe in another area. I pray that God would bring just the right position for this man, based on his giftedness, passion and availability.
Make a list. Start praying for men right now who can be part of your leadership team.
2. Develop Reletionships With Them. One principle I will bang home throughout this hook is that ministry happens best through friendships. Do things with potential leaders in order to know them. Take them out for breakfast or lunch. Within these informal settings you can begin to see where they are at.
3. Meet Them One-on-One. The best way to ask them to be involved is in one of those one-on-one settings. I usually meet them for a meal or in their office or my office. I try really hard to connect face-to-face before I settle for a phone conversation. To begin, I tell them that I have been praying about their in¬volvement in the men’s ministry and that I feel it’s time to talk about a certain area. I then share our vision for the ministry and where we are going—the big picture. I work to recruit men to a vision, not a program. Once they grasp the big picture I share more specifically about the area I see them getting in¬volved in. It could be heading up the small groups, or leading a small group, doing publicity for the ministry or a hundred other things. I let them know my perspective of why I think they are the right person for the job and how they would fit on the team.
4. Share a Job Description. At this one-on-one meeting I then share a straightforward job description for the specific area where I would like them to help. It helps to do this in writing to make everything as clear as possible, though you might choose to cover this verbally. The job description tells them specifically what I expect of them. It includes:
a. What they would do—the ministry responsibilities.
b. How much time it takes to do it.
c. Who they report to.
d. The term of service.
e. What the men’s ministry leadership team and the church will do to support them in their ministry.
f. The qualifications necessary for the job.
After walking a guy through the job description I ask him if he has any questions about the ministry opportunity. (I have included a sample job description at the end of the chapter.)
5. Ask fora Commitment. I finish the conversation by ask¬ing my prospective leader to pray about the opportunity and, if he’s married, to talk to his wife about it before making a com-mitment. I give him a specific time frame of when I need a re¬sponse, usually a week to two weeks maximum.
These are the steps you could use in recruiting any leader for your ministry. Right now we are simply talking about get¬ting your ministry started and all you are looking for is 3-5 men who will form your main ministry team. If there are two or three of you already, then you need to decide how many guys you want on your team and who should talk to who.
Exercise 3—Choosing Leaders
1. How many do you want on your ministry team? What types of men do you need on your team to bring a balance of gifts, personality, races and types of men? Ask God to help you think beyond your buddies to men who can broaden your ministry and genuinely help your efforts.
2. Make a list of men from your church that may be potentials for your Men’s Ministry Leadership Team.
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
3. After spending time in prayer about it, who do you want to ask to be a part of the team? Who is going to ask them?
The God Who Makes Things Happen
You need a point man to make things happen. Then you need additional men to form a leadership team to help him, because men’s ministry isn’t a one-man show. But you also need to move ahead certain that God is the supreme head over all you do. You can make your plans and ask God for His rubber-stamp approval. Or you can invite Him to guide and empower all that you do.
How do you know God is leading your ministry? Pray. It’s the undergirding for the rest of your ministry. Ask God for His help. Express your dependence on Him. In prayer humbly in¬vite God to act.
Before you flip to the next chapter to look for more “How-To’s of Men’s Ministry,” consider these words of S. D. Gordon from his Quiet Talks on Prayer:
You can do more than pray after you have prayed. But you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed. Prayer is striking the winning blow at the con¬cealed enemy, service is gathering up the results of that blow among the men and women we see and touch.’
Once you have a leader in place who has a vision, passion, the giftedness and character to lead the ministry, and as you’re starting to build your leadership core, your next step is to pray. For a ministry to move forward and bear lasting fruit it must move forward on its knees. Unfortunately, in many churches today prayer is only given lip service. We talk about it, we sing about it, we read about it, but rarely do we do it. Years ago I heard the story of Charles Spurgeon and his famous “Furnace Room of Prayer.” The story goes like this:
An American couple visiting England a number of years ago decided to take a tour of Charles Haddon Spurgeon’s Baptist Tabernacle, one of the most famous churches in London. Thousands came each week to hear Dr. Spurgeon, and every week scores were con¬verted. The couple arrived at the church an hour before worship began, and as you might imagine, there was no one yet in the sanctuary. They looked around for a few minutes trying to figure out what to do, when a bearded gentleman came up to them and asked, “May I help you?”
