 Hey, good morning everyone. Welcome to the session. Let's begin this time with the word of prayer, then we will get into our teaching. Would any one of you like to please lead a prayer? Sally, would you mind leading us in prayer or Rosalind? Anyone can lead us in prayer, please. Let's pray. Father, we come before your presence in the name of Jesus as we begin our class for today. I pray that you will help us Holy Spirit, your blessed pastors as it teaches us this morning also and bless each one of us, Lord. We thank you, we bless you, we all know you Lord. In Jesus' name, amen. Right. Thank you so much, Sally. All right, so just a quick review of what we did last week. Last week we looked at chapter 7 and chapter 8. Chapter 7, we looked at the cell as your ministry team. You build, you follow up with newcomers, you strategically build the cell group. You have seed projects that you can do, outreach is involved in Sunday services. And we also very importantly, chapter 8, we looked at pitfalls to avoid. Right now, we looked at quite a few of them. How you and I as leaders can avoid things that can cause a cell group to be unfruitful or to even just break. And we talked about some of them avoid shortcuts, avoid competition, watch out for people with personal agendas. Remember we talked about that, then people will come from independent ministries, be careful. You are the shepherd of those 12 people or 15 people, whoever you're looking after. So you are the one who must be willing to protect them and cover them. Then you look after independent ministries, that meaning you be careful, don't just invite whoever you feel like, personal prophecies and then don't force newcomers to come. Don't relinquish your leadership. And so you may have people who are much more mature than what we are. But don't just relinquish your leadership, don't hand over the teaching of the word to, just because somebody knows more. So you and I must understand that God has called us. We are journeying to a certain level of maturity and time we will get there. So don't worry about that. Don't allow the cell group to become a hindrance in your family. And it's very important because in the name of ministry, we can go about doing a lot of things and then miss out on the family aspect. And that's not what God wants. Expects us to maintain a good balance between ministry and family. Okay, let's get into Chapter 9. Now, Chapter 9, we're going to look at the administrative side of things that is cell administration. Let me just present the notes and cell administration now. The word administration simply means to oversee and to look after. So initially, when you start a church, when you start life groups, you may have maybe three or four life groups and normally the senior pastor just handles it or he finds a few volunteers who can oversee the life groups. But over time, as your church grows, as you have many more life groups, it is very important to look after the administration. Meaning, one thing, first thing we may have to do is to appoint a cell group pastor or a life group pastor. Now, what will be his or her role? The life group pastor, number one, will have to oversee the cell groups that are there, the life groups, and make sure that the life groups are functioning well, make sure that people are getting connected to the life groups, ensure that life groups are being effective, they're following protocol, things are going smooth, the leaders are able to minister to the people who are attending the life group. So, if you see here, you have a certain structure. So, firstly, you must have a cell pastor. And with the cell pastor over time, I would say probably when you are 20 life groups, eventually, as a church, you can plan on appointing associate cell pastors. Now, we've just named it cell pastors here, so you can also call it life group pastor or associate life group pastor. So, cell pastor, then over time, you have associate cell pastors. Let me explain what we are doing here at ATC. It's a very similar structure. We have a life group pastor or coordinator, and then what we are going to do is we are going to have zonal leaders. And these zonal leaders will have, under them, will also have area coordinators. Now, don't get confused. So, this is when we are thinking long term. So, right now, we have about 41 life groups. And so, I believe that 2024, if we start another 10 life groups, we will have 50 life groups. So, what we want to see, what we envision is that we're not going to go into having an associate life group pastor, but what we thought was we will have zonal leaders. So, probably, we have five zones in our city. So, North, South, East, West and Central. So, we divided the zone into five. And eventually, what we thought was we will handle probably five life groups to five zonal leaders. And so, it would be their responsibility to oversee these five life group leaders. Now, over time, if we eventually will reach about 100 to 120, 130 life groups, under the zonal leaders, we will also have area coordinators. Right? And then, probably, what I'll do next class is I'll probably make a, you know, just a presentation and show you what, what is, how we plan to do this. And right now, we are on cell pastor, that's life group pastor and zonal leaders. And then what we'll also have is area coordinators. And each area coordinator can probably look at five or six life groups. So, why are we doing this? Right? So, as a life group coordinator, I will not be able to oversee all 40 or even as we grow, maybe 50 to 100 life groups. So, we get people involved, right? And