A local church wants to develop a community of men through events that resonate with the community and meet the needs of local men and also men within the church. After some mens events that really didn’t gain traction in the church, the next step was conduct a brainstorming session and solicit ideas from men in the church.
Step 1 – Define the challenge to solve
The event was driven by the main challenge question
How might we build a community that engages men?
The group also considered these specific questions
1) What type of activities help build that community?
2) What activities engage men and build community?
3) What are men missing in daily life in our area and group?
Step 2 – Idea Buckets
The idea buckets help give participants an idea of the possible scope of ideas (while not limiting the scope). Creating a mindmap is a great way to quickly create a framework of buckets. Here are the buckets for this session
Step 3 – Brainwriting
The group spent the next 20 minutes doing brainwriting. We separated and individually wrote down ideas on sticky notes. At the end of the 20 minutes we came together as a group and posted the sticky notes on the wall. Then each participant shared a brief explanation of the ideas generated with the group.
Step 4 – Time to Brainstorm
The brainwriting time helped everyone move into a creative frame of mind without the pressures of having to generate ideas in front of the group. Now, it is time to generate ideas on the fly with the group and capture them on sticky notes.
Step 5 – Vote and Expand
At the end of the session, each participant had 3 votes to allocate to any of the ideas. The votes could all be on one idea or on multiple ideas.
Then it was time for the group to expand on the top ideas and capture those concepts.
We came up with a lot a great results. These are the raw ideas without refinement.
| Idea | Additional Info | Votes |
| Meat cookoff | Could be game or domestic or fish, but an emphasis on game, possibly in church parking lot, almost like tailgating | 3 |
| Time to just talk | Building relationships through conversation and quantity of time spent together | |
| Deep fellowship | Building deeper interpersonal relationships | |
| More friends | Building a community of men who crave more friends | |
| Friendship skills | Develop skills to build lasting friendships | |
| Spiritual growth | Growth through understanding and practice | |
| Regular times to chat | Regular and down-to-earth and honest conversation | |
| Mens bible study | ||
| Financial / money mgmt classes | Maybe based on Dave Ramsey or Rich Dad / Poor Dad approach | |
| Borrow-a-grandfather | Great way to pass skills down to the younger generation | |
| Bitcoin class | ||
| Help for deployed dads | ||
| Borrow a dad | Supporting kids who have a missing or deployed dad | |
| Musical skills group | ||
| Widower support group | ||
| Newly married mens support group | ||
| Expecting kids mens support group | ||
| Support group for men with estranged children | ||
| Men helping shut ins, elderly or others needing help | ||
| Father – son event | Providing a step in dad for kids without a strong male presence | |
| Game cleaning event | Learn to clean deer, fish, squirrel, etc | |
| Chicken cleaning event | Learn to process chicken | |
| Chicken keeping event | Learn to keep chickens for eggs or meat | |
| Fishing tournament | Could be boat, shore or pier | |
| Pier fishing day | Could be a lake or ocean | |
| Camping weekend | Could be just recreational or also teaching camping and bushcraft skills | |
| Confidence for men | ||
| High adventure skills for men | ||
| End of year meal for teachers | ||
| Men prepare meal for first responders and vets | ||
| Learn to garden day | ||
| Farm day – learn about life on the farm | Also include farming skills. Maybe show where food comes from | |
| Memory games | ||
| Grandfather skills | teaching skills to other men or kids | |
| Church wide turkey shoot | ||
| Big game night | Superbowl? | |
| Farm-to-fork or garden-to-fork dinner | ||
| Wonderful wednesday – eat / group bible study | ||
| Mens discussion group | Various topics – no women allowed | |
| Insight into world events meeting / events | 2 | |
| Comedy hour | ||
| Shooting instruction | Learn how to shoot | |
| Cookout | ||
| Outdoors | ||
| Understanding wives events | ||
| Shared experience / talents | ||
| Go fishing | ||
| Cook breakfast | ||
| Car show | Have it in the church parking lot | 1 |
| Reloading class | Learning to reload ammunition | |
| CCW class | Sponsor a class at the church, could bring in lots of new faces | |
| Gun safety class | Sponsor a class at the church, could bring in lots of new faces | |
| Hunter safety class | Sponsor a class at the church, could bring in lots of new faces | |
| Golf outing(s) | ||
| Men’s night at concerts, going out to eat, watch game | ||
| Current events event | ||
| Food and fellowship | ||
| Play pickup basketball | ||
| Divorce care group | ||
| Child custody and family court support group | ||
| Understand red pill philosophy | ||
| Mr nice guy forum / training / recovery | How to break free | |
| Breakout of imposter syndrome group | How to break free | |
| Port accountability group | ||
| Interface with CERT | Local community emergency response group | |
| Build a meshtastic network for emergency communcations | ||
| Emergency communications group | ||
| Gardening / farming group | ||
| Adventure group | Camping / offroad / hiking | |
| Food pantry | Hyperlocal, maybe one individual at a time | |
| Alternatives for TV i.e. hobbies / activites | ||
| Gather food for local food banks | ||
| Men’s retreat | ||
| Go to a shooting range | ||
| Sport / entertainment viewing | ||
| Look to mentor youth | ||
| Have a big game night (harvest while hunting or fishing or trapping) | Cook and eat the game or fish | |
| Supplies for local schools | ||
| Look for ways to help elderly or handicapped | Maybe build wheel chair / walker ramps | |
| Flag football | ||
| Bible study or bible series | ||
| Breakfast | ||
| Volunteer / community work | ||
| Saturday at your house | Group spends one Saturday helping a member of the group | |
| Invite them | ||
| Community outreach | ||
| Manual labor | 2 | |
| Talk about it | ||
| Community athletics | ||
| Mission trips (youth involvement) | ||
| Weekend events |