 All right. Welcome back. Let me just share my screen. Before that, is everyone tracking along? Please let me know if I'm too fast or is it okay? Everyone able to understand? Able to follow what we're learning? I'm following. Thank you. All right. Let me just share the notes. I just made the forms a little bigger, so it'll be easier for us to see. All right. So we stopped at having true fellowship and edification. Let's go to point number six, why we need cell groups. Again, very, very important aspect is exercising of spiritual gifts. Now, we did read before this, the church in Corinth met at a home. Right? Now picture this. Imagine there were 1000 people, right? And everyone want to exercise their spiritual gifts. Right? Some of them say, hey, I'm good at, you know, I feel God has called me to be prophetic. Or some of them say, I like to speak in tongues or I can interpret tongues. Or I know that I have the gift of word of knowledge, word of wisdom. Now, if the church is a 1000 member church or even not even 1000, keep it 500. And how will we exercise those gifts? It's not going to happen. Of course, you know, there'll be ministry time after church or during the church time, we can pray and but we're not exercising those gifts. We know those gifts are there, not able to exercise. Now, cell groups is a wonderful place for each and every believer to exercise their gifts and to develop their callings. Right? In a non-threatening environment. Right? So there are two things here, exercising your gifts and developing your calling. So for example, there's this young boy, maybe who's 25 years old, just become a believer, doesn't understand much about spiritual gifts and calling, just, just, you know, just learning. He goes into a small group and imagine this, a small group leader says, hey, I've noticed that you're very good at singing. Right? When we have the singing, when we sing songs in the cell group, you're very gifted, you sing beautifully, you've got a beautiful voice. And the cell group leader says, why don't you lead the worship in the coming, you know, cell groups in the coming months? So he says, okay, I lead, I'll learn whatever I can and he begins to do well. Right? Now, over time, he says, he goes to the, you know, cell group leader and says, I just wrote down a few things that God ministered to me when I was reading this passage from the Bible. So I feel that this can, you know, I put a tune to it as well. And I feel that this can become a song. And so he begins to write and the cell group leader says, wonderful. Write more and come up with melody. Ask God to give you this. Now what's happening? This young boy probably didn't know he could sing well. This boy probably didn't know he's a good writer. And he didn't know about how to, you know, come up with melody for the songs. But he was free to do that because he was in a cell group and he knew that he could go to the cell group leader and share. Right? It was a non-threatening environment. Now the cell group leader didn't say, what is, you know, what is this way you've written? It doesn't make sense. Or, you know, it is, it's too common. No, we encourage them. Right? Now, this is just what an example I've shared really happened in our church. I read this young boy, he was, he's in his early 20s and you know, he began to write. He loved to write. He didn't know he liked to write, but he began to write. Write a lot of things. Right? You just keep writing in his books and his diary wherever you get a paper. He would write. Right? He would come up with rhyming words to these, you know, very poetic kind of lyrics. And finally, he was part of our, you know, APC album. He was part of the writing team. He wrote almost all of the songs. Right? How did that happen? He started off in a small group, which he didn't know, a gift that he didn't know. Encouraged by a small group leader, God used him so powerfully. And even now, he just keeps writing. Right? So small groups is a wonderful place to exercise gifts, to develop in their calling. Right? Somebody told me, Hey, why don't you play the guitar for the cell group? I said, Okay, I don't know too many chords. I can just manage because there were only 10 odd people inside. Just give me the songs. And so we, I used to practice a few days before trying to get the chords, try to get the structure. And then eventually what happened was the life group leader said, Hey, Paul can lead worship. Can we ask him to lead here? And then got an opportunity. And then through that got another opportunity. And then came the bigger opportunities. So it all started small. Right? So as cell group leaders, and you may be cell group members, do not hold yourself back in a small group setting. Right? It is, it is a place where you can exercise your gifts. Right? If it's prophetic, if you feel that there's a prophetic call, right? Begin to open up, begin to share. If you feel that you have the gift of healing, right? Begin to pray over people, just exercise those gifts. Right? People may be healed, people may not be healed. They heal. Praise God. If they're not healed, it's all right. Press on. Right? Step out of your comfort zone. Another very important point of cell groups is raising up leaders. And we talked about this, right? Every cell group member is encouraged to later on become a cell group leader, taking responsibility of winning souls and discipling them. Now, how do we raise leaders? Look at the biblical approach is what we were speaking about, you know, being their life to life. But a good leader will recognize