“Holistic small groups with a missional heartbeat”

This phrase describes for me the very essence of what we are seeking to do within the cell movement. What is very exciting for me is that around the body of Christ there  seems to be a new wave of determination and excitement for churches to be truly missional.

We know that small groups/cells with this missional heartbeat empowering people outwards is a vital part of a church being missional. The other part of it is to be involved in some of the big picture things that are causing the excitement, and our churches in the context of the big and the small can be a part of these initiatives.

Hope is launching two things this year which I think are tailor-made for us. One is The Big Lunch celebrating the Queen’s Jubilee on 3 June which I have previously written about. This is an occasion on which we can join our communities, be a part of the lunches in our streets, host the lunches…. Find out more via the link from our home page

The second initiative that Hope has been involved in is a resource that I have helped to make happen, called Hope for Harvest, a book which gives us a whole range of useful resources.

Cells/small groups help our churches to empower people in the process of work, giving meaning to what people do Monday to Friday 7am to 7pm. The cell movement from the beginning has supported the idea of every member in ministry, including this aspect, and the Hope for Harvest resource contains some fantastic ideas of how we can really encourage people.

It is packed with practical ideas around thanksgiving and generosity – from harvest suppers to food banks; acts of kindness; ideas for rural environments and for towns. It is a great resource (which I would say as I designed it and helped to make it happen!) It can be bought from our website shop

Another missional idea that I wanted to put to you is that one way for ordinary church members to share their faith is to talk about Jesus. I am encouraging people to think of perhaps four stories about Jesus in the Gospels that are meaningful to them, and encouraging them to really connect with these stories, so when people ask them about their faith they can share about Jesus and let the wonder of Jesus work in that person’s soul and life.

These stories have an impact because they have impacted the teller and because they are about Jesus. Around the world there is a growing momentum behind the realisation that putting Jesus forward is the best evangelism we can do today, and here in the UK,  as in other places, the general public are surprisingly ignorant of what Jesus said and did. This means that our ‘Jesus stories’ come across with a freshness and a power.

Might I suggest that you ‘trial run’ some of these stories in your small group, maybe as part of the Witness section. You could ask one or two people each week to share one of their favourite Jesus stories from the Gospels. Pray for one another as you look for opportunities to share these stories with your friends.

I believe that this new experiment will be extremely effective, as we encourage each other to share our faith through a Gospel story about Jesus and what he said, and I am looking forward to hearing the stories come back as we each see the wonder of this encounter.

knocks!

Really good missional opportunities on a national scale come to the church on a very infrequent basis but every now and again opportunity knocks on our door.

The Queen’s Big Jubilee Lunch on 3 June

As you may know, to mark 60 years since the Queen’s ascension to the throne there is to be a nationwide initiative called The Big Lunch where every street and neighbourhood is encouraged to have a street lunch/party together.

Hope Together has launched an initiative to encourage every church, every small group to be involved in this amazing opportunity. The Palace is very excited about churches being part of this, and the organisers very much want churches to take an active part. The Queen is writing a special Grace to be said at the various Big Lunches being held all over the country, and it would be especially wonderful if those initiated or hosted by church groups could use this Grace.

Go to our home page to find the link to resources for this Big Lunch idea and to register your Jubilee lunch. I think this is a fantastic opportunity for church members, empowered by their cells, to put on events in their streets and neighbourhoods.

What a great way for us to serve and be a part of something amazing.

Excellent new book – if only we had had it 15 years ago

As you know over the last few years I have talked a great deal about contextualisation. I believe that some of the struggles we have experienced in applying the cell model in the UK have been in working out how much of the original model can be contextualised and how much can not.

But I am not the only person who has been on this journey of contextualisation. Joel Comiskey, who is also one of the foremost champions of the cell idea, has written a new book called Myths and Truths of Cell Church which explores from an international perspective some of the misconceptions of the cell idea and some of the realities.

If only we had had this book 15 years ago it would have saved us some heartache. If you are involved in cell you will find this fantastically helpful. If you have found aspects of the original cell model that have not worked, you will also find it fantastically helpful.

I think this book is a ‘must’ for all of us who are looking for a dynamic way to have church in the big and the small. Even though much of what Joel puts into the book is drawn from worldwide examples and not from Europe, it is still in my opinion very relevant for us. It is available to order now from our shop here

A celebration of values

I love Christmas! It is such a powerful statement of God’s purpose and love.

Most Saturday nights, a large percentage of the British public watch The X Factor, where they see the big acts coming out of the cosmos and hitting a particular place on planet Earth. But, of course, this is not the real X Factor. The real X Factor is not a huge demonstration of power, it is not God sending the angels to declare who He is and His purpose, it is not God’s armies rolling through planet Earth, but it is the birth of a child in a backwater. In a dirty space behind an inn a child is born, and in this child is more power and more love than the world has ever seen.

This power and love is The Real Thing and what is says is this: that despite humankind’s selfishness and disregard of the ways of God, and despite the way we treat ourselves, God has sent a statement to say that every person has value whether black or white, rich or poor. This child says that you and I have value – and values change the world.

It is in this area of values that the cell movement has been more successful than I could have imagined. What we would call cell values have been embraced far and wide, and are perhaps best described in Phil Potter’s ‘ABCDE’:

A: All involved

The participative nature of small groups, and the encouragement of every member in ministry, is slowly but surely changing the nature of the British church. More and more church leaders are realising that it is the empowerment of people which is their future, the equipping of every Christian for holistic life and mission.

B: Becoming disciples

More and more denominations and church leaders are putting this at the heart of their values, vision and mission. In our post modern world ‘who we are’ speaks far louder than ‘what we say’, and therefore the equipping and empowering of every Christian to be a learner, to be a disciple, is of increasing significance.

