STRENGTHEN COMMUNITY IN YOUR MEN'S MINISTRY
Let me introduce myself. My name is Jonathan Petersen, I live near Grand Rapids, Michigan, and I'm involved in men's ministry at my church. For years we've had annual men's retreats and our men have thoroughly enjoyed them. But it hasn't been until recently that we've begun to experience a deepening of community among the men, due in large part to an email weekly newsletter strategy designed to connect men with God and with each other in the church.

As surprising as it sounds, this newsletter has proved extremely successful in bringing spiritual and fraternal awareness to the men of our church — so much success, in fact, that several men have encouraged me to see if other churches would be interested in starting the same thing in their church.

REASONS WHY IT'S SUCCESSFUL
There are at least 10 reasons why this newsletter strategy will be successful for you:

1. It's local. It includes news and information that the men of the church can immediately relate to, such as upcoming events in the church, prayer requests, new father announcements, bullet-point summaries of the sermon each week, etc.

2. It's national. It includes pertinent national religion news of interest to Christian men.

3. It's got attitude. It's written from a familiar, informal, point of view.

4. It's brief. It's timed to take 5-7 minutes to read each week, usually less.

5. It's interactive. It's intentional at inviting the subscribing men to contribute brief news and personal spiritual insight paragraphs for the benefit of the other men.

6. It's honest. It doesn't shy away from difficult subjects impacting men today, like attraction to pornography, financial confusion, job loss, parenting teenagers, and more.

7. It's timely. Every week it speaks actively about what's happening tomorrow and what happened yesterday.

8. It's fun. It seeks to bring a smile to the reader.

9. It's spiritually nutritional. It includes poignant features to strengthen individual discipleship.

10. It's personal. For men only, it's delivered to them in the manner most likely to be read by them: in their emailboxes. That alone is a big reason for attracting them to it.

YOUR MEN'S MINISTRY MEMBERS WILL WANT IT
The key to all this is permission marketing. — first asking the men of your church if they want to receive it before sending it to them. Using this opt-in strategy guarantees their continued interest and assures you of your subscription list's integrity. Whether you have 50 men or 5000 men subscribing, you'll know they're the ones who are interested in growing their faith. And in the process, your men's ministry will grow and strengthen too.

THE CONNECTING|WIRE
I invite you to begin this newsletter strategy in your church. I'll help you do it every week by supplying you with a national framework for your newsletter — all you do is fill in your local information. The information feed I'll send you is in a newsletter called The ConnectingWire. In it, I'll report on upcoming special days and events your men will want to know about, such as the National Day of Prayer and Christian-related holidays; I'll provide you with motivational quotes and Bible verses to inspire your men; I'll report on news pertinent to men's interests; I'll give you suggestions of ways to keep localizing your newsletter to your men and your church; and more.

The title of the newsletter I send to the men in my church is CrossTraining. You're welcome to use that or come up with another title of your own. How about

Or have fun brainstorming a name with your men's ministry steering committee.

BEGIN RIGHT AWAY
The way to launch this in your church is to find a man who's skilled in writing and editing. Perhaps you have a newspaper editor, author, or writer in your church who already does this professionally (maybe that person is you!). When you find the person for whom writing comes naturally, challenge them to take on this newsletter as a ministry opportunity. They'll be pleasantly surprised how effective it is (I know I was; men I hadn't previously known tell me on Sunday morning how much they appreciate reading it). I'm the former religion news editor for United Press International Radio Network, so I find this newsletter to be a rewarding way for me to share my writing interest for the spiritual benefit of the men in my church.

Then, have that person sign-up to start receiving The ConnectingWire. To cover the cost of maintaining this service (the technology involved, etc.), I'm asking the minimal fee of less than $2 a week (U.S.$99 a year) to be able to send to you news and articles that you'll quickly and easily fit your local information into and around. You could just use the information I send to you as the entire newsletter, but it's much more effective when you include references to men's names in your church, their accomplishments and prayer requests, your church events, etc.

Starting this permission-based newsletter in your church will foster ongoing community among your men like you haven't seen before. It's well worth the cost of less than $2 a week (U.S.$99 a year), which could be paid for from your men's ministry budget.

GET THREE FREE EDITIONS
Before committing yourself, I'd like to send you three weeks worth of The ConnectingWire, FREE, as a sample. I believe you'll see its worth to your men's ministry and will want to subscribe.

Send me an email requesting the free samples and I'll get them to you right away. Thanks!

Jonathan.Petersen@mensministryconnection.com