I was reading Charisma magazine last Friday and noticed an article about Agua Viva, a cell church in Lima, Perú that according to the magazine has grown to 100,000 and is one of the largest in the world today. I studied Agua Viva back in 1996 as part of my research project at Fuller Seminary. The pastor, Peter Hornung, an engineer by trade, took over from the founding pastor, Juan Capuro, when he fell into adultery in 1996. I attended Peter’s cell group back in 1998 and interviewed him about the transition. The church leadership openly exposed the sin of the founding pastor to the entire congregation, removed Juan Capuro from leadership, and continued to grow.

As I was reading the article in Charisma, I noticed that Agua Viva attributes their growth to the G12 cell church movement. In other words, Agua Viva considers themselves a G12 church.

As you know, JCG is committed to following cell church principles, rather than one model. Yet, I believe that the G12 movement has fine-tuned the cell church movement in many positive ways. I’ve personally been encouraged and challenged by the way the G12 cell church model:

¨ views everyone as a potential cell leader
¨ asks the leader of the mother cell to care for/coach the leader of the daughter cell
¨ develops a clear, dynamic equipping training track that prepared everyone for ministry
¨ emphasizes encounter-with-God retreats to ensure freedom from sinful strongholds, believing that holiness brings fruit
¨ prioritizes prayer and spirituality as keys to future growth

What are some of those postive ways that you have benefited from the G12 movement? What principles have been a blessing to you?

The good news is that you don’t have to follow the G12 model in its entirety to learn from it! You can adapt G12 cell church prinicples to fine-tune what you are already going.

Joel Comiskey

p.s.: in my book, The Church that Multiplies, I highlight some of the principles we can learn from the G12 movement.