James...

Good Morning...I hope you all are ready to finish up the week.

Last night was an awesome cell meeting. We had a new dad with his sons and everybody participated. We talked about what a radical concept we find in the James 2. The poor are the ones God has chosen to be rich in faith. It goes against every thing our culture teaches us, and I am sure it was the same case in James's time.

So the goal this week is to treat everyone equal and I am about to walk out the door for work and I think about who is going to be there...I now have a challenge for the day.

How about you? Any success stories? Any failures?

Tomorrow

Tomorrow I am teaching about peace and I have had a bit a rough streach preping because I have not experienced much of that lately.

Anyways, I am excited though because there are going to be people there that are in need of peace and I am going to get to tell them about it and as long as I don't have t supply the "peace" we are ok.

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Sing Along

Last night Residing Hope hosted a Christmas sing along and it was a blast. There were people everywhere. David and Dalia's house was overflowing. I think my favorite part was the wassail made by Terry. Also read about wassail here.

There was a kitchen table that had been pushed into the corner of the kitchen so it was out of the way and where all of the goodies everyone brought could be placed. Several of the kids last night pulled up a bar stool to the table and started eating away. It seem like they thought that everyone had brought the food just for them. It was very cute.

Weekend Away...

What an awesome time of being away with the body to talk about cell church and our role in it.

Interestingly enough our discussion seemed to center around at the heart of it all is our devotional life and apart from that....well...there is nothing. I am looking foward to seeing how God leads us in this area over the next few weeks.

Evening Session

Multiplying Cells

What is the most difficult challenge in multiplying cells?

• Fear of what happen the week after.

• Becoming comfortable in your group. Excitement never being built into the group.

• Knowing when to multiply.

• Planting cells is different than multiplication.

A cell is a group of 3-15 people who meet weekly outside the church building for the purpose of evangelism and community-with he goal of making disciples that results in multiplication.

Cell Multiplication Process

1. Leaders pray about the need.

2. Leaders draw attention to the issue (for about 3 or 4 weeks.) [it is not a solution to a problem, but a command from you know who.]

3. Group discusses the concept of multiplication.

4. Groups prays for God's will regarding the future of the cell group.

5. Leaders pray for God's access to group members.

6. Group prays for God's deadline for multiplication.

7. Group discusses multiplication deadline.

8. Leader-in-training takes over all leadership responsibilities.

9. Leader and Leader-in-training have one-on-one conservations with all group members.

10. Group comes to unity (or not) on the details of multiplication.

11. Group begins to “Break Out” during cell gathering.

12. Multiplication party.

13. A new birth.

Additional stuff:

1. Use the analogy of a family.

2. Have a commissioning.

RH Leadership Retreat Morning Session

December 8, 2007

Multiplying Leaders and Disciples

Who took a chance on you? (as a leader)

A [chance] is the ability to fail and it effects other people.

What is your biggest obstacle in multiplying leaders...

• ability to train and teach

• trust

• desire to be perfectionist

• time in relationships, they have to do it or they won't learn

• overcome their fears and anxieties as a leader
  

• setting appropriate expectations
  

• disorganization, changing the process as you go along, not
  being planned out
  

Matt 28:19-20

19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in^[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

The verb in this verse is make disciples...we are to “make.” The goal of discipleship is to reproduce yourself. Cell church isleader breeder. The test is when the follower is able to “make”
disciples; i.e when Calvin cloned himself.

How can cells breed leaders...

• responsibilities for the group

• look at them from the beginning as leaders...notice where

• their gifts are at and what they are good at. What is natural.

• the leaders number one job is to develop the next leader. The focus is no the cell, but leadership development and develop their relationship with Christ.

• Being creative in what our cells exercise...it is about more than the weekly meet, but also where it members are bent, whether that is serving, healing, etc.

  Principles of Leadership Development (Comiskey)
  

It all flows out of the personal relationship with Christ.

Principle #1: Keep the training track simple.

Principle #2: Provide action steps with the training

Principle #3: Prepare a second level of training for small
group leadership

Principle #4: Use only one equipping track

Principle #5: There is no one methodology for implementing your
training

Principle #6: Train everyone to become a cell leader

Principle #7: Continually adjust and improve the training

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Residing Hope Leadership Retreat

Last night began the annual RH
(Residing Hope) leadership retreat in Las Collinas at the Staybridge.
We began the retreat with a time of prayer that was directed toward
Jesus being the center of all that we do, in cell ministry and in
life. We briefly spoke about how cell ministry start with our
personal relationship with Christ and everything flows out of that.

The second thing we talked about is
that getting people who are far from God to come to a cell is group
is not the goal; the goal is getting them to move closer to Christ.
The paradox in this is that the cell serves as the body of Christ.
That is where people who are far from God get to encounter the hands
and feet of Christ, so it is important that they experience the cell
group, but it is not the goal, it is nt the measurement by which we
measure or success.

The final thing we spoke about and
turned into a issue of prayer is that it is God who produces the
ministry that we have been called to. It is God who empowers the
cells, converts sinners and brings members into cell leadership (Joel
Comiskey.)

It is good to be back with this group of leaders.
I am grateful for them all in very different ways. I try to verbalize
it here but I defiantly did not catch the entirety of what I was
thinking.

• Terry- for leading out and
  taking risk, charting new territory and sharing that with those
  around him.

  
  

• Beth-her motherliness.

  
  

• Jonathan-his
  logical/systematic way of looking at issues that always bring us
  back to basic and core principle. He is always thinking about how
  our conservation effects the vision of the Church (universal.)

  
  

• Sandi-her quite
  encouragement to keep pressing forward.

  
  

• David-his creativity in
  looking at situation.
  

  
  

• Dalia-her concern for
  others.
  

  
  

• Kerre-her genuineness.

  
  

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