C: Creating community

John Stott, on being asked ‘how do we see the reality of Jesus’, answered ‘by the sacrificial love that Christians have for one another’. More and more we realise the importance of community in the toughness of life, and much as I love big meetings, it is in small groups that community is worked out – through the care, support and honesty of that environment.

D: Doing evangelism

God’s plan is for every Christian to discover that they can be missional in the whole of life – at work, at home, with their neighbours, with their community. We see this taking place in the changing of peoples’ hearts, and with the powerful support provided by small groups through their regular accountability and empowerment.

E: Encountering God

The most powerful resource that a believer has is their personal passion for God, which comes out of all sorts of encounters. Where do we meet God? Perhaps on our own in the quietness of our own spiritual space, or in the wonder of our corporate worship. Or in the mystery of sacraments, the prayer of small groups, the sharing, the friendship. So many different ways … and again we see how small groups provide fantastic ways to encounter God along with other believers.

I celebrate these values. They have gone, and are still going, far beyond what could be called ‘the cell movement’. These values celebrate the high value of people – which is what Christmas is all about, as we see God’s love demonstrated in that humble manger.

Discovering God’s deeper purpose

As I became involved in the cell model one of the big excitements for me was, and still is, empowering people to make a difference and the whole missional dynamic. But as the years have gone on I have become increasingly aware that God has a deeper purpose that we have really contributed to, which revolves around the value of ‘all involved’ or ‘everyone in ministry’.

Mark Greene from LICC was at the recent Lausanne congress in South Africa and he challenged a large number of people with this thought: that the Church, whether in the context of missionary endeavour or local church, has worked to the model of a leader with a few enthusiasts who do the work of ministry and seek to make a difference. His challenge was that we must move towards God’s deeper purpose which is the equipping of every Christian in the whole of life to make a difference in terms of their values and actions, wherever they work and live.

This challenge of people power and how we achieve it, and also how do our structures encourage it, seems to me to be very important.  I am often asked why we do a welcome, a witness etc., and yet this seemingly innocuous and sometimes possibly annoying format holds within it unbelievable power because it signals that the participation of every member of the group is what the group is all about. So, individuals find that their voice and contribution is meaningful and it seems to me that this gives them a confidence. Slowly but surely they feel that not only do they have something to say in the context of the icebreaker, their confidence grows to contribute to the rest of the meeting and they become more active in the whole of their lives and have a new sense of missional purpose in everything they do.

In other words the giving of space for contribution allows people to flourish and to grow, and the cell model has done this in a remarkable way. So sometimes we find ourselves as leaders creating space for ideas that perhaps we feel are quite strange, we may not even really agree with them at times. How wonderful that is, because this is the energy and the enthusiasm that is coming from ordinary people seeking to make a difference.

This thought was brought to us in the early days by Bill Beckham in his book The Second Reformation, where he points out that the first Reformation gave individuals a sense of faith and confidence that they can meet with God themselves, and then the ‘second Reformation’ started re-creating the shape of church in such a way that everybody can be released into purpose and mission through church in the big and small.

This second reformation that Bill Beckham indicated, this change that Mark Greene is speaking about, which is part of our history, is something that we want to continue to actively pursue. To this end we are planning to hold a leader’s day on Thursday 17 November 2011 where we want to explore this aspect in greater detail including ‘what does this mean for the way we lead’ and ‘how can we empower people to do all that God has placed in them to do and to be.’

One of the great privileges that I have in Cell UK is to visit churches in order to teach, serve and equip and it is always exciting to hear and see what God is doing. Local church is vital in what God is doing in this nation with church in the big and the small, and empowered people living out holistic missional lives is how this nation will be changed.

If you think it might be useful for me to visit your church, to come and talk or perhaps meet with your leaders, the following paragraphs might help to outline some options for you to think about and then contact me.

Throughout the year I make two weekends a month available for local churches where I could come and speak on a Sunday morning, and if it would be helpful for me to stay for lunch and do a leader’s meeting afterwards I am usually able to do so. I also occasionally do an evening midweek, for example I have done a number of training events for cell leaders/small group leaders where we do two 45 minute sessions, in which a lot can be achieved.

Also, Trevor Withers and I are very happy to run a full day’s training on a Saturday which can either be held at a local church level, or perhaps you could be a ‘hub’ for a Cell UK event that we run in partnership together for your local area and region. These days can cover, for example, the equipping of leaders, new material for cell members, basic refreshing of cells and many other related topics.

I also offer the following training days:

Sowing Reaping Keeping, which is about mission in our culture today, why we sometimes find it difficult, and how we can share our faith in a relevant way to make permanent disciples for Jesus.

Transforming Values, which is about discipleship in our modern environment, giving a new way to disciple, looking at values rather than telling people what to do.

I can also include some ideas from Hope, in which I am involved, which has released a great creativity in terms of strategic outreach ideas which work within a small group structure, equipping people to make a difference where they work and where they live.

On a Saturday or Sunday I am happy to travel from my base in Harpenden, Herts, to most places, and for midweek evenings I can manage a drivetime of about 60-90 minutes each way. There are obviously costs involved in terms of travel expenses and honorariums, and more information about this is on this website.

So if you think it might be useful for me to come and visit your church, or if you would like one of the above training days, you can find more information on this website. If you would like to discuss any of this further just reply to this e-mail or phone 01582 463232 and we’d be happy to explore options with you.

Your friend,

Laurence

Paul Franklin, Youth Minister at Whitstable has written a sixteen session guide on 1 Samuel specifically for youth cells which helps young people or youth leaders plan both the word and worship sections of a cell meeting. The guide is currently available through Amazon but we plan to have copies available to sell in our bookshop soon.

www.amazon.co.uk