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Leading Home Church Growth |
Is outreach and follow-up occurring?
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.
III. Assessing Your Group
Already covered. But compare your assessment to that from your sphere leadership.
How would you make a biblical case for personal discipleship?
How can you advocate for discipleship in your group?
Agree on potential leaders
What should we do if there are none?
Resist ministry shuffling.
Prioritize:
Cell planting should come before home church planting
When should we develop plant plans?
Build a "cell-within-a-cell."
The Home Church leaders should agree on who is responsible for follow up of new people.
Follow-up options include:
Assigning follow-up-
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.
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, effort should be made to persuade the new one to follow the outreacher.
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, recombinations, 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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
A. Who are the future leaders?
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, or better still, LTC.
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.