 All right, good morning everyone. Welcome to a new day. Before we begin this session, let's pray and we'll get into our teaching. Let's pray. Father, we thank You so much once again for giving us this beautiful day and even as we come together to learn Lord, about cell groups and about discipleship Lord, we thank You that You will enable us to learn and apply everything that we learn Lord into our lives, into our ministries to bear fruit for Your kingdom Lord. We submit this time into Your hands. We pray God that our hearts will be open to receive from You God and we thank You Lord for this time. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Okay, so last class on Wednesday we looked at chapter 8, the administrative side of cell groups. So we looked at how as cell groups increase in numbers you know, you and I can appoint associate cell group pastors and there are rules and regulations that the associate cell pastors must follow right? They have certain responsibilities that they must fulfill and over time, right, like I mentioned last class, you know, right now you may be having a church or you may be having a ministry which is just maybe one or two life groups. But always look ahead, think ahead, think five years down the line and you don't have to share everything immediately but at the right time you can just bring in whatever plan and strategy you have placed. And then we also looked at becoming a cell church, the essence of a cell church relationships, participation, empowering, focusing on Jesus outreaching, outreaches of the networking and adaptable structures meaning be open to different cultures be adaptable as a cell group. Okay, so let's get into chapter 11 and we've come back to the, from the practical side let's come back a little bit to the spiritual side now, right? And we're talking about prayer, right? Now when, you know, everything we do in our life or in ministry, work, anything, family must be undergirded through prayer right? You know, if we don't hurry, we can only get by to a certain limit. Grace, right? It is prayer that upholds us. It is prayer that gives us to wisdom. It is prayer that gives us the strength, it is prayer that keeps us in good health. So prayer as a believer right? Not only as a leader but as a believer prayer must be number one priority. Look at Jesus, what did he do in his busy schedules, in his busy busy doing ministry but he never compromised on prayer. Prayer is what can hold things together right? I'm sure you've heard of that saying right? A family that prays together stays together right? You can have a family where everyone are working, children are doing well, everything is fine but can easily break if there's no prayer. Prayer is the essence of our life. It should be something very natural right? And I a lot of youth especially, they come and ask, how can I improve my prayer life? The first thing I always encourage young people is, we know there's so much of distractions, our mind can go all over the place the first thing I always encourage our youth is to do something for 30 days, which is great. That becomes a habit and so if you want to pray, if you set your mind I'm going to pray 30 minutes in the morning 15 minutes of prayer or 15 minutes of reading the word. Do it for 30 days straight and you will realize that it's become a habit. So for believers prayer should be a natural very natural outflow. Now when you are a leader in a church or leader in a cell group or ministry, this the bar is set higher and so it's not like we can just do one 5-10 minute prayer and get by doing our ministries. It doesn't work that way. That's why it says here pray and more prayer pray for your cell group. Remember that as a leader as part of the cell group, you are ministering to people. So what are you doing? You are sowing seeds of the word of God. You're sowing things into their life and you're impacting the kingdom of God. Now the moment you do that there's another person waiting. The enemy is waiting to you know, steal that seed or steal the joy that you are working for. Pray for your cell group. Pray for your cell members every day regularly. Pray for them. Especially now you have probably about 10 people in your cell group. Use their name and pray. I pray for them. I pray for their family. I pray for their children. I pray for their work and their personal lives. What are you doing? You are getting into a place of warfare. So you're standing in the gap and you're praying for your cell members. Then you can pray for your pastors family, the church needs. In a cell group meeting, pray for the members and for their oikos who need to be reached. That means for the people who they can go and reach out to. Pray for your cell members. We must seek a high level of Holy Spirit involvement through powerful prayer based. Seek a high level of the empowering of the Holy Spirit. Let me just see if I can just present the notes. Now when we talk about seeking a higher level of empowerment, involvement by the Holy Spirit it basically means that we are not just making prayers. Remember as children we would learn those prayers and we just keep saying those psalms especially. I remember growing up psalms 100, psalms 23. We would just say it without even knowing what it means. But that's not what we pray. That's not what it is. It's not just babbling of something but we must speak the involvement of the Holy Spirit. We must be intentional in asking God to move, in asking God to minister to your cell, in your cell group. Ask the Holy Spirit to begin to get more involved in the things of the cell group. And remember when you have a cell group you also