Month: October 2010

by Joel Comiskey

I’m writing from Puerto Rico, having been invited by “The Church of the New Testament Vega Baja” to do a cell seminar. I feel like they have taught me more than I have taught them. Pastor Emilio started his church in a home five years ago. God showed him the power of home cell group evangelism. In five years the chruch has grown to 24 cells and 275 people. As I interviewed the leaders and supervisors, almost all of them were divorced, using drugs, or caught in a Satanic web. Someone in the cell befriended them, ministered to them and eventually led them to Jesus. “Cell life” is second nature to them because thy were born again speaking the “cell language.”

For many of these converts, their oikos played a signicant role in bringing them to Jesus. What is an oikos? Ralph Neighbour has helped the church to understand the meaning of oikos. He writes:

The word [oikos] is found repeatedly in the New Testament, and is usually translated ‘household.’ However, it doesn’t just refer to family members. Everyone of us have a ‘primary group’ of friends who relate directly to us through family, work, recreation, hobbies, and neighbors. … Newcomers feel very much ‘outside’ when they visit your group for the first time, unless they have established an oikos connection with one of them. If they are not ‘kinned’ by the members, they will not stay very long or try very hard to be included before they return to their old friends (Shepherd’s Guidebook, p. 61)

Cells penetrate society through the members’ friends, family, and loved ones. It’s essential to find these web relationships at work, home, and recreational activities. On a practical level, those who know us will accept an invitation to attend a cell meeting more readily than strangers.

If you are a cell leader reading this blog, encourage your cell members to love, pray for and invite friends, relatives, coworkers, classmates and neighbors. David Yonggi Cho writes: “I have found the only definite way to increase church membership is through personal contact, and personal soul winning. If you know the person, it is better. Since you are personally touching your neighbors, through the cell system, it is far easier to win them to the church.” (Church Growth Manual, 7, p. 19)

An effective way to open hearts and attract oikos is through social meetings. Cookouts, sports events, retreats in a mountain cabin, or eating events are non-threatening, non-church environments where non-believers are comfortable.

I knew one cell leader who gathered his group at a ranch house on major holidays, or for a sporting event during the week. Cell members invited friends and family to these fun times, and many eventually joined the cell group. To maintain the intimacy in the group and to continue reaching out, this cell gave birth to another cell, and the multiplication process continued.

Have you found oikos evangelism effective? Share your story.

Joel Comiskey

by Steve Cordle

All across the world people have watched with joy and wonder as the Chilean miners emerged from being trapped 2,300 ft. below ground for 69 days. Amidst the cheers and celebrations many knelt to give thanks upon their safe return.

That is fitting, because ever since the mine collapse, people have been praying for those miners to be rescued. Their families prayed. Their nation prayed. People around the world prayed. It was a natural response to the need of those men to be rescued.

How deeply does your group feel the need for the people they know to be rescued? How can you help spur that realization?

Comments?
Steve Cordle

by Michael Sove

The early church knew the power of prayer in community, and we read the results in Acts 2:46-47.  â€œEvery day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

Another insight we can learn from is seen in two words found in Acts 1:14  “They all joined together constantly in prayer…”. The cell is like a little platoon of soldiers who through prayer can do serious damage to the enemy camp.  Those two words, “together” and “constantly” describe the place of prayer and the frequency of prayer in cell life.

Prayer is the atmosphere of any cell gathering and happens all throughout the evening planned and unplanned.  You can open in prayer, have a season of prayer during worship, pray over the open chair, and pray for one another as needs are recognized.  You can pray one on one during the breakout time, men with men and women with women.  You can pray for each other and for those you are reaching out to all throughout the week.

Since we are talking about evangelism, there are two particular places in our cell gatherings where we focus on those needing Christ.  First, during the witness time or the open chair time we will specifically pray for those needing Christ.  We do this in many different ways.  Sometimes we sit in the chair on someone’s behalf and ask people to pray for the salvation of that person and our opportunity to be a witness to them.  Other times we write down names and pass them to the left, and have each person pray for the other person’s contact.  Sometimes we’ll pray, asking God to lay someone on our heart, and as He does, we lift up their name asking God to bless them and touch them.  And we ask God to fill the open chair and ask for His eyes for people.

Variety here from week to week is important but consistency is the key.  I prayed for a guy for two years during this portion of the gathering. After two years of constant prayer he opened his heart to Christ and is now a cell leader, coach and really living for Christ.  Prayer made an eternal difference.

Another point of specific prayer centered around evangelism comes as we break into two’s and three’s.  One of the questions we ask during this breakout time is this:  “Who are you praying for to receive Christ?  What is the next step you need to take in this relationship?”  Then we pray for each other and the person we are reaching out to.

Praying together constantly in a cell for people who need Christ, as well as for each other to have God’s heart and God’s eyes for people can make an eternal difference.

Comments?

Michael

by Mario Vega

Prayer is an essential element for evangelism. The new birth is a powerful work that only the risen Christ can make. The evangelism worker is limited because he can only present the message of the gospel and nothing else. Only God can make the sown seed germinate.

Becuase evangelism is the cell’s priority, our leaders give great emphasis on prayer for the lost. Many gather an hour before the cell meeting to pray for their guests. In the same way, in the planning meetings which take place once a week, an important element of those meetings is praying for the guest list and for the conversion of those who attend the cell.

The expression “the Lord’s army advances on their knees” is a reality in the cell work. Only on our knees can cell ministry truly move toward multiplication.

Comments?

Mario

Translation in Spanish

El evangelismo y la oración

La oración es un elemento fundamental para el evangelismo. El nuevo nacimiento es una obra poderosa que solamente el Cristo resucitado puede efectuar. La labor de quien evangeliza es limitada, solo puede exponer el mensaje del evangelio pero nada más. Solo Dios puede hacer que la semilla sembrada germine.

Por estos motivos, y siendo la evangelización clave en el trabajo celular, nuestros lderes dan gran énfasis a la oración por los perdidos. Muchos se reúnen una hora antes de la reunión de célula para orar por sus invitados. De igual manera, en las reuniones de planificación, que se realizan una vez por semana, un momento importante es cuando se recogen los nombres de los invitados para la próxima reunión de célula y se hace una oración unida por la conversión de esas personas.

La expresión que el ejército del Señor avanza de rodillas es una realidad en el trabajo celular. Solo de rodillas se puede caminar hacia la multiplicación.

Jeff Tunnell

Let us remind one another that prayer is a work of faith.  We pray AND believe.  We believe what God states and then we pray in accord with God’s revealed plans.  My friend Ted Rose, Jr., founder of Worldwide Prayer and California State Coordinator for the National Day of Prayer Task Force, recently said that because God answers prayers, we should offer many prayers for the salvation of friends, family and acquaintances BECAUSE those prayers will follow the people we pray for all the days of their lives.  Even if we should pass away prior to the answer coming, it will come, due to God’s faithfulness.

Our cells should regularly target in prayer those who need salvation.  We have authority to pull back the blinders off of the eyes and hearts of those blinded by Satan.  The eyes being freed will be able to receive a presentation of the Gospel.  So follow up the first volley of prayer with additional intercession according to Jesus’ command; pray to the Lord of the harvest that HE will thrust workers into the harvest.  They will be ready to believe the Gospel when the worker arrives!

There’s a great 1-2 punch that defeats the devil and paves the way for many to come to Christ!