“Yes. We’re visiting from America,” they explained, “and before the service starts we would like a tour of the church.”
The man said, “Well, I’m a member of the church. I’d be glad to give you a tour.”
They thought that would be wonderful, but the man offered something quite out of the ordinary. “The first thing I want to show you,” he said, “is our furnace room.” The couple took pains to be polite but they really didn’t want to see the church’s furnace room. But when in Rome.
So they followed the man down the winding stairs of the Victorian building to the basement, then to the sub-basement, the sub-sub-basement and the sub-sub-sub-basement. As they went deeper and deeper into the ground it got danker and danker and darker and darker.
The American couple protested. “Well, you know, you don’t need to take us any farther,” they said. “We know what a furnace room looks like.”
But the man remained firm. He said, “No, no. It’s very important that if you’re going to come to our church that you see our furnace room.” So down to the final sub-basement they went, into the coal room where coal was piled everywhere. It was, of course, how the church was heated. The man indicated a huge oak door, bound by iron clasps and iron handles, and said, “This is our furnace room.”
And they said, “Well fine, thank you very much. Now, may we see the rest of the church?”
“No, no, you haven’t been in the furnace room yet!”
“Well, we don’t really want to go into the furnace room.”
He insisted. “But you must.”
They relented. The man opened the huge door and they looked into the massive room with its boilers and furnaces. To their surprise, the room was filled with hundreds of people on their knees, praying the hour be¬fore the service.
The couple looked at the bearded gentleman, then back at the hundreds of people praying on the floor. When they turned to him again, he smiled and said, “Well, I’ve had my little joke with you. Yes, I am a mem¬ber of this church and, in fact, I’m the pastor. I’m Charles Spurgeon. People come from all over the world to this church to see what God is doing and He is doing incredible things, but they think it’s because of me that God is doing all of this. I’m not the reason it is happen¬ing. The reason things are happening here is that every Sunday morning, from ten until noon, when I’m fin¬ished with the service, hundreds of people gather here in the furnace room. They pray for the service, for my sermon, for my ministry, They pray for conversions, for Christians to be fully committed to Christ. That is why God does the ministry He does at Baptist Tabernacle. It isn’t because of me.”
Every ministry needs a furnace room where men are com¬mitted to pray for both leaders and participants. The only way that I was willing to do men’s ministry was if other men would pray for me and for the ministry on a regular basis. I found it vital to start a prayer ministry first. It’s the place where the real work gets done. Five steps to making it work at your church:
Step One—Find a small group of men who will commit to pray regularly for you and the ministry. You can find these men through a number of means. You can make a list of 15¬20 men and send them each a letter and a commitment card to return to you if they accept the challenge. You can run a bulletin announcement letting the men of your church know you are developing a prayer team.
I asked the men to pray and fast for the ministry every Wednesday noon. Some of the men had other meetings on Wednesday, so they had to do it another day. We didn’t gather to pray; each man prayed on his own wherever he was. For an example of the type of commitment we ask for, look at end of the chapter for the “Frontlines Commitment Card” we had the men fill out.
Step Two—On a regular basis send the requests for your ministry out to the men. I send a prayer card before the first Wednesday of the month so the men can pray specifically. These cards usually have new requests, both personal and ministry, as well as answers to prayer. See “Frontlines Prayer Requests” card at the end of the chapter.
Step Three—Get the men together. During the course of the year we have a breakfast for the entire prayer team to come together. We get to know one another and have a couple guys share testimonies of how things are going. We talk about strug¬gles as well as joys.
