Month: January 2010

by Michael Sove (filling in for Rob Campbell)

The harvest is plentiful and the workers are few.  I just returned from 16 days in India working with the Pastors of Jesus Holy Church Ministries. God is doing a great work among them.  I had both the experience of being in the Capital City of Hyderabad in Andrha Pradesh as well as the remote regions around Giddalur.

Everywhere I went I saw a hunger for God.  People would sit for hours just to hear His Word.  I was able to share many messages with the people as well as share cell church principles in certain settings.  Many people opened their hearts to the Lord as well.

These Pastors are doing a great job with very little resources.  I am so privileged to be able to mentor them and encourage them any way that I can.  Two observations I made while among them.  They really need a model for discipleship and to understand friendship evangelism.

Pastor Samuel from Giddalur has access to 60 villages and has really transformed some villages that were completely Hindu and now have a strong Christian presence.  He averages over 600 in his weekly worship and on New Years day had over 1000 in attendance.

The Indian people really understand their need for God and what really impressed me is that no one would leave a service without asking for prayer.  The team and I spent hours praying over people.  If any of you would like to get involved in India please contact me and I can connect you with this ministry or can partner with you to help them reach their nation for Christ.

Comments?

Michael

by Joel Comiskey

I’m writing from Phoenix, Arizona where I just finished a cell seminar among the Pentecostal Church of God denomination. One topic that was very well-received was entitled “Multiplication: Helps and Hindrances.” I first gave this lesson one-year ago at the 2009 Day with Joel and Mario and have been perfecting it ever since.Here’s the gist of it:

• Hindrance: multiplication mandates (e.g., “all cells must multiply in six months”). The bottom line is that cells don’t multiply in a uniform set time period.

• Help: understand the soil and context. The multiplication time period depends on the receptivity of the country. Werner Kniessel, pastor of a growing cell church in Switzerland, told me that it takes at least two years to multiply a cell group in Switzerland becuase of the hardness of the soil.

• Hindrance: the mentality that multiplication equals “the numbers game.” Many cell members and leaders don’t want to hear about multiplication because they think the pastor is simply wanting church growth when talking about multiplication.

• Help: promote multiplication as a health factor. The reality is that groups that don’t multiply tend to stagnate and become unhealthy. Cell multiplication equals cell health.

• Hindrance: lack of equipping focus. Many churches never multiply groups because they don’t have a way to prepare new leaders to faciltate the new groups.

• Help: emphasis on leadership training (disciples who make disciples). A clear emphasis on leadership training is the most important element in multiplication.

• Hindrance: lack of vision and direction.Some churches don’t give any direction or forward momentum to their groups.

• Help: promote the vision of cell ministry and plan multiplication based on who and where a person is in the equipping process. The best way to set goals in the cell church is to determine who will graduate from the training track and then to set multiplication goals accordingly.

• Hindrance: too little focus on the nucleus. Leaders can easily feel burned out by the lone-ranger mentality. .

• Help: remind people that the nucleus–not the cell–multiplies. Biologically, the nucleus, not the cell divides. Effective cells concentrate on the health of the cell nucleus (team) who in turn will give birth to a new group.

• Hindrance: one person leading more than one cells. This is a big problem in majority world countries when trying to reach “the goal.”

• Help: the essence of cell ministry is making disciples who make disciples. Cell minsitry is a leadership strategy and the cell is the best atmosphere to produce disciple-makers. The primary goal, therefore, is more leaders rather than more cells.

• Hindrance: lack of variety in multiplication. In the olden days, cells had to use mother-daughter multiplication.

• Help: provide different options for multiplication. Other multiplication options include cell planting and the leader starting his or her own group.

• Hindrance: no evangelism in the cell. It’s hard to multiply a cell without new people coming to the group.

• Help: stir each member to reach out. everyone in the cell needs to be reaching out in preparation for multiplication.

• Hindrance: equating evangelism with cell multiplication. Some think that cell evangelism equals cell multiplication.

• Help: multiplication entails a number of other disciplines. Multiplication embraces a number of other disciplines (e.g., group dyanmics, pastoring, raising up a disciple, etc.).

If you’d like to download this PowerPoint, press HERE.

Comments?

Joel

by Jeff Tunnell

www.bigbearchristiancenter.org

Leading a group of people in a purposeful direction requires thought, prayer, planning and, forgive the redundancy, purpose. ‘What’ and ‘why’ are necessarily determined prior to ‘how’. What is our God-given purpose, and why is it important? When these answers are discovered and agreed upon at the leadership level, decisions about ‘how’ we will get to the desired end can be selected.