eventually, over time, we will also plan to have an associate life group pastor, but we thought we can use our church folks, right? And many of them have been life group leaders for years. So, we train them. And let's look at, you know, some of the responsibilities that these cell pastors and associates cell pastors have, right? So, we know that. So, again, this is an ABC 12 cell, 12 in each group. Okay. So, what will he or she, that is the associate cell pastor, or in our case, the zonal leaders, what would they have to look at this? First one, your cell pastor will be in touch, associate cell pastor or your cell pastor will be in touch with you on a weekly basis. So, every week, he'll probably just call and say, hey, you know, you had life group last week, how did life group go? Were there any queries? Were there any questions? Now, think about this. Can a, you know, can one person call like 50 life group leaders and talk to all of them? It's not going to be easy, right? Especially when you have other tasks as well. And so, that is why getting administration, getting people to get involved, especially when the ministry grows, administration is very, very important, right? It ensures that you're in touch with everyone that is constant fellowship. It's not like, okay, they meet once in two weeks. So, we'll call them once in two weeks. No, it doesn't work that way. If we want to see the cell group be effective, we must be willing to speak into their lives, minister to the leaders, and only then the leaders will be able to minister to their life group members, right? So, that's why an associate cell group, cell pastor or a zonal leader is very important, right? Now, this zonal leader, the associate cell pastor will keep, will closely work with the main cell pastor. So, he will probably send reports, right? Okay, this is what is happening. We have these life groups. There are certain life groups that, you know, sometimes people travel, they go, they move out of country, or they want to take a break. And so, everything, all the information comes to the cell pastor. And the cell pastor makes decisions, gives advice as to what can be done, right? Again, as an associate cell pastor, you can request your cell pastors for lessons, resources. But in case of APC, what we do is, as you know, we follow the Sunday sermon. But you're always free to, you know, discuss whatever is on your mind. But again, this, you must ensure that it is being always, it's being overseen, right? So, so the, whatever we are studying and teaching, remember, it's going to affect the church, it's going to affect church people, people will are going to, you know, listen to you and they go into, as leaders, they're going to receive from you. So we got to make sure that what we teach is right and in line with the word of God, right? And then, you know, as a cell pastor or zonal leader, right, you can visit your cell groups periodically. If you need additional help, like counseling, visiting, raising worship, you can always contact your cell pastor. So for example, you know, there was this, there was this life, couple of life groups actually, they don't have somebody who can play an instrument. So I remember, they got back to me and said, you know what, said, look, the life group is really good. But what we miss is worship times, right? We don't feel good by just playing a couple of songs on the laptop. Is there a way that somebody from the worship team can come and, you know, just lead us in worship for two, you know, two or three songs, I don't know, a guitar or a keyboard. Now, that was a request that came in. And so then what I did was I checked with our worship pastor. So is there anybody living in this side of town? So is it north, Bangalore, southeast by which area? Okay, whichever area, we tried to find somebody and we requested them if you can just go and lead the worship. And so we were able to get people to, you know, just go and, you know, people were available, right? I'm not saying every time people are going to be available, but there'll be times, you know, people are working. But since most life groups meet on Saturday, we were able to send people, they went, they lead the worship and they still go to a few life groups and eat worship. So your cell pastor or your associate cell pastor is somebody who must be able to, you know, I won't say pull strings, but be able to coordinate and be able to, you know, make sure that the health of the life group is good, right? Again, going to health, we have cell leaders feedback form, right? So for example, what we have is we have LG report at abcwo.org. So what happens is if people would like to write in about their leaders, if they want to be anonymous, they just write it and say, okay, this is something that I feel the cell group must do. This is something that they shouldn't do. And so we do get feedbacks, right? So regarding the feedback form, this is something that we have stopped as of now because we don't want to use paper. So we try and put that online. And so people can either email us or they fill in the feedback form and email it back to us, right? So all of this is available online as well. And then every once in three months, we do a cell health assessment. So meaning is the cell group, I know three months could be a short time, but is the cell group able to coordinate with each other? Are people in the cell group growing? Are they learning? Are they able to understand? Are they able to build fellowships? And so what we have done is we moved from three months to six months as well. So we do a three month, six month and