QUOTE
Unit 8: Implications and Applications
Lecture: What We Can Learn From the Cell Church about Church Planting
Over the past weeks we=ve looked at a variety of cell churches; this week our attention turns to the current situation of United Methodism in the United States. A number of concerns are in the awareness of all persons attending the 2008 General Conference. How can an understanding of the cell church enable us to achieve these goals?
The concern: U.S. membership is shrinking at a time when 50 percent of the U.S. population has no ongoing relationship with a faith community. Since the most effective evangelism is through new churches, the church wants to start 650 new congregations with 63,000 members by 2012 as part of the proposed emphasis on church growth in the United States. The United Methodist Board of Discipleship has created Path One, an office of new congregational development, to lead this effort. Leaders say the goal is eventually to return the denomination to its evangelistic heyday of starting a new church every day.[1]
Students of this course know by now
that the most effective form of evangelism is through the practice of a cell
church discipleship system. Multiplication, such as doubling, is far more
effective than any form of addition. Multiplying disciples through evangelistic
cells is more effective than adding congregations. Evangelism through cells at
Yoido Full Gospel Church generates 20,000 converts a year and has led to the
world=s largest
church with 700,000 members. This is not an unknown reality.
[1]Quoted from AGeneral Conference Issues,@ http://www.umc.org/site/c.lwL4KnN1LtH/b.3989587/k.636A/General_Conference_Issues.htm
NOTE (my response)
DISCERNMENT QUESTIONS
RESOURCES
Footnotes:
The quote is from Major League Disciple Making: An Overview of the Best Research on the Cell Church, an online course developed for the Institute for Discipleship at www.BeADisciple.com in 2009. Course materials, including these lectures, can be downloaded here: http://www.disciplewalk.com/IFD_MLD_Class_Links.html
All Scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Please review the page How and Why We Use Quotes.