other leaders. Right? Look at this. If we are a good leader, God gives us the ability to recognize other people. I mean, no, and we will recognize their potential as leaders. Right? They may not be doing anything right now. They may not even be in the church actively involved, but they may be part of your life group and they may not even be doing anything in the life group, but God can use them as leaders. Right? So God may speak to us as a cell group leader and say, you know, use this, choose this person, teach him, you know, direct him, mentor him, lead him or her. And we may think, oh, man, God, can we choose somebody else? This person, I don't think he knows anything. But look at what Jesus did. Powerful example set by the Lord Jesus Christ. What did he do? He chose Peter, unschooled, untrained fisherman. All that Peter knew was fishing. That's all he knew. There's no account of his great oratory speech of his wonderful talent of, you know, speaking in front of people. No, nothing. God said, you, you are Petros and on this rock, I will build my church. God used him powerfully. Right? So a leader can recognize other leaders. Right? So when, when, here's the thing that we must do, right, especially when it comes to raising up other leaders, never come to a place where you say, okay, this person, I don't think can be a leader. Never make assumptions because we don't know what God has put, the ability that God has put in that person. Right? So even if you look in, in church history, many of them looked at William Carey and said, what is this man trying to do? He, he's, even as a little boy, he was a shy, very cowardly, very fearful. But who knew that he would come to a nation which he didn't even know, come and start a work here and do these great things for God? Right? Who knew that? Nobody, nobody thought of it. Right? And, and, and, and you see that God has always, right, used people, unqualified, making them, using them greatly for God's kingdom. Right? Now, so that's where comes the whole aspect of us raising leaders. Of course, there's a process of raising leaders. I'll just give you a few points. One is when you recognize somebody as a leader, you see a potential in them. Don't immediately go and tell them, hey, I see this potential in you. I think two years down the line, you can be a leader. You don't have to do that. What do we have to do? We can just, you know, recognize it, make a note of it, write it down. And then began to, began to speak to him, began to talk, began to spend that extra time with them. What did Jesus do? He had 12 disciples, but in some places he only took Peter, James and John. He recognized something in them. Peter went on to become the leader of the church. James was, of course, he was martyred later on, but, and then John, the youngest of them all. Right? So, so when we recognize people, begin to spend that additional time, a little effort will need to be there. But then you know that, okay, this person, it's time that, you know, he's growing, he or she is growing in the Lord. I can, you know, for example, you're a life group leader, 12 of them there, and you have somebody in your mind in the life group, in the cell group, and you know that this person can lead a life group. So you work with them two years. And here's the important part. Release them into what God is calling them. You know, sometimes we want to raise up leaders and use those leaders only under us. You know, go get my water bottle, go get my bag, can you lead the worship, can you do this, can you do that? All the work is done. That's not how it is. Raising up leaders is, when we raise up leaders, we're looking at them to be better than what we are. So there's no place of jealousy. There's no place of strife. There's no place for inferiority, complex, nothing. Right? Everyone are equal. Look at, look at the wonderful example of the great apostle Paul. He chose Timothy at a young age. And finally, at the end in 2 Timothy, Paul, Timothy is looking after the church in Ephesus and he's telling the believers of the church there, he is a fellow worker, a brother in Christ, and he has the same spirit that I have. Right? He's not telling the church in Ephesus, you know, and he also tells them, you know, he tells Timothy, Timothy, don't let people despise you because of your age, but you are a leader. You are the leader in that church. So he also makes him understand his leadership role. And he doesn't tell the church member, the church in Ephesus, you know, this boy, Timothy, I found him when he was 17, he was in that church there in Corinth and then I found him, I took him, I raised him up, I did this to him, I taught him this, I taught him that, I took him into my wings and I made him become a great thing. All he did was, he said, he's a brother in Christ and he has the same spirit. He's my son, my brother, and he has the same spirit that I have. What a powerful example of raising up leaders. Apostle Paul was not worried that Timothy would become more famous or more powerful. He was not. He gave Timothy one of the most difficult places to handle, but he knew the spirit that was there in him. Right? When we raise leaders, never hinder them or stop them from, you know, from growing in their abilities, always treat them as co-equal with you or greater than you, you and I. Right? Next one, why do we need life groups, cell groups? There's accountability. Every member of the church is accountable. We grow spiritually. We fulfill our part in the entire vision of the church. Now, this not only includes, you