We’ve all seen the bumper sticker: “Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty”. Some of us have even considered this a “Christian” sentiment worthy of emulation. But Colorado based New Commandment Men’s Ministry is built on the premise that kind gestures cannot be equated with the love our Lord Jesus Christ calls us to display for a variety of reasons.
After all, does a random gesture fulfill our Lord’s words in John 13: 34-35? “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
But when we finally escape the pew and attempt to do “something”, too often our actions may make us feel good but there is little measurable long term impact. It’s nice that we may have actually “gotten our hands dirty” in Jesus’ Name. But did we display real love? And if we did, will our love escape the gravitational pull of our laziness that leaves the expression of our love far too random?
Forgetting for a moment that we often participate in “fly by night” acts of mercy to boost our own sense of self worth more than anything else, Herb Reese of New Commandment Men’s Ministry is essentially asking the men of the church if we are willing to persevere in loving the people God commands us to care for long term?
The New Commandment Men’s Ministry is a Christian ministry that helps churches across America and around the world develop men’s team ministries to people with long term needs, such as the widowed, single parents and the disabled. Its work has been cross denominational - unlike many ministries that have a peculiar denominational bent, New Commandment Men’s Ministries “fits” well with a variety of churches and will fit well in mainline congregations seeking renewal. Currently the ministry and it’s director, Herb Reese, are working with over 100 churches in 24 states.
Here’s how Pastor Reese describes what they do:
New Commandment Men’s Ministries helps churches recruit, train, organize and deploy teams of men that permanently adopt the widowed, single parents and others with long term needs in their church and community. Teams are normally comprised of four men each and each man is asked to donate three hours of time, one Saturday morning a month, from seven to ten a.m. On a typical service day, all the teams meet at the church for prayer and bible study from seven to eight a.m. Then the men break up into their pre-assigned teams and go out and work in the home of their care receiver from eight to ten a.m. The men do basic chores around the home such as fix leaky faucets, clean windows, haul trash, etc. At the end of their time, the men gather around their care receiver and pray with him or her.
Each month, the team returns to the same care receiver, so their ministry to him or her extends over months and years. The men are asked to pray for the street they are working on and to make their services available to other widowed or single parents on the street. In this way, their ministry often extends into the community.
ReformationUCC caught up with Pastor Reese recently and asked some questions our readers would be likely to ask:
ReformationUCC: How is New Commandment Men’s Ministry different than other men’s ministry models?
Herb Reese (”HR”): New Commandment Men’s Ministries trains men to love like Jesus Christ and shows them the implications of that love for those in their congregations and communities who are most vulnerable and neglected: the widowed, single parents, their children, and the disabled.
ReformationUCC: How did you come up with the idea for New Commandment Men’s Ministry? How did it evolve first in the churches you have served and to where it is today?
HR: I saw the need to meet long term needs with long term ministry. I read about a church doing this type of ministry and adapted it to my own particular church. At first we did it every Saturday. But in my second church, where the men had long commutes to work, I saw that that wasn’t going to work. So we shortened it to one Saturday morning a month and we had the same type of results.
ReformationUCC: In your opinion why has the church in America failed to care for widows, orphans, fatherless children, and immigrants?
HR: The first reason is because churches have abdicated their role to the federal government. With the advent of Social Security, Medicare and other social welfare programs, we just assume that the needs of the widowed, single parents, and others are being taken care of. Unfortunately, we fail to realize that the greatest need of these people is to be loved with the love of Jesus Christ–with the love of identification, commitment and sacrifice.
The second reason is that we make the mistake of thinking that these people are unimportant. They don’t have a lot of money to give to the church. And they often are too old or too busy (as in the case of single parents) to volunteer. And they don’t “fit in” with the overall strategy of the church to reach families.
What the church has failed to understand is that these are the people who give the church the opportunity to demonstrate to the world the incredible value of the love of Christ.
ReformationUCC: Can a church with under 100 members still conduct a “New Commandment Men’s Ministry”?
HR: The idea is to provide regular, consistent ministry over years. This normally is done by assigning a team to one care receiver to serve him or her on a monthly basis. In smaller churches, a team can be assigned to two or even three care receivers and they rotate through over a period of two or three months.
ReformationUCC: We’ve seen an artificial separation between doing Good Works and spreading the Good News in the American church. Some evangelicals act as if doing Good Works is almost, well, sinful. Some mainline churches seem embarrassed to call people to repent and believe in Jesus Christ the Savior . Can you give us a concrete example of how this ministry as actually facilitated evangelism and helped reach unreached people while performing Good Works?
HR: Cathy Chavez was a single mom and the neighbor of one of our care receivers. This care receiver asked Cathy if she would like her own team and she accepted the offer. After a few months, Cathy, a “lapsed” Christian, came back to the Lord and asked us to do a bible study in her home. We said yes and then Cathy went door to door on her block and literally begged her neighbors to come to the bible study. “You have to meet these men,” she said to her neighbors. “You’ll never believe what they’ve done for me.”
ReformationUCC: The New Commandment Men’s Ministry model seems to be readily accepted across denominational lines. Are there mainline churches using the program? (E.g. UCC, Disciples of Christ, Methodist, Anglican, Presbyterian)
HR: Yes. There are churches in over 20 denominations of all stripes doing men’s team ministry.
ReformationUCC: In your experience, what keeps churches from benefiting from a ministry such as you describe?
HR: Churches tend to confuse this ministry, which is a relational ministry, with simple project ministry. Churches do quarterly oil changes, or inventory the skills of their men and then send them out when there is a project that needs to be done that matches their skill. Unfortunately, they don’t realize that the real need of the widowed and single parents is relationship.
ReformationUCC: In your orientation DVD, you are quite clear up front that men with certain offenses in their past - such as histories of domestic violence - should pursue other ministry opportunities. If a church is working with a large number of ex-offenders and needs to get them involved in serving, how might this program be adapted to incorporate men whom you don’t want working with widows, orphans, the fatherless and immigrants? Would you suggest forming teams that did “work projects” something like “community service” so they could at least participate on some level?
HR: Men with these types of backgrounds can do this ministry so long as very strict guidelines are followed. For example, the care receiver would have to know exactly what the offense is and be willing to accept him into their home anyway. The leadership of the church should be fully informed and involved in setting guidelines of how the ministry was going to operate.
This interview is continued on the next page…
Want to learn more? You can order more information directly from New Commandment Men’s Ministry.
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1 When Random Acts Of Kindness Aren’t Enough - Part 2 // Apr 15, 2008 at 11:02 am
[...] Editor’s Note: Click here to read the first installment of “When Random Acts Of Kindness Aren’t Enough” [...]