a one year, right? Now after a year, we as cell pastors, we just slowly step back, meaning we give this life group leader more freedom to make decisions. It's not like they don't have freedom initially. It's just that we are there to always help them take the right decision or take the right step. We're always there, but slowly we let them make the decisions because if we are always there, they will keep coming back to us. What should I do? But again, when we look at discipleship, it is to let them make decisions. And when they make the decisions, they learn if it's a good decision, that's wonderful. You applaud them. It's a decision that, okay, could have been taken later on or so, not why is decision. So let them learn from their mistakes and as pastors and leaders, we help them to understand that and they learn from their mistakes. Right? So this is the administration side. You've got a life group pastor, or a cell pastor, associate cell pastors looking after cell. As I mentioned, you see, we don't follow it yet, but instead of associate cell pastors, what we're doing is Zolan leaders, five Zolan leaders, area coordinators under them. So even if we reach 200 life groups, we will have enough people. But what are we doing now? I think it was last September or October where we had a meeting with all our life group leaders and we shared the whole plan, the vision and people gave in their names. We also appointed a few Zolan leaders. So we've got that in place and so eventually we're going to also sign some of the life groups to these Zolan leaders and then appoint more area coordinators. So if you look at it, the structure is coming into shape right now. We will again, since it's something that we're doing now, it's something that we may have to work with trial and error. We have to make decisions. We have to figure out how things go about, but nothing wrong in trying all of this. So what are you doing? You're setting in place a structure for the cell group industry. So if you go on to the next page, we see here the cell leaders feedback form. Now this is just an example. So you can use it if you'd like in your cell groups if you already have one. You want to make it available on paper. You can if you want to just make it available on the phone or just on WhatsApp. Probably you can take this structure and then you can send it to your life group members and ask them to fill in the details and in that way you're assessing your life. So you can do this probably once in three months, once in six months or even yearly. If you go down here, you also have a little bit of space here. You purposely left that so that people can write feedback, whatever they feel like about the life group. Now why is this important? Because it gives opportunities for people within the church, within the cell group to share their thoughts, what they feel about life group, what they've learned. So again, this is not a compulsion but this is something that you can write and it's just like you're making sure that the life group is functioning, making sure that you're able to grow and the health of the life group is strong. Okay, so let's get into chapter 10. Chapter 10 is becoming a cell church. Now I know many of us may already be, we're already part of churches wherever we are. So your church may be a regular church doing many events or your church may be like a cell church which is a church which focuses only on cell groups. Now it doesn't mean that we have to, if you're a regular church doing many events, it doesn't mean you have to change to become a cell church. You can continue doing that but what we also like to emphasize is that remember that the cell group is the life of the church. It is what keeps the church strong. It is what builds community and discipleship and this mentoring, this leadership, there's all kinds of activities going on in a church. That's the life of the church. So how can you and I become a cell church? Now some of you may say, I don't want to become a cell church. I want to be a church doing many events and just have cell groups, many cell groups. That's wonderful. So, or some of you may feel, no, I want to have a church which will have at least 100 cell groups and through the cell groups we'll do ministry. That's also wonderful. But we'll just look at a few aspects here on how we can become a cell church. Number one is change. To become a cell church there has to be a change of perception of how a local church operates. We need to understand that what we are really doing is restoring the principle that was set in the early church. And so remember we looked at that, I think it was chapter 2 where we looked at the early church where they met in smaller groups. The Lord Jesus ministered to thousands but he also made sure he's ministering in smaller groups. If you're already a cell church, that's wonderful. You don't need change. I can continue growing as a cell group, as a cell church. But if you're a church, okay, let's take APC. We have a church but we do many activities. We've got men's ministries, youth ministry, women ministry, workplace, professionals ministry, teens ministry. We have conferences throughout the year, events and conferences. Now we cannot say, okay, let's stop all of that and only focus on life groups. We can't do that as a church. But what we did was in early, I think it was 2015, we just tried to bring in more focus in 2014, bring in more focus into life groups. So from 2014, we're trying to build the life group ministry. So we started finding leaders, recognizing potential leaders, giving them opportunities to start