Month: July 2010

by Steve Cordle

At a recent lunch gathering a pastor friend of mine asked how he could coordinate all the various ministry groups in his church without endless meetings and many staff. As we spoke he realized that we didn’t have committees for segmented ministries like evangelism, pastoral care, or fellowship because we incorporated all of those into the small group structure. With a wistful envy he said, ”You are training all of your people in all these areas.”

Recently a lay leader of a good evangelical church invited me to breakfast to discuss how to stimulate evangelism in their congregation. He spoke of his passion and experience in relational evangelism, but now in his new position he was looking for ideas on how to stimulate evangelism in the whole church.

I told him that if the church had dozens more like him who were sharing Christ and winning people to Jesus, that would be his answer. As he shared that on a quarterly basis, he called together 16 people who shared his passion so that he could encourage and equip them. As he spoke it became clear that the simplest answer was to meet weekly instead of quarterly with those folks. That way he could help them with their spiritual fire, motivation, encouragement and more. Discipleship is not segmented, it’s all part of the whole, and a holistic cell group is the best way to develop disciples.

With an effective cell ministry, the church is naturally structured for discipleship, evangelism, leadership development and simplicity.

Comments?

Steve

by Michael Sove

I’ve done it both ways!  I planted a church with cells (called “Little Platoons”) and I’m currently Cell Pastor in a church of cells.  I prefer the church of cells.  Here are some of the benefits I’ve found in our cell-based system.

#1  Celebration and cell are considered equally important and feed each other.  People get a sense of the transcendence and immanence of God through large group and cell group participation.

#2  Everyone ministers to someone and no one ministers to more than ten.  Appropriate spans of care allow all to be ministered to well.

#3  All our cells throw monthly outreach events and practice body life evangelism.  You have as many evangelism nets as you have cells.

#4  All our cells apply the same passage or message topic each week and this allows continuity and brings great unity.  We’re on a common path together.

#5  Many more mentor’s available as discipleship is carried out through cell relationships.

#6  It allows for more people to use their gifts in both celebration and cell.  Many times we mobilize cells to serve at all church events.

#7   The cells expand the mission base of the church.  All our cells have adopted an International pastor as well as have a local mission focus.

After twenty one years in pastoral ministry I believe the cell-based system is the best delivery system for living out my job description found in Eph. 4:11-12 (NCV) “And Christ gave gifts to people—he made some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to go and tell the Good News, and some to have the work of caring for and teaching God’s people.  Christ gave those gifts to prepare God’s holy people for the work of serving, to make the body of Christ stronger.”

Questions?  Comments?

Michael

by Mario Vega

The main reason to make cells the base of the church is because the model of large and small meetings is the one that appears in the New Testament as a basic characteristic of the church. We have developed this subject before, and for now it is not necessary to go through it again.

In addition, there are other practical reasons that show the advantages of a cell-based church. From our own perspective, if we weren’t a church based on cells, the Elim church WOULD NOT  be:

1. Elim wouldn’t be a mega church. It would be a church whose membership might reach 3,000 people or so. In fact, we hit the ceiling of 3,000 for several years, and we couldn’t break it until we became a cell church.

2. Elim would not have so many branch churches overseas. Almost all of our branch churches were not born as a result of a missionary plan but as a product of the migration of thousands of Christians trained as cell leaders. If these migrants had not been trained for the work of the ministry, once abroad they would have joined a church as a member.  But their experience as leaders allowed them to become laborers of the churches that they themselves planted.

3. Elim would not  have been able to properly care for its members. The church was already large before becoming a cell church (about three thousand people), but it continued with the model of only one pastor looking after that crowd. And, of course, they were not really cared for. The cell model allowed thousands to exercise the “priesthood of all believers” and enabled them to encourage, pray and exhort one another. In this way, a whole cell care structure was created which has continued to this day.

4. Elim would not had been able to accomplish its big projects, like the purchase of six radio stations and a television channel with national coverage, a piece of land of 22 acres where its future 13.000 seat auditorium will be built, etc. Those great endeavors were made possible thanks to thousands of Christians organized around cells.

5. Elim would not  have the ability to evangelize and significantly penetrate the major cities of the country and abroad. The cell model has allowed 9% of the total population of the capital of San Salvador to be part of the church. It is very difficult to find anyone  in the country who has not heard of the Elim church.

6. if Elim was not a cell church it would not have a quarterly average of 9,000 conversions, about 300 baptisms per month,  and about 400 new leaders per year.

There would probably be other differences, but it is hard to imagine the difference between what Elim is today as a cell-based church and what Elim might have looked like as a traditional, program based church.

My prayer is that what is listed here might bless you to envision the benefits of the cell based church.

Comments?

Mario

Translation into Spanish:

¿Por qué es importante que la iglesia esté basada en células?

La razón principal es porque el modelo de reuniones grandes y pequeñas es el que aparece en el Nuevo Testamento como caracterstica básica de la iglesia. Este tema lo hemos desarrollado antes y, por ahora, no es necesario volver a él.

Además, existen otras razones prácticas que muestran las ventajas de una iglesia basada en células. Desde la perspectiva de lo que es nuestra experiencia, si no fuéramos una iglesia basada en células ¿cómo sera la iglesia Elim?

