Consider other people's interests...

Dearly Beloved,

I write to remind you that every scripture is meant for us to live by. Paul the apostle admonished us thus - "do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourself. Each of you should not look only to your own interests but also the interests of others". Phil 2v3-4(NIV).

Beloved, I receive the enabling grace for us to fulfill on daily basis this call from apostle Paul. Thanks and God bless you.

Jesus in a small group meeting with Kids...

Living and working with little children could be a fun for adults who truly cares. No wonder Jesus warned the adults in His earthly ministry to go back and learn from the kids if they are to enter into God's kingdom. 

We strongly advice all parents and guardians to have quality time with their kids and wards for such exercise brings good health to our spirituality. Thanks. 

Be converted!

¹At about the same time, the disciples came to Jesus asking, "Who gets the highest rank in God's kingdom?" 

^2-5For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, "I'm telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you're not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God's kingdom. What's more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it's the same as receiving me. ^6-7"But if you give them a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple trust, you'll soon wish you hadn't. You'd be better off dropped in the middle of the lake with a millstone around your neck. Doom to the world for giving these God-believing children a hard time! Hard times are inevitable, but you don't have to make it worse—and it's doomsday to you if you do. Matt 18:1-9 (Message Version).

ACC Community Kids Fellowship on the Move

Our Community Kids Outreach is indeed on the move to building great leaders with love and passion for the things of God. These kids increasingly and excitedly gather for fellowship with my wife Blessing on a weekly basis. I think I am begging to feel it’s a lot easier to fellowship with kids than with the adults; and to believe the African saying that - “It’s easier to prepare the young than to repair the old”. They are simply sincere and down to earth straight forward in all their actions.

Friends, we wish you share also with you the great things the Lord did as He made possible for us to dispense a complete bible to these kids. We discovered they had no bible and trusted God to make available to each kid a copy of complete bible. And God amazingly provided and it was administered to all the kids.

 And surprisingly adults also took advantage of the offer. As some of the adults that attended our celebration service came without bible and we had no option but give then copy each. We bless God for the distribution of these bibles as they were helpful in announcing our presence in the community.

Please, join us to bless God this wonderful opportunity to reach out and also pray God will continue to help us to equip his people in this community with God’s love through the preaching of His word and many more love exercise as this

Community Care Service- Food Drive

Everyday presents to us the opportunity to care and demonstrate the love of God to someone and especially to our community. No man is truly living outside love. And share & care is one strong evidence that we indeed care and love one another. Assurance Christian Center (ACC) through its Development & Outreach Missions (D & O) using our Community Kids Fellowship reached out in a love exercise to her immediate community especially to the aged and less privileged families. Our food drive became necessary in the light of people's needs stirring at one and especially in this season of the year. So, we can

at least meet the food demand of few homes around us. We did this through the kids and the aged ones to touch our community with the love of Christ. We certainly hope and believe that this exercise will help compel and pull men/women into the Kingdom of God as we journey through the year 2015.We are motivated by the Lord's saying as summarized:                

“ For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me      drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison,  and ye came unto me”. Matt 25:35-3

6(KJV)

Cell Church versus Cell-Based Church

Friends, striking a balance between Celebration and Cell Groups is pivotal to building up the body of Christ as mentioned in the previous article, “The Two-winged Church”.

In a bid to run the cells model, many ministers, especially in our continent - Africa, must understand the clear difference between a Cell Church and a Cell-based Church.

A Cell Church is a church setting that accepts cells as one of the many activities their members should participate in, though this is optional. Here, growth is measured solely on Sunday service (Celebrations) attendance. As long as attendance is steadily on the increase at Sunday meetings, that is sufficient, implying that church growth is successful. Church leaders are not concerning themselves with what is happening with life in the house fellowships. Church growth is measured by quantity, instead of quantity and quality. Moreover, because Cells is an optional program, church members don’t usually experience life flowing from the small groups into the main stream, i.e. the church’s life. Subsequently, there will never be a budget line to administer its operations. Supervision and accountability of small groups is scarcely and seldom demanded by the leadership whereas this is a different ball game for the ‘celebration’ services.

However, things are much different and better with a Cell-based Church. Cells/Small Group is not just a passion but a ‘tool’ to run out God-given vision and assignment. All things are done through small groups activities while the Celebration activities run unhindered. The time allotted to Celebration is the same as Cell Groups - one is not prioritized above the other.

Furthermore, leadership in a cell-based church measures the strength and growth of the church by the health of their small groups’ life and ministry. And they can easily measure the attendance in their Celebration service as a function of the attendance in the Cells/small groups. The number of cells, multiplied by numbers of member in the cells, should be the sum total of those in the Sunday Celebration service. So, small groups define the church because they give the church celebration services the stability and form needed for build-up and for flight.

