Joel Comiskey, Children in Cell Ministry
The Vine Church started in 1999 with a gathering of sixty believers in the Brazilian city of Goiania, located in the western center of Brazil. Aluizio da Silva and Marcelo Almeida are the co-founders of this sprawling worldwide movement.
The church has become a network of 800 churches with 45,000 adult believers in the mother church in Goiania. The mother church has some 5,000 cells, a mix of adult, youth, and children’s cells. One exciting, unique aspect of this church is its emphasis and commitment to children’s cell ministry.
Growth of the Children’s Cells
In 1999, Marcia Silva, Aluizio’s wife, prayed and fasted for God’s purpose and design for her own ministry in the church. She felt God was calling her to minister to the children and wanted her to do it through the cell groups.
Looking around, she noticed very few models of children’s cells to follow. She received a prophecy that same year, telling her to follow God’s direction and that he would give her new direction, a new path to follow. She opened her first children’s cell group and watched God prosper the ministry. By 2000, forty-two children’s cell groups and 190 kids were in the cells. The church had already been transitioning to the cell model, so children’s cells became an intimate part of the mix.
God gave her an ever-growing conviction that children were members of the body of Christ and were often neglected, and God confirmed his direction by helping her multiply the number of children’s cells to the current 10,000, with 100,000 children attending these cell groups worldwide. In the mother church alone, there are some 2,000 children’s cell groups with 20,000 people attending them.
Radical Kids
They call their children’s network “Radical Kids.” Marcia and her team have dug deep to understand the values behind children’s cell ministry and the three most important are:
- God is a God of generations. He is not just the God of Abraham, but of Isaac, Jacob, and all those who would later believe in Jesus. He is concerned that each generation wins the next generation. God has called the Church to pass the baton of faith safely to the next generation, which means winning the children of the current generation who will eventually win their own generation.
- Children are part of the body of Christ. If they are part of the body of Christ, they must not be neglected or forgotten. The church must not give them less attention because they are small and helpless. The only requirement to be part of the body of Christ is to believe and be born again, and children are an example of simple, sincere faith.
- Developing disciples who will win the next generation begins with children. The discipleship process begins as children. The church must think far into the future and start right away to prepare disciples who make disciples. This means concentrating on the children.
The Vine believes that children are best prepared to become disciples in the home environment, just like adults. They also realize that they will never reach the multitude by requiring the children to come to the church building. Rather, the Vine takes their children’s cells to the neighborhoods.