Men read email before they read church bulletins, snail mail letters, and other written media. With its immediacy, local content, and ease of distribution, a regular email newsletter fosters camaraderie and a frequent point of entry for men's personal spiritual growth.

     Certainly you could. But The ConnectingWire offers you prepared material so you don't have to devote as much time and attention to it. You still inject your own personality into it, to the level you desire, as you write about local news, insights, events, announcements, and people in your church.

     It's easier than you think. Once you've decided to undertake this beneficial ministry, call every man in your church directory and ask them if they'd like to receive your church's free men's ministry newsletter (this is known as "permission marketing"); then get their email address. Depending on the size of your church, you can do this yourself or ask someone to assist you. You can reach about 40-50 men an hour (if you keep the conversation brief). Then simply input the collected email addresses into a group folder in your email address book. Now you're ready to assemble content and distribute it to your waiting members. The ConnectingWire will tell you how and give you quality material to use.

     Because there's a variety of email programs available, and each one has its own strengths and weaknesses, I've found the best method of distributing The ConnectingWire is in a simple text format with no attachments. This way every man is able to easily receive it and read it, no matter what email program he uses.

     I've discovered it's best to offer a regularly occuring newsletter instead of one that's randomly sent. Men anticipate and look forward to getting it the same day every week. The ConnectingWire is sent every Friday night to subscribing leaders to give you time to insert your local news and information, and distribute your resulting customized newsletter to your own members the following week.

     A variety of concise, timely, and spiritually engaging material comprise the newsletter. It usually takes about 5 minutes to read it completely. Brief and separate paragraphs on multiple topics are included, such as humor, devotionals, Christian-related news, church-related statistics, book reviews/excerpts, Scripture verses, inspirational quotations, poetry, church history, biblical principles, national special day announcements, prayer requests, interesting websites, and more. You select how much of it you want to use each week. To this you'll add your own local information such as upcoming events, last week's church sports team's score, or testimonies from the men in your ministry.