have times of discussion, you have times of prayer, you have times where people will come up to you as leaders and say can you pray for me and many people will have many, many, many problems. Now if we don't have a good platform, a good prayer life, we may just pray and God is great, he's able to bring healing, yes. But we need to ask for the anointing, for the Holy Spirit to move. A strong platform, prayer platform in the church causes the anointing of the Holy Spirit to come. When the anointing of the Holy Spirit comes people who, hindrances are broken off, yokes are broken off, people begin to walk in a greater level of maturity. There is protection there is unity. Unity is very important as a cell group, we talked about that. Now how does unity come when we get the Holy Spirit, when we pray and we say God bring us in unity, bring us in one mind in one heart that we are doing this for your kingdom then there is salvation, there is healings there is miracles. And pray for the accomplishment of specific goals for your cell and for the church. So basically the essence of what we are trying to say is as a cell church, as a cell and as leaders in ministry we must be people who pray. Now here's some things that I personally help with. So for example we have about 15 youth groups. Now we know they are young people in their early 20s they may not be able to sit for hours and pray. It's practical, it's thinking practically. They are young, they are youth. And they are not able to sit for, you can't expect them to sit for one hour and pray for everyone in your cell group. They may not be able to do that or they may not be at that level yet. If they are, that's wonderful, you encourage them. But if they are not there as a leader, what you can do is you encourage these young men and the youth especially encourage them. Tell them, hey, why don't you spend 15 minutes in prayer, pray for your cell group. These are things that you can pray for. And you're encouraging them to pray. Now remember it's very easy to judge them hey, being a cell group leader, why are you not praying? It's easy to say that. But it's easier to give a solution to the problem that they are facing. So you can tell them, these are some things that you can read. Now remember just sharing this simple thing that I did personally. So I bought a notebook and I was a student and I began to write down verses. All the verses. So I had one section of all the verses of health and healing. One section of all the verses of God as our strength and our refuge and our fortress. One section was the verses of battle. Verses of victory. So I wrote them all down. Probably about maybe 300 verses. But over time I just began to write them. And then what happens is it goes into you. And so some things I encourage our youth leaders is you write it down. So when you write it down and you're ministering to people, they say, hey, you know what, I'm feeling very low. I feel suicidal. What can you do? Immediately. You remember some of the verses that you've written. Say, okay, hey, the Bible says I do not have the spirit of fear but of power, love and sound mind. I have the mind of Christ and the wisdom of God is formed within me. So as a leader, what are you doing? You're not just giving random ideas. No, no, don't kill yourself. It's good to be alive. That's very random. But you're giving the Word of God. You're giving good as a leader, you're able to minister to them through the Word of God, which is the most powerful way of ministering to them. So these are some practical things that you as a leader can help your cell group leader. If you are a cell group leader and you are not doing this, I encourage you. It's not like you have to do it. But I encourage you to do it. Take some time. Over time, you just begin to write down verses. And what happens is you have to use this allegory once. It's like a tanker. And then you keep putting the Word of God inside that tank. You fill up that tank with the Word of God. And one day, you've got to keep using that you're on the tap for the water to come out. And when you're on the tap, what's going to happen? The Word of God is going to just come out because it's already there in the storage. And at the right time, the Holy Spirit will use those verses to minister to people. So as leaders, undergird your life with prayer. If prayer is not a part of your life as a believer or as a leader, go back. Go back to that prayer closet. Go back to that place and say, God, I'm not going to try to do anything on my own, but I'm going to depend on you. I'm going to trust in you. I always tell our young people, especially you, the life group leaders and those who are young, push yourself. Push yourself when you're young because as you can't expect to do the same thing when you're 50 or 60, push yourself. Give your best for God when you're young. This coming week, I'm meeting with all the youth life group leaders and just talking about the power of intersection when you pray, what happens? So push yourself as leaders. Don't stay in that comfort zone. If you feel that, hey, I've got a good prayer life. I'm praying for one hour a day. Push yourself. If you can do one and a half hours, push yourself. Go ahead. And then what happens is you will see the results in your life. You will see the work of God as leaders. People will recognize the anointing as a cell group leader, as a pastor, or as a just a work, just a person in the workplace. People will recognize the anointing. So build your cell groups in prayer. Next one, let's get into chapter 12, which is the unlimited possibilities of cells. Now, this is basically the different