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Church Leadership

Excerpts from previous email updates

January 2005

Most of you have read Home Cell Group Explosion (it will be a future reading assignment). From that book, you know that I don’t believe there is any ONE gift that a cell leader needs to facilitate and multiply his or her cell group. I see cell servanthood (facilitating the cell) as part  of the maturing process for every believer and that this is the goal of the training track (although team leadership is best). Yet, in saying this, we must not neglect the discovery and use of the gifts in the cell. Remember that all of the gift passages (1 Cor. 12-14, Romans 12, and Ephesians 4) were directed to house churches and the CELL IS THE BEST PLACE FOR THE USE OF THE GIFTS. Thus, we need to encourage cell members to discover and use their gifts in the cell. Here’s a chart that might be helpful to give to cell leaders to pass out to cell members in the process of gift discovery and practice.

EQUIPPING GIFTS

KEY WORDS

DESIRES

LEADS BY

Pastoring

Shepherd

To care for/protect

People sensitivity

Leadership

Orchestrator

To give direction

Vision/team sense

Exhortation

Encourager

To motivate

Inspiration/practical application

Evangelism

Soul winner

New Christians

Strength of conviction

Apostle

Foundation builder

New churches

God-given authority

Teaching

Doctrine developer

To teach

Biblical facts

Wisdom

Understanding

To apply knowledge

God-given insight

SERVING GIFTS

KEY WORDS

DESIRES

SERVES BY

Helps

Assisting

Free others to use gifts

Helping

Administration

Planner

Organization

Providing the details

Service

Need meter

Help however, wherever

Practical support

Faith

God given confidence

To step out

Unwavering conviction

Mercy

Comforter

To show compassion

Kindness

Giving

Liberally give away

To share resources

sharing

PRAYER WORSHIP GIFTS

KEY WORDS

DESIRES

SERVES BY

Knowledge

Spiritual insight

Offer God given messages

Supernatural urging

Tongues

Unknown words

Ministry of worship to God, personal edification or sign for unbelievers

Another language

Interpretation of tongues

Tongue’s mouthpiece

Edify church

Interpreting

Miracles

Mountain mover

To manifest God’s power

Supernatural signs

Healings

Healings!

To manifest God’s power

Supernatural healings

Discernment of Spirits

Spiritual pulse

Distinguish good from evil

Spiritual analysis

Prophecy

Speak forth authority

Proclaim truth

Scripture

OTHER POSSIBLE GIFTS

KEY WORDS

DESIRE

SERVES BY

Celibacy

Contentedly single

To freely serve

Remaining single

Hospitality

Hosting for God

To open home

Openness

Missionary

Cross-cultural

Serve ethnics

Leaving own culture

Intercession

Prayer warrior

Intercede

Praying

Exorcism

Deliverance from evil

Cast out demons

Exorcising!

Voluntary poverty

Give away all

Identify with the poor

Simple lifestyle

Martyrdom

Martyr

Die for Christ

Death

 July 2004

What is a cell church?

            Cell church in its simplest form is emphasizing both cell and celebration on an equal basis.

            In the cell church, cell is the church and celebration is the church. Every worshipper is encouraged to attend the weekly cell group and the weekly celebration service.

Most of us know what the Sunday church celebration looks like. Worshippers gather to hear the Word preached, worship the living God, and participate in the sacraments.

But what about the cell? The most common definition of a cell in the worldwide cell church (and the one followed in this book) is:  A group of 3-15 people that meets weekly outside the church building for the purpose of evangelism, community, and discipleship with the goal of multiplication.

Implicit in this definition is the overarching goal of glorifying God.

All small groups are not cell groups. One of the major differences between cell groups and generic small groups is the emphasis on evangelism and multiplication in each cell.

            Cell churches also have other types of  ministries (e.g., ushers, worship, prayer, missions and training). These ministries, however, are not called cell groups even though the particular ministry might be small and a group.  

            The ministries in a cell church, rather, support the cell or celebration (e.g., training, coaching cell leaders, worship, prayer, etc.). All those participating in a church ministry are also actively involved in a cell group, if not leading one (this especially includes elder or board leadership).