Lastly, Cell-based Churches appreciate the need to finance the cells’ out-reaches and in-reach activities on a regular basis. So, their annual financial budget reflects this to enable the groups to perform and achieve encouraging results. Moreover, supervision and accountability is highly expected.

  

Pastor Sam. Elijah

(For more information on small group development in your church and possible trainings of your leadership team please contact us at-pastorsam120@gmail.com or call +2348054537890).

The Two Winged Church

As birds of the air or airplanes cannot fly with one wing, so is the body of Christ. The Church of Jesus Christ here on earth is principally designed to function and operate as a two winged organization. The wings that enable its flight are – ‘Celebration’ (full congregational gatherings) and ‘Cell Groups’ (house fellowships). The church, soaring with wings of an eagle, is not possible outside this duo; it will be dysfunctional in nature and function.

What amazes me is the continual imbalance between the two, making flights difficult for the body of Christ – especially in Africa. Too many ministers of African churches concentrate more of their time, energy and resources on the ‘Celebration’ component, only paying lip-service to ‘Cell Group’ development in their churches.

In fact, many churches operate without a small group structure in place: budgets are set to finance all operations regarding Celebration activities and strategies are devised to raise funds for such events over the year – yet the Cell Group wing of the church is completely neglected with no such funds put in place. Please, kindly reflect on that, whether or not it describes your leadership. What an imbalance! Just as Celebration activities need financial support, so do Cells activities. Please, striking a balance here, with two wings in operation, will surprise you with encouraging results.

Except for the fewer number of attendees within a Cell group, there is nothing God does in a Celebration service that cannot be repeated within in the smaller, house fellowship context. Christ promised that where two or three shall gather in His name, He will be there present. Thus, all the healings, deliverance, spiritual gifts and power demonstrations we anticipate to happen in our Celebrations can equally happen in our small groups. In fact, Cell groups often achieve greater results as they operate as the very foundation of the church body.

Small groups can be likened to the tap root system of a fruit tree. Provided that small groups are entrenched into the main stream of church life then everything can flow through the Cell. This is how a fruit tree grows: life flows from the underground root system to the upper foliage, and life from the upper foliage flows downwards (Celebration and Cell Groups are complementary).

A pastor friend once told me that he was too spiritually overloaded to concentrate all his time on small group development. I think there is a misunderstanding here because the Lord is more burdened with things to do than we ever will be. The Lord was anointed with the Holy Spirit without measure, yet operated through the two-winged church approach (small group and large group). My sense is that many ministers in Africa hold the same opinion as my friend about themselves and their ministry, putting all their energy into the Celebration aspect where they enjoy greater number of attendees to bless, causing their fame to travel wide like a forest consumed with fire.

Beloved, there is nothing wrong with this kind of passion, but we must strike a balance in how we ‘do church’ and how we follow Jesus – our great pattern and model for ministry.

Celebrations are good but cannot get the job done alone. Crusades, in-door and out-door, are wonderful experiences (and costly) but will not get the job done. Having a Bible Institute in your ministry is wonderful, but not everyone can be in your Bible Institute. Specialized worker seminars in the church are also a great tool of equipping but I tell you, you cannot get all the members equipped and model ministry life to them ‘one on one’ as the small group can.

“Mass crusades to which I have committed my life will never finish

  the job but one to one will” – Billy Graham.

So what was Jesus’ model for ministry? Think about it. Jesus operated a two-winged church during the time of His ministry on earth: He was a great and mighty crusader - preaching, teaching and healing many in crusades grounds while He was here on earth. Meanwhile, He spent as much time in small group fellowship with the disciples whom He called to be with Him so that they could learn from Him. He later sent them out to do what they had seen Him do. It was in a small group setting that Jesus’ life was modeled to His disciples. What a mentor He was, and still is!

The religious leaders, after Jesus’ ascension, testified of the apostles that though they were unlearned men, they had been with Jesus and knew Him intimately, thus attributing to Jesus their divine power and wisdom. Shouldn’t we learn from this model? Acts 2 tells us how the early Church met daily in the synagogues (Celebration) and went from house to house (Cell Groups), breaking bread.

Friends, are you truly sincere in winning the lost for Christ? Then I urge you to embrace the Cell group method for growing your church. Do you really want to see your members equipped and prepared to do ministry as recommended in Ephesians 4:11-12? Then complement your Celebration activities with Cells. And if you are truly honest and seek to build up the body of Christ you will need this two-winged approach: you will do more effective and efficient ministry with Celebrations and Cell groups in place; you will reach more for Christ while modeling ministry ‘one on one’. Remember the words of Billy Graham as stated earlier as more of your equipped members will now be involved in the work of ministry.

And now a closing statement from the Apostle Paul:

 “It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up”(Ephesians 4:11-12 NIV).

(For more information on small group development in your church and possible trainings of your leadership team please contact us at-pastorsam120@gmail.com or call +2348054537890).