A Cell Lesson Variation

by | Jun 29, 2010 | Uncategorized | 1 comment

mario
by Mario Vega

Using the pastor’s Sunday message as grounds for the cell study seems to be an excellent way to organize the cell material. Personally, I would have wanted to do this in our church, but it’s simply not possible.

First of all, we have six services in our church on Sunday, and in each one of them a different message is preached. It would be extremely difficult to synthesize a single teaching of all six different sermons.

Second of all, when we designed our Leader’s Guide, we realized it would not only serve for the mother church but for all the Branch Churches of the Elim Mission.

For these reasons, we created a quarterly cell lesson guide that containts thirteen studies and is published every quarter. The studies follow the sequence of a New Testament book that the church is studying. For example, the Gospel of John is studied, section by section, from beginning to end. The same teaching, therefore, that is being imparted in a cell in San Salvador, is being imparted on the same date in our cells in Brussels, Madrid, Lima, San Francisco, etc.

For his part, Pastor Cho has written several volumes of lessons for cells that follow a thematic order. These volumes represent several years of continuos teaching. A leader in Cho’s church, for example, can buy all the volumes and know that he or she will have material until Christ returns.

Both in the case of Elim, as in the case of Korea, the Guides are written by the Senior Pastor. From that point of view, the principle of unity of teachings and of uniformity of contents is maintained. The leader’s Guide, therefore, is simply a variation from the one that revolves around the Sunday sermon.

Comments?

Mario

Translation in Spanish:

Variaciones en las lecciones para las células.

El utilizar el mensaje dominical del pastor como base para el estudio en las células me parece que es un recurso excelente. En lo personal, es algo que me hubiese gustado hacer dentro de nuestra iglesia. Pero, tal cosa, no es posible.

En primer lugar, porque en nuestra iglesia tenemos seis servicios dominicales y en cada uno de ellos se predica un mensaje diferente. Sera sumamente difcil sintetizar una sola enseñanza de seis sermones diferentes.

En segundo lugar, porque desde el momento en que surgió nuestra Gua del Lder, se hizo pensando en que ésta sirviera no solamente para una iglesia en particular sino para todas la filiales de nuestra Misión.

Por estas razones, se publica cada trimestre un pequeño volumen que contiene trece estudios para los siguientes tres meses. Esos estudios siguen la secuencia de un libro del Nuevo Testamento. Por ejemplo, puede ser que se estudie el evangelio de Juan, sección a sección, de principio a fin. La misma enseñanza que se imparte en una célula de San Salvador, se está impartiendo en la misma fecha en nuestras células en Bruselas, Madrid, Lima o San Francisco.

Por su parte, el Pastor Cho ha escrito varios volúmenes de lecciones para células que siguen un orden temático. Estos volúmenes representan varios años de enseñanzas continuadas que al finalizar regresan al lder al punto de inicio. As, un lder puede comprar todos los volúmenes y saber que con ello tendrá el material adecuado hasta que Cristo vuelva.

Tanto en el caso de Elim como en el caso de Corea, las guas son escritas por el Pastor titular. Desde ese punto de vista, se mantiene el principio de la unidad de enseñanzas y uniformidad de contenidos. Esta es una variación de la Gua para el lder que no desvirtúa aquella que gira en torno al sermón dominical.

1 Comment

  1. Matt

    I found this to be the best way that works for us, too. And we are a small church. But it would be really frustrating if we relied on the celebration service sermon to be the launching point of the discussion in the cells, since we almost never have the full church in attendance at the celebration service. Doing it this way ensures our cell leaders have resources and guidance, while giving them flexibility and allowing for a variety of schedules between the cell groups.

    Reply

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Mario Vega

Mario Vega

Senior leader for Elim International, www.elim.org.sv

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