The foundation you establish during this stride will greatly impact the success of the challenge. Plan to devote two to eight weeks to this stride, depending on the systems and team you already have in place.

1. The Plan for the Challenge stride is a great time to link arms with other ministry leaders in the church and engage them in the process. Keep them updated about what you hope to accomplish in the lives of the adults and let them know how they can be a part of The Journey. Also, think of ways that you and the men can serve them in their ministries! Click here to download email templates to use with other leaders.
2. It’s a good idea to review Process One in the Helpful Tools section before you begin; this will help you assess your leadership team and recruit new leaders for the challenge, as needed.
3. Once your team is in place, click on the Deliver Content stride (Stride 4) and review the recommended Create event and Capture and Sustain resources. These suggestions make up the “Straightforward Plan” option for this challenge. If you’d like more flexibility, view the “Flexible Plan” option (found under Deliver Content) to choose your own event and resources.
4. Once you’ve decided between the Straightforward Plan and Flexible Plan, download and print both the step-by-step instructions and Project Plan Checklist for Challenge 8. The Project Plan Checklist is a summary of the instructions to keep you on track; the timelines are a guideline and can be expanded or compressed as needed.

These instructions and checklists come from the JBM Leader’s Notebook.

Straightforward Plan:

View/download the Step-by-Step Instructions for Challenge 8.

View/download the Project Plan Checklist for Challenge 8.

Flexible Plan:

View/download the Step-by-Step Instructions for Challenge 8.

View/download the Project Plan Checklist for Challenge 8.

It’s important to cast vision for all the adults in your church and help them see that where you’re headed is bigger than just an event or a group. We provide two tools to help you do this: 1) Faith & Life Objectives Cards and 2) Assessment forms.

(You can also show the Challenge 8 promo video to generate interest and cast vision, once available.)

Faith & Life Objectives Cards

The Faith & Life Objectives represent what you hope God will accomplish in the lives of the people in the church through the current challenge. These are printed on a card that should be distributed to every adult in the church BEFORE the challenge begins.

The card includes three objectives: one about what a person should know (Head), another about what he should love and believe (Heart), and another about what he should do (Hands).

Follow these steps before you begin the challenge:

1. Download the editable card here and use as-is or edit as needed (template is in Microsoft Word).
2. Have your pastor approve the Faith & Life Objectives.
3. If you don’t want to make edits, download a color, print-ready version here; just send the file to an online printer (such as GotPrint or VistaPrint) for inexpensive printing!* (Note: You may also order these from Man in the Mirror.)
4. Print them on business cards, whether you’re ordering from a printer or printing your own. If you’re doing them yourself from the Microsoft Word file, use the Avery template for business cards, 10 per sheet (Avery business card paper can be purchased from Office Depot, Staples, or a similar supply store).
5. Give a card to EVERY adult in your church. (You may want to distribute and collect the Assessment form prior to this.)
   

*Using the alternative brand, The Revolution? Click here to download print-ready cards for Challenge 8.

Assessment Forms

The purpose of the Assessment form is to help both the leaders and the members of the church determine where they are spiritually at the start and end of the challenge. Therefore, there are two versions of the form–a pre-challenge form and a post-challenge form.

Follow these steps before you begin the challenge:

1. Download the pre-challenge version here and use as-is or feel free to edit (template is in Microsoft Word). The form should reflect the Faith & Life Objectives.
2. Have your pastor approve the pre-challenge Assessment form.
3. Print them on whatever paper you prefer–two to a page–and then cut.
4. Be sure to give a pre-challenge Assessment form to EVERY adult in your church. Distribute these before the challenge begins and give them multiple ways to easily return them.
5. Make a simple report of the results and share with the leadership team.

Follow these steps near the end of the challenge:

1. Download the post-challenge version here and use as-is or feel free to edit (template is in Microsoft Word). The form should closely correspond with the pre-challenge assessment.
2. At the end of Stride 4 (Deliver content), distribute the post-challenge Assessment forms to EVERY adult in the church. Again, give them multiple ways to easily return them.
3. Make a simple report of the results; if possible, keep the results of those who participated in the group study portions of the challenge separate from those who did not. Share with your leadership team.

No matter how well you promote or plan, there will always be a percentage of people that will not come to an event or join a small group or class. It’s critical that your team helps them participate in the challenge through whatever ways they are already engaged at your church.

Below are some ideas for including people on the fringe, as well as those who may be involved in other activities at the church besides the group-study opportunities.

Choose one or two of the ideas below!

Disciple Every Man

• Give people who aren’t participating in group studies the chance to be involved through individual study. Post a link on the church website or email a link to the online Man in the Mirror three-part video series, Money and the Man in the Mirror. The study can be watched for FREE by streaming or downloading from the website. (Click here to download a template email in Word to use when sending out a video link. Modify the information in red to suit your needs and then copy and paste it into your email.)
• Share the article “Money and Possessions” via email or print. Questions for discussion and/or journaling are included. (Click here to download a template email in Word to use when sending out an article or excerpt. Modify the information in red to suit your needs and then copy and paste it into your email.)
• Use the Money Q&A section of the Compass website to send article excerpts and encouragement through weekly emails.
• Challenge people to choose an area of stewardship that is a struggle and memorize a related Bible verse(s). Pull Scriptures from the Bible on Money section of the Compass website.
• Post a link on the church website or email a link to the video How Jesus Looks at Generosity from the Man in the Mirror video series, Hanging Out With Jesus.
• Email your members videos from the sermon series God’s Economy by Pastors Darrin Patrick, Jonathan McIntosh, and Adam Dressler.
• Invite adults to sign up for the free 40-day devotional, Journey to Generosity, from Brian Kluth.
• Send out a video from the sermon series Strapped or Being Rich by Pastor Craig Groeschel.
• Invite your men to sign up for the special Journey to Biblical Manhood resource from GoTandem. They will receive a verse and discussion question every third day, related to the challenge, either to their smart phone or email address. Click here for instructions.