kinds of cell groups. There's a list here. And as of now at APC, what we have is we have family. We have youth boys, youth girls. Some of the cells that life groups that we want to start is special interest groups. So these special interest groups will basically be groups which we want to start. So for example, I'm a trainer. So we'll find other trainers in the church and we get them together. So they've got maybe seven or eight trainers together and they've got the same understanding, same skill set. So they're able to flow together. Another one that we'd like to start is single moms, single mothers cell groups. This is very important. I'm working towards this. There are a couple of single mothers in our church, but I'm just trying to see how to get this done. But these are things that we want to do. And of course, men's cell groups, only men. And so with our men's ministry growing, we want to see start a new men's cell group. So it could be only men coming together and just meeting, spending time together discussing God's word, ministering to each other. These groups we haven't really tried, joyful mothers to be music cell groups, prayer cell groups, prison cell groups. It's not something that we have tried. But again if you want to try it in your ministry, go ahead and try it. There's nothing wrong to try all of these. You can try the prison cell groups, prayer groups, senior adults groups, singles cell groups. But what we have done is basically we've broadly classified it. APC said, okay, youth boys, youth girls family. And then we're looking to start these four cell groups as well. And then we have people group thinking. So specific interest. This is like there, what I just discussed, special interest groups. And here, Matthew 10, 5, these 12 Jesus sent forth and commanded them saying go not into the way of the Gentiles and into the city of the Samaritans, enter E naught. Now here Jesus is telling his disciples where not to go and where not to reach. So what's he saying? He's saying, you concentrate on the house of Israel. The Israelites, you concentrate on the Jews. So Jesus, he's restricting his disciples and saying, think about people groups. For now you go and you minister only to the Jews. Because what did he say that? Because he understood the culture, their language, the philosophy so they could go and minister to them. Now picture this you got these 12 disciples, all of them are Jews. Imagine they go and minister to the Gentiles and they start saying Abraham said this to his forefathers the Gentiles will be wondering who's Abraham and why should I know about him. It just doesn't make sense. So Jesus was trying to get them to people think, group thinking. But over time we see that Jesus also ministered to others and then when he gave the commission after he died and he resurrected, he said go to all the world and preach because the work was done. So remember that you and I may be in cities and in cities there are different kinds of people with different strategies, with different requirements and there are people who need to be reached. We have children, we have youth, we have teens, we have families, we have divorced, widowed, so many people and so one of the things that we can do as ministries and as churches is to group people, group thinking, group people and reach out to them. Now it's not going to be easy. I'm not saying that you can just get 3-4 people together. No, it may take some time but remember the advantages is they are able to connect with each other. They may be going through the same challenges they are going through the same things in life so picture this, you got 2 widowed people and they are planning to start a cell group and they are sharing about the challenges they are facing and so each of them are saying this is what I am facing, this is what I am going through and then they realize that hey all of them are going through these problems so it's not only me and so there is this connect they are able to minister to each other, they are able to build each other and their faith is built and the end result is they are able to establish a good bonding with each other. Then you got the youth cells now I will talk a little bit about youth cells and something that we do in APC is initially when we talked about youth cells we used to give them the freedom youth cells, you can meet together you can do what you have to do but build relationships but over time we realize that we don't want our youth to just come meet and do have coffee or play basketball and just go back so what we emphasize right now meaning it's been about 7-8 years now what we emphasize to our youth is focus on building people up focus on touching on the word focus on ministering the word yes there will be the other things that we want to do I remember we had this basketball life group this was many many years back 2015 I think basketball life group I thought I need to go and see what happens in this youth basketball life group and it was amazing I don't play basketball but I remember going there and when they all met they all prayed I was just sitting and watching for getting us all together and we're going to play the game now so be with us and thank you for giving us good health and strength and beautiful it was and they started playing the game they played for about half an hour and after the game they came back and the youth leader was so brilliantly he brought in the whole aspect of you know we played a game today and there were rules that we had to follow and he just brought in the discussion that was powerful I still remember it 2015 and so when you talk about a youth cell yes it