Month: May 2008

Jeff Tunnell here, filling in for Joel Comiskey who is ministering in New York. Early on in transitioning our congregation from Traditional to Cell-based structure, we confronted the issue of building a training track (equipping track for discipling new believers into future leaders). Being a small congregation, resources in both manpower and funds were equally small. Like many we ADOPTED someone else’s model and pre-printed materials. As we continued to transition, the publisher of our adopted materials began changing them radically and frequently which led to our frustration. This was due to the belief that any fruitfulness would come from following the “model” exactly and that any change would weaken its inherent strength and wisdom. Ouch!

At a Cell church conference I had a conversation with a well-known cell church leader during which I vented my frustrations. His response finished the issue and gave me direction. He said, “When you follow a model built by someone else, rather than using Cell church principles, your path will be like this; first you will ADOPT their materials, and then when the expected results do not come within your expected timeframe, you will ADAPT them to more closely fit your ministry environment and outreach dynamics. When they still fail to produce the desired results, you will ABANDON them and try to compile your own. All of this will take about 2 years to cycle through.”

Our experience proved this to be true and cost us much time and effectiveness. The simple fix? Follow principles not models! If you examine materials produced and published by someone else, look for at least these two things: adherence to the Word of God and well-known principles of cell church being implemented successfully around the world that have been birthed by the Holy Spirit.

Have you shared a similar frustration in your journey? Are you in the process of looking for help in this area of development? What other insights could you add to these?

Jeff Tunnell

by Mario Vega

What can a leader teach? Should a leader be left on it’s own to freely teach? Or should he/she be oriented on the contents to teach? These were some of the questions I made myself when starting our cell model. This work with cells came in response of an evangelism need. At least, I was clear about the evangelist purpose of our small groups in houses.

I figured that studying St. John’s Gospel would be a good resource. This is a Gospel that can be easily focused on evangelism. But how could we make sure that every leader would teach exactly what was expected of him? I thought that the best way was to provide them with an outline to be developed in the cell.

I designed a basic outline. With an introduction, a three points body and, finally an application. The biblical reading was indicated at the beginning of the lesson and the Bible truth was highlighted.

I was writing this outline each week, printing it on a sheet of paper, making copies and handing them over to each leader, explaining to them what they had to do. This is how we worked for several months. Later on, other branch churches became interested in these materials so it was necessary to send these to a print house to be published as quarterly guides.

In our case, the lessons have a strong emphasis on evangelism. We leave the discipleship of Christians for our celebration meetings. I know that other churches use their teachings to make disciples, which is fine. But, due to the circumstances in which our model was born, our contents are evangelistic.

At present, each quarter, 13000 of our guides are published and there are 76 published volumes.

Comments?

 

Mario

 

LA GUÍA PARA EL LÍDER
¿Qué puede enseñar un lder? ¿Se debe dejar que cada lder enseñe con libertad? ¿O se le debe orientar sobre los contenidos a impartir? Estas fueron algunas de las preguntas que me hice al iniciar nuestro modelo celular. Éste haba nacido para responder a una necesidad de evangelización. Al menos, tena claro que el propósito de nuestros grupos pequeños en casas era de carácter evangelizador.
Se me ocurrió que un buen recurso podra ser estudiar el evangelio de Juan. Este es un evangelio que fácilmente puede enfocarse en el evangelismo. Pero, ¿cómo lograr que cada lder impartiera con exactitud lo que se esperaba? Pensé que la mejor manera era proporcionándoles un bosquejo que pudieran desarrollar en la célula.
Diseñé un bosquejo básico. Con una introducción, un cuerpo de tres puntos y, finalmente, una aplicación. Al principio de la lección se indicaba la lectura bblica y se resaltada la verdad central.
Escriba el bosquejo cada semana, lo imprima en una hoja de papel, le sacaba copias y lo reparta a cada uno de los lderes explicándoles lo que deban hacer. As trabajamos por varios meses. Posteriormente, otras iglesias de nuestra Misión se interesaron en estos materiales y fue necesario enviarlos a una imprenta para publicarlos en forma de guas trimestrales.
En nuestro caso, las enseñanzas tienen un fuerte énfasis en la evangelización. El discipulado de los cristianos lo dejamos para nuestras reuniones de celebración. Sé que otras iglesias utilizan sus enseñanzas para hacer discpulos, lo cual está bien. Pero, por las condiciones en que nació nuestro modelo, nuestros contenidos son evangelizadores.
En la actualidad, cada trimestre, se publican 13,000 de nuestras guas y se llevan ya 76 volumenes publicados.