The Need to Delegate

marioby Mario Vega

At the beginning of our cell work, I personally supervised the work of my leaders. But, as the leaders began to multiply, it was evident that it delegatewas no longer possible to personally encourage them in their work. As we followed Pastor Cho´s model, we started promoting leaders that showed greater effectiveness in their work so they could encourage as well a group of five to ten leaders each. These promoted leaders were called supervisors. Each group of five to ten cells became a sector.

In a short while, the sectors began to multiply demanding a greater number of supervisors. Later on, the sectors increased up to a point of having to begin appointing zone workers. In each zone there were several sectors.

These workers, whom at first were only four, had each one under their own responsibility a great part of the congregation. At this point is where every Pastor who appoints Zone Accountables or Zone Pastors, come to the dilemma of whom to entrust such responsibility?

In our case, the selection criteria was the following: to have effectiveness in the cell work, a Pastoral character, spiritual maturity, active in the work of God, eager to serve. At first these brothers were appointed and were offered a small financial aid to help them with the cost of transportation, later on, they were called to work full-time. This is how the first zone supervisors were born, that following the Korean model, became known as Zone Pastors.

 

Comments?

 

Mario

In Spanish:

La necesidad de delegar.

Al iniciar nuestro trabajo con células, supervisaba directamente el trabajo de mis lderes. Pero, cuando los lderes fueron multiplicándose, fue evidente que ya no era posible animarles en su trabajo de manera directa. Siguiendo el modelo del Pastor Cho, comenzamos a promover a los lderes que mostraban mayor efectividad en su trabajo para que animaran a un grupo de entre cinco a diez lderes cada uno. A estos lderes promovidos les llamamos supervisores. Cada grupo de cinco a diez células llegó a convertirse en un sector.
Pero, en poco tiempo, los sectores comenzaron a multiplicarse demandando mayor cantidad de supervisores. Después los sectores aumentaron a un punto que fue necesario comenzar a nombrar obreros de zonas. Dentro de cada zona haba diversas cantidades de sectores.
Estos obreros, que al principio fueron solamente cuatro, tenan cada uno bajo su responsabilidad una buena parte de la congregación. Al llegar a este punto es donde todo Pastor que nombra responsables de zona ó pastores de zona, llega al dilema de ¿a quién confiarle semejante responsabilidad?
En nuestro caso, los criterios de selección fueron los siguientes: poseer efectividad en el trabajo con células, carácter pastoral, madurez espiritual, activo dentro de la obra de Dios, deseoso de servir. Al principio estos hermanos fueron nombrados ofreciéndoseles una pequeña ayuda económica para ayudarles con los gastos de transporte, posteriormente, fueron llamados a tiempo completo para éste trabajo. As nacieron los primeros supervisores de zona que, siguiendo el modelo coreano, llegaron a ser conocidos como pastores de zona.
 

Temptation to Lower the Goals

jeffRemember the story of the little boy with his bow and arrows who would shoot at the fence and then run over and draw a target around his arrow? GOALSHe hit his goal every time!

Goal setting for Cell multiplication must be a regular practice along with having a process in place for measuring the progress desired. Adjustments can be made as needed, but there will come a temptation to lower the goals to meet current performance. This is where your faith must play an important part in resisting this temptation toward mediocrity.

Keeping your eyes on Jesus and His sacrifice for the lives of men, women and children must continue to guide the goals. Training leaders to have hearts of compassion, coupled with action for reaching the lost is paramount; “For the Son of man came to seek and to save what was lost.” Luke 19:10. Faith to reach the goals set must be fueled by prayer and the belief that Jesus will move us along toward the completion of what He has inspired us to accomplish for the Father.

Goals birthed by prayer will reflect His motivation to reach more and more of our communities. This combined with a simple appraisal of the number of existing leaders in place who have the promise of multiplying themselves within the specified time period can provide a realistic goal. We must then protect ourselves from reducing the goals arbitrarily due to a seeming lack of ability to reach them. Faith and praying together with the existing leaders can win the day and keep us on course to discover new multiplication leaders who will in turn win souls in their circles of influence and consequently begin new cells full of new believers.

Have you ever reduced your goals just so you could meet them? Have you experienced this temptation to lower your goals after setting them? What realizations have you come to after making these adjustments?

Jeff Tunnell

http://www.bigbearchristiancenter.org/

This Blog Post: Only Questions

One of the purposes of this JCG blog community is to get us talking with each other.  I would encourage you to comment and to read the comments of others.

In light of this purpose, would you succinctly reply to the following three questions?  A few sentences would be very much appreciated and you need not strive to be eloquent with your words. 

