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Leading Home Church Growth |
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Leading Home Church Growth |
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Is outreach and follow-up occurring?
If not...
Elements of a plan should include:
- Provide structures for the biblical functions of the church including Evangelism (local and world), Koinonia, Worship, Prayer, Discipleship, and Ministry to the Poor.
- People in your church should be able to discover and enhance their spiritual gifts.
- Your church should prepare to reproduce itself.
Eph. 4:15,15 but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
Note: Individual growth in context of the body of Christ.
Prioritization-
III. Assessing Your Group
Before you can determine a direction for the church, you should arrive at a consensus regarding the overall state of the church in several different areas. In Xenos, you receive several helps in assessing your home church.
A. The Data
B. Home Church Evaluation
C. Sphere Leadership
As can be seen in the "Home Church Evaluation" paper, the areas that need to be considered are:
1. Outreach and Follow up
2. Prayer
3. Quality of Body Life
4. Present Leadership
5. The Home Church Meeting Itself
6. Leadership Training
7. Giving
D. You should also define the present state of ministry in home church by drawing a ministry chart. A ministry chart is a tool that helps the leaders to visualize what is actually happening in the home church.
1. The boxes represent cell groups.
2. The names above the boxes are the leader(s) of the cell beneath their name.
3. The solid line beneath the cell boxes is for names of those who are not involved in cell groups, but who have attended home church twice or more. These are the people being reached by each cell, and are divided accordingly.
4. The second solid line beneath the cell boxes is the "deep fringe." This line contains names of those who have come to social events, or CT, or Home Church once, but not yet twice, or have not been assigned to a cell group for follow up. Use this line to keep track of outreach work.
5. If you draw a third line, it is for very deep fringe, or prospects. Names on this line are being witnessed to and prayed for, but have not yet attended anything. Churches with slow outreach should follow progress on this line.
6. Using this kind of ministry chart, it should be clear how the spheres of ministry are developing within the home church. Some people add lines connecting individuals to those they are discipling.
7. In the chart above, it seems clear the home church is approaching the time to plant a new home church. Already the group has four cell groups. These would be arranged on either side, in a way that makes the eventual church plant obvious. This kind of chart makes it easy to recognize the implications of marriages or other relational bonds that may begin to contradict the way the ministry is developing. Don't wait until the plant to correct such contradictions.
How would you make a biblical case for personal discipleship?
How can you advocate for discipleship in your group?
What is the goal?
Who are the potential leaders?
What should we do if there are none?
Resist ministry shuffling.
Prioritize:
If we are discipling then we should be able to plant our cell groups.
When should we develop plant plans? Why?
Build a "cell-within-a-cell."
By "unincorporated" we mean people who do not attend a cell group.
The Home Church leaders should agree on who is responsible for follow up of new people. Although the first person on the spot may take care of initial follow up, there are good reasons for avoiding a "first come first serve" policy when it comes to in-depth follow up and incorporation. Such a policy might lead to ungodly competition in the case of perceived highly desirable new people.
Follow-up options include:
Assigning follow-up- this topic was covered extensively in our weeks on evangelism and follow-up. The following section is from McCallums's paper, but we will skip it in class tonight.
After a plan of ministry is chosen for every unincorporated person in the Home Church, the next step is to find workers or leaders who can do the job. If the person in question is to be won, choose a worker or leader who would be well suited to accomplish the task. This can be determined by considering the following factors:1. The person who brought a new member to the home church should have the first opportunity to disciple that member (see II Cor. 10:13-16; II Tim. 2:6). Exceptions to this rule of thumb would be:
a) cases where the original outreacher is of the opposite sex. We have had nothing but trouble from efforts to do cross-gender discipleship. The only exception here might be situations where the discipler is elderly. Also, in cases of cross-gender outreach, candidates to follow the person up should normally be limited to members of the cell group directly related to the bringer's group. In other words, when a new home church is planted, they should end up in the same home church. You should not violate this principle without good reason.
b) cases where the original outreacher is too young in the Lord to have a teaching ministry, (although in this case he/she should be invited to help disciple the new one in a cell group). Remember, in the early church, people commonly became leaders during their first year in the Lord. Avoid over-qualifying people for ministry! Of course you might be able to do a better job, but ministry is a powerful motivation for growth. Because ministry is a means of growth, it will help immature members to overcome sin problems that may hold them back otherwise. If the bar is too high for getting involved in ministry, the morale in your group will suffer.
