Why the big emphasis on home groups?

by John Rue, Quality Initiatives Division Coordinator

Last month we looked at the reason for the big emphasis in Xenos on home groups. We think it’s the way people get connected in a large church. How we do things is similar to what we read about the early New Testament churches described in the book of Acts. This raises a natural follow-up question:

“What are the qualifications and requirements for home group leadership in Xenos?

Like last month, this article is abstracted from information published by Lead Pastor Dennis McCallum. Our home group leadership requirements are far higher than normal. How churches manage to train competent leaders during a one- to eight-week training program is a complete mystery to us at Xenos. Our training program takes several years of classroom and field training.

Our typical leader has:

• Completed 210 hours of classroom instruction with homework and graded exams;
• Completed two to five years of personal mentoring from an older believer;
• Helped a non-Christian begin a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, or they have brought people to meetings to hear about God who later accepted God into their lives;
• Introduced one or more individuals to a personal discipleship/ mentoring relationship;
• Led a cell group (within their home church) with growth and spiritual advancement in the participants’ lives;
• Proven character like that required for deacons in 1 Timothy 3.

Why do we insist on such a high level of training for leaders?

Xenos home group leaders are responsible for leading and caring for groups that typically range from 15 to 60 people. These groups are “home churches,” not small cell groups like in most churches.

A home church is a medium-sized group with a team of leaders. Each home group takes care of its own leadership training, evangelism, pastoral work, teaching and worship. Therefore, we believe leaders need to be competent spiritual ministers (deacons) who are well-trained and capable of handling sophisticated issues. When you think about what leaders have to do, you see why.

What are some examples of what leaders must be qualified to do?

• Motivate their people biblically, which entails not just relying on group-think
  or sociological pressure, but actually persuading members that Christian goals are correct and urgent;
• Know the Bible well enough to be persuasive in all major areas of Christian teaching;
• Answer questions about all areas of Christian teaching and thought;
• Lead their home church in waging spiritual warfare, so they must know about Satan and how to avoid aberrant teaching in this area;
• Be competent to counsel people through typical non-clinical problems;
• Conform to the character requirements of deacons as detailed in Scripture, which often entails some years of spiritual growth;
• Be mature enough to work on a leadership team without competing or fighting;
• Train upcoming leaders in evangelism, follow-up,
  discipleship, pastoral work and Bible teaching. This implies they know these areas;
• Serve as models of Christian living. In other words, their own lives must be stable and their relationships (including marriages) basically healthy.

Considering what leaders do, we don’t understand why anyone would think we could develop good leaders in a few weeks or even a few months. In fact, we think one of the reasons churches are reluctant to completely delegate true responsibility to their lay leaders is their shallow level of training. They know intuitively they can’t trust their under-trained leaders with sophisticated ministry. But if this is true, who’s fault is it?

In summary, we believe raising up lay leaders is the primary responsibility of our pastors and teachers, just as the apostle Paul instructed the early New Testament churches in Ephesus. “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ”
(Ephesians 4:11-13).