Month: July 2010

by Steve Cordle

One sure-fire way to drain the life out of your cell group ministry is to make it one of dozens of ministry options. To be central, cells cannot have lots of competition. That said, at our church we still need other ministries to function: children’s ministry during worship, worship teams, missions activity, etc. We have sought to keep groups at the center in a few ways:

a) The slogan “if ever in doubt, group always wins” That is, we tell people that if they have conflicting time demands from the church, always choose group.

b) Avoid competition: we do our equipping on Sunday mornings so we don’t take people away from groups. We don’t schedule much in the mid-week so as to avoid distractions from the group.

c) Make other events feeders to group: our new members class is designed to bridge people to groups, as are many other events.

d) Other ministry leaders encourage group participation. For example, the worship pastor asks those auditioning which group they are part of, and helps them to connect if they are not. The same holds true for children’s ministry and others. While there’s no rule, the expectations are clear.

If cells are the foundation of the church, those in leadership must be part of the foundation to be effective.

Comments?

Steve

by Michael Sove

A few days ago Jeff Tunnell wrote an excellent article called Understanding Integration.  In it he talked about the four types of integration.  (non integration; faulty integration; minimum integration and maximum integration)  Here is how it works for us, a church in transition.

We are a hybrid of minimum integration.  As Jeff laid out the main points of

minimum integration are:

• Cell Church

• Clear definition of a cell group

• Cell attendance is just as important as celebration attendance

• Only those already attending a cell group can be involved in official church ministries.

We hold to the first three points but let me explain the last one, especially what we would consider official church ministries.  In this phase in our transition people can serve without being in a cell but to lead or function as a point person for any ministry we do ask them to participate in a cell group.  All our deacons are at least members of a cell, most are leaders.  Leadership is influence and if they are not part of the cell system they cannot influence others to participate in the life of the cells, a very important part of our strategy.

For example we were approached by some men who wanted to start a men’s ministry.  Both these men were already in a cell group so we were open to the idea.  We asked them to call it Men’s Network and to make sure it contained balanced elements of our Connect, Grow and Serve strategy.  In other words it would not just focus on fellowship and fun events, it would not just focus on spiritual growth or serving in the community but would balance all three of these dimensions.  Men’s network serves both cells and celebration and does not have a life of it’s own.  It is an integral part of the overall cell system.

Since we only have 40 percent of our worshipping adults in cells we want to be able to harness the energy of the other 60 percent and get them behind the vision of our church and involved in service while we try to invite them into cells which is more of the strategy of how we live out the vision.  Later on when the majority are in cells we can depend more and more on the cells to carry out the basic ministry functions.

It is so important to address integration as you plant a cell church or transition away from a program based system to a cell based system.

Comments?  What are you doing to integrate?

Michael

by Mario Vega

When talking about integration, it is usually done from the perspective of a church that is making its transition to become a cell church. This is not the case at Elim. Next year we will celebrate 25 years since making the transition to cell church ministry. For our members, the perspective is now very different. Most people that now attend Elim had their first exposure to the gospel in a cell. They accepted the invitation to attend a cell, were converted, and then eventually started attending the celebration services.

Most people at Elim first relate to the cell environment, to the leader, to the host, to the supervisor and then eventually learn about the other functions of the church via the celebration services (i.e., musicians, deacon and deaconess, children’s church, women’s fasting services, youth activities, etc.)

Their involvement begins in the cell and that leads them to other privileges in the celebration service. This means that they come to integration in a natural way. In fact, they don’t even need to think about the concept of integration. For them the integrated church is the church. This is all they ever knew.

Comments?

Mario

Translation into Spanish:

Después de la integración

Cuando se habla del tema de la integración normalmente se hace desde la perspectiva de una iglesia que se encuentra haciendo su transición para convertirse en una iglesia celular.

El próximo año cumpliremos en Elim 25 años de haber hecho nuestra transición. Para nuestros miembros la perspectiva es ahora muy diferente. La mayor parte de personas que hoy asisten a Elim tuvieron su primer acercamiento al evangelio en una célula. Fueron invitados y asistieron. Luego vino la conversión y comenzaron a ir a las celebraciones. La célula fue antes que la celebración.

Las personas se relacionan primero con el ambiente de la célula, con el lder, con el anfitrión, con el supervisor. Después, en la celebración, se van enterando que existen otras funciones. Como la de músico, diácono y diaconisa, iglesia infantil, ayuno de mujeres, actividades de jóvenes, etc.