know, evangelism and church and attendance, but every area of ministry is looked after. Right? So there's accountability. As believers, we know, okay, so for example, EPC, to be salt and light to the city, voice to the nation and to the nations. Okay, so how do I start off to be salt and light? So as a life group leader, as life group members, we know that we have to reach out. We need to be salt. We need to be light to the people around us. We need to, and for us to do that, we must grow spiritually as well. So there's this accountability. I need to hear the word of God. I need to read the word of God. I need to pray. I need to seek God and grow spiritually. Only then I can be the salt and light to others. Right? So that accountability is there. And then you have like group, cell group leaders who can, you know, encourage us even more. Right? And then what happens is it also helps in different areas of ministry. So we begin to have good leaders in different areas of ministry, children's church, men's ministry, women's ministry, different areas. And finally, cell groups avoid continuation of dead programs. Now, sometimes doing things continuously may become monotonous. Right? And the moment you feel things are getting monotonous, try to make changes, adapt, improvise. Right? Let me share this wonderful example that happened to one of our life groups here in Bangalore. It was a youth life group. Right? Only boys life group. And they used to meet every, I think it was every alternate week. I'm not sure if they meet every week or alternate week, but they used to meet. And it was the same, you know, 10 odd boys meeting together and they would talk, they would share about their week and discuss the Sunday sermon. And this is going on. So there came a time when the life group leader came up to me and said, you know, I just feel that things are, you know, it's just repetitive. We are there. We meet everyone. We talk to each other. We have a good time. Of course, we pray, we do all that, but this needs to be something extra. So as I was talking to him, I felt in my heart that they need to step up, meaning they can do something different. So I told them, why don't you as a, as a life group, look at going to a children's home or going to a destitute home? Or why don't you look at, apart from your cell groups, why don't you try to go together and play a sport, football, badminton, cricket, anything? I said, oh, we can do that. I said, yeah, you can do that. Right? You have your life group. But apart from that, you, you do something together. And they were all youth, not married, not much commitments, working. You said, okay. So they went the, what they decided was we'd have basketball. So they would meet for life group one, one day of the week. And then during the second week, they will meet for basketball. Right? So they will all play basketball together. There's nothing spiritual about it. Right? But they will play basketball. Oh, I think they also played other games. I'm not sure, but, but they played sports together. And so when they came to meet in the house for life groups, there was a greater bond. All of a sudden, there was this feeling of, hey, we're all, you know, a team. We're all one team. We're growing together. So suddenly they felt this feeling of, you know, oneness, unity. And they began to share with each other. They began to share their problems and challenges or, and they began to see people in the life group getting ministered to. Right? So what happened here? It was nothing. It was just a suggestion of starting something additional. And that, you know, that monotonous or dead program tradition kind of thing was taken out. Right? So as a life group leader, we must ask God for wisdom when it comes to these kinds of situations. Right? These situations can come because there'll be times when, you know, you'll have a cell group and you've been having it for like five years or things get monotonous. So make changes. So the same way, you know, I suggest life group leaders, there are some cell groups that go for prayer walk in the morning, 7am or 6am, they go for prayer walk around the neighborhood, finish the prayer walk, go have a breakfast, go back home. So the whole day, nothing has changed. There are some who go for prayer drive. There are some who visit orphanages, especially during Christmas and during Easter. These times they go visit people visit. There was a cell group that would go to prison. But I don't know if they have permission now, but they used to go maybe once in a month, go and pray for people. Right? So as cell group leaders, you can come up with these ideas. Right? So these are few nine reasons here as to why we have cell groups. And of course, there could be plenty more. But these are just some of them that are the core reasons for having a life group. Right? So what does a cell church look like? Now we look at a cell group. What is a cell church? Look, let's look at those points there. Cell church has Sunday celebration services where everyone come together for worship and the word. And there's an overall direction of the, and there's an overall direction of the local church. They keep in sync with the local church. Right? This is a cell church. They made during the week, once a week or once in two weeks in cell groups. Again, a lot of the reasons why it's done is the same. Build strong relationship people are to be ministered right away. Ministry is done through cell groups. They do not have to wait for a church to start a minute program or ministry. So most of the things are