Provide a way for people to put what they’re learning into action. Below are some ideas to involve all the people in the church in the challenge in a real, tangible way–to get them using their “hands.”

We recommend doing an activity during the Sustain Change portion of the challenge (the longer, more in-depth study near the end of the challenge).

Choose one or two of the ideas below!

Use Your “Hands”

• Challenge your families to make or re-examine a budget. Email out the free Spending Plan Worksheet from the Compass website to help them get started!
• Offer a short budgeting workshop at the church one morning or evening; invite church members who may have expertise in the field, such as a financial planner, to be involved in the workshop. If there’s a Compass Budget Coach in your area, enlist his or her help.
• Invite the seniors in the church to a 90-minute video seminar, using the DVD Because I Love You Christian Legacy Organizer by Brian Kluth, along with the accompanying 40-page planning manual (available for purchase or download).
• Ask the leaders of the youth and children’s ministry to encourage parents to teach their children about money using Compass’ ABCs of Handling Money or Secret of Handling Money God’s Way.
• Challenge each Sunday School class (or small group) to do a fundraiser for a local charity or to meet a local family’s need. Encourage groups to be creative or inject some fun by making it a competition. Get the youth group or student ministry involved as well!
• Offer piggy banks to parents with young children, along with a simple card they can use to teach them about saving and giving—order piggy banks that have more than one slot (one for savings, one for giving, etc.).

The engine that drives the content portion of each challenge is the Create-Capture-Sustain engine. We want to help you deliver content through three strategic steps:

1. Create Value and build excitement among the people in the church through a kick-off event.
2. Capture the Momentum you create by providing them with the right next step BEFORE they leave the event. The suggested next step is a short-term study, making it easy for people to commit–even those who have never been in a small group. It is designed to be done in a follow-up group setting.
3. Sustain Change among them over time by getting them into relationship with others and into the regular study of God’s Word. To do this, the suggested resource for this step is a deeper, longer study than the Capture step.

Note: For this challenge, we recommend you include all of the adults in the church. Therefore, you may want to offer groups/studies for couples, as well as men’s-only groups.

Recommended Resources

Create Value

For this challenge, we recommend that the teaching pastor deliver a two-week sermon series on stewardship (it can be longer or shorter but we recommend keeping it less than four weeks).

Although most of the planning is done for you, you’ll need to decide, in conjunction with the teaching pastor:

• what date to start the series and how long it will last

Capture Momentum

For this challenge, we recommend The Treasure Principle book by Randy Alcorn, Multnomah (6 chapters) (read two chapters per week).

Optional student groups: Give, Save & Spend study by Howard Dayton, Compass (6 weeks) (for young adults/college students)

Sustain Change

For this challenge, we recommend the Navigating Your Finances God’s Way workbook by Howard Dayton and Steve Moore, Compass (9 chapters).

Looking for alternative resources and event ideas?

Click here to view the Flexible Plan for this challenge.

One of the best aspects of the Journey is the celebration that happens at the end of each challenge, as people experience transformation and new relationships! For Challenge 8, we recommend having an evening of dinner and entertainment, open to the whole church, including the collection of a special offering for a ministry or local need of your choice. Provide childcare, or activities for the youth. Refer to your step-by-step instructions (found under the Plan stride) for details about planning  your gathering.

Be sure to rally your leadership team at this integral time and thank them for all the work they’ve done and the impact they’ve made. Share the results of the post-Challenge assessment with them, as well as your pastor.

Make it a priority to include testimonies, representing different groups in the church. Ask your Sustain group leaders to suggest a few people to share who have particularly benefited from the challenge. In order to emphasize the all-inclusive nature of the challenge, ask at least one person to share who was impacted but didn’t participate in the study groups. Testimony can be shared directly by the person, read by a leader from an email/letter, or via video.

Consider giving out something to commemorate the completion of Challenge 8. On many of the options below, you can print the logo and challenge name, a slogan that you’ve adopted, etc. Note that some of them come with minimum quantity requirements, so if you’re a small church, feel free to search other sites for similar products.

Here are a few celebration “hardware” ideas:

• Order Wristbands for your men; we like to use the debossed, adult-sized ones for some of our Man in the Mirror events. You can get whatever you want on the wristbands themselves; you might choose the challenge name (“Manhood”), the program name and challenge (“The Journey: Challenge 1”), a ministry slogan (“Together on the Journey”), etc.
• Give each man a token, customized with the logo. You might have them collect one for every challenge they complete! Choose wooden or plastic tokens. (Metal ones are also available on several other websites, but most have minimum quantities greater than 2000.)
• Give every man at the gathering a dog tag with your ministry name and the challenge completed.
• Award each man with a bookmark, printed either with a Scripture that encompasses the completed challenge or the Faith & Life Objectives.
• Magnets are another option and an easy way to remind guys of what God has accomplished in their lives after the challenge ends. Print the logo and challenge name or the Faith & Life Objectives,
• Another idea for a giveaway is a window decal; this also helps your men get the word out to others in the community who might want to join your men on the next challenge. Upload one of our logos or create your own! This idea requires a larger budget so you may want to only use these for your first challenge as a way to promote the Journey–inside and outside the church; quantity discounts are available.

Click here to view a sample Celebration agenda (sample is for Challenge 3).

We want to join with you in celebrating what God is doing in your ministry! Email us a group picture from your Celebration gathering at jbm@maninthemirror.org.