needs to be something that people would be interested in coming in but it also needs to edify prayer and edification and building up must be there so over time we said okay you can do what you want to do meaning you can have basketball, football, you can have a music worship evening, worship time but also discuss the Sunday sermons and now we emphasize that so that we know that the youth are being ministered to in terms of the word now here again this is a format and it's not a format that we have to follow it's just a sample format right usually starts with some relaxation time right food and ice breaker then the vision statement, discussion of the cell and presentation of the gospel right meaning ministry time and prayer now there are groups that you know some groups that I know of they come they meet, they pray sorry they play either an indoor or outdoor game after playing that's their ice breaker and then they get into the discussion and then they minister and pray with each other but very fruitful, very very fruitful right and out of these youth life groups many of them we had quite a few you know first time decisions people who gave their life to Christ through life group and it's a wonderful right and they still continue to be part of APC so when it comes to youth life groups be a little relaxed you know don't don't say okay now we're going to have intersection and prayer for one and a half hours they're not going to come the next time right so we need to be little wise on how we handle them right but how do we develop and train our youth leaders and how do we develop and train our youth leaders and this is in context to leading a cell group or leading anything you know volunteer team being part of church ministry how do we develop and train our youth and you know raise up youth leaders right now I'll just pick up a few points right one is you spend time in worship you give them an idea of what worship is right you tell them okay this is what worship is seek many times we assume that they know what worship is right so as leaders we talk to them we ask them what is worship worship is not five songs for 45 minutes it's very little to do about that worship you know you begin to talk to them you speak to them what is worship about you know you're begin to develop their thinking you're helping them to stretch their thinking it's not only just five songs and it's close no what happens during worship what can we experience during worship how does the lord respond to our worship right so you talk to them you give a good message or here what we do is the Sunday sermons but you can also you know if you're raising up leaders you disciple them you give them opportunities as youth leaders you teach them right when I say disciple you don't tell the person that you're trying to minister to don't tell them listen from now I'm your you are my disciple and I'm your father you don't have to say all of that what I'm trying to say is you nurture them into what you want them to be don't look at them at their current position or their current you know level of maturity remember what Jesus did I always wonder how did Jesus have this foresight he looked at Peter the same same guy who denied Jesus and he said you you look after the church such a big responsibility and if I was Peter I would have said but Jesus I was not there with you on the cross I denied you three times are you sure you want to give it to me Jesus said yes you go you take the church forward so you when you and I disciple our leaders don't look at them I remember this many years back I think it was 2016 16 or could be 17 I'm not sure there was a youth in church and he had earrings and he had a tattoo up here on his neck and no I'm not saying now you have to have all of that what I'm trying to say is you know from a very difficult background he had gone through his own challenges drug addiction and all that and he came out of it he was clean and he really loved the Lord he gave his heart to Christ loved the Lord wanted to minister and I told him once you know why don't you start a life group said what's a life group and then I began to spend time with him and just share with him I connected him to a life group he was there very faithfully serving for more than a year and I said okay it's time for you to start your own life group and then you know when we started a life group some of them came up to me and said are you sure he's good enough to be a life because he still wears his these earrings and all I said all of that you don't worry about all of that that's all secondary this is his heart for God right and I remember telling him you know telling this person the other person that the more he begins to lead the group the more you'll see things coming off you'll see those that there are some things in our life that are not necessary you'll take it off so many of them said are you sure you want to make him the life group that's okay give him opportunities and he became he was a wonderful life group leader he moved on to a different country but wonderful life group he raised a good team of youth in a cell group it was a very strong cell group so you never know you know when you give an opportunity you never know what they they can do right and never know how they're able to build people up so when you and I develop and train our youth give them opportunities right if it's a youth led cell group commands greater commitment and adults will have the passion will never have the passion to reach and care for teens and younger people unless they're given the opportunity unless they're taught about it so yeah so then we're going to chapter 