From: jmrg9881@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Jon Reid)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Subject: Re: Cell Group Churches
Date: 12 Nov 92 22:11:22 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana

Wolfgang Hutter <HUTTER@DULRUU51.BITNET> writes:

>It seems to me that the difference between churches  * with *  cell
>groups and cell-group churches is not that fundamental at all. It all
>depends on how the specific cell-groups (in either case) practice their
>fellowship. I tend to think that the boundary between the two is not
>sharp. This might become evident by the answer to the following
>question:

>Given a church would want to change its structure from building-based to
>group-based: which steps would you recommend the elders of this church
>to take?

An excellent question.  Let me answer it by telling you a little bit about
my church and some of the the changes we have made.

== Where we were ==

About a year ago, my church, Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Champaign,
Illinois, was a thriving church *with* small groups.  A little less than
1000 people considered VCF Champaign to be their home church.  We had about
25 small groups.  The primary focus of these groups was to nurture the
group members.  They were typically led by people who might be considered
especially gifted.  In order to keep the groups from stagnating, they were
dissolved every year and new groups formed after a one month break.

We also had a number of other ministries, including a popular children's
ministry.  Also, every Wednesday night we had a "Vineyard Training Center"
offering various classes.  VTC was our primary means of discipleship, but
attendance was gradually waning.  The "3 pillars" of expected involvement
were Sunday morning worship, a small group, and the ministry of your choice.

As much as we encouraged small group participation, there were still quite
a few people who weren't in a small group.  The "small" groups also tended
to be fairly large, with not everybody committing to come to every meeting.
In the small groups I was part of, about half the small group members came
only a handful of times.

We had converts, and I saw more baptisms in one year than I've seen at all
the churches I've been to previously... but then, I'd never been to a
church with 1000 people.  Most of our growth was because of Christians
joining our church, not because of conversions.


== What happened ==

Our Senior Pastor, Happy Leman, read a book last summer which greatly
impacted him called _Catch the Vision 2000_.  It talks about God's
unchangeable purpose throughout scripture (to make Jesus Christ preemminent
in all things and to gather a vast family from all peoples of the earth)
and the primacy it should have in our churches and our lives.  He began to
see that we were lacking in evangelism.  The church started to become
hungry for God to use us more powerfully in reaching the lost.

Then last fall, a friend gave him a book called _Where Do We Go From Here?_
saying it would change his life.  He began reading it, and saw that
evangelism and discipleship are the two most important functions of the
church -- two areas in which we were very weak.

One day in prayer, he was wondering, "Why don't my children lead any of
their friends to Christ?"  The stinging answer he received was, "*You*
don't lead anyone to Christ, so why should your children?"  He followed the
instructions in _Where Do We Go From Here?_ and listed the members of his
_oikos_, the people with whom he spent at least one hour a week.  He was
shocked to see that his circle of friends didn't include a single
non-Christian, and that he didn't know any of his neighbors.

Together with the rest of the pastoral team, he began critically examining
his values and lifestyle.  *We do what we value* and our values are based
on our beliefs.  If evangelism and discipleship are not a part of our daily
lives, then something is wrong with our belief systems.  The pastoral team
became our church's first "new-style" small group, and they went through
Life Basic Training, which is values-clarification material designed for
groups wanting to change from a program-based church to a cell-based
church.

The changes the Holy Spirit made in their lives were profound.  They
deliberately went out of their way to spend time with unbelievers.  They
made their schedules less busy with church work so that they would have
more time for this.  They began bowling, hanging around donut shops, having
parties at their homes, and visiting the new friends they were making by
doing these things.  Gradually, after months of building relationships in
these ways, their friends are starting to ask questions like, "Tell me
about your Jesus."

Happy Leman went to the International Conference on Cell Churches in
Singapore last spring and came back a changed man with new insight and
strategy.  Specifically, he realized that it was not enough to have a cell
group *structure* to become a cell group church -- it was far more
important to have a new set of values, and to instill these values in every
member of our church.

The pastoral staff was re-organized.  Two pastors were made Zone Pastors
who would oversee adult small groups.  The youth pastor was made a Zone
Pastor to oversee kid's small groups.  One pastor was made a Small Group
Coordinator in one zone.  And one pastor was made the Executive Pastor to
oversee Sunday worship and administration so that all the other pastors
would be free to devote their time to the small groups.

The Zone Pastors gathered small groups of Small Group Coordinators and led
them through Life Basic Training.  Lives were changed and new values were
shaped by the Holy Spirit as the Zone Pastors modeled a new and different
lifestyle for them.  The Small Group Coordinators in turn gathered small
groups of Small Group Leaders and did the same thing.  Now the Small Group
Leaders have gathered people in 41 small groups and are just starting to
take roughly 400 people through the material.  The small groups are
expected to multiply once a year; we believe that God wants us to have 2000
small groups by the year 2000.

The church got rid of all weekly activities except for small group meetings
and Sunday celebrations so that people would have more time to spend with
people -- with their small groups and with unbelievers.  VTC has been
changed from every Wednesday to occasional special weekend training events.
Small groups are no longer an encouraged option among several activities --
they are central to everything we do, including Sunday morning worship.
The focus is not on the small groups, though; the focus is on reaching our
community for Jesus Christ, with small groups being the *means*, the
strategy by which we will accomplish that vision.

Happy just went to Singapore again, taking our Executive Pastor with him.
They spent a week visiting Faith Community Baptist Church, an established
cell group church, to gain further insight.  Ben, our Executive Pastor,
says, "I thought I understood the vision before, but seeing it in the flesh
has changed my understanding."  Our two Adult Zone Pastors will be going
this spring to the International Conference.

I plan to write another message about how *my* life, personally, has been
radically changed by all this.

       "All for Jesus, all for Jesus,
	All my being's ransomed powers,
	All my thoughts and all my longings,
	All my days and all my hours."

-- 
Jon Reid    j-reid@uiuc.edu    GEnie: THE.REIDS
"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."