I’ve spent the last week in Hong Kong at the CCMN conference. CCMN stands for Cell Church Mission Network. Ben Wong, the founder of Shepherd Community
Grace Church (a cell church of 1700 members in Hong Kong), sensed God was showing him to freely share resources and seminar speakers with other pastors and churches in Hong Kong. The CCMN network grew to include 100s of churches around the world. These churches and pastors not only shared resources but also trained cell church missionaries to plant cell churches around the world.
At this CCMN conference, there were over 300 leaders from many, many nations. I talked with pastors from India, Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Australia, U.S., Brazil, South America, and Russia (and I’m sure I forgot a few!).
The main goal of the conference is not to hear speaker after speaker but to connect with other like-minded pastors who love missions and cell church ministry. This year CCMN tried to be very inclusive to those planting house church networks as well as cell churches. I spoke the first day on planting reproducible churches. I talked about the need to simplify and connect cell churches and house church networks into a united movement of “simple†churches that multiply. We need both large cell churches (e.g., Elim) and small, simple cell churches (e.g, the majority of churches).
Mario Vega was present for the entire CCMN gathering and spoke about God’s mighty move in El Salvador and around the world. Rodney, a pastor of a small cell church plant in Texas, just happened to be one of Mario’s roommates (everyone stayed in dorm style “bunk-bed” rooms). Rodney commented on how amazing it was to share a room with the lead pastor of the second largest church in the world!
It was great to see large church pastors and small church pastors share the vision of reaching a lost world for Jesus. The theme of CCMN, in fact, is: no glory, no control, and no empires!
Comments?
Joel Comiskey
Refreshing! I drew in your blog like taking a breath on a cool morning; invigorating. And to hear that two of JCG’s four leaders were there gives confidence that I am connected to and hearing from the leading edge of the world-wide cell church movement!
Joel,
Sounds like it was a wonderful conference to attend. Would have loved to have been there.
Blessings,
Mike
I lived in Hong Kong for the last year. I can confirm that what Joel is reporting on is the real deal. The interesting thing in my mind is that the CCMN crew have been practising what Joel’s new book is all about (planting reproducible uncomplicated churches) for the last decade or two – and are having an incredible impact! I think that the emphasis in Joel’s ministry at the moment is spot on – build big churches if you can – or else plant a new one. It’s all very doable 🙂
thanks for the info about the conference – i linked it to http://www.newchurchreport.com to share it with others, along with the other articles and stuff there…
Thanks, Scott, for linking it. You’re doing an awesome job in the body of Christ to put together http://www.newchurchreport.com. Excellent job. I’ve enjoyed visiting your site! Keep up the Kingdom work.