In the last few blogs I’ve been focusing on how cells and missions stimulate each other and can provide a one-two punch. But we also must remember that the missionary vision starts next door! Some churches are great at focusing on overseas misisons, but they do very litttle to reach out around them.
Cells and cell churches should have an outward focus to reach people wherever they are. And effective cell leaders excel in stimulating their entire group to reach out, rather than doing it all themselves. One way to become extremely burdened as a cell leader is to think that evangelism solely depends on the leader’s effort.
One of the questions on my survey of 700 cell leaders was how often the cell leader asked group members to get involved in the evangelism process of inviting friends and contacts to the cell. On this particular quesiton, I gave the cell leader several choices, ranging from weekly exhortation to invite friends to never asking them. The survey showed that cell leaders who weekly encourage members to invite visitors double their capacity to multiply their groups—as opposed to those leaders who do so only occasionally or not at all.
The good news about evangelism and cell ministy is that it’s a group effort. It doesn’t depend on one person. Let’s remember to include everyone in the evangelism process.
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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