            In the cell church, the cell group is the backbone or center of church ministry. I like to use the phrase, the cell driven church, because church growth success is primarily measured through infrastructure growth (from core to crowd).

            Some churches have cell groups as one of the programs in the church. In this scenario, the senior pastor will delegate small group ministry to another person, while he oversees the various ministries and programs in the church. In the cell church, however, the senior pastor is personally involved in cell ministry and is considered the chief cell minister.

A cell church places a strong focus upon the development of relationships. People become responsible for, and to, each other. Cell ministry replaces the need for the existence of the many programs that take place inside the traditional church.

To understand general cell church principles better, please visit www.CellChurchSolutions.com.  This web site provides free articles, helpful links, and other tools to help you make cell ministry work in your church.

June 2004

 I’m returning today from a great ministry time in Oshawa, Ontario at a cell church called Oshawa Community Church. The church is about eleven years old and started the transition to cell church about five years go. They now have 22 adult cells and 7 youth cells with about 300 people attending cells (and about 350 in celebration service). This church is one of those outstanding churches that is following principles rather than models. The pastor regularly visits ICM in Bogota but refuses to follow the strict G12 model, opting rather to follow cell church principles and transition the church based on a clear understanding of cell ministry. They call their coaches LINE LEADERS and each of the coaches has a line of cell leaders under them. I had the privilege of meeting with these line leaders during the retreat. Each of these coaches was also leading a cell and could point out multiplication leaders that they were preparing. The church has a clear training track that they have developed. They are also getting ready to plant their second daughter church. This church is part of MFI (Ministers Fellowship International).

Feel free to contact Les Lamb at Les les@occonline.info  for more information. They are also connected to another growing cell church in the area called Living Hope at http://www.living-hope.org

May 2004

I just got back from a 11-day trip to Korea with my entire family. I spoke at a Baptist church of 14,000 adults on Sunday and 950 adult cells. I also spoke on Sunday night at a charismatic cell church of about 500 with 51 cells. My main task was a Regent University cell church course on Monday through Thursday.

Korea is an amazing country, unusually blessed by God. Korea is the number two missionary sending base in the entire world, even though there are only 45 million people in the entire country! God is His sovereignty has raised this nation up to be a mighty blessing to the world. Key principles that can help us in the cell movement worldwide are:

PRAY, PRAY, PRAY. Korean Christians know how to pray and more than anything, they just do it. It’s normal for KOREAN church pastors and church members to pray everyday at 5 a.m. to about 6:30 a.m.

WORK, WORK, WORK. Korean pastors and members are ready to work hard in serving God. These people are busy serving Jesus.

RESPECT AND SUBMIT. Korean people respect and love their pastors. Certainly this is part of the cultural background, but I see a lot of Biblical foundation for this that we need to re-learn in the west!

See you all this week. Please be ready to talk about Where Do We Go from Here

 May 2004

I’m writing to you aboard the plane on my way back from speaking at a cell church’s conference in Brazil (Grace Community Church).

10,000 people were present at night and 3,000 during the seminar. Yes, Brazil is experiencing a spiritual awakening and North America isn’t in the same place.

Yet let me tell you about this church because it’s a great example of finding it’s own balance (or as Ralph Neighbour says, “finding its own saliva). Most of the pastors from Grace Community took the ACTS courses (Ralph Neighbour), visited ICM in Bogota (Castellanos) and then visited a growing cell church in North Brazil (Igreja de Paz movement). Yet, Grace Community felt compelled to establish their own system based on principles from each of those sources. They weren’t satisfied with simply copying a model. The mother church now has about 450 cells and they have established 10 daughter churches. I was very impressed when the senior pastor shared how he felt the need to model cell ministry from the very beginning by leading his own cell (he figured the other staff pastors would be far more willing to jump on board if he was actually doing it).

Yes, Brazil is experiencing a wonderful harvest, but the lesson we can learn is the importance of truly understanding the principles behind cell ministry and then building the system from the ground up, rather than trying to copy verbatim what someone else has done.

Let’s do the same!