life groups, recognizing areas within our city which need a life group and helping people to start life groups. So we started putting a lot of focus into life groups but what about the other ministries? The other ministries also continue. So the same as what we're doing now. Now as a church, we have all other ministries going on. So what are my responsibilities as a life group coordinator? So all 42 life groups. The vision is at the end of this year, we should have at least another 15 life groups. So we have 42 plus 15, that's 57 life groups. And so that's the vision. And so what about the other things that we are doing? That continues. But then we want to see focus on life groups as well. Continuously raising up quality leaders. This is something that we always focus on. Remove insecurity in the hearts of cell leaders through proper training. A proper and total training system must be put in place. So what we do is when a person says, okay, we recognize a person and I say, okay, this person can be a good life group. Sometimes what we do is we ask the person to go attend a life group for about three months, get a feel of what a life group is. And then we have a formal training. In fact, even after this call, I have a life group leaders training. So we go through the entire life group leaders training manual. A lot of it is taken from the snorkels as well. So we talk to them about what is a life group? Why are we doing this as a church? How are we impacting the vision? What is the administration side? Discipleship? How do we raise up new leaders? We go through the entire structure of life group. Now the person may know it. The person may not know it. It doesn't matter. We go through the whole thing. So for example, last month, a person, one of our church folks, he was saying, hey, I want to start a life group. Now he's been with our church for 10 years. But we went through the entire life group leaders manual. Many of the things that I know that he knows it. But it's important to reiterate. It's important that we train them well. No proper leadership development track, sorry, no proper leadership development track hinders growth. With no proper leadership, growth is being hindered. We need to ensure that there are sufficient number of newly trained leaders ready to take on leadership. So let me give you some examples on what I do. So how can I start off 15 life groups? Now it's easy to give a number, 15 life groups this year. So we break it down. From the month of January to June, six months, I should have started at least maybe seven life groups. And then from July to December at the eight life groups. So that's what, so I'm mentally prepared myself. Seven by Jan to June, eight from July to December. Now, how do I start seven? What can I do? So what I do is I open our church database and I look at, I also open our maps, the map of the city. And I try to look at places where we don't have a life group. So I put a note of it. So these are about 10 areas where we need life groups. Then I look at youth life groups. So we have so many youth living all across our city. And these are few of the areas that we need to start youth life groups. So now I've got the numbers in my mind. Gotta start seven or eight Jan to June. Now I've got the areas in place. Okay, these are some of the areas. And then what I do is I look for people who live in and around that area. So I make a note of potential leaders. Now all I'm doing is I'm making a note of them. Probably I write them down, put them on a world document. Right. Now after I do that, I have about maybe five people in mind. So I begin to talk to them and say, Hey, you know, this is something that we need that are life groups. Sometimes they don't even know what is a life group. They may not have heard what happens in a life so you'll have to start off from scratch. We need to explain to them, you know, this is what it is. And sometimes, you know, people say, okay, sometimes it will say no, sometimes it will say, give me some time. Right. Don't be discouraged when people say no. It's okay. You can just strike off their name from that list, right, but continue to look up. When people say give me some time, ask them how long they would like, right. So normally I tell them, can I, can I get back to you in a month's time? A month is a good amount of time. So give them a month's time, let them think about it. And then probably they get back or we try and connect them. Three is, you know, we, after we give them, then there are people who say yes. So then what we do is we again, we encourage them to be part of a life group if they are not, then probably after two or three months, we take them to the training and help them to start the life group. Right. So, so it's, you know, even to start one life group, it's, it's not as easy as it looks because people are working Monday to Friday and they'd like their Saturday Sundays to be free. Right. So not everyone would be open. So here comes the place where as leaders, we must recognize people who are willing to sacrifice, willing to give that additional time. Right. So that's what I do. And then firstly, what I also do is I, I call the existing life group leaders and I say, hey, everyone give me one person who is a potential life group leader in the year 2024. Right. So I did this in early Jan. I spoke to all the life group leaders, 40, 40 life groups is what we have early Jan. So 40 life group leaders. Give me one person who is ready to start a life group. So I've got about 20 names now. 20 to 22 names who are potential life group leaders. I was, I'm not saying that