13 now chapter 13 is very simple it's a it's a cell health assessment tool so we're not going to go through it so if you look at it Jimmy Glees model of upward inward outward in forward so this is a personal test or not test but a cell groups can use right now it's just an option if you'd like to use it you can use it right and this is as we said as we studied the Jimmy Glees model it was a model used by many churches which saw growth in their life groups which saw a total growth in their ministries as well so this is something that you can if you'd like to use you can probably just take a print out buy it out if you feel it doesn't work add more points if you feel there are certain points now most of this is geared towards churches in the west right so there may be some things that you may have to remove go ahead and do that but this can give you like a at least an evaluation of what your cell group is and what you must do what you must not do basically help in the health of the cell group so if you'd like to if you're a cell group leader just take a print out of this right no harm in trying and then you can build on that so let's get into step 2 preparing to become a cell leader preparing to become a cell leader the cell leader's personal life maintain a strong personal walk with God Matthew chapter 5 and verse 19 would anyone like to read that Matthew 5 and 19 go ahead anyone can please read it's on the screen I'm not sure if you can see it hope you can see it now whatsoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men so he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven but whatsoever shall do and teach them the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven right thank you so here we see Jesus is teaching us something here I'm sure you've heard of the saying right practice what you preach so here Jesus is saying we have to do before we teach and we have to live it before we teach it so about the Pharisees what is Jesus saying Matthew 15 14 let them alone they are blind leaders of the blind and if the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch it's very important to emphasize on these words here before we do we have to do before we can teach and we have to live it before we teach it so how can I what is it for me as a leader remember that if I have to teach you know for example I have to teach somebody you know what God answers press but as a life group leader if I feel that I want to teach about prayer and the power of prayer now I have to do it before I teach it I have to pray I have to be a man or a woman of prayer for me to teach it right and I have to live it before I teach it so if I say you know hey you know I want to teach on faith and how you know God is a God who you know who expects us to walk in faith and when we walk in faith he begins to do miracles now I have to live it I have to myself walk in faith and then I'll be able to teach it to others and Jesus is saying here to the Pharisees to the disciples leave those Pharisees alone why because they are like the blind leading the blind they only know how to open the scriptures they don't talk about it but they don't do anything they only know how to open okay Isaiah, Jeremiah they know about the Lord they know about the sacrifices they know everything but they are blind and those who are following them also are blind so those are strong words remember you and I you cannot teach something you have not learnt or experienced now remember that so for example this is limited to certain things right for example the end times or rapture I have not experienced the rapture but you can still teach it you know about it you teach it I have not experienced earthquakes and famines what's going to happen so here we're talking about as leaders if we are to lead people I cannot teach something that I haven't learnt and experienced I can't teach it so for example if I tell people hey you must pray and if I don't pray there's no weighted in that word that's why Jesus is telling you know the Pharisees are blind they know they're wearing all their dress and they know the scriptures they know the Torah they know everything but they're blind because they're teaching something they have not experienced Isaiah 53 talks about the cross Isaiah 6 also talks about unto us as child is born unto us they know it but they're blind they don't see it Jesus himself said if you people know what you are seeing you know people generations you know were eager to see what you see but they were blind they didn't recognize it so if you and I have to teach we got to do it first if I have to teach it I have to live it first this is the best example you know at home especially if you have children you got to do it before I teach it my little one asks me every day he asks me he gets up early for school probably about 6.30 in the morning he asks me what time do you get up that I'm getting up at 6.30 wouldn't you get up I say I tell him I sleep early so I get up very early I spend time in prayer I want to do it he wants to do it because I'm talking about it but we also remember to live it out as I teach it at home if I'm not able to live it out there's no point of me teaching you cannot lead people where you yourself have not gone you cannot give something you do not have and you cannot administer deliverance in areas you yourself are bound in this is strong you cannot lead people where you have not gone yourself if you and I are you know people so for example you are a worship leader if you feel you and I when I say you if we feel that you know worship okay if I'm roasted for worship on Sunday Wednesday I have to get the song