March 2004

THOUGHT YOU’D BE INTERESTED IN WHAT ONE U.S. CELL CHURCH PASTOR WAS WRESTLING WITH. HE DECIDED TO WRITE JIM EGLI AND MYSELF FOR ANSWERS. I INCLUDE HIS EMAIL AND THEN MY ANSWER:

Dear Joel,

I hope you don’t mind me writing for your insights.  Neither of you may remember me but I am the Senior Founding Pastor of Western Branch Community Church in Chesapeake, VA.  I’ve had email interactions with both of you in times past.

To refresh your memory, we are cell-based church based using a hybrid of the G-12 and 5x5 structures.  We currently have 63 cells, sub-divided into 9 Sections which are sub-divided into 2 Zones.  We average 1,400 on Sunday mornings and 850 in our weekly cells. God is good and we are continuing to multiply consistently

Where I need some insights is in the area of “share groups.”  Lately we have had a growing clamor for a number of special interest groups; i.e. motorcycle clubs, men’s fellowship groups, sports teams, etc.

We see the validity of these affinity groupings but frankly we’ve worked so hard to become a fully established cell-based church that we are concerned that facilitating these groupings will take us back down the dreaded path toward being program based.

In your experience, can such groupings exist in a cell-based church without competing with the cells?  If so, how does it work?

Any insight you can give would be greatly appreciated!

Warmly,

Jim Wall

Senior Pastor

MY ANSWER:

Hi Jim,

Thanks for including both Jim and me in your question. First, I want to congratulate you for such tremendous growth. I also want to include your church as a cell model in the U.S. in my future book on the cell church in the U.S. I also understand the struggle you’re going through with share groups.

Just remember that Ralph Neighbour, who I believe invented share groups, never allowed the share group to be called a cell. He also asked the share groups leaders to attend the “basic Christian community” on a weekly basis and to only use the share group as an outreach from the basic Christian community that would last for 10 weeks or so. Sadly, with the META model, share groups and the like became equated with cell groups and they were all thrown into a big pot. The reason I resist calling share groups (or the like) cell groups is because it diminishes the quality control. Basically, the pastor of the meta model has to get up in front of the congregation and try to act like all groups are on the same level, when in fact they are not. A pastor knows in his heart that a monthly “sports team” is not the same as a weekly multiplying home cell group.

I know that those in the META/MARKET DRIVEN camp will look at the cell church model and declare the cell definition we offer as “dogmatic.” However, I prefer to use the phrase “quality control.” Why do universities require a certain level of education to graduate? Quality control. We don’t call a university system dogmatic because they want to see their graduates have a certain level of educational competence. I could go on and on with examples, but you get the point.

The quality control of what defines a cell group is the key battleground to remain PURE in the cell church. Why? Quality control.

From my study of cell churches worldwide, I would say that all cells had the following in common:

¨       Weekly

¨       Outside the building (penetration is the principle behind this—it wasn’t a come and see strategy but a go strategy)

¨       Evangelistic

¨       Discipleship/pastoral care

¨       Multiplication

a cell group is a group of 3-15 people that meets weekly outside the church building for the purpose of evangelism and discipleship with the goal of multiplication. 

I know that Touch and others have used outward, inward, upward, and forward to define a cell group. And it’s true that my bullet point definitions don’t include the upward (Christ in and through the cell) but it’s certainly implied. I prefer to use the five bullets because in my mind it clarifies better what a cell group should look like. I would only add one more bullet for the North America climate and that is “community.” (this is a crying need in North America). You’ll notice the incredible liberty in this definition. There’s room for kinds of homogeneity. There’s room for all kinds of meeting places outside the church (not just the home), there’s room for all kinds of lessons (although I think following the sermon is best, it’s not the main point and there should be some flexibility), there’s room for various orders of meeting, and there’s room for various levels of participation in the group.

I also know that my insistence on “outside the church building” is the most controversial (and yes, there will be exceptions, like there is to any rule) but I strongly feel that the flavor of cell ministry should be penetration to the world around us and meeting in the church brings a class room feeling that makes cell ministry programmatic. Also the growing cell church worldwide meet outside the church building.

Jim, if a share group doesn’t meet the above quality control definition, I would call it a “ministry” and not a cell group. I would also ask those who are in a “ministry” to be in a normal cell group.

Jim, if I could so graciously say that you have a VERY GOOD THING GOING. I would counsel you not to  let it slip away from you by starting groups without the same quality characteristics, while placing them on the same level.  