all 22 of them will start for their potential. So we know that, okay, they're already part of a life group. They're part of ABC. They know what a life group is. So if not 24, 25, at least we can, you know, train them and, you know, disciple them and get them to start new cell groups. Right. So that's how I personally work. Right. So, so for example, from Jan, now it's February. So we've already started two life groups. So in my mind, I've got March, April, May, June, four months. I've got to start at least another five life groups, five or six life groups, four months. Right. So now today I have another life group leaders trainings. So that's, that's going to be the third life group for this first half. Right. So you just break down and plan accordingly. Right. And a standard. So the point is we should have sufficient numbers of leaders. It should never be in a place where we don't have leaders to lead a life group. Then you have a standard training, which is, which is something that we already do. Teach the cell leaders to prepare properly. We talked about it. We provide material as well. The energy and resources of the church must flow in the same direction. I mean, as a church as well, you know, we make sure that, okay, even life groups are very important. They are, you know, they are the life of the church. We need to start more life groups. We are building a vision. We're walking together. So it's not always two separate entities. So when you look at a cell church, it's like a two-wing burn. Right. So you have the cell meetings and you have the Sunday celebration services. And both are important. Again, something that we want to do in our life groups is that, and we always, I always emphasize this is to be excellent. And so don't look at, just because there are three or four people, let's just do it the way we feel like doing the excellent life. Even as a leader, if you're preparing for your, if you're preparing for your discussions and Sunday sermon, preparing for the excellent life, prepare well. Don't come in just like that, say, okay, I'll just say something, no, prepare well. Because even with the three or four, be faithful and no small. So when you have bigger opportunities, more people coming in, you know that, okay, I have to prepare well, I have to deliver well. So people will be blessed. And so that is something that we always emphasize. So it's not like, okay, church service should be excellent, but cell groups, you can do it however we feel like, no. Even our life group leaders meetings, we follow a structure, we follow agenda. It's not like everyone come in this, let's sit around and do nothing. No, we have an agenda. So for example, we have our life group leaders meeting in March. The date is March 22nd. So yesterday I sent a message out to all the life group leaders saying, we're going to meet on this Sunday, March, and this is the agenda, the agenda is already sent. So they know what's going to happen. So what's happening, you're working way beforehand, you're giving them the information, you're trying to do well, so that when the life group leaders see that, they say, okay, hey, so even I'm expected to work in this way. And then you get it as a single task, meaning the only way you can make a cell ministry work is for it to become the single task of the church. Now again, this is when you want your cell group to be, your church to be completely cell groups. So no other meetings, no other events. And that's not something that we do. So as I mentioned, we do a lot of events, a lot of other conferences that we have. But thankfully, we're also able to build on the life group ministries. Look at some of our current programs. We have face to face for teens. I'm not sure of these are continuing now, especially these two, teens and 20s. So right now we have the teen church, so teens are being ministered to them. Face to face was more for, we have worship times. Covenant keepers was a ministry that we had, but we don't have it now. Then we have the biblical foundations course that we also have right now. So this is just a short list, but we have a lot of other ministries. I'm sure if you go to our website, you'll see all of them. But something that's really exciting is that as a church, we were able to build all the ministries. So that way, we're being fruitful in all areas. We're trying to not just focus on one area, we're trying to focus on different areas. So we're not just avoiding certain things or neglecting a certain aspect. We're doing our best to reach out to every category. So for example, in 23, the new ministries that we started was the life coaching ministry, the men's breakfast ministry, women's lunch here, and the single adults meet for different ministries. Now just because we're doing all this, doesn't mean that the life group ministry is going down. So luckily, we have leaders and volunteers, ministry leaders in each of these areas. So the leaders drive the entire ministry. Look at the essence of a cell church. Number one, relationships. It is the heart and life of the church. The cell is not a program. It is not a meeting. The cell is a lifestyle. Participation. Everyone is actively participating. Here again, ministry is not optional. Everyone must be willing to minister in some area or the other. And that is why we emphasize that if, for example, you've got a cell group with 25 or 30 people, I'm sure not all of them will get an opportunity to serve. So that's why we break it down. Another reason why we break it down to smaller units. So everyone get an opportunity to minister. Everyone should be leading