Today's preaching was awesome. Somehow when pastor Jo preach, it always kept me at the edge of my seat and time seems to stand still. I am not exaggerating. I was really engrossed in today's sermon.

His style of unrivalling the truth of the Word of God to make it understandable, get the big picture and then help you make sense out of it - makes it easier to apply. It is sort of letting the Word speak for itself, instead of adding too many other things to make it "look cool". The Word is already good, we don't have to make it better, just explain it out.

Today's sermon was about Nehemiah 2:1-11
How Nehemiah turned his burden into action. He was burdened for the ruins of Jerusalem, he fasted and wept but that still bothered after months. Then he was sad in the King's presence and he took the right opportunity to act courageously. The fact was that he waited for the right opportunity to act instead of rush into things. This principle of waiting for God's right timing is very important.

People who wants to change things may have the impulse to act. They are acting with passion. But people who succeeded in bringing glory to God such as Queen Esther, Nehemiah, Paul and Jesus waited for the right opportunity.

Being rash is a sin and a foolish thing though there will be situations when we FEEL so much to act. Being able to hold up is wisdom. Pastor Jo gave the example of how Jesus maximised the glory unto God by delaying to go to Lazarus even when he was seriously ill. He waited till he was dead then he went! He knew what God had in mind (this is not to say that we delay helping people).

Esther too, waited for the right time to meet the King to give her request. She fasted and prayed and get people to pray with her (same as Nehemiah) and then made herself look probably cute and lovely and the King saw her and called to her.

There is just so much insight to the Word of God. When the Word is being expounded, its just like you just saw something that you didn't noticed it was there all along!

Believed some people have heard terrible news recently. But the vision of God stays strong and we are still in the business of serving God and His people. And I think we can still be obsessed about building strong and biblical churches! BSB Church.

So I am going to turn this blog into a church growth and discussion blog. tag boards are gonna be added. We are going to give some guiding principles here and heavily require your input too. We can discuss about methodologies being practiced and how to apply the truth in wisdom. But I do hope no trouble makers come and create controversies etc...

Let's have a new hope in whatever we are doing for the Kingdom. Thanks.

A Cell group Church or a church with Cell group?

I went to Trumpet Praise to buy some stuffs and ended up buying some books two Saturdays ago. I bought a book which I’m quite proud of – the 50 years of Ministry by Cho Yonggi, the pastor of the largest church in the world.

This book tells alot about what he thinks/felt as he reflect upon his own ministry and what God has done through him. Though its only less than 170 pages, it contained many valuable lessons we can glean from.

Cho said that there was a point in time in ministry he was very sick. So sick he could not lead the church and work because he has been overworking for very long. At that time he was only in his late twenties. So he was thinking at home, fasting and praying how to grow the church even more and not have to overwork himself. Previously he was doing everything himself. He feels that he was anointed therefore he is the one that God has to use. But God spoke to him one day through the story of the Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses.

This is very interesting.
Exodus 18:13-27
¹³ The next day Moses took his seat to serve as judge for the people, and they stood around him from morning till evening. ¹⁴ When his father-in-law saw all that Moses was doing for the people, he said, "What is this you are doing for the people? Why do you alone sit as judge, while all these people stand around you from morning till evening?"

¹⁵ Moses answered him, "Because the people come to me to seek God's will. ¹⁶ Whenever they have a dispute, it is brought to me, and I decide between the parties and inform them of God's decrees and laws."

¹⁷ Moses' father-in-law replied, "What you are doing is not good. ¹⁸ You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone. ¹⁹ Listen now to me and I will give you some advice, and may God be with you. You must be the people's representative before God and bring their disputes to him. ²⁰ Teach them the decrees and laws, and show them the way to live and the duties they are to perform. ²¹ But select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain—and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. ²² Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves. That will make your load lighter, because they will share it with you. ²³ If you do this and God so commands, you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied."

²⁴ Moses listened to his father-in-law and did everything he said. ²⁵ He chose capable men from all Israel and made them leaders of the people, officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. ²⁶ They served as judges for the people at all times. The difficult cases they brought to Moses, but the simple ones they decided themselves.

²⁷ Then Moses sent his father-in-law on his way, and Jethro returned to his own country.

This became a rhema word to Cho and he started to ponder about this. He needs to select leaders to train and empower them, but he is still the head of the them as he follows Christ the Head of the church. But how do to do this? To appoint leaders over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens?

Then he read about the church in Acts. They have 3000 converts in one single day and it was obvious to him that they gathered in homes of the people and since there is no common place to gather all the disciples together in Scripture. Therefore there is definitely some leaders over each house meeting. This is where the Home group concept was birthed out. And he envision them to multiply like cells, a living organism, therefore coined the term “cell group”

So he chosen some people as leaders and commissioned them to lead the cell groups. In the early stage, there were no sophistication about cell groups. There was no open, pour, shake, no defined programs, Cho even felt that the cell group lacked details but he really felt it was from God. So they went ahead. He charged them to simply do what a servant of God should do – pray for people (the sick and everyone with needs); teach/counsel with the Word of God; meet the people’s needs; spread and share the Gospel.

amazingly, after the implementation of the cell groups by dividing them into take charge of different parts of the city, the Gospel spread even faster and many more people came to know Jesus through the cell groups. Members will witness together, gather together to eat and share lives, then leadership is also being trained. Instead of training new pastors last time, now each cell leader has to rise up new leaders when the cell group split because of growth. The growth quickly escalate from 6000-10000. There is one point, in three years’ time, it grew from 10,000 to 100,000 and then to 300, 000.