Su involucramiento comienza en la célula y, eso, les conduce a otros privilegios en la celebración. Es decir que ellos llegan a una integración de manera natural. En realidad, ellos ni siquiera manejan el concepto de integración. Para ellos la iglesia integrada es la iglesia. La única que han conocido.

¿Comentarios?

by Jeff Tunnell

The following article was written by Joel Comiskey and very helpful to me during the time I was trying to understand INTEGRATION.  I am posting an excerpt only.  If you would like the entire aritcle, let me know by COMMENT request.

The main point is NOT whether it’s permissible to have ministries in the cell church. The main point is not to allow those ministries to become programs that compete with the cells for time and resources. In my opinion, the word INTEGRATION best sums up how a cell church links ministries with cells. I believe that Integration is one of the hottest issues in the cell church today. We must be urgently concerned that ministries do not develop a life of their own and compete with the cell-base, but to avoid certain ministries could actually weaken cell and celebration (e.g., worship, etc.).

I see four types of integration: the first two are used in a church with cells. The second two are used in the cell church.

NON INTEGRATION	FAULTY INTEGRATION	MINIMUM INTEGRATION	MAXIMUM INTEGRATION
• Church with small groups • Cells are one ministry • Some in cells; some in other ministries • No attempt to integrate cells and ministries	• Church with small groups • Faulty definition of a real cell group • All groups are cell groups (Sunday school, choir, cells, etc.). • Integration is the acknowledgment that the church already has small groups	• Cell Church • Clear definition of a cell group • Cell attendance is just as important as celebration attendance • Only those already attending a cell group can be involved in official church ministries.	• Cell Church • Clear definition of a cell group • Cell attendance is just as important as celebration attendance • Those leading a cell group or in training to lead a cell group are involved in the official church ministries.

Non-integration is used in the programmed based church. If there are cells, they are simply one option among a variety of programs. There is no attempt to integrate ministries and small groups.

Faulty integration is practiced in churches that try to equate all small groups as cell groups (e.g., Meta Model). The motivation is noble (desire to integrate), but the problem stems from a faulty definition of a cell. In this approach, A Sunday School class, a board meeting, a choir group, a parking lot attendant meeting, a life-giving cell group, etc. are all classified as “cells.” This might bring instant integration (all ministries are small group), but many people will think they’ve experienced cell life, when in reality they’ve experienced a programmatic small group.

Minimum Integration is practiced in many cell churches. Cell churches who use Minimum integration say, “Everyone must actively participate in a cell, but not necessarily lead a cell group.” With Minimum integration, cell attendance is the key requirement before involvement in another ministry in the church.

Maximum Integration is practiced by a growing number of cell churches. According to this option, a person must be leading a cell group or in the process of preparing to lead a cell group to be involved in additional church ministries.

by Joel Comiskey

Do cell churches have additional ministries, such as ushering, missions, worship, etc.? The Elim Church, for example, has a powerful radio and TV ministry that blankets the country. The same could be said of other cell churches around the world.

The difference between ministries in cell churches and conventional churches can be summed up by the word “integration.”

Integration means that the starting point for church involvement is participation in a cell group. And isn’t this the starting place of the New Testament, since all of the gift passages are written to house churches? In a cell church, a person is first encourged to discover his or her spiritual gift in the intimate atmosphere of the cell. The person who is exercising a gift of teaching in the cell, for example, might be encouraged to teach in the training track. A person who has a clear gift of helps or service might be encouraged to minister as an usher.

In other words, cell churches fill ministry spots with those who are already involved in cell groups. The Elim Church is even more radical in this regard. They ask that a person is first leading a cell group (or supervising cell groups) before involvement in a church ministry. Elim looks at ministry participation as a privilege and wants to make sure the person is first fully integrated in the cell vision.

In the conventional church, on the other hand, small groups are just one ministry among many. A person might be involved as an usher, another in the worship group. Some, on the other hand, might choose the small group ministry. In the conventional church, cells are always competing for attention among the various ministry options.

A cell church that is fully integrated doesn’t have to worry about competition among minsitries since active cell participation is a foundational prerequisite for all other ministry involvement. Again, the key word is integration.

What are your thoughts on integration? What has been your experience?

Joel