March 2004

 Dave Scott just sent me this article about PASSION from John Maxwell, Directly underneath, I include an excerpt about passion from my new book on the Elim Church, the huge cell church in El Salvador that has become a worldwide cell movement. PASSION is a key ingredient in making cell ministry work.

Playing Over Their Heads

By Dr. John Maxwell

During the last 10 years of Red Auerbach’s coaching career, his Boston Celtics won nine National Basketball Association championships, including a record eight straight titles from 1959 to 1966. He retired at age 48 as the winningest coach in NBA history, with 938 victories in twenty years.

A coaching genius who was known for spotting talent and getting the most out of his teams, Auerbach also knew a thing or two about communication. “It’s not what you tell your players that counts,” he once said, “it’s what they hear.”

What a profound statement! As a leader, it’s not what you say that determines whether you’ve communicated with your people; it’s whether or not they truly understand your words and are able to apply them to their own lives and work.

If you want to communicate in such a way that makes a difference in the lives of your employees, remember one word: Passion.

Your job as a leader isn’t to bring out the best in your people. Through words and example, your goal is to get them to play over their heads—to do things they normally couldn’t do and achieve beyond their gifts and abilities. This creates a synergy that allows your employees to produce more together than they could have done individually.

And it all begins with passion.

Have you ever seen a team nonchalantly reproducing more than it had the ability to reproduce? Have you ever seen a player in any sport have his greatest game with a “take it or leave it” attitude? Absolutely not. Passion is an essential ingredient to winning—from the basketball court to the corporate office.

Your people won’t be passionate unless you’re passionate. This is especially critical when it comes to communication. If you thoroughly believe in the principles you’re trying to impart to your team, it will come through loud and clear in everything you say. Your passion will infuse your words with meaning, paving the way for them to reach the hearts and minds of your listeners.

Once you have your team’s ear, what do you need to tell them that will inspire them to play above their heads? Start with these six principles:

1.       The value of teamwork.
Impress upon your people that, if you’re going to be successful, you’re going to be successful together. One is too small of a number to achieve greatness.

2.       Each player’s role.
You work together, but each person has a particular job to do—otherwise they would not be needed. Make sure each individual knows what he or she needs to do to add the most value to the team.

3.       The raising of the bar.
Don’t allow your people to grow comfortable maintaining the status quo, even if they’re doing a good job. Raise the bar. Set a new standard for excellence.

4.       The importance of a good attitude.
As the saying goes, one bad apple spoils the whole bunch. When that bad apple is a bad attitude, it can absolutely ruin your team.

5.       Hope and encouragement.
When you’re winning, nothing hurts. But when you have a bad month or quarter, when a key player leaves for greener pastures, or when your industry as a whole is struggling, you have to be the one who encourages your people to look for the light at the end of the tunnel.

6.       The big picture.
It’s easy to become so focused on the details of a particular task or assignment that you forget what you’re ultimately working toward. Frequently remind your team how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together.

You may never garner the accolades that Red Auerbach received as the coach of the Boston Celtics. But, if you communicate these foundational principles passionately and consistently, you can help your people perform above their heads—achieving, as Auerbach’s teams did, more together than they could individually.

Excerpt from my NEW BOOK on the Elim Church:

As I plumbed more deeply into the heart of the Elim Church during the next seven years, I noticed one over-riding theme: PASSION.  Elim Church is a passionate army, rather than a stiff, cold militia. The people at Elim are passionate for Jesus Christ. Their love for Jesus encourages them to expect great things from God and to attempt great things for God. Many other words and phrases describe Elim: servanthood, evangelism, and leadership, but none of them describe Elim’s heartbeat like passion.

All other ministry traits flow from their passion for Jesus. Persistence and penetration, for example, are two key sub-themes that flow from Elim’s passion.  Elim is a passionate army that goes forth to win souls with the purpose of conquering a city for Jesus.

 February 2004

You might remember that I mentioned Damian Williams about six months ago in the email I sent to you. I visited  Damian’s church and discovered that Damian  promoted that anyone could be a leader at Red Cedar Community Church in Rice Lake, Wisconson. Since he began pastoring the church, it grew from 200 to 600 and from a handful of small groups to 53 active cell groups.

