Reforming the Family

Posted by Bill on April 21, 2012

One of the devastating impacts of sin in life is the disintegration of the family as it once was. For many people today, ‘family’ is a meaningless name that does little to ‘add’ to their lives. For these people, life is better alone – away from so-called ‘family’. Sin has exchanged the desire for family in the human heart and psyche for a desire to be self-driven.

Authentic family is a God-created order – it’s something that is most attractive and satisfying. Family is about sharing our lives together in particular ways for the building of community – all sharing in oneness, for the benefit of the whole. Just merely speaking the word ‘family’ does not produce family-living. Jesus prayed to the Father for His disciples (that includes you and me) … “I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are – I in them and you in me, all being perfected into one …” (John 17:22, 23).

Although the meaning and experience of family was lost through sin, the reality of authentic family-living was regained through the grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ. The church as family is one of the central images of the Bible (1 Timothy 3:15), and the idea of the church as the household of God came out of the actual house churches.

Purposeful cell/small groups are about the work of reforming the family, through the power of the Holy Spirit, in the body of Christ.

Bill

Myth: Change the Church by Criticizing It

Posted by Joel on

Some in the cell movement excel in putting down others, while exalting the cell structure as the new wineskin. They construct an “us and them” mentality. Everyone else is doing ministry wrongly and the only group doing it right is the cell church. Many, in fact, embrace the cell church because they are disillusioned with the conventional church. Yet can negativity sustain the cell church movement?

Truth: Let People See It Worked Out

Churches and ministries lay a very weak foundation with a negative message. Granted, scripture critiques our lives and ministry and never sugar coats the truth. Yet, once the theological foundations for cell ministry are laid, people need a positive message of how to implement that biblical message in their own culture and context.

Just do it. Let people see the results in action. I personally believe that cell church ministry is the best strategy out there. Yet, I realize that it’s not the only strategy, and that God is using various ministries to bless his body and grow his church. God has supernaturally placed me in his body to encourage and fine-tune cell church ministry.

All those living under the Lordship of Jesus and committed to his inerrant word are part of his organic church. Leaders in Christ’s church need to be very careful about badgering and bad-mouthing Christ’s blessed body.

Joel Comiskey

No goals, no growth!

Posted by Bill on April 14, 2012

If you want your small group to grow, you need to challenge your members to set growth goals. Setting achievable goals will point your group in the right direction and challenge your members to stretch further, from their present best, to the next level of their growth potential in Christ. Remember: No goals, no growth! – It’s as simple as that.

In the eight years I served as the Small Groups Director at Maadi Community Church, Cairo, October was the annual ‘goal setting’ time for me. It was the time of the year when I had to turn my attention to working on producing budget figures for small groups operation and development in our church for the following financial year. In my first year, this task was quite easy to accomplish because we started with zero groups. However, each following year the Lord blessed our efforts with an amazing increase in the number of groups under our care (413 groups in eight years!). With this amazing growth came a mega challenge of setting a budget that would enable the development and growth of the groups to continue. This challenge involved every member on my senior leadership team.

After several team-discussions and much prayer, each of our ten Zone Directors (leaders of 1,000 small group members) would submit their goals and budget proposal for consideration and approval. After making minor adjustments, the job of calculating the financial budget would begin. In my final year at MCC, it took me seven working days to calculate a combined budget for our networks of small groups.

After submitting our growth goals and budget to the Business Manager I would leave feeling quite relieved, excited, and greatly expectant that our God would do even greater things in and through us the following year. The following goals is what I submitted:

Small Groups: 469 (increase of 169)
Members: 4,518 (increase of 1,518)
New Believers: 620 (increase of 320)
Daughter Churches: 2 (making 7 in total)

Please don’t misunderstand me; realistic goal setting, alone, does not achieve growth results. We must go further; we must commit all that we have within our stewardship control for the realisation of our goals, we need to walk and work closer with the Lord than ever before, and we need to be as diligent as we can – exercising faith and remaining confident at all times that we can do all things through Christ who gives us the strength.

It saddens me to see groups in churches remaining the ‘same-old-same’, year after year, experiencing little or no apparent growth. The Lord expects us to grow! He loves growth, and, goal-setting is a responsible step in the process of experiencing growth. Make no mistake, I’m not talking about ‘human’ goals, but about ‘faith’ goals – goals that are inspired and sanctioned by the Lord.

Friends, shouldn’t we desire all that God has intended for us? How disappointing it would be to arrive in Heaven and realise we could have asked the Lord for more. Do the Scriptures not say to us, “You have not because you ask not” (James 4:2), and, “He is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope” (Ephesians 3:20)? Eight years running at MCC, by faith, we asked the Lord to increase our talents, and, each following year He did not disappoint us.

Remember: No goals – no growth! It’s as simple as that.

Bill

Myth: Cell Church Focuses Exclusively on the Cell and Celebration

Posted by Joel on

Many have likened the cell church to a two-winged bird. Just as a bird needs two wings to fly, cell churches thrive on both cell and celebration. Cells meet together during the week, but then those cells come together to celebrate on Sunday.

Two-winged comparisons are made so frequently that many people don’t realize that cell churches need additional supporting structures to function effectively. What are those additional systems?

Truth: The Cell Church Focuses on Key Systems that Produce Life in the Cell and Celebration

Besides cell and celebration, other systems make cell church work. The two main ones are training and coaching.

Training

Cell churches have a step-by-step process to take a person from conversion to spiritual maturity. The training track is intimately linked with cell ministry and furthers the process of cell multiplication.

Coaching

One of the key differences between groups that start and fizzle and those that make it over the long haul can be summed up in one word: coaching.

To make it over time, the small-group leaders must have a high-quality support system, much like the supply line that channels food and other materials to battle-weary soldiers.

The cell-driven strategy succeeds or fails on the quality of the coaching given to the cell leaders.

Joel Comiskey

Myth: Once You Have a Model, Stick by It

Posted by Joel on April 7, 2012

When a church follows cell church principles over time, it might become an example for others to follow. Other pastors might visit, ask questions, and even participate in the church’s network. Once a church has arrived at this point, is it best to stick with the exact strategy that has produced that growth?

Truth: Innovate and Change the Model as the Spirit Leads

A church never arrives at perfection. There is always room for improvement. The moment, in fact, that a church thinks it has arrived, it probably has already begun its downward spiral.

John P. Kotter, a business professor at Harvard University, wrote a book called A Sense of Urgency, in which he says:

“Complacency is much more common than we might think and very often invisible to the people involved. Success easily produces complacency. It does not even have to be recent success. An organization’s many years of prosperity could have ended a decade ago, and yet the complacency created by that prosperity can live on, often because the people involved don’t see it.”

One of Kotter’s main points is that complacency that comes from success is the enemy of progress. Of course, Kotter is writing to businesses, but churches fall into the same trap.

Churches often lose the urgent dependency on Jesus Christ when things are going well. They become content with their models, buildings, and other outward signs of success. They forget the sense of urgency that brought their fruitfulness.

Joel Comiskey