The motivation of each cell group and thus the arithmetic that is being derived is in fact, very simple. If they set goals per six-month for example, and the leadership/relationship is strong, he can motivate each cell group to witness and win for the Lord one household. One household may consists of 4 person. So the cell groups did this (pray for people (the sick and everyone with needs); teach/counsel with the Word of God; meet the people’s needs; spread and share the Gospel) to that one household. A 1000 people for a start will soon grow to 4000 people. The next year, they became even  more bold, to witness to two households. They kept that focus clear and continued as usual. They grew exponentially.

Well, as we can see here. Cell group is like a strategy, more than a program that a church has. Its a strategy to win the unreached and engage members to group together for close relationships so they can serve in ministry together. In fact, when the momentum is up, leadership renewal is continuous, and the sight of spreading the Gospel to the ends of the earth is not lost, the dividing of cells cannot stop, ceteris peribus.

This is Biblical. It raises more leaders and therefore causes the church grow even stronger. When persecution comes, they have one another for support. Too often nowadays, we look at how much crowd we can gather at one place or how many people attends service. A cell group church looks at how many are committed to sharing the Gospel and Jesus in each cell. That is the statistic we should be looking at if we want to outgrow ourselves.

However I think there are some elements that need to be present so that it is a cell group church and not a church with a cell group program.
1. The vision of the church needs to be set on spreading the Gospel. 
It is ideal the cell group is target-focused by each being concentrated to an area of a city to want to spread the Gospel to that part of the city. Each cell takes one part until the whole body has a Gospel cell in it.
2. The leadership of every cell needs to be strong to carry out the goals set by the top leadership.
Definition of ‘strong’ here means the leaders have relationship with each member and is helping each member fulfill their potential.
3. It requires district leaders to help the senior pastor oversee the growth and health of a number of cell goups. This will reinforce the proximity of doctrine and vision/goals from the church. District leaders also serves to tabulate the statistics when it is too large such as Cho’s church now has 25000 cells.

Many churches do not find the cell group concept powerfully acting in their locality in terms of growth may be because they do not have these elements or vision. That is why they have a cell group that meets every week to go through a program. The cell leaders needs to have a leader that has a clear goals for them, like a “brain” that motivates and sets the goals for them to carry out within a specified timeline. On the other hand, they need to empowered by the pastor and given certain autonomy.

²⁰ Teach them the decrees and laws, and show them the way to live and the duties they are to perform. ²¹ But select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain—and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens.

The vision of the whole city/country needs to be very clear as well. They are looking prospectively to Jesus 2nd coming.

Hope in ideal amidst the reality

I'm here at Elias Road to do my first new year visitation cum night cycling. I don't know should I go night cycling cause my cousin needs to go to church tomorrow morning. hmmm..

Wonder what to do when there is bad news? Give thanks.
Giving thanks is one of the or the best antidote to a sorrowful spirit. We give thanks to what God has blessed us in other areas and what His infinite wisdom has in every situation that we cannot comprehend. He is good.

When I arrived here just now, my aunt (ex Hope Chiangmai member) told me "quick... Rong En!!" I was thinking who is Rong En??? Then the innocence of little kids that can lift up the human spirit - Micah - He's on webcam!! I shall record it down here - I was greeted as "Uncle Leslie" for the first time in my life! Kids are wonderful people. If you set a good example and care for them properly as fathers and mothers, they will become useful and great people - living fulfilled lives and being responsible people who will in turn lead the next generation. Often, we judge the greatness of people by their qualifications in the academia or social standing or wealth. But God judges people who have the right hearts! People who will live and stand righteously for Him... That is what makes the society better, not just the economy. Using money as solutions is just oh so temporary. So, back to kids, I think parents are just such a great role model and playing a noble role. Most people will have the chance to take on this role as they mature. Unfortunately, we've seen beautiful kids with violent and irresponsible parents, that resulted in kids growing up and wrecking the society to a worse level.

A few sundays ago, I was sitting in a coffee shop and a bus stopped just right outside the coffeee shop. This is because gangsterism had just happened inside the bus and the driver made the decision to get them off the bus. Even after alighting, the two boys even tried to board the bus again to beat the other party.

Hey the world isn't in pretty good condition. The church isn't too. The church is made up of imperfect people. The ideal church and the glorious is only in my heart and mind so far. The reality is far from ideal. I still hope to give birth to a church/sheeps because a church has the covering of God and the possibility of true love and righteous ruling happening. (There are non-Christians that found true love too). Just like a parent knowing his/her child is not perfect, they will still wanna give birth. The instinctive basic human reason for that is to protect, to care, to nurture and see him/her do the same likewise. I see that happening similarly when we disciple others to be disciples not of myself, but disciples of Jesus Christ.

We must not give up hope in the institution God has founded no matter its being scorn by the world or being looked down upon. We need not be very gifted, but we need to be faithful til the end. The world has failed relationships, failed marriages, failed brought-ups and immorality... The church is like a hospital with a cure for all that is happening in the social arena.

Jesus likened His relationship with the church like that of marriage. So we should not lose hope in marriage or anything fundamentally good that is being instituted by God. Its not marriage at fault, its the people involved that is wrong. Its not the feelings alone but the commitment and character etc.. Its not the church that is wrong, its elements in the Bible missing or the leadership. These are human errors that the Faithful can help to prevent. The church is likened to a nation. A nation being ruled by God. All that is happening now seems to be "shedding skin" for what is to come. His Second coming and the New World.

Let's have hope, let's strive, let's desire to build ourselves and the people around us deep and rooted in the world. Be people who initiate to change the world!

Welcome to 2009! It's good looking back at lessons learnt, and having hope for the next year to be wiser and more mature. The central theme for myself for 2009 is this - walk with the Lord closely.