I recently received an email from Damian, in which he said:  

“It feels to me that your perspective on understanding the purity of the cell while being culturally relevant as it relates to common life stage or interest is the way to go in America.  One of the biggest problems in churches that are meta is that every "department" has their own strategy for developing leaders and groups or ministry teams. Creating a unified understanding of what a healthy cell looks like and clear pathway into leadership would clean up the mess that appears in many growing churches small group infrastructure.  Almost every growing church in America is growing simply because they find ways to get more people in the front door than are leaving the back door.  This feels unhealhty to me.  Unfortunately, they attempt to "revamp" assimilation and small groups in the fall or throughout the year just to play "catch up" and it never works!  One would think its time for us to learn the lesson on what is not working!”

DAMIAN UNDERSTANDS THE NEED TO CREATE THE RIGHT DNA IN EACH CELL SO THAT NEW LEADERS ARE DEVELOPED AND THE CITY IS PENETRATED FOR JESUS CHRIST.

 February 2004

 At my seminar last week in Spokane, Washington, a participant named Maurice Smith shared some very interesting information about why the METHODIST cell revival died out.  You’ll remember that John Wesley’s cell church grew to 10,000 cell groups and 100,000 people in celebration in the late 1700s. A person had to have a “ticket” proving that he had been in a cell during the week to get into the celebration service. Anyway, Maurice discovered through reading a Ph.D. dissertation on Wesley’s small groups that EGO played a huge part in Methodist  small group stagnation. What he learned was that some small group leaders refused to multiply at 15 people. They wanted their small group to grow larger (can you see ego slipping in. . . ). They wanted to have lots of people under their care. As the years progressed, some of those cells became huge—50, 100, and even 150. Finally, the leaders would say, “I might as well be the pastor of my own church.” The multiplication of small cell groups took a back seat.

Watch the size of your cells! Multiply at 8-12 people. The average size of our cells at the Republic Church in Ecuador were 7.5. That’s true of the International Charismatic Mission in Bogota. Remember that the goal of cell ministry is first and foremost to make disciples who make disciples.

Ralph Neighbour recently said, “I cringe when I see cell groups that run 20-30 people. The dynamics of intimacy requires a small group where we can edify (oikodomeo) one another. Note the word “everyone” (hekastos) in 1 Cor. 14:24-25 and elsewhere. It is a Greek word that describes total participation by everyone present, not just a few with others simply observing.  “All” means “100%!” Can you imagine a group of 20-30 people where “all” are prophesying? When we allow a cell to grow too large, it becomes as freaky as a Hindu statue with six sets of arms. Around the world, cells are always kept below the number of 15. We multiply at 12 and if we have more than that when a cell gathers, we separate into two groups in adjoining rooms so there can be intimacy and sharing.”

p.s.: Maurice Smith sends out an excellent, free  cell church/house church newsletter. He can be contacted at Maurice_Smith@parousianetwork.com 

January 2004

I always like to share wit you FIRST the first lessons that I learn from my travels. A little background:

I’m on the plane returning from a weekend with an AOG church in Baltimore: 700 in Sunday attendance and 30 cells with a staff of six

This pastor has had a vision for cell church since hearing Cho in 1979. He planted the current church from scratch in 1984 and renewed his vision for cell church in 1988 (approx) after an extended time of fasting. He’s been tracking with Bethany World prayer Center and has made changes as they’ve made changes, having attended the yearly Bethany conferences from 1997-2000. Yet in 2001, when Bethany started their journey toward pure G12, the pastor stopped following Bethany’s model. Of course, the pastor and church has also been influenced by Cho, Neighbour, and others. I was thrilled that my book FROM TWELVE TO THREE made such a key influence on this church (I give God glory that He used this in this church as a plan or guide to follow) and thus, he asked me to come.

KEY PRINCIPLE: This pastor was humble and ready to admit his mistakes. Here’s what I mean: He admitted AND CONFESSED to cell leaders, staff, and congregation that he had strayed from God’s vision to become a cell church. He confessed that that for the last two years they had concentrated all their energy on their new building. He was humble enough to admit this. As a result of this deviation, the cells dropped from 55 to 30. Their goal was to have 100 by this time, but the deviation cost them dearly. They just lost focus. His humility and clear commitment to rebuild the cell church vision was exciting.