done through the cell group itself. Right? So for example, if they feel we need to do evangelism today, they can go out, do evangelism. If they feel there should be 21 days of fasting and prayer, they can begin. Right? If they want to do other ministry, you know, men meeting together, women meeting together of families, just having a one-on-one fellowship, they can do all that. Why? Because the cell church is its own entity. Right? And the cell leader sees a ministry opportunity and takes the cell group to meet that need. Right? Souls are continuously brought to Christ. The church and its ministries are focused on building leaders. Right? Every individual is gripped with the vision of the church and each cell group meeting, the vision is rehearsed over and over and over again. So it's never lost. And cell churches have special events, special meetings, crusades, seminars, where there's active participation from all the cell members. Now, why is this important? Because now if we are in a church of 500 people and the church decides, let's do a seminar or a crusade, I'm sure not all of them will get an opportunity to serve. But in a cell church, it could be 20 people, all of them get an opportunity to serve in maybe a crusade or a seminar. Right? Now, what is important is knowing this difference is good. Right? But let not this difference bring a separation. And hey, you're a cell church, but we are a, we have cell groups, we are a church with cell groups, but you are a cell church. No, the overall vision again is to make disciples to build God's kingdom. Just the functioning is different. Right? And it's not very different as well, but there's certain few differences. Let's look at these examples, right? Cell churches and some of the most powerful, strongest leading churches are cell churches. Can we picture that? Right? David, Paul, Yongecho, Yoido full gospel church in Seoul, Korea, which is the biggest church up to now began in 1958. First six years, there was no cell church. Right? There was no cell church. So David Yongecho for the first six years, he was completely burnt out. It says that I think for the first six years, they were, they were still in the hundreds. Right? David Yongecho was really, really stressed out. And then he began the cell model. What is the cell model? Three things that they followed in the cell. One is prayer, cell groups and then growth. So let my people grow and grow. Growth what? Both numerically and spiritually. But the outcome of the cell groups was extremely huge. What happened? From about 65,000, from about starting one or two cell groups, it went on to have 65,000 cell groups in the church. 65,000 cell churches. So meaning what? There were, it was not like they all met at one place always. So they had 65,000 places, leaders, cell churches with 750,000 members altogether. Can you picture that? For six years, nothing happened. Why? There were no cell groups. Later on, 65,000 cells, 750,000 members in the church. How did he do this? Through cell groups. What were they doing? They would meet in different places. They would pray, they would break bread. People began to come. So probably there's, there's, we don't know how many was, what was the number of each cell group. I'm just giving a rough, I'm just giving a number out. Say for example, there were 100 people in one cell church with about 10 leaders. So there were 100 people in one cell church. All are coming. Probably Sunday, Wednesday, whatever day. They're coming together. Worship, word, breaking up bread, prayer, ministering to each other, flowing in the gifts of the spirit. People are getting saved. The cell groups are going out, reaching out to many people. Those people are getting invited to different cell groups from, just just picture this, from one, 10, 100, 200. The cell groups are just growing. And because of the cell groups growing, people are coming into the cell groups. The church grew to 750,000 members, all through cell groups. Right. And look at this other one, the International Charismatic Mission, Bokora, Columbia. Right. Now this, this church also followed David Yongecho's model and David Yongecho system, began in 1983. The group of 12, groups of 12 cell groups and they had evangelism. For seven years with church, with David Yongecho system, the church grew to 3000 members. Now from there, they started to focus on planting new cells instead of multiplying existing groups. So 2500, 400 cell groups were started and the church grew to 350,000 members in 1999. Right. So that's what, 16 years. They started in 1983. First seven years was the church grew to 3000 members, which was wonderful, especially in a place like Columbia. Right. Now after that, the remaining years, they started planting new cells and the group started multiplying 2,400 cells, 350,000 members in 1999. Right. There are many churches all over the world who have implemented this G12 model just started by David Yongecho. Right. The Harvest Assembly in Virginia, these are some examples here. Christian Center in Ecuador, Kensington Temple, England, World Press Center, Louisiana and how did these churches grow using this G12 model? Right. The 12 model was basically 12 of them, 12 in each group and they would, you know, just begin to multiply, multiply, multiply. Right. So will the cell church concept work in our city and your city? Right. Now some of us may have the question. Okay. That is 1980s. It used to work. Nowadays people are too busy. People don't have time to come Monday to Friday. They're busy. So they're all