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.