Step Four—Keep the men informed. This happens in two ways. First, I use a monthly newsletter to instruct the men on prayer. I encourage them to read and to be growing in prayer. One year we read through What God Does When Men Pray, by William Carr Peel (Colorado Springs, Colo.: NavPress, 1993). Another year we read Too Busy Not to Pray, by Bill Hybels (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1988). This year they are reading Revival Fire by Wesley Duewel (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995). The second way I keep them informed is to let them know how God is answering prayer. I did an awful job of this the first year. Men kept asking how my talks went. How the events went. They had prayed. They wanted to know if anything had happened. It told me that if I asked men to pray I had better watch for answers and pass them on to the men. There’s no greater motivation for prayer than to see and hear about answers to prayer.
Exercise 4-Building a Prayer Team
1. Make a list of five men you could ask to be on your prayer team.
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
2. What are you going to ask them to pray for? Personally
(a)
(b)
(c)
Ministry
(a)
(b)
(c)
2. How are you going to keep these men growing in prayer and informed of answers to prayer?
As you begin to develop your leadership team I would sug¬gest you find one person to be responsible for the prayer team. Our prayer coordinator collects all the requests and gets them to prayer team members. It takes the responsibility off you and helps another man to grow!
In the next chapter we will talk about “scouting.” A team can’t win if they don’t know who they’re working with, We will look at how to find out more about who men are and how to survey them to find out their needs, their visions and what they want from your men’s ministry.
Other Resources for Prayer:
How to Develop a Prayer Partner Ministry, Injoy Ministry, 1530 Jamacha Road, Suite D, El Cajon, CA 92019. Phone: (619) 444-8400,1-800-333-6506.
The Complete Works of E. M. Bounds on Prayer, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Mich., 1990.
Mighty Prevailing Prayer by Wesley Duewel, Zondervan Pub¬lishing House, Grand Rapids, Mich., 1990.
Churches That Pray, by Peter Wagner, Regal Books, Ventura, Calif., 1993.
Notes
1. Quoted by Ravi Zacharias from the book by Richard Elsworth Day, Filled With the Spirit, in a message given at the 1988 Elm-brook Missions Conference.
2. George Barna. The Frog in the Kettle: What the Christian Com¬munity Needs to Know About Life in the Year 2000 (Ventura, Calif.: Regal Books, 1990), p. 148.
3. Henri Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership (New York, N.Y.: Crossroads Publishing House, 1989), pp. 63-64.
4. E. M. Bounds, The Power of Prayer (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1972), p. 269.
5. S. D. Gordon, Quiet Talks on Prayer (Uhrichsville, Ohio: Bar¬bour and Company, Inc., 1984), p. 16.
Elmbrook Church Men’s Ministry Job Description
Job Title: Top Gun Instructor
Reports to: Top Gun Coordinators
Ministry Responsibilities:
1. To go through the training program for TG instructors.
2. To prepare the lesson each week for the meeting.
3. To facilitate the discussion each week of the Bible study.
4. To meet with the men in an informal setting two—three times throughout the year.
5. To dialogue with the co-leaders on a regular basis regarding the well-being of the group and those in the group.
6. To participate in the services during the course of the year.
7. To pray on a regular basis for your group.
Length of Service: Nine-month commitment to the ministry. September is training and the groups run October—May.
Time Required: Average of four hours a week.
In-Service Support:
1. Training sessions before you start.
2. Periodic in-service meetings.
3. Shepherd from TG Leadership Team to pray for you on a regular basis and to be available to you at all times to talk.
Qualifications and Special Skills:
1. Elmbrook church member.
2. Must have gone through TG Basic Training.
3. We expect regular church attendance at Elmbrook.
4. We expect you to make your personal devotion time a priority.
5. We expect you to attend all training sessions.
6. We expect you to be prepared each session.
The above article, “Developing a Coaching Staff for Men’s Ministry” was written by Steve Sonderman. The article was excerpted from chapter five in Sonderman’s book, How to Build a Life Changing Men’s Ministry.
The material is copyrighted and should not be reprinted under any other name or author. However, this material may be freely used for personal study or research purposes.
This article may not be written by an Apostolic author, but it contains many excellent principles and concepts that can be adapted to most churches. As the old saying goes, “Eat the meat. Throw away the bones.”
