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).
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