We've talked quite a bit in the blog about the need for home repairs for our primary service constituencies inside and outside the church - widows, single mothers, the elderly and disabled - but aside from the primary blessings of serving Jesus and our brothers, sisters and neighbors, there is also a practical reasons for your church to consider a home repair team.

In almost every church there is a group of handy people that are called upon for their skills. Some help maintain the church building, some go on construction-related mission trips, and some help with the occasional odd job presented by a needy congregation member. Most of the time these previously mentioned groups serve when called upon, but they are not actively looking for projects. Did some faces and names come to mind?

Men (and women) on the periphery of the ministry are found in many churches but cannot figure out how to serve in the church if they don’t sing, teach, direct traffic, or participate in childcare. But, they can use their hands! When these people are engaged, there is an army of handymen ready to jump in and “get it done”.

So, what might move a church like yours toward starting a home repair ministry team?

• An existing handyman group needs organizing or refining for effectiveness
• There are interested men in the church
• There is someone in the church with a need
• The pastor or staff have the idea of starting a team for outreach purposes
• To build a Men’s Ministry
• There are needs in the community close to the church

So, one of the best ways to form a home repairs team is to identify these handy people and get them behind, and committed to, an effort to launch your home repairs ministry. Or, put another way, encourage them to do what they were already doing, only in a more organized and effective manner.

We can help you get started with a library of resources to help you start and run a team.

A home repair team, in the most rudimentary form, needs very few things:

1. A couple of people who want to use their knowledge and skills in construction-related ministry
2. A project or several projects requiring volunteers
3. A method of funding materials

Anything larger than "a couple of guys" requires some level of organization or things can get chaotic quickly. At that point, you will need to:

4. Identify a team leader
5. Determine a method of distributing information to the volunteer team (meeting, email, website, etc.)
6. Develop a plan to distribute information to supporters and let potential "clients" know about the ministry
7. Create a database or tracking mechanism for projects and volunteers
8. Build a volunteer pool over time and a plan to manage and develop your volunteers
9. Establish guidelines for carrying out the ministry need, including safety, types of projects the team can/cannot handle, scope, financial need of clients, etc.
10. Foster communication between the team and church leadership so that all are kept abreast of the ministry development and progress
11. Develop an accountability system to ensure that the spiritual aspect of serving on a home repairs team is being included, and so that there is proper follow up and quality control for completing projects.

Want more information on starting, finding projects, how to pay for projects and more? We can help! Register on our site today at no charge!

Suggestions for a Local Short-Term Home Repair Mission Trip

So how do you start looking for your short-term mission trip opportunity? Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Contact your local or county senior services agency volunteers coordinator to see what they know needs volunteers.

• Contact Dept. of Family and Children’s Services (or whatever it is called near you) to see whether they know of a low-income family fostering children and in need of home repair help. This is especially needed where there are teens being fostered.

• Contact agencies that help people with disabilities to see if they can direct you to a need.

• Are there single mothers in your church network (members and their extended families and neighbors) whose homes need attention but cannot pay for maintenance?

• Has there been a localized disaster, e.g. a flood or tornado that swept through a neighborhood (though it may not officially be a declared emergency, see how those in the path feel about it)? Contact your county or state Emergency Management Agency to see whom to contact about helping.

• Inner-city/low-income neighborhood church leaders often know of someone in their congregation who needs help. Use the opportunity to serve alongside other Christ-followers.

• Make sure that you have a waiver to cover accidents and your team. Also, make sure that your team members are insured!

So How Do I Start a Home Repairs Team?

Now that you’ve got a project, how do you start a team and what do you need? We’ve created a website – www.homerepairs.org – where we have collected the resources that can help you start up your own home repairs ministry at your church. You’ll find articles and forms that will take you through all phases of starting and running a ministry, a blog with posts from the front-lines of the ministry, a forum to ask and answer your tough questions (coming soon) and a list of churches by area to help you partner with other like-minded Christians. Sign up today and get your short term mission or youth trip ready for the summer!

In June, we are travelling to the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) General Assembly, this year in Louisville, Kentucky, to promote the ministry and network with church leaders. On this trip, we will also be co-sponsoring a mercy ministry project called “Sheds of Hope”, in Henryville, Indiana, 35 miles north of Louisville to help those whose lives were turned upside-down by a tornado this spring.  When your house is terribly damaged or gone, you need a place to put your “stuff”. Sheds of Hope are inexpensive units that can be built on-site or constructed off-site and transported to a disaster area where most needed. And most importantly, they come with the hope-filled message of the Gospel.

We will be partnering with the PCA’s Mission to North America ministry. The often overwhelming needs of those caught in disaster/emergency situations provides the need for a partnership between MNA’s Disaster Response ministry and churches with home repairs/disaster response teams ready to deploy. Our ministry provides materials to help churches start those teams and help them begin serving the community. At the General Assembly, we hope to show PCA leaders the benefits to starting their own church teams and have them take information back to interested people in their congregations. Starting such a team provides several things for a church:

• A way for the church to serve its own widows and others who own homes and are not able to afford a contractor to make repairs or make the repairs themselves
• A mechanism to respond to situations where people in the community are begging Christians to come to their homes to help (an opportunity for the church to offer temporal, as well as eternal, help as they “love their neighbor as themselves” in deed and Word)
• An opportunity to engage handy men and women from their congregation who can find themselves somewhat marginalized, relative to church-based ministry, because they don’t sing in the choir, keep the nursery, or teach Sunday school
• The opportunity for Christ-centered churches to serve together and represent Christ as one body to their communities
• Connection and unity at a grassroots level for a denominations’ churches within a city or community as church teams join together for larger projects
• The mechanism for churches to respond to disasters and be the love of Christ to the devastated, as they respond to calls for help from organizations such as MNA and others.

Our website provides the information that churches need to start teams – they’ll find a library of information about starting and operating a home repairs team. There is currently a Blog, and we’ll be launching a Forum where questions can be asked and answers provided by experienced people.

So, who do you call on if you want to start a team? In conversations we have had with church leaders, the question we ask is, “Who is the person you would call when one of your widows needs something repaired?”  That is potentially the person who needs to be challenged with engaging others and if not him, probably knows who might have such an interest.  Two guys, a bag of tools, and an SUV can constitute a home repairs team.  That’s a disaster response team that can grow as the Lord provides vision and skills.

LAUNCH DAY! March 16, 2012

It’s hard to believe that this day has actually arrived! It seems likely ages ago that we believe the Lord gave us a vision for uniting the church of Jesus Christ generally and home repairs ministries specifically in service to the hurting and vulnerable (see more about our organization and vision here – About HRM). And launch day is finally here! Praise be to our God!

We are excited to see what the Lord will do through you, the church and network of home repairs ministries.

One of the ways we want to provide help, value, and encouragement to you is through this blog. Here we plan to share ideas for how to serve and unite in ministry, thoughts about home repairs and stories of service. And links to other blogs that will show interesting content such as how to handle certain home repairs tasks.

We will also open up the blog from time-to-time to our Ministry Partner community. We want you to tell the network what’s on your mind and how God is moving through your ministry. We would especially value testimonies of God's faithfulness and goodness in working through your ministry.

If you aren’t yet a Partner, please consider joining us. We have a library of helpful content and that will only grow. More importantly, we hope to show Christ to the world by working on projects together. More information about Ministry Partnership and starting a home repairs ministry

This is an exciting time – we hope that you’ll join us!

Psalm 133:1 Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!

Psalm 127:1 Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.