En primer lugar, Elim no fuera una mega iglesia. Sera una iglesia cuya membresa oscilara solamente alrededor de las tres mil personas. Ese techo que se mantuvo por varios años solamente pudo ser roto cuando la iglesia hizo su transición al modelo celular.

Segundo, Elim no tuviera tantas iglesias filiales en el extranjero. Casi todas nuestras filiales no nacieron como resultado de un plan misionero sino como producto de la migración de miles de cristianos capacitados como lderes de células. Si tales migrantes no hubiesen sido capacitados para la obra del ministerio, al llegar al extranjero solamente se habran sumado a alguna nueva iglesia. Pero su experiencia como lderes les permitió convertirse en obreros de iglesias que ellos mismos plantaron.

Tercero, Elim no hubiese podido cuidar adecuadamente de sus miembros. La iglesia era ya numerosa antes de ser celular (unas tres mil personas), pero se continuaba con el modelo de un solo pastor atendiendo a esa multitud. Y, lógicamente, se atenda mal. El modelo celular permitió que miles ejercieran su sacerdocio de creyentes para comenzar a animarse, orar y exhortarse los unos a los otros. De esa manera, se creo toda una estructura de cuidado celular que ha demostrado ser útil hasta el da de hoy.

Cuarto, Elim no hubiese podido realizar sus grandes proyectos como la adquisición de seis emisoras de radio y un canal de televisión de cobertura nacional, un terreno de 22 acres donde se construirá su futuro auditorio para 13,000 asientos, etc. Esos grandes esfuerzos fueron posibles gracias a millares de cristianos organizados en torno a las células.

Quinto, Elim no tendra la capacidad de evangelizar y penetrar significativamente en las principales ciudades del pas y del extranjero. El modelo celular ha hecho posible que un 9% del total de la población de la capital San Salvador sea parte de la iglesia. Es muy difcil encontrar en el pas a alguien que no ha escuchado, al menos, de iglesia Elim.

Sexto, si Elim no fuese una iglesia celular no tendra un promedio de 9,000 conversiones trimestrales, unos 300 bautismos por mes, unos 400 nuevos lderes por año.

Posiblemente existiran otras diferencias, pero es difcil imaginar las diferencias entre lo que es y lo que nunca fue. Pero, sirvan los elementos mencionados para ilustrar la bendición que significa una iglesia basada en células.

by Jeff Tunnell

A small circle of Christian leaders, of which I am a part, once posed the question to itself, “If we all arrived simultaneously in this community with the biblical mandate to make disciples of Jesus and then discovered that we were the only believers here, how would we approach the task of evangelism and establishing the new believers after leading them to Christ?”  Build buildings? Hold meetings? What?

The conversation that followed ran the course of examining each pre-determined and well-practiced method of which we were aware.  Finding most to be ineffective in our condition, we moved toward cooperation and relational approaches.  Then we adopted Augustine’s comments: in the essentials-unity, in the non-essentials-liberty, in all things-charity.  Eventually we decided to band together, rather than keep to ourselves and our denominations or affiliations, while moving into the community with relational evangelism.  Once new converts were made, we would meet in simple, life-giving groups to continue the spiritual formation processes.  This was becoming promising and exciting.

Then the impasse arrived and stood directly in front of us.  We left the meeting disappointed because each one knew they could not ignore the dictates of their denomination to stay aloof from others.  We had been confronted with the Bible, its history and the report of a vibrant growing body of believers and then left to compare our structures to what we really wanted to do.

But I left the meeting with hope!  I saw that the cell system would accomplish what we had concluded upon.  Buildings can arrive much later (if needed) because homes exist everywhere we need to gather.  Spiritual formation could be achieved in small relational structures (cells). Accountability and support were easily provided to each small group.  The church would be built from cell-to-cell, as the basic unit of the Body of Christ was formed over and over again.  Simple……profound!

Let’s decide today: this is no “add-on” ministry, rather it is the very foundation and life of the church that will expand HIS kingdom in all the earth.

Comments?

Jeff

by Joel Comiskey

During a cell seminar, a pastor from Victory Outreach announced to the seminar participants: “I’ve tried to start cells in my church three times and failed on each attempt. I now realize what I did wrong. I wasn’t concentrating on my cell group system.”

The phrase I heard over and over in the successful cell churches I studied was this: “cell ministry is the backbone of our church.” The vision passed down from leaders to members is that one must belong to a cell group to receive pastoral care, because cells are the very life of the church.

If cell ministry is one more program amid endless church activity, it’s bound to fail. The church won’t be able to concentrate on “this one thing.” Too many interests will overload the cell system.

The fact is this: No one can do everything well. A job well done requires deliberate concentration. This is true of churches, too. Successful churches cannot be all things to all people.

A cell church organizes itself around cell ministry. In a church with cells, the cells are one ministry among many. All other ministries function as separate programs but are supposed to exist harmoniously with the small groups. One person typically heads the cell ministry, while other pastors attend to their ministries. A church with cells might emphasize the importance of cell ministry, but it is not the main ministry.

Cell churches have two important ministries: cell and celebration. Cell ministry provides pastoral care, evangelism, counseling, follow-up and all other important activities. The core organizational structure is based on cell ministry.

It’s my growing conviction that if you want your cell groups to succeed you must learn to concentrate on the cell system behind those cell groups. The key word is concentration.

Comments?

Joel