On the second Sunday of October (or any day established by your church board), sponsor special events in honor of your church's pastoral staff members. Present a significant gift from your men's group; write individual appreciation letters; prepare an all-church meal; plan a series of kindnesses to your pastor and his or her family for each day of the week. A Pastor Appreciation Sunday planning guide is available free from the General Office of Wesleyan Men.

Does your pastor have a team of intercessors who pray with him or her before each church service and throughout the week on a daily basis? Organize a pastor's prayer partner ministry using the planning guide that is part of this manual.

To encourage individual spiritual growth, evangelism and mutual accountability among men in your church, launch an emphasis on "disciple triads" (threesomes). Each triad is formed by two church men inviting an unchurched friend to join them for a weekly time focused on three things: discussing a Bible reading, answering a set of mutually agreed upon accountability questions, and specific prayer for each other.

One ministry men from your church might consider is visiting inmates in local or county jails and state or federal prisons. Help for organizing this type of ministry is available from Prison Fellowship, PO Box 17500, Washington, DC 20041-0500, phone 703/478-0100.

Get permission from the management of a local shopping mall to set up a booth to provide a free gift wrapping service to customers during the Christmas shopping season. Your men's group will need to supply wrapping paper, tape, bows and volunteers. When people ask why you are doing this, explain that it is a gift from your church’s men's group to the community. Give each person using the service a "thank you" note expressing your hope that they enjoy their Christmas holiday and inviting them to Christmas services if they do not currently have a church home.

Organize mechanically skilled men from your church and community for a "Car Care Day" for single mothers and widows. Provide a free safety inspection, oil and filter change, minor repairs and interior cleaning.

Host an annual Christian Men's Prayer Breakfast for your neighborhood or community. Secure a meeting place. Select a date and advertise the event. Prepare pancakes, fruit, coffee and juice for those who attend. Present the program, including a guest speaker well known in the area, quality special music, and at least 15 minutes of corporate and small group prayer.

Valentine's Day is a terrific time for your men's group to set a fancy table and prepare a gourmet meal for the women of your church. Pay attention to the details for this one - decorations, candlelight, silverware (no plastic "sporks''), real china and crystal, folded cloth napkins, well-prepared food, and an entertaining program.

Your pastor or a denominational official can give you the name of a nearby small or struggling congregation for your men's group to adopt. During a 12-month period, have a monthly or quarterly project designed to help encourage or revitalize this "sister congregation" - do a needed repair or remodeling job on the church's meeting place, provide special music and prayer partners for the church's services, distribute literature door-to-door in its community to promote a new ministry or attraction event, conduct a men's retreat to help the church begin its own men's ministry, help church members conduct a fund-raiser to achieve an important goal they have set for themselves, staff a summer day camp program or backyard Bible clubs for the sister church.

The Saturday before Mother's Day, station volunteers outside a local grocery store or in a local mall to give away free carnations to women passing by. Attach an attractive bow and message card to each flower. The note should wish ladies a happy Mother's Day and invite them to your church's Mother's Day Sunday service the next morning.

Establish a regular day each week to run errands for shut-ins from your church or community. Do grocery shopping, pick up prescriptions, mail packages, pay bills, etc.

Each spring and/or fall, plan one full Saturday devoted to doing fix-up work for single parents, elderly or disabled persons in the church or neighborhood. Repair leaking faucets, caulk windows, replace broken glass, oil squeaky hinges, change furnace filters, wash windows, etc,

Organize a golf-a-thon to raise money to donate to a children's ministry. Players recruit sponsors who agree to pay a set amount for each hole they complete during a day of golf. Wesleyan Men have a special relationship with two children's ministries. Hephzibah Children's Home is a care facility in Macon, Georgia, for abused, abandoned, neglected or orphaned children from across the United States. Wesleyan Men played a significant role in building a new campus for the children's home. Wesleyan Native American Ministries operate two Christian academies for Indian children in South Dakota. Wesleyan Men help provide work teams and student sponsor scholarships to enable needy families to enroll their children in one of these schools.

Take a busload of men to a major league baseball game in a nearby city. Encourage members of your men's group to use this as an outreach opportunity to build relationships with unchurched friends. Try to be sure the bus trip will be long enough to allow plenty of time for conversation.

As a men's group, volunteer to serve meals at a local mission, homeless shelter, or soup kitchen. Most facilities have an overflow of volunteers during major holidays such as Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving. So schedule your group to work at other times of the year when the help will be needed and appreciated most.

Spend a day or two canoeing or rafting down a river. Have a few group members set up camp at a pre-arranged stop for a meal or campout together.

18. MEN'S CHOIR

Are there men in your group or church who like to sing? Start a men's ensemble or choir. Offer to participate in worship services; provide special music for banquets sponsored by your group; visit small churches in your area and assist in their worship times.

