Personality and Giftedness don’t Compel Cell Multiplication

by | Jun 6, 2007 | Cell Church Ministry | 0 comments

On Monday we looked at various factors that had nothing to do with whether the leader could multiply his or her cell group. We looked at the leader’s gender, social class, age, marital (civil) status, and education.

What we didn’t look at was the leader’s personality type. I remember when I first preparing my questionnaire in 1996 at Fuller Seminary. I leaned heavily on the the Pyschology department to help design the questions on personality types–just to make sure the answers wouldn’t be skewed by biased laden questions.

After examining the results of the survey, it was clear that personality type didn’t influence whether or not the leader could multiply his or her cell. That is, being extroverted is not an advantage for multiplying a cell group. Jim Egli later took an expanded version of my questionnaire to 200 cell leaders at Bethany World Prayer Center. He wrote, “This initial research seems to show no strong correlation between DISC personality types and cell growth. 98 percent of Bethany’s leaders had taken the DISC test and knew what their primary and secondary traits were, but no particular type performed better.”

Some group members believe that they have to have a personality that WOWS people, but this is simply not the case. Those who are shy and timid can be equally effective at leading and multiplying cell groups.

Another aspect is spiritual gifting. The survey revealed absolutely no connection between the cell leader’s spiritual giftedness and success in cell multiplication. Surprisingly, 25 percent claimed teaching—not evangelism or leadership—as their primary gift. Yet no one particular gift correlated with a leader’s capacity to multiply his or her group. This was a very interesting finding because David Cho, senior pastor of the largest church in the history of Christianity, has taught that only those cell leaders with the gift of evangelism can multiply cell groups.

It’s not wise to pinpoint one personality type or spiritual gift-mix of effective cell leaders. I believe that anyone can lead and multiply a cell group. This doesn’t mean that everyone WILL do it, but anyone CAN do it.

Whether a person is male or female, educated or uneducated, married or single, shy or outgoing, a teacher or an evangelist, he or she can effectively lead a cell group. These statistics reveal that gender, age, marital status, personality, and gifting have little to do with effectiveness as a cell leader.

Comments?

Joel
P.S.: If you’re interested in seeing the 29-question handout that was given to 700 cell leaders (as well as the general summaries), click here. If you’d like to see all the statistical details,click here

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joelcomiskey

joelcomiskey

Joel Comiskey, Ph.D., founder of JCG Resources

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