elimChristianFellowship

Let me start my reply to these questions by referring directly to the life of Christ…

A close examination of the Gospels will reveal that Jesus spent significant time with large crowds of followers, preaching, teaching and ministering to the multitudes of physically, emotionally and spiritually afflicted. Upon even more thorough examination of the Gospels one will discover that He actually spent the majority of His three years of ministry time with the 12 disciples. These disciples were the ones, initially, that He would hand the baton to when His earthly ministry would cease and His heavenly ministry would begin. He invested in them, ate with them, equipped them, taught them, admonished them, encouraged them, led them and generally just spent time loving them. When it came to discipleship, Jesus humbly limited Himself to this inner circle of twelve. He would entrust the future of the Church into the hands of these disciples.

A local church devoted to cell ministry endeavors to follow the same wise approach to discipleship that Jesus prayerfully chose to utilize rather than “reinventing the wheel,” seeking counsel from the business community, or trusting in man’s wisdom (Prov 3:5-7). If it was good enough for Jesus, it should be good enough for us. Knowing that His Father thoroughly understood man and man’s needs (John 2:24-25; Matt 6:8), Jesus certainly sought wisdom from Him (Luke 5:16; Matt 14:23; Mark 1:35; Luke 6:12) on what model would best work to “make disciples.” Scripture tells us Jesus never did anything unless He saw Father doing it first (John 5:19), thus, Father chose this approach for discipleship and Jesus simply embraced what He saw the Father doing. Wouldn’t humility move us to embrace what Christ has already proven successful and best? Wouldn’t humility influence us to lay down our manmade, man-centered stategies and embrace the Father’s strategy? Just as Christ was at the center of His small group of disciples, He is at the center of our cell ministry and at the center of each of our cell groups, as well. Without His presence during our cell gatherings, we’re just a small group of people hanging out like any other group (a committee, a club, etc).

Why use the term “cell” to describe this discipleship model? That’s a great question! The Bible tells us that those of us who are born again comprise the “body” of Christ (Eph 1:22-23; Col 1:24; John 3:3-6; 1 Cor 12:27). Paul, in his letter to the Corinthian church, addresses this “born again” Church as a body (1 Cor 12:12-27) and stands firm on the great importance each member is to the rest of the body. So, we who follow Christ are members of a body…the body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27). The smallest structural unit of living matter capable of functioning independently within a human body is the cell. Under a microscope a well-trained lab technician can tell the distinct difference between a kidney cell and a bone cell, and between a skin cell and a blood cell. Thus, the smallest, structural unit of the body of Christ is a “cell” (group).

I was just thinking the other day as I was looking at my then 11 month old son, Joshua, what a miracle this child is because roughly 20 months ago one very small sperm cell and one very small egg cell united in the womb of my wife. Soon afterwards, that cell multiplied and became two cells and then four cells and so on. Through the healthy multiplication of cells, this one, original, fertilized cell (as much my son then, as he is now) grew to become what I now hold in my arms and tickle and wrestle with on the floor.

The Lord commands us to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28; Gen 9:1,7; Gen 35:10-11). A cell leader pours into the lives of his/her cell members in much the same manner that Christ poured into His disciples, and Paul invested into Timothy (1 Cor 4:16-17; 1 Cor 11:1). As a result, these cell members are being prepared (discipled) to lead their own cell group in the future (Matt 28:18-20). When cell members are thoroughly equipped and empowered, they are released to lead their own cell…this is multiplication (Eph 4:11-13).