Biblical Foundations For The Cell Based Church

Why cell church? Is it because David Cho’s church, the largest church in the history of Christianity, is a cell church? Is it because someone said the number twelve will bring blessings and growth? Is it because cell church is the strategy that many “great” churches are using?

Ralph Neighbour repeatedly says, “Theology must breed methodology.” I’ve arrived at the same conclusion. This book sets forth the biblical theology for cell based ministry. Without biblical truth, we don’t have a firm under-pinning upon which we can hang our ministry and philosophy. On the other hand, we can plod through most anything when we know that God is stirring us to behave biblically.

Cell church is not the latest, greatest church growth strategy. If it were, it would simply be a passing fad until the next hotter, more relevant strategy comes along. In fact, in many places around the world, cell church transforms the church through a purification process. Church growth is slow but cell church helps Christ’s church go deeper.

I’ve been studying the cell church movement since 1991, and the more I travel on this cell church journey, the more I see that the cell church strategy doesn’t produce rapid growth in itself. God reserves growth for himself. He wants to receive the glory for all church growth.

The first section of this book will bring out what the Bible says about small groups. I will start in the Old Testament with the Trinity, family, and how the nation Israel divided into groups of ten. Then I’ll explore how Jesus started house churches and gathered together his own small group of twelve. I will cover extensively how the early church met in homes and then gathered those house churches together. We’ll look at the images of the church and how New Testament leadership naturally developed through the house church process.

In the second section I’ll cover what I believe is the main reason for small groups: to make disciples who make disciples. God has ordained small groups to develop followers of Jesus. Cell groups are leader breeders. They prepare future disciples to be more like God, and He uses the small group atmosphere in the following areas:

Community: Our God is a social God. He’s in constant unity with the other members of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is not an individualist. Jesus demonstrated this same unity while on earth. He never did anything that wasn’t perfectly pleasing to the Father and Spirit (John 5:19-30). He then