others to Jesus, caring for others. Everyone should be ministering for one another. And then there's empowering. Leaders in growing churches concentrate on empowering other Christians for ministry. And so as a cell church, we empower people. We give them opportunities. We train people. We participate with them. We help them to lead. And many, many times, some of the things that have happened in our church is people have been part of our life groups. And they've been with us for many years. And eventually, they have gone out and started their own churches. So it's not like, okay, hey, you're a life group leader. How can you go and start your own ministry? If God has called them, they've gone and started and they're doing well as leaders. We must be able to trust them, release them, let them do what God has called them. We have empowered them to become good leaders. And many times, we get these emails saying that I was part of life group and now I've started my own church. I've learned so much of life group. I missed the life groups or I missed the things that we did in the youth ministry. So remember that you're empowering people. The focus again is on Jesus. So it's not about the person. It's not about their work. It is Jesus doing the work through us. And leadership is given to Jesus. The Holy Spirit is allowed to work and minister to us. Then there is outreach and multiplication. We talked about this. As a cell church, we do what we have to do in terms of outreach, plan, strategize, evangelize. In networking, all cells, we may have 50 cell groups. Remember that a cell group is not independent, but is interdependent. Cells can work with each other. Just because a cell group is in, we may have a zone, the north zone and the south zone cell leaders coming together and doing something for the church. They may be in two different, maybe 50 miles apart in the same city, but they're coming together to do something. And what happens is it brings like-mindedness people understand that, hey, we're all part of the same vision of building people or doing ministry. And so networking together. So one of the things that we encourage is for life groups to come together. So sometimes what the youth girls life group, what they do is, I think it's once in two months, not really sure, once in two months, they come together. So two life groups come together and they meet and they just probably they spend time and worship or they spend time in extended time worship or just reading or whatever they feel like doing. This is a part of the life group. And we have family groups that meet from different places, they meet together and they go out on outreach, they go around, they've done this in December, they go out for Christmas programs and all of it. So networking within cell groups. And finally, adaptable structures. So the organization is here to serve you and not to bind you, meaning as a church, we don't want people to feel, oh, if I don't follow this structure, then maybe we put a task. No, we don't want people to feel that way. So how can I be adaptable? Over time, initially when we had life groups, I'll share this and that means so initially when we had life groups, we used to encourage everyone to meet every week. Because every week is when people get ministered to, there's this more fellowship happening. But over time, we understood that, okay, they may not be able to meet every week, why? Because people work Monday to Friday. So let's make it bi-weekly, meaning once in two weeks. So we give them a choice. See, so whenever I request or recognize leaders and they say, okay, first thing I say is, hey, this is what life groups are doing. Some of them meet every week, some of them meet bi-weekly. So you have the choice how you want to meet. So we've given them the choice, an adaptable structure, right? And let me also tell them, so as of now, we are, I mean, what we do is we are discussing the Sunday sermon. So how do I help with that? So if you go to the sermon notes at the board, we have questions. So you can use those questions to guide your discussions. We're making it adaptable. Now for the youth life groups, especially for the girls, what we do is we tell them, okay, you can meet bi-weekly or weekly. And then, so there are a couple of girls like what they do is they meet every week. But two weeks, they meet online. And alternate weeks, they meet in person, adaptable. Why do they meet online? Because they can't travel back every, they're young girls, right? They may not be able to travel back all the way wherever they are meeting. So two weeks online. And the other two weeks is they meet in person. So if you look at them, they're meeting every week, but they're meeting in a hybrid manner. And then same goes with the youth boys as well. Now we also have a few youth life groups which meet up at coffee days, adaptable. We keep it open for them to do it that way. But we always encourage them. It shouldn't be a time of just talking and, you know, spending time. It should be a kind of ministering to each other. A good discussion should happen. And that's the point of the life group. So we'll stop here. And on Friday, we'll look at chapter 11. We're going to chapter 11 and look at the chapter 12, the unlimited possibilities of the several groups. And after we complete these notes, what we'll do is we'll look at a few aspects on discipleship. What is the meaning of discipleship? What is the structure involved in discipleship? So we'll look at that as well. Any questions? Any thoughts? We close? Okay. All right. So have a good week ahead. I'll see you on Friday.