For congregations · Any denomination
How to start a church men's group that lasts
Most church men's groups die within a year. The ones that last get four things right.
A church should be the easiest place in the world to start a men's group. The building's already there. The men already gather weekly. There's a bulletin, a coffee hour, and a shared reason to care about each other.
And yet most church men's groups follow the same arc: a strong launch, eight men at the first breakfast, five at the third, then two guys and a flip chart by Easter. The problem is almost never the faith. It's the structure.
Here's something worth sitting with from the research. A national U.S. study found that attending services weekly, in person or online, was linked to stronger social support for women, but not for men [1]. Sitting in the pews isn't building most men's friendships. For men, the connection seems to require something more deliberate: involvement beyond attendance. Research on congregational life points the same direction, finding that it's participation in the congregation's smaller gatherings and activities, not just devotion or showing up on Sunday, that predicts men giving and getting real support [2].
That deliberate something is exactly what a men's group is. This page adapts our research-backed 4-step framework for building a men's group to the realities of a congregation: a pastor to win over, a roster that spans ages 25 to 85, and the eternal question of how much Bible study versus how much honest talk. It works in any denomination, because the structural problems are the same in all of them.
Step 1: Get the pastor on board (without handing him the group)
Nothing in a congregation thrives against the pastor's indifference, and nothing survives his opposition. So this is the first conversation, and it should take fifteen minutes.
What to ask for: a room, a line in the bulletin, and his blessing. That's it.
What not to ask for: his attendance, his leadership, or a slot in the programming calendar. Said with respect: a group the pastor runs is a class. Men measure their words around clergy, the same way they do around a boss. The group needs to be peer-led, and a wise pastor will be relieved to hear it, because the last thing he needs is another weekly obligation.
The pitch, in roughly the words that work: "I want to start a men's group here. Peer-led, not a class, not a program you have to staff. I need a room on Thursday nights and a line in the bulletin. I'll report back in three months." Pastors hear proposals constantly; they rarely hear one that asks so little and brings men through the door.
One more reason this matters to him. The research on congregational support finds that what the congregation gives people socially carries real weight for their wellbeing over time, with positive support tied to fewer depressive symptoms over the years, and negative interactions tied to more [3]. A healthy men's group quietly raises the supportive side of that ledger for the whole church.
Step 2: Recruit person to person, across the age groups
The bulletin announcement will bring you almost nobody, and the men it does bring will already be the joiners. The men who most need a group, the quiet ones in the back third of the sanctuary, respond to exactly one thing: a personal invitation from a man they know.
So recruit the way our main guide teaches: one conversation at a time, with a concrete ask. "Thursday night, 7 to 8:30, in the fellowship hall. Six of us. I'd like you there." Not "you should come sometime." A date, a time, and the words I'd like you there.
Now the church-specific part: span the generations on purpose. Most church groups accidentally form around one life stage, the retired men or the young fathers, and each version loses something. The mixed table is the one men talk about years later:
- Invite at least two men under 45 and two over 65. The young men bring urgency and questions; the older men bring perspective nobody else in a young man's life will give him.
- Mind the schedules. Young fathers can't do Saturday mornings (kids' games); many older men won't drive at night in winter. Ask before you set the time, and expect to disappoint someone anyway.
- Watch the language gap. A 70-year-old deacon and a 30-year-old new believer often don't share a vocabulary for hard things. The go-around format in Step 4 handles this better than open discussion, because every man speaks in his own words, uninterrupted.
Keep the first roster at 4 to 8 men. Bigger than that and the quiet ones go silent; you can always spin up a second group later, which is exactly how men's ministries actually grow.
Step 3: Settle the study-versus-talk question before it settles you
Every church men's group eventually faces the same fork. Lean all the way into Bible study, and you get a class: heads down, commentary open, and a man can attend for five years without anyone learning his marriage is struggling. Lean all the way out, and some men ask, fairly, why the group meets at church at all.