I sensed in this pastor a long-term commitment to the cell church vision. He couldn’t go back. He was bit by the N.T. cell-celebration pattern.

I spoke to the staff—after the pastor basically told them that they were going to once again be a cell-driven staff. After he led the way, it was easy for me to simply fine-tune. I I emphasized the need to be cell driven and to go from CORE TO CROWD rather than from CROWD TO CORE. I emphasized to the staff that they needed to go from gauging success by celebration attendance to gauging success by cell infrastructure growth (cell evangelism, people in training, number of new leaders, people in training, and ultimately new cells). I emphasized that the cell driven strategy sees Sunday attendance as a result of doing the other things. I told them that in their staff meetings they needed to have precise statistics of what happened in the cells the previous week (cell attendance, people in training, cell multiplication goal, conversions, etc.) and that each staff member needed to share what was going on in his network. Celebration stuff needed to be discussed afterwards. I told them that this is such an important step because we in North America have been programmed to think the opposite way.

Yes, they have their share of difficulties confronting them in the future. There is so much pressure to go the easy route and just serve the Sunday attendees through program related things. There are so many mega-mega churches out there that have high tech celebrations and incredible pastors that it’s just so easy to follow these examples—rather than ministering from the inside-out and making disciples who make disciples.

The good news is that even the senior pastor is committed to leading an open cell groups and he’s asking all staff to lead an open cell, care for the existing network of cells and have as a goal of eventually having twelve leaders under their care. And each pastor does have a ministry as well (e.g., Christian education, youth, missions, administration, etc.).

I hope this  “mini-case study” helps you in your journey.

December 2003

Do you mind if I boast in Jesus for a moment? I thank HIM for how HE used my books to influence a Guatemalan congregation. You’ll remember that I just got back from a cell seminar to 500+ pastors in Guatemala City, Guatemala. The host church had used my five cell books translated in Spanish as literal manuals to guide them in their cell church transition. They had never been to the International Charismatic Mission in Bogota nor were they trying to copy any model. Rather, they were following cell church principles and seeing amazing results. Their church is only 5 years old and they’ve been transitioning to cell church for three years. They  now have 300 cells and 3000 people in cells! Granted, we’re talking about a harvest area where the ground is very fertile. Here in AMERÍCA and in other cultures the ground isn’t as fertile. However, I gleaned two cross-cultural principles:

  1. WE MUST WORK HARD. These Guatemalan church leaders that I spent time with really gave themselves to the work of coaching, visiting, leading cell groups and evangelizing. We must do the same if we want to see results.
  2. CONCENTRATE ON DISCIPLESHIP OF THE CORE: The key leaders really caught the vision behind raising up disciples (cell leaders) who would raise up other disciples (cell multiplication leaders).  They expected their disciples to be committed to the vision and the vision just kept on spreading. I was reminded of the insight from Colin’s book FROM GOOD TO GREAT which talks about the need to get the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus. I’m seeing the need to make sure that those in our G12 or core leadership group are truly in agreement with the vision of the cell church and ready to labor for that vision. If not, it’s probably best to invite them to get off the bus.  

May 2003

I had a great cell seminar/preaching at Red Cedar Community Church (Weslyan denomination) in Rice Lake, Wisconsin that is pastored by Damian Williams. This church is one of the up-and-coming cell models in the U.S.  And Rice Lake only has a population of 8,000 people!! 

When Damian Williams started pastoring 2 ½ years ago, the church had 200 people on Sunday morning.  He set the clear goal that everyone would eventually become a cell leader (after training track, etc.). 100 people left over this issue—they didn’t agree. But Damian is a great leader and he didn’t compromise (notice the picture below how that the goal of his training track is cell leadership). Even though 100 people left, the cells have grown to 30+ and 350 in cell attendance. And they now have over 600 people in Sunday celebration. 

Damian Williams is part of the new breed of cell church pastors in the U.S. that simply refuse to call everything a cell, that focuses on leadership training to produce leaders, and has a dynamic celebration service on Sunday. 