list ready set a time for practice on Saturday learn the songs really well go on Sunday and lead the worship we cannot lead the people to a place where of intimacy why worship leader worship should be your lifestyle it should be something that you are it's in the natural whatever in the night you spend time in worship just worship the Lord no instruments no pads nothing you can sing in tune you can sing out of key with key you can change the scales it doesn't matter if you go into that place of intimacy then you will when you are leading worship in public you will take people to that place of intimacy you cannot give something that you do not have if you you know when we read the Old Testament we look at it right God anointed his people and that anointing went from person to person to person if we do not have something in us we cannot give it because we don't have it I can only give what I have and we cannot administer deliverance in areas where we ourselves are bound picture this imagine that there's a young boy in your cell group and he says hey you know what I'm addicted to pornography okay let me pray for you but what if you know the cell group leader himself is going through that challenge I will not be able to administer deliverance because I myself am bound in that area what about being suicidal we can put on a pretense as leaders but what if we are suicidal then somebody else comes and says hey I am suicidal I will not be able to bring in deliverance in areas where I myself am under bondage so what is the solution here they got to break free from these bondages keep progressing in your growth and maturity and Christlikeness maintain your spiritual disciplines of worship, prayer, word meditation, word confession fasting and fellowship and these are powerful spiritual disciplines never compromise these no matter how high we get into ministry or workplace whether we are never compromise on these because your spiritual disciplines is what will keep you and I going strong in ministry word meditation word confession one of the first things that come to my mind when I wake up first things I don't know why but every morning it's just there in my right wake up in the morning first thing I will lift up my eyes onto the hills where does my help come from it just so natural the help comes from the Lord the maker of the heavens and the earth he will not suffer thy foot to be moved behold he who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep the Lord is my keeper the Lord is my shade upon my right hand the sun shall not smite me by day or the moon by night the Lord shall preserve my soul the Lord shall preserve me as I go and come out from this time forth and even forever more first thing it's just wired there I wake up I will lift up my eyes to the Lord who's my helper my strength when we maintain these spiritual disciplines it's what will get us through in our ministry fasting fellowship worship prayer we continue to build on these make time build that we are living in as leaders it's very easy to say no time make time make time then maintain a life that is constant constantly consecrated to God give no room for the devil in your life now look at this the devil is the moment you begin to maintain your spiritual disciplines if we are not praying if we are not reading the word the devil will leave us alone no problem you'll say you do what you want it doesn't affect me but the moment we do these things we maintain our spiritual disciplines what are we doing we are taking the work of the devil and the devil wants to bring us down so you give him no room you close every door will we make mistakes yes will we sin could be will we overcome temptations yes will we fall into temptations at times yes but constant constantly consecrate yourself to God I always say this to myself I don't have to give an account to the devil I don't have to all I have to do is come to the cross I say God I messed up but I thank you your word says if you confess your sins he's faithful and just to forgive you so right now you confess my sins I receive forgiveness and I know that I'm your child that's it it's done it's finished constantly consecrate yourself to God and be on your God when you know first be on your God for the devil is like a roaring lion trying to devour so be on your God look at your life look at your weak points like now all of us have weak points and we have strong areas right we have areas very strong so the devil is not going to come there but he'll choose those weak points in our life right so if you're strong in one area continue to grow there but look at your weak points and be alert on those be on your God be sober be vigilant because your adversary the devil is like a roaring lion working about seeing who he may devour get rid of demonic strongholds be aware that there is a reality of a spiritual enemy right the weapons that we fight we are not wrestling against flesh and blood but against principalities powers and rulers of the heavens right there can be strongholds in a believer's life areas in the soul that are occupied and controlled by demonic spirit so we get rid of them right now this could be over time it's not like it can if it happens at a moment that's wonderful but if it takes if God is taking you through a season that's where we need to in the process say God okay I'm going to trust in you right and we continue on I think we'll spend more time on this so we'll stop here next class we'll begin with get rid of demonic strongholds we can spend some time here on this chapter and learn more alright thank you so much I'll see you on Wednesday have a great weekend God bless