Month: March 2008

 

by Steve Cordle

 Cell church can be a very effective disciple-making environment because it allows believers to get personal with each other.

The best discipling happens when in the context of an open relationship. Sitting shoulder to shoulder in a service won’t promote the kind of connection we need to grow fully mature. When I think of my spiritual development, I think of individuals who influenced me. If there is one regret I have about my early spiritual growth, it is not making even more of my life visible to those people.

The more of our lives we give people access to, the more God can work in those areas. When we hide an area of our lives, we hinder the work God’s Spirit wants to do in that area.

However, many North Americans are terrified of opening themselves up to someone else. While we each need Christ-centered community, we can fear it all the same. (It is ironic that for so long we pastors would encourage people to get into groups by describing how close and relationally open the group community could be…just what they were afraid of!)

How do you promote spiritually healthy, transparent relationships?

Jeffry A Tunnell, filling in for Rob Campbell this week.

It was my privilege to spend time with the board of the Joel Comiskey Group at their annual meeting. This group has taken on the large mission of resourcing the Cell-based church worldwide and yet demonstrates an unshakeable confidence in approaching and accomplishing the “race set before them” with eyes focused on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Kudos to the Joel Comiskey Group and Godspeed!

A regular discussion of cell-based churches is how we define a “disciple” in order to provide focus for developing a training track (equipping component) for discipleship. After all, this is the directive of the Savior in Matthew 28:18-20, which we must accept with complete seriousness. In the transitioning church, which is moving from program to cell, this question is of utmost importance because we have been previously trained toward competing for the Sunday morning crowd as a standard for success. The ABCs (Attendance, Buildings and Cash) must no longer be our goal orientation. We need to regroup on the outcome desired by thinking strategically about reaching the end product of a process that produces spiritually mature believers who are strong in character and practice.

Some questions to ask: What is a disciple? What does the process of discipleship look like? What does a disciple do? What are obstacles to successful disciple-making?

Now, what is your target and how will you hit it?

Jeff Tunnell
 

I was reading Charisma magazine last Friday and noticed an article about Agua Viva, a cell church in Lima, Perú that according to the magazine has grown to 100,000 and is one of the largest in the world today. I studied Agua Viva back in 1996 as part of my research project at Fuller Seminary. The pastor, Peter Hornung, an engineer by trade, took over from the founding pastor, Juan Capuro, when he fell into adultery in 1996. I attended Peter’s cell group back in 1998 and interviewed him about the transition. The church leadership openly exposed the sin of the founding pastor to the entire congregation, removed Juan Capuro from leadership, and continued to grow.

As I was reading the article in Charisma, I noticed that Agua Viva attributes their growth to the G12 cell church movement. In other words, Agua Viva considers themselves a G12 church.

As you know, JCG is committed to following cell church principles, rather than one model. Yet, I believe that the G12 movement has fine-tuned the cell church movement in many positive ways. I’ve personally been encouraged and challenged by the way the G12 cell church model:

¨ views everyone as a potential cell leader
¨ asks the leader of the mother cell to care for/coach the leader of the daughter cell
¨ develops a clear, dynamic equipping training track that prepared everyone for ministry
¨ emphasizes encounter-with-God retreats to ensure freedom from sinful strongholds, believing that holiness brings fruit
¨ prioritizes prayer and spirituality as keys to future growth

What are some of those postive ways that you have benefited from the G12 movement? What principles have been a blessing to you?

The good news is that you don’t have to follow the G12 model in its entirety to learn from it! You can adapt G12 cell church prinicples to fine-tune what you are already going.

Joel Comiskey

p.s.: in my book, The Church that Multiplies, I highlight some of the principles we can learn from the G12 movement.

It was in the year of 1982 when the book of Pastor Cho “The Fourth Dimension” came to El Salvador. The fact that there was such a numerous church like the one described in the book was simply incredible.

Nevertheless, the idea was so exciting that without more knowledge than the little that the book mentions about small groups in houses, several pastors launched themselves to the task of bringing it into practice.

On my part, I made three different attempts to start a work with small groups but they all failed. On their part, the pastors who had undertaken similar efforts had also ended disappointed. After that, I did not want to know anything about cells or groups in homes.

Fortunately, I had done all of these efforts on a small scale, with two or three groups, and had not informed the church as a whole. So I had the opportunity to relaunch the idea once again, even though at that moment I did not want to do it anymore.

Our main weakness was that we did not have any information on the cell model, and most importantly, we had not understood the nature of the New Testament church.

We saw the cell work as a tool to rapidly increase the number of members and not as the return to the primitive nature of the church. There is nothing magical in working with cells; only when we return with the right motivations to God’s nature for his church, we will see his mercy manifest.

Comments?

Mario Vega

I’ve included the Spanish of this blog below:
__

La llegada de la Cuarta Dimensión.

Fue en el año de 1982 cuando el libro del Pastro Cho “La Cuarta Dimensión” llegó a El Salvador. El que existiera una iglesia tan numerosa como la que se describa en el libro era simplemente increble.
No obstante, la idea era tan excitante que sin tener más conocimiento que lo poco que ese libro menciona sobre los grupos pequeños en casa varios pastores nos lanzamos a la tarea de ponerla en práctica.
Por mi parte, hice tres intentos diferentes por iniciar un trabajo con grupos pequeños pero todos ellos fracasaron. Por su lado, los otros pastores que haban emprendido esfuerzos similares también haban terminado decepcionados. Después de ello, yo no quera saber nada sobre células o grupos en los hogares.
Afortunadamente, todos esos esfuerzos los haba hecho a pequeña escala, con dos o tres grupos, y no los haba comunicado a la iglesia en su totalidad. De manera que tena la oportunidad de relanzar una vez más la idea, aunque en ese momento no deseaba hacerlo más.
Nuestra debilidad principal fue que no tenamos ninguna información sobre el modelo celular y, lo más importante, no habamos comprendido la naturaleza de la iglesia del Nuevo Testamento. Veamos el trabajo celular como una herramienta para incrementar rápidamente el número de miembros y no como el retorno a la naturaleza primitiva de la iglesia. No existe nada mágico en trabajar con células; solamente cuando con las motivaciones correctas volvemos a la naturaleza de Dios para su iglesia veremos su misericordia manifestarse.
 

 

by Steve Cordle

At the JCG Board meeting we spent a little time talking about the implications of postmodernism on North Amercian minstry and on equipping.

Whether we know it or not, the postmodern mindset is influencing the way American people — especially those under 30 years old — think and respond to the Gospel and to the Church. A growing number of younger people, even church leaders, find the traditional church (based largely on modern principles) to be out of sync with them and their worldview.

My point here is not to analyze postmodernism — it’s just this: I believe the cell church is uniquely positioned to connect with the postmodern generations. The emphasis on relationship, organic growth, personal discipleship, and outward service potential — all with the benefit of the connection to a larger Body — combine to make the cell church an effective model of ministry in this changing enironment. 

Recently I have had conversations with numerous young church leaders from various parts of the country who were vaguely dissatisfied with what they perceived as “Church, Inc.” — and were looking into alternate emerging church forms. After some conversation and reading about cell church, they got excited and said, “That’s what I’m looking for!”

We may need to alter some of our training and communication methods as we move into the 21st century, but at its core, the cell church is poised to reach a generation such as this.