working, students, studying. Things have changed. True. Things have definitely changed. City, life, urban life has changed. But will this church concept work in our city? Yes. Why? Because regardless of our region, regardless of culture, regardless of people, regardless of technology and all that we see around us, God has created us to have relationships. You can't keep a person in a room for one week with his phone or with technology. He may say, yeah, I'm managing, but I'm sure deep in his heart, he'll want to speak to somebody and he'll want to speak to somebody. And I think the value of relationships was, I mean, was rarely felt during COVID. Right. I'll never forget the initial 2020. It was very difficult. Sorry. It was very difficult. Right. Imagine. Nobody to talk to. There were people who used to call me and said, I don't know what to do. I need to talk to somebody. I need to go out. I can't. Why is that? Because we are, no matter what, did we have YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, all of these things, Internet, everything was available. But why were people so, they were saying, no, we need to go out. Even if there's food delivery at home, no, we want to go out. Why? Because we were created to have relationships. So it doesn't matter whether we are high end, top end city and all of those things. We can be made to have relationships with people. And so this will definitely work. People prefer talking to each other than talking to their computers and phones. People in general are hospitable and like to visit homes and sells a love unsaved to explore now without being very public about their interest. Another example would be that of Iran and Iraq. Right. Where a lot of, a lot of people from the Islamic faith are coming into and coming into the gospel, they're getting to understand all they're doing is they're watching their TVs, maybe God TV and all these other channels. They're accepting the Lord Jesus as their personal savior. And they're all started going into these small groups and praying. Right. And even if you look at the underground church in China during the communist time, the early 1950s and 60s, there were cells, cell churches, cell groups that were functioning. And this wonderful book by Brother Andrew called God's Smuggler to China, How He Smuggled Bibles into China. And they would meet in small groups and read their Bibles and put them away and put them in boxes and dig the ground and put them all in the ground. How did it all start? It all started through cell groups, small groups. That's a wonderful place for us to really empower impact people's lives. Right. So I think we'll stop. Okay. We have this last one and then we'll stop possible challenges and solutions. As we said, people work long hours or timings, call centers, software companies, what is the solution? Can have workplace cell groups, cell groups with peers, meaning there will be people who are maybe seniors or even your peers, start groups with them. People like going to meetings so we cannot do away with large meetings, but they also like these small meetings where they can really ask questions and learn. Right. Apart from Sunday services, you know, there will be times where people, you know, there will be times when people don't want to get involved in the local church ministry. They don't mind coming and serving, but they don't want to get involved or coming and attending, but they don't want to really volunteer and get involved. So, so here's a place, small groups is a place where they can really, you know, minister in small settings and over time, they will also minister on the church if they'd like to. Right. So the challenges are plenty. Right. There are going to be many challenges and we can't do away with that. Right. Practical challenges, which are true. Challenges are there, but God is bigger than those challenges. And if God wants to, he can really minister to us. He can really use us to be great leaders, to reach out and raise up many other leaders. Right. So we'll stop here. We'll continue from next week. We'll continue from the APC 12 model and we'll pick up from, you know, what we do as a church and how we are able to minister to people within our congregation. Right. Any questions? I know I've been speaking a lot. I hope you all are able to follow. Yeah. Any questions? Any thoughts? No questions. All right. All right. So let's close in prayer. Maybe one of us can pray and close. Okay. Maxon. Yes, I've got a question, sir. Go ahead, Maxon. Yeah, my question is on last semester. You didn't mark my assignments, both midterm and last term assignments. Okay. So was it, did you hand it in before the due date, Maxon? Yes. Okay. I'll just double check that. Right. Sometimes it could be a technical error. I'll double check that. Thank you so much. Say, yes. Same as myself. I never got my score. Okay. I'll do that. I'll double check. If there's anybody else, you can just put your name in the chat and I'll just double check that and send you your marks. Nobody else, right? Everyone else have received your marks? Okay. All right. Can any one of us close in prayer? Okay. Kennedy too. That's okay. Yes. Anyone can close in prayer. Maxon, you want to pray? No problem, sir. Thank you. Go ahead. Let's pray. Thank you, Lord, for having us this time. We learned a lot in this today's session. May your Lord bless everyone who attend this class in the name of Jesus Christ. I pray, amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you, everyone. Have a great two week ahead. I'll see you next week. God bless.