F. Structure and process of His Hands Ministry

1. Organizing and Support Group: An Organizing and Support Group will meet to keep this Ministry and the Coordinators of specific ministries supported through prayer, reading, guidance (providing a brain trust), linkage to the Diaconate (through the Diaconate liaison) and assistance in recruitment of URC members to become involved in a given ministry. This group is open to any who want to play this role. This group will meet on the 2nd  Monday of every month, from 7:30 – 9:00 pm, in room 102 of URC. Thus the organizing and support group acts as a support and prayer hub for the ministry-specific leaders (ministry spokes).
 
2. Ministry-specific leadership: Each mercy ministry action/effort will be organized by a Coordinator (see, below, for the two sets of ministry-specific Coordinators that have been identified for His Hands’ initial efforts, 2007) and carried out by individuals and/or groups who come together for this specific component of the ministry

3. Ministry recruitment, training, and discipling: The ministry leadership will recruit participation in the His Hands Ministry in a number of ways, including: informing the URC congregation, as a whole, of His Hands ministry opportunities; and urging the sponsorship of a specific ministry by a small group.

The training and discipling of URC congregation members, in social/compassion/mercy ministry, will be carried out in a number of ways, including: on-going education, study, and prayer by the Organizing and Support Group, one-on-one dialogue and prayer, shadowing of current participants by new participants; and the teaching of key concepts related to social/compassion/mercy ministry, especially those upon which the His Hands Ministry is founded.

4. Centralized communication support: A communications work group carries out the bulk of the communications needs of the His Hands Ministry. Thus the Coordinators of each ministry are not burdened with communication, about the ministry, to the URC community while also working to coordinate the work of the ministry. Such communication will:
•    support volunteer recruitment efforts of a given ministry
•    educate the congregation on the work of the His Hands Ministry
•    serve as a clearinghouse for ministry opportunities – including those formally adopted by  the Organizing and Support Group as well as those identified by URC members who are seeking other URC members to join them in the ministry. The latter will be screened by the communications committee and, if needed, by the Organizing and Support Group

Among others, the communication methods could include:
•    a well organized bulletin board
•    a weblog
•    a subpage to URC’s website
•    flyers
•    bulletin announcements and inserts
•    announcements at Sunday worship services, Sunday suppers, GABs, and other URC events
 

5. Educational effort: The final component of the effort will be an educational one which may involve any of the following (in addition to the ministry participant-specific training and discipling which is described in section 3, above):
•    Sunday School classes
•    seminars
•    newsletter