Turbo!

by Jeff Tunnell

Dare I suggest that Jesus practiced the TURBO! method of leadership multiplication?  Spend 2-3 years with a diverse group of hand-picked individuals, pouring your life into them by teaching and modeling the truth in power, die to self and let them live out your mission in total commitment.

Using this TURBO! method now, we simply form a cell in which everyone is in training to lead their own cell.  Live in community with one another until a measure of success is reached in adopting biblical values and then everyone launches a cell of their own at a prescribed time.  All at once – TURBO! mulitiplication from one to 10 cells in a short period of time.

Jesus gave the disciples His Holy Spirit, enabling them to live His life our through theirs and it worked to the point of reaching all the way to us.  The Holy Spirit will fill us and breath His mission into us as well, this is key.  With His power for living we can disciple a group to become leaders in our generation, just like the early disciples did as the church was being born into an exponential growth.

This is just ONE of many ways cells may be multiplied and requires strong relational ties between all members of the first cell as a foundation followed by close accountability after the multiplication period.

4 thoughts on “Turbo!

  • 2-3 years of leadership development before deployment is a healthy TURTLE start, not a turbo start to me.

    It sounds like you use this Turbo model in your church, a fully transitioned model. If so, that’s a very important distinction to highlight.

    I have only seen a “turbo” transition start work in two or three American churches over the years, and it worked because the members of the church were so active in prayer and relational evangelism and discipleship prior to the introduction of the cell support structure.

  • Thanks for the responses to TURBO! We are discussing various methods of cell multiplication and I am bringing to the table one possibility. I DO NOT suggest that we must take 3 years to disciple leaders before they start a cell group – that would be, as Randall comments, a Turtle start for sure.

    I DO suggest that sincere discipleship be accomplished before launching a new leader and that close accountability continue with that leader as they begin leading the new cell.

    Look for reproducible principles within the practices.

  • Jeff, I’m seeing a far greater need to have discipleship working among the members of new groups compared to conventional thinking whereby leaders are trained and members are assigned or recruited from the congregation. No amount of good leader training and development is going to make that new group function as the body of Christ if the members are consumers at heart and not sacrificially living for Christ.

    This is the basis for my deeply rooted concerns for using the words “turbo” and “cell group launch” in the same sentence.

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