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Articles
Two articles from Cell
UK
Magazine...
1. faith environment
2. cells challenge traditional youth work
faith environment
Paul
Hopkins
“Ever since that time when you spoke on putting Jesus first
in my life and we stepped forward to say ‘Yes Lord, you can
have all my life, including the hours I spend on my Playstation II, and
the hours I spend grumpy when I am working at the
Odeon.’ I have found my prayer life getting better
and I’m getting stuck into leading the C.U. at
college.” These were the words of one of our cell
leaders to me whilst mentoring him recently.
I mean, I love youth cells. They are a great tool for seeing
discipleship get into the foundations of young people’s
lives. The process of cell life just cuts it in a way that
just having big meetings doesn’t. Throw in
mentoring and I think you start to make deep impact. Add to
that larger celebration meetings where you allow God’s Spirit
to move in the worship and I think you are starting to hit on a life
changing setup. Our youth love their cells, but also they
talk again and again about key celebration meetings that we have where
God breaks in – times where their lives change.
If we truly want to bring Jesus into the centre of our young
people’s lives then we need to create an environment where
young people can experience the power of God as well as the hard work
of daily living out discipleship issues. Discipleship is both
a crisis and a process. It’s making right daily
choices, but it’s also letting the Spirit come and transform
your heart supernaturally – and that can often happen in a
moment of encounter with him that then takes months to walk out.
I don’t think that for a minute that we can engineer God
showing up in young people’s lives. But I do
believe that we can create the right environment for it.
Firstly as youth leaders we need to have faith and the boldness that
needs to go with that faith. Some situations and heart
conditions just need God to convict, heal and deliver. I know
that to keep seeing that happen I need to be operating in faith that
God will break into these young people’s lives.
It’s that that drives me to pray. It’s that that
drives me to encourage and confront. It’s that that
means at the right time I will step out in faith and expect that God is
going to meet with some of our young people now, in this
meeting. I believe our large meetings are important for
this. We come to our large meetings with the attitude of
‘How do you want to change young people’s lives
tonight?’ We don’t always have an altar
call, we don’t always prophecy, we don’t always see
tears of repentance followed by tears of joy, but we do want to see it
now and then! What could be just another meeting where young
people are called forward and prayed for in our eyes, can be life
changing moment that is remembered as a mile-stone for ever by the
young people, like the young leader that I started with.
Of course, this does not have to be just in large meetings.
We want to create cell environments where this can happen. We
want it happening in our one on ones too. However, I believe
that one of the key places where we can model being open to God
breaking in is our large meetings. We model a faith that
expects God to show up to our young people.
How do we grow in this? Here’s four things.
Firstly, make it something that you pray for in your own life and over
your own ministry, and not merely ask for, but claim. Secondly, faith
is also something that is often caught rather than taught.
Invite people to speak to your young people that have a faith for God
to move and learn from them. Get involved with them,
alongside them and ask them to pray for you. Thirdly, spend
time listening for what God wants to do in young people’s
lives and step out on what you hear. Take a risk.
John Wimber used to say that he spelt faith as R-I-S-K. And
fourthly, don’t let disappointing experiences put you
off. Faith grows and we need to learn and that means getting
it wrong sometimes and learning from it.
“So he said to me, ``This is the word of the LORD to
Zerubbabel:
`Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,'
says the LORD
Almighty.” Zechariah 4:6, NIV
Paul Hopkins is the director for youth for Cell UK Youth
Ministries. He oversees local cell ministry whilst also
speaking nationaly and internationaly on youth discipleship and
evangelism.
this article is taken from ‘Cell UK Magazine’ which
can be subscribed to via clicking here
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Cells
Challenge Traditional Youth Work
Liz
West
Imagine a youth work whose central structure is made up of small
groups, run by young people themselves – no
‘adults’ present. In this group
young people learn to be disciples themselves. The
worship together, minister to one another and deal with the stuff that
holds them back from running after Jesus. Together
they create a community where their friends come to find
Jesus. The group grows, leaders are developed and
multiplication happens. Impossible?
Do we believe that young people are able to disciple one
another and reach out to their friends? Do they
know enough Biblical truth to teach others? Are
they responsible enough to take the lead without adults
present? Can they cope with this
responsibility? Past methods of youth ministry have
tended to make young people in consumers of largely or entirely adult
driven programmes. The challenge for church
leaders, youth leaders an parents is to give young people enough space
to run as far as they can go, while providing enough support to empower
them for the process. Cells provide a framework for
this to happen. We are seeing, in various
situations in the UK, that once young people catch the vision for cell
life they run with it extremely
effectively. Why is this?
If you ask a young person to whom, they would take their
problems, the response of many would be that they would talk to their
friends. There is increasing evidence that young
people choose to relate closely to their peers, in groups that are
small enough to be relational. As many struggle
with family life which often does not provide the support that they
look for, having a place where they can be vulnerable and develop
trust, becomes ever more vital. Youth cells build on the
value of church being a community of open honest
relationships. Peer led cells of 5 to 12 young
people are small enough to meet their need for open, supportive
relationships. More that, cells provide a place
where young people can own and participate in creating this
community. Not only are there opportunities to develop
leadership, but everyone is encouraged to make their
contribution. They are creating their own story
– so vital to young people living within our post modern
culture.
We must recognize that there have been changes in the way
young people become Christians. No longer is
‘Truth’ accepted just because someone preaches
is. Each one is seeking to discover their own
‘truth’. This means that it is
essential for young people to be able to ‘belong before they
believe’. They join the community of the
church in order to discover the truth – not because they feel
they have already found it. The cell is an ideal
setting for this ‘process’
evangelism. It is based on relationship and
belonging – cell members bringing their friends along to take
part in cell life before making a commitment. Truth
can be discovered gradually as it is lived out in the group where
others are putting Jesus at the centre of their
lives. They can see answers to their questions
– not ‘Is it true?’, but ‘Does
it work?’. They can detect hypocrisy but
equally they can see for themselves the impact of faith on the lives of
their friends. Later on, maybe leading to baptism,
their understanding of the truth can be checked and gaps plugged.
As youth leaders we need to accept our changing role in
response to the need for change in youth work
practice. We must learn to be enablers and to
empower young people to disciple and reach their generation –
and cells can help us to do this. For many this may
require a fundamental change in thinking, but I believe a necessary
one. Let us equip and release the responsive few –
and watch them create a revolution amongst the rest!
Liz West is a director of Cell UK, leads a cell church in St. Albans
and is the author of several cell resources.
this article is taken from ‘Cell UK Magazine’ which
can be subscribed to via clicking here
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