Cooperate with several churches of your own denomination or interdenominationally with churches in your community in planning a large ministry rally for men. Create a task force to work out the budget, date, location, purpose, theme, promotion and other logistics.

Pull out the garbage bags, put on the gloves and hit the streets in your neighborhood to pick up trash, recyclable aluminum, and other litter. Your group may even want to "adopt a park" in your city and make it your project to keep it clean—a great way to create opportunities to witness to environmentally sensitive people in your area.

Build a float as a group project and enter it in a local parade. Invite the church youth group or a children's Sunday school class to help.

Give the church custodian a surprise "week off" (complete with pay, of course) and clean the church together.

Organize an all-night men's prayer meeting at your church. Begin at nine o'clock with an hour of praise, featuring singing, Scripture readings and two or three five-minute devotional talks presented by various group members. At ten o'clock, have a corporate prayer time in which men spend one hour telling God why they love Him. Ask every man to spend an hour in silent confession and meditation beginning at eleven o'clock (provide a Bible, hymnal and suggested reading list with scriptures and songs related to the theme of confession and dependence upon God). Celebrate communion together at midnight, followed by thanksgiving testimonies (ask one or two men ahead of time to share prepared talks about reasons they are thankful to God). From one o'clock to three o'clock, form a series of small prayer groups (no more than four to a group) to concentrate on a list of eight general topics—each group prays for ten minutes about a specific topic, followed by a five minute break to organize into new groups (topics might include prayers for personal integrity and holiness, families and homes, community needs, national needs, your local church, pastors and Christian workers, unsaved friends and relatives, and political and judicial leaders). Have a "singspiration service" at three o'clock, featuring special music by soloists, small ensembles and your church's men's choir, interspersed with group singing. Conduct a "concert of prayer" at four o'clock on the theme of "revival and renewal" (a "concert of prayer" is a directed time of group praying that mingles solo prayers, praying through Scripture passages with a neighbor, prayer by triads or quartets of men on specific subjects suggested by the director, whole group prayers where everyone prays out loud together about assigned topics). Pray "around the world" from five to six o'clock. Provide each man with a list of the nations, capitols and rulers of the world, and take turns praying for each out loud (tell men to limit prayers to 15 seconds each if you want to make it through the entire list in an hour). At six o'clock, share a sunrise breakfast and go home.

Send missionaries sponsored by your church "care packages" once or twice a year. Gather useful travel-size hygiene items (toothpaste, tooth brushes, shampoo, razors, combs, shaving cream, dental floss, deodorant, mouthwash, etc.), tools, games, individually-wrapped candies and gum, baseball cards, popcorn, chocolate chips, cake and pudding mixes, first aid items, current magazines, blank greeting cards, pens, crayons. Pack them for safe overseas shipment, being sure they are properly labeled to avoid customs problems and duty charges. Include handwritten notes from men in your church offering prayers of blessing for members of each family.

Put a slightly different twist on the above idea and prepare a care package for each college student from your church. Substitute items they would appreciate more, such as a compact disk with contemporary Christian music, a videotape of a special church service back home (or better yet, personal greetings and prayers from people they know), a roll of postage stamps and a box of stationery, or small gifts of spending money stuffed inside encouraging letters from church members. Include a bag of bite-size candy bars for them to share with friends in the dorm.

Make friends with men from a church of another ethnic, language, or cultural background. Invite their group to a potluck dinner at your church purely for the sake of Christian fellowship and cross-cultural friendship building. Ask everyone from both churches who brings a covered dish to the meal to make a few copies of the recipe to exchange with others. Ask the pastors of both churches to offer prayers for each others' congregation and play background music or feature a special song from each church.

Invite your church's youth group to cooperate with the men's group in sponsoring a "Kite Day" to make and fly kites with children from your neighborhood or community. Offer prizes for the best-looking kite, the funniest kite, the kite that flies the highest, the kite that flies the longest, the first kite string that gets broken by the wind, etc.

Work together as a men's group to start a new church in your area. It might begin as a series of home Bible studies led by members of your group in a nearby community, a new Sunday school class sponsored by your group aimed at college students or young adults, a chapel in a mobile home park or apartment complex, or a district-sponsored new church project your group adopts. The General Department of Evangelism and Church Growth of The Wesleyan Church offers free resources and advice. Contact the department by calling 317/570-5125 or sending a fax to 317/570-5265.

Sponsor a marriage enrichment retreat for couples in your church, community, district or area. Ask your pastor to help you locate a qualified retreat leader. Lay Renewal Ministries is a parachurch organization that offers an effective marriage renewal workshop providing couples with an opportunity to renew, revitalize, deepen commitment and bring greater joy to a marriage. Contact LRM by calling 800/241-8581 (from Missouri, Alaska or Hawaii, call 314/647-0717).