The groups that last don't pick a side. They split the clock and protect both halves:
- First half: the text. A passage, a chapter of a book you're working through, a question it raises. Thirty to forty minutes. The study gives men a reason to show up that doesn't require them to admit they want the second half. Never underestimate how many men need that cover, especially at first.
- Second half: the men. A go-around with a real question. "Where did this passage land in your actual week?" "What's weighing on you that nobody at this table knows about?" Each man gets the floor, uninterrupted, with no obligation to be polished or pious.
The order matters. Study first, life second, because honest talk needs the warm-up. And the bridge question matters most: it has to connect the text to the man's actual life, or the two halves stay strangers. A group that reads about David's failures and never mentions its own is wasting good material.
One denominational note, kept simple: this structure carries no theology of its own. Catholic men work through the Sunday readings, Baptist men through a book of the Bible, Methodist men through a study guide. The container is the same: text first, life second, every man speaks.
Step 4: Set the same ground rules every good men's group runs on
Church groups need the standard rules more than secular ones, not less, because a congregation is a small town. Everyone's wife knows everyone else's wife. Without ground rules said out loud, men will calibrate every word for how it might travel, and the group will stay polite forever. The two non-negotiables, straight from the main framework:
- What's said here stays here. Total confidentiality, stated at every meeting for the first few months. In a church, add the specific case out loud: "That includes our wives, and it includes prayer requests. We don't pray about each other's private business outside this room." Every churchgoing man knows how a prayer chain can double as a news service. Name it once and the room relaxes.
- No fixing. When a man shares something hard, the group's job is to hear him, not to repair him. No advice unless he asks for it. In a church group this has a third cousin worth banning by name: no preaching at each other. A man who confesses a struggle and gets a sermon back will not confess twice.
Add the operational rules that keep any group alive: a standing time and place, meetings start and end on schedule, and somebody (rotating is fine) owns the reminder text two days before. None of it is spiritual. All of it is what determines whether the group exists in two years.
If some of your men are retired and looking for more than one night a week, point them to our guide to men's groups for retirees. And if your congregation draws from a wide area and winter driving is a real barrier, a video meeting can bridge the gap some weeks; see the honest trade-offs in online vs. in-person men's groups.
Common questions
Does the group need to be led by a pastor or elder?
No, and it's usually better if it isn't. Men speak more carefully around clergy, and the pastor doesn't need another weekly commitment. Peer-led with a rotating facilitator works well; keep the pastor informed and blessed, not burdened.
What if only three men come?
Three is a men's group. Run the format exactly as planned, and run it well, because those three men will do your recruiting for you. Almost every large men's ministry in the country started as a handful of men who kept meeting.
Can men from outside the congregation join?
Yes, and it's often the group's quiet superpower. A church group a man can bring his unchurched neighbor to, without anyone pouncing on him, serves both the man and the church. Just be clear about the format up front so nobody's surprised by the study half or the honest half.
How is this different from a small group or Sunday school class?
Mixed small groups and classes are built around content. A men's group is built around the men, with content as the doorway. The structural tells: men only, a protected second half for each man's real life, confidentiality stated out loud, and no fixing. Research on congregations suggests it's exactly this kind of involvement beyond attendance that turns church into actual support, particularly for men [1] [2].
Planning your first meeting?
The First Meeting Kit is a free printable PDF with the exact invitation scripts, a minute-by-minute first meeting plan, and 20 questions that get men talking. It works just as well in a fellowship hall.
Get the free kitSources
- Upenieks, L., & Hill, T. D. (2025). Gender variations in the indirect effects of in-person and virtual religious attendance on psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic. Social Currents, 12(2), 111-128. https://doi.org/10.1177/23294965241300719
- McClure, J. M. (2013). Sources of social support: Examining congregational involvement, private devotional activities, and congregational context. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 52(4), 698-712. https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.12076
- Holt, C. L., Roth, D. L., Huang, J., et al. (2017). Role of religious social support in longitudinal relationships between religiosity and health-related outcomes in African Americans. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 41(1), 62-73. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-017-9877-4