I was recently re-reading “The Connecting Church”, by Randy Frazee in which he offers, “The first step you must take toward creating community and implementing your common purpose is to decide that the central mission of the church is to develop disciples.” This type of conclusion about purpose will narrow the activities and programs that are given priority all year long. Superfluous activities can be eliminated altogether when you define your purpose and discontinue trying to ‘do everything’ (often accomplishing less because of diluted capabilities and weakened resources).

Strong purposes provide directional insight. They assist us in seeing our weaknesses, which can lead us to resources outside of ourselves, such as coaching or reading or seminars.

I pray none of us will try to ‘go it alone’ this year. Let’s work together, strengthen one another and encourage our friends on this blog. Utilize the various JCG articles and recommendations as a regular resource to supplement your team. Sign all your leaders up for the blog and monthly newsletters. You can even follow Joel on Twitter.com

Comments?

Jeff

By Rob Campbell

www.cypresscreekchurch.com

“Don’t Wait on the Brick”

A young and successful executive was traveling down a neighborhood street, going a bit too fast in his new Jaguar. He was watching for kids darting out from between parked cars and slowed down when he thought he saw something. As his car passed, no children appeared. Instead, a brick smashed into the Jag’s side door! He slammed on the brakes and spun the Jag back to the spot from where the brick had been thrown. He jumped out of the car, grabbed some kid and pushed him up against a parked car shouting, “What was that all about and who are you? Just what the heck are you doing?!!” Building up a head of steam he went on. “That’s a new car and that brick you threw is going to cost a lot of money. Why did you do it?!!” “Please, mister, please. I’m sorry, I didn’t know what else to do!” pleaded the youngster. “I threw the brick because no one else would stop…”

Tears were dripping down the boys chin as he pointed around the parked car. “It’s my brother,” he said. “He rolled off the curb and fell out of his wheelchair and I can’t lift him up.” Sobbing, the boy asked the executive, “Would you please help me get him back into his wheelchair? He’s hurt and he’s too heavy for me.” Moved beyond words, the driver tried to swallow the rapidly swelling lump in his throat.

He lifted the young man back into the wheelchair and took out his handkerchief and wiped the scrapes and cuts, checking to see that everything was going to be okay. “Thank you and God bless you,” the grateful child said to him.

The man then watched the little boy push his brother down the sidewalk toward their home. It was a long walk back for the man to his Jaguar….a long, slow walk. He never did repair the side door. He kept the dent to remind him not to go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick at you to get your attention.

God whispers in your soul and speaks to your heart. Sometimes when you don’t have time to listen, He has to throw a “brick” at you. It’s your choice: Listen to the whisper — or wait for the brick.

“Be still [quit striving] and know that I am God…” Psalm 46:10

Comments?

Rob

by Joel Comiskey

Reading books sharpen our vision and help us to stay on the cutting edge. I have a list of recommended books that I encourage pastors to read to fine-tune their cell vision.

I just added another one recently by Joseph Hellerman called When the Church was a Family. Hellerman is a professor of New Testament at BIOLA University in La Mirada, CA. This book is a radical call back to the New Testament way of doing church as a family. Hellerman shows how the culture of the New Testament was group oriented, rather than individualistic. They understood Christ’s call to become the family of God and in fact, the New Testament Church lived out Christ’s call. Hellerman does a great job of critiquing the church today. Listen to his words:

You might try what I did on a Sunday morning some time ago. I preached a sermon entitled ‘why Sunday A.M. is Not the Church’ in which I compared early church family values and practices with the way that we do church on Sunday morning. The application was challenging but quite straightforward. I proceeded gently but firmly to inform my people that many of them–some of who had attended on Sunday for years–had never been to church! Then I encouraged them to begin going to church, that is, to start attending one of our home-group settings where they could cultivate the kind of surrogate sibling relationships that God intends for his children to enjoy with one another (p. 178).

Hellerman believes that the New Testament church prioritized their relationships with each other (the family of God) before their own nuclear families. He then exhorts us to do the same because he believes the Bible teaches this .

I disagree.  I believe God wants us to prioritize our own nuclear families above the local church, and I think there is biblical precedence for this as well.

Overall, this is a great book, and I would encourage you to read it.

Comments?

Joel