1.  How did you first hear about cell church?

2.  What fear do you have about the cell church movement in America and/or around the world?

3.  What is the greatest strength of the cell church model?

Please comment.

by Rob Campbell

www.cypresscreekchurch.com

Goal Setting for More Leaders

joelMario Vega talked about goal setting in his blog on Thursday. When I wrote my book about the Elim Church called Passion and Persistence, I was very impressed by the goals setting at Elim. Souls count to God, and Elim believes they can do a better job at winning men and GOALSwomen to Jesus Christ if they plan for growth. Mario Vega works with each district to determine how many new cells can be established. A newer, more receptive district might produce more cells than an older, saturated one.

Multiplication goals are then updated weekly and posted to show which leaders are closest to reaching their goals.

By posting the goals, each leader knows where he or she stands in the process. The leaders encourage and stimulate each other for the Kingdom’s sake. Elim is passionate about conquering a city for Jesus and thus believes strongly in setting clear goals to accomplish it.

Elim, like other cell-driven churches, concentrates on developing new leaders through multiplying cell groups, and they will in turn reap the harvest and pastor the church. It’s the strategy that Christ gave to His disciples in Matthew 9:37–38: “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” The goal of new cells is the goal of new leaders being equipped and sent out as harvest workers.

With this approach, a church can concentrate on multiplying the infrastructure—developing new leaders—and be assured of qualitative and quantitative growth. Outreach and evangelism are core values in this approach. Galloway wrote, “The concept is that first you build leaders. The leaders build groups. Out of these groups come more leaders and a multiplication into more groups.

Comments?

 

Joel Comiskey

Setting Goals

marioby Mario Vega

A goal is defined as an specific objective to achieve at a specific time. Growth targets are set to be achieved within a specific time for a number of goalsleaders and for a specific attendance when working with small groups in houses.

The goals were very ambitious at the beginning of our cell work. During each quarter the goal was to achieve one hundred percent of new leaders and attendance. In other words, we had to double the number of leaders and attendees every three months. The goal was so high that it was never reached. With the exception of one single occasion to which I will refer in the future.

A factor that influenced in setting goals so high was that we were not planting a cellular church. We were making a transition from a church that was already larger to a cellular one. Some of our house meetings had attendances of 60, 100 or more people. It was urgent to multiply them. That is why we also had to use a shorter training course for leaders.

Later, the target was reduced to one hundred percent in a year. We are currently working with a more realistic and achievable goal. It is to obtain the ten percent of growth in a year.

We have learned that as more numerous a church is the much more difficult it will be to reach its goals. For example, a church that has ten cells and manages to open two more cells in a year will have reached the twenty percent of growth. But that would mean, that a church that has five thousand cells would have to open one hundred cells in the same period of time. As a church becomes numerous its goals should become moderate too.

Obviously, every church should set its goals according to its own circumstances. But results should never be expected if there are no defined goals.
Comments?

 

Mario Vega

 

Translation in Spanish:

Las metas.

Una meta se define como un objetivo especfico a alcanzar en un tiempo especfico. En el trabajo con pequeños grupos en casas las metas de crecimiento se establecen para una cantidad de lderes y asistencia especficos para ser alcanzados en un tiempo especfico.
Al iniciar nuestro trabajo con células las metas eran muy ambiciosas. Cada trimestre la meta era alcanzar el cien por ciento en lderes y en asistencia. En otras palabras, se deban doblar los lderes y los asistentes cada tres meses. La meta era tan alta que nunca fue alcanzada. Con la excepción de una sola ocasión a la cual me referiré en el futuro.
Un factor que influyó en fijar metas tan altas fue que no estábamos plantando una iglesia celular. Estábamos haciendo una transición de una iglesia que por s era ya numerosa a una iglesia celular. Algunas de nuestras reuniones de casas tenan asistencias de 60, 100 o más personas. Era urgente multiplicarlas. Por ello es que también nos vimos en la necesidad de utilizar un curso de capacitación de lderes de corta duración.
Posteriormente, la meta se redujo a un cien por ciento en el año. En la actualidad estamos trabajando con una meta más realista y alcanzable. Es lograr el diez por ciento de crecimiento en el año.
Hemos aprendido que mientras más numerosa es una iglesia mucho más difcil le es alcanzar sus metas. Por ejemplo, una iglesia que tenga diez células y logra abrir dos células más en el año habrá alcanzado el veinte por ciento de crecimiento. Pero eso, para una iglesia que tenga cinco mil células significara abrir cien células en el mismo tiempo. En la medida que una iglesia se vuelve más numerosa debe ir moderando sus metas.
Obviamente, cada iglesia debe establecer sus metas de acuerdo a sus circunstancias muy propias. Pero, nunca se debe esperar resultados si no se tienen metas definidas.