Damian and I spent a lot of time talking. We both agreed that the cell infrastructure must drive cell ministry. Cell church pastors focus primarily on cell growth and multiplication. The cell infrastructure drives the church and celebration attendance follows naturally. For example, let’s say Damian Williams was asked how many people were in his church. I believe he would say, “I have 350 people and 30+ cell groups. And oh yea, I also have 600 people attending the celebration services on Sunday.” This is so radically different from most church growth indicators.  We’re inundated with church growth theory that says “success is filling the pews on Sunday morning.” I believe that God is calling his church to a new definition of success. 

Successful cell church pastors see success as how many pew sitters can be converted into cell leaders who will pastor home groups that will in turn pastor and evangelize. The real work is caring for the current leaders (G12) and then training the future ones (training track). The celebration is important but it’s the RESULT of the real work that takes place during the week. 

The cell infrastructure focus helps align the pastorate with New Testament truth—remember that Ephesians 4:11-12 says the job of the pastor is to train the lay people to do the work of the ministry.  This new focus also helps rescue the pastor’s role from the star of the Sunday celebration (how can I make the celebration attractive enough to keep the people coming back) to chief trainer and disciplemaker (how can I prepare and release lay workers into the harvest by developing them to lead dynamic cell groups). 

While both wings of the cell church are important, I believe the cell wing should drive the celebration wing and not vice-versa. Comments are welcome. . . .

April 2003

A friend of mine recently asked me about INSIDE THE BUILDING CELL GROUPS, wanting me to point him to a church that has done this successfully. I responded this way: 

Some do inside the church cells, but I don’t know how successful they are.

May I says that I’m a big fan of OUTSIDE THE BUILDING CELLS (because of atmosphere of a home, sense of penetration, and because it helps people to get over their “come to the building mentality).

If you did allow “inside the building cells” my advice is that you only do it on a transitional level—only for six months and then you’ll go in homes, etc. 

I’m only a purist when it comes to defining the cell correctly. I’m not a purist on training track, care structure, nor do I follow one model. BUT I THINK IT’S ALL IMPORTANT THAT A CHURCH DEFINES THE CELLS THEY WANT TO MULTIPLY.

I’ve come to believe that a cell should be defined five ways:

1. evangelistic

2. discipleship oriented (people are pastored)

3. multiplication

4. penetration (outside the church building)

5. weekly

Those are my big five that I counsel churches to zealously maintain. You’ll notice that the above five don’t cover: material used in cell, homogeneity, where the cell meets, degree of participation, cell order, etc. So in many ways I’m very flexible, but the BIG FIVE I think should be followed.

One more thought occurred to me today about inside the church cells. As you know, most American Christian have experienced various types of small groups inside the building: Sunday school classes, prayer meetings, bible studies, task activities, etc. My caution is that if you start holding a “cell” inside the building, the people’s natural inclination is to reflect back on their previous small group experience and treat the “cell” as something else. This is an “unseen danger” that is very hard to judge outwardly. Again, I think it’s a fine thing to do IF IT’S A TRANSITION idea for a limited time.

April 2003

I’m writing to you on the plane from Amsterdam to CALIF. Powerful time in Egypt, although they worked me to the bone! I was bone tired the last seminar night (and knowing that I had to preach 2xs the next morning), and just wondering how I was going to do it. Jesus came through and just said LOOK TO ME. I had to do an intense analysis beforehand of this church because of its uniqueness and setting. It’s an international English speaking church of about 1000 (Maadi Community Church) that feels like the United Nations (this part of Cairo is a hub for many internationals). A new set of members come through about every three years. Some would say a cell ministry is impossible in this situation. However, an Australian named Bill came on as an associate pastor about three years ago and started a cell ministry that has grown to 30 groups and 300 in average attendance. But could it be a cell church? Well Bill started reading some of my stuff, got the staff excited, and even came to California to see me. He felt that I could come to Egypt and help this church take the next step in cell church ministry. All the staff wanted this because they had tasted cells and new their power. Still there were some incredible obstacles: staffed like a programmed church, traditional church constitution, and the senior pastor was leaving for a one-year study leave. In my own mind (even before arriving) I wrote down the following recommendations. 

Inward-outward that highlights priesthood of all believers

Key: growth of infrastructure:

Key role of senior pastor