c) cases where the outreaching one has character flaws so serious that they absolutely disqualify him/her from Christian work. These flaws should be objective, serious, and recent. Again, remember that ministry is a means of growth, and people may need responsibility to help them overcome their bad habits.
d) when the outreacher doesn't want to disciple the new person, or fails to do so even after repeated reminders. New people should not have to pay the price for sins of omission committed by our established members. A warning is usually in order before by-passing such an omitter.
e) when the new person refuses to accept the leadership of the one who brought him/her, then this principle may also be nullified. However, every effort should be made to persuade the new one to follow the outreacher. The leadership should discuss and reach consensus on why the refusal happened, and whether it points to deeper problems. In some cases, these refusals are relatively unimportant, reflecting nothing more than sibling rivalry or similar jealousies from earlier days.
f) in rare cases where one cell group has been overwhelmed with new people because of a powerful evangelist or a people movement, they may plead for help from other cells. This should be the decision of the overwhelmed group, not a move that is imposed on them. The norm should be that even large numbers won in such situations remain in the same cells together.
g) in student groups, incoming students from younger ministries (high school to college, etc.) are often unconnected, but not if workers in the older group were responsible for recruiting the new members (e.g. a college member has been working with the high schooler in a college-led high school group.
h) transfers from other Xenos home churches, or referrals from Home Group Connection are typically available to all.
NOTE: It is very dangerous and wrong to nullify the principle of allowing the outreacher to work with the new person without just cause. The effect can be loss of motivation in the work force, distrust of leaders, division, and faulty leadership selection.
2. Those leaders or workers who have a proven record of delivering competent, devoted home church leaders should be allowed to work with some promising young believers if possible. This is because they are most likely to succeed in delivering more leaders. Also, their lack of ministry may well be because they sent their ministry out in the last church plant. Other workers should also be given opportunities. In some cases, the older worker may come alongside to help a younger discipler, but not to replace him/her.
3. People who need to be followed-up by someone other than the one who brought them are considered "neutral" first timers, and should be followed up by someone else. In the case of neutral first timers, the decision on who should disciple them can be affected by the following considerations:
a) The one who originally followed the new person up effectively might be a reasonable choice to disciple, unless there are reasons why he/she should not. For instance, some people always quickly move to spend time with new people, but may not follow through as well.
b) Follow the principle of "finishing old business before going on to new." We should resist the tendency of some leaders and workers to jump from person to person.
The questions should be asked, "What valid reason can be given for quitting work with your present disciple?" or, "Is there clear reason to think you will be able to do a good job with your present ministry as well as the new person?"
In cases where workers plead they need someone new to work with because they have failed with their former person, the following questions should be resolved.(1) What lessons were learned?
(2) Was the failure legitimate, or the result of negligence, over-aggressiveness, or other errors?
(3) Note the tendency of some workers to attribute failures to the fact that the new person was "a bad apple." This is a suspicious answer, which can almost always be said in the case of lost people. Only in cases where the leadership agree by consensus that nothing more could have been done should we accept this tempting answer.
These issues should be discussed at the home church leaders' meeting before a neutral first timer is given into the care of the one who failed. Be merciful, but firm in these discussions.
The worker's past record should be taken into account. If there is a pattern of failure, other workers should be given a chance before the troubled worker is given yet another chance. (The unsuccessful worker has to "go the end of the line" for the time being.) In the meantime, he/she should be counseled about ministry and encouraged to evangelize.Since any assignment to follow someone up will be respected from that time on, and will not likely be changed in the future, these are rather big decisions. The leaders have to balance the need for confidence in a worker, with the need to take chances in ministry. There are no exact guidelines for making this judgment. Try to act in a way consistent with workers' characters, availability of new people, urgency of the need, and fairness to all members in the home church. In questionable situations, seek advice from your supervisor.
A. Who are the future leaders?
What do you look for in a leader?
B. Provide a training program by qualified leaders.
C. Steps to take with disciples who advance:
1. Build their own ministry, and develop healthy spiritual habits
2. Other Servant Team requirements
3. Thos who suceed in building their own ministries should be invited to take the Christians Ministry class series.
4. Invite them to your leader's meeting.
5. Try to predict and plan the next attempt at Home Church planting well in advance.
D. Train new teachers.
VIII. Leadership Maintenance
See the paper, Leadership Team Building for a detailed discussion of how to enhance your teams' unity and cohesiveness.
Don't make the mistake of overlooking this area! Your home church will be blocked by the enemy if you fail to build a cohesive team.
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