One of the best aspects of the Journey is the celebration that happens at the end of each challenge, as men experience transformation and new relationships!

Be sure to rally your team at this integral time and thank them for all the work they've done and the impact they've made.The final thing you'll do together for each challenge is plan the Celebration gathering--whether it be a church-wide dinner, men's-only cookout, worship service, etc. See the step-by-step instructions you downloaded or printed for the challenge for more details.

Regardless of what kind of gathering you've chosen to do, include testimony. Ask your Sustain group leaders to suggest a few men to share at the celebration who have particularly benefitted from the challenge. In order to emphasize the all-inclusive nature of the challenge, ask at least one man to share who was impacted but didn't participate in the men's-only groups. Testimony can be shared directly by the person, read by a leader from an email/letter, or via video.

Consider giving something to men at the celebration gathering to commemorate the completion of a challenge! Make it a formal ceremony or a casual gift; either way, this adds resonance to the celebration. There are several relatively inexpensive ways (most are less than $1 each) to do this. 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.

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.