 Good morning, everyone. Welcome to a new week. I hope you had a good weekend. Let's begin this time with a word of prayer. So, anyone of us can please lead in prayer. Yes, anybody can be. Go ahead, Asha. Dear God, thank you so much for today. Thank you for the sunshine. And thank you, Lord, as we come to learn about discipleship and small groups and all the groups, God, that has been learned that we may understand that the earth is at a level that means to be cycled and raised in the God. Thank you, Lord, for the pastor, for everything that he's got to teach for them and to hide them and understand what they may ponder and meditate in each word. And that's what I would like to fill in with your spirit, as you pour out God. Thank you, Lord, for my own investments that they will understand and grow deeper in your word and to its God. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much, Asha. All right. So let's continue from where we stop. Sorry, I think my voice may be a little low because I'm just recovering from a throat pain. So if I'm too low, please let me know. And I'll try my best to get a little louder. Is it okay? Is it audible for everyone? It is possible. It is audible. Okay. All right. Let me just present the notes. All right. Everyone can see this. All right. Last week, we talked about many aspects of what a cell group is in a care cell. We looked at examples of that as well. We looked at some of the examples of cell churches. Yoido Full Gospel Church, which is David Paul Yogi Church and how when he began these cell groups, the church began to just enlarge in numbers. Then we looked at what a cell church looks like. We looked at the importance of why cells. We look at nine points provides the most efficient means for pasturing, recapturing families, increasing the church, making disciples, having time, true fellowship and edification, exercising of spiritual gifts, raising up leaders, accountability and avoid continuation of dead programs. So basically what we also looked at was a care cell and a cell group. We came to this conclusion that a cell group is a different group's meeting in different locations and they are part of the main church. But a cell church is where everything happens within the cell group itself. So whether it is evangelism, whether it is women's ministry, men's ministry, whatever events, programs, it's all done by the cell church itself. Now if you look at for example our church, all people's church, we are not a cell church. We are a church, but we have a lot of cell groups which we call life groups. Right? And so we the life groups are an integral part of the church. But most of what happens is is through the church. Right? It's not through the life groups. It is through the church and then again the life group leaders, life groups have their own freedom to you know reach out to people and do their own kind of outreaches and events programs that they'd like to. But basically if you look at it we are a church with cell groups. But then there are churches which are care cell churches and they function out from there. Right? So let's go down, let's continue from where we stopped. We are looking at the APC 12 group. Now remember we also briefly spoke about the G12 model and the G12 simply was that each cell group will have 12 people under them. Cell group will have 12 people and we looked at the reasons as well because you know there's true fellowship. There's this one on one mentoring discipleship that's happening and the leader is fostering over these 12. So basically he's looking at these 12 itself and trying to build them up into Christ's likeness, into maturity. Now at APC we follow the G12 model in our church and hence we are calling it the APC 12 model. So look at this, this diagram shows it very nicely. So this is the church and we got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 life groups which we call it in Bangalore. In our church we call it life groups, you can call it cell groups or so. So you got 12 groups here and out of these 12 groups we see that many groups are started. So this is the initial 12 groups and then you got once for example a group becomes 15 so what we try to do is always raise up a new leader and then you have that leader again begins to grow the team grow the life group and then once they reach 12 it just again just keeps expanding that way. So many times in APC we have certain areas where there are too many people like for example in a certain area we may have 40 people coming from church. We want to ensure that everyone are part of a life group or they have accessibility to a life group. So what we do is we try to start 2 or 3 life groups in that same area. They may be just half a kilometer away or just 1 kilometer away. Now the reason we allow it is because there are 40-50 people living in that area. But again there will be other locations in the city where very few there are pockets of people who come to church so we try to start a life group and get people connected there. Now let's look at how the APC 12 cell groups or the APV I'm so used to calling it life groups because that's what it is called in APC. So if I say life groups in between it basically means cell groups. So the APC 12 cell groups and APC 12 model how does it flow in our church. So it's one life group cell group leader is responsible for discipling 12 people. Right? So 1 leader, 12 people. Now when we start a life group initially we may not have all 12 people coming in. We may have just probably 3-4 people joining but as a life group leader one of the things that we do is we don't look at numbers. Numbers are nice. It's good to have a big church. It's good to have a lot of numbers 12 people and then becoming 20 and becoming many more life groups starting. All that is good but one of the important things that we teach our life group leaders is to whether they are 3 people, 5 people or 10 people the most important thing a life group leader must do is to disciple them. Right? It is to raise up the next leadership. It's to train people to grow in the ways of the Lord. Right? So for example you have 2 families coming to a life group. So this life group leader must immediately come to this place where I have the opportunity to disciple and mentor these 2 sorry so I have the responsibility to disciple and mentor these 2 people right? So what's important is that we disciple people whether they are young people, young couples young youth maybe husband and wife older husband and wife count them all meaning you never know how God can use them. Then we look at the 12 cell members are committed to one another in a cell group right? are committed to one group leader. So for example there's a life group and there are people in that life group those 12 people are committed to this leader in a sense that you know being available you know being available for during the life group meetings probably there's small tasks, volunteer tasks also when they feel that they need prayer they should be able to go to the life group leader and you know instead of going to you know we may have a lot of friends and all of that that's alright but it's good that if we are part of a life group to go to the life group or the cell group leader and share your thoughts share your whatever you're going through now I'm not saying this happens immediately but over time we must put our faith in our leaders right? we cannot say I don't know them so I will only share with somebody that I know. Over time as you get to know the leader as you get to know the person you know the cell group leader be committed to that one leader right? Next one we see is the cell group leader works with each of his 12 at a personal level here's the most beneficial part of a cell group the life group leader can work at a personal level so for example you know there may be a youth life group there are 10 young men who are coming to a life group now for example I'm the leader of that life group now I must have the ability to speak into their lives and also to receive or to hear what they are going through now one person may say no he may come up and say I don't like studies the other person may say I'm feeling very tired of life another person may say my career nothing's happening another person may have another problem all of them may have their problems or some of them will have no problem at all but they just for no reason they feel fear or doubt so as a life group leader we must work with them at a personal level so when I know this person is going through a challenge in their probably in their studies my responsibility to just be available just be there to support and strengthen that youth now the senior pastor or the pastoral team may not know this young man may have told the senior pastor and the pastoral team but remember the pastoral team may not be available and may not remember everything but as a cell group leader you know these 12 are under your care so you have the opportunity to speak into their lives you can say hey John I know that you're going through this problem I'm praying we are praying as a group don't worry you know we pray for you we're standing with you in prayer I'm sure the Lord will come through to you now what's happening this week this person has somebody to talk to somebody who can speak into his life and it's such a blessing because you know that person may not feel lonely anymore he knows that there are people around who are praying so at a personal level why to build them up and to bring them to a place of spiritual maturity and I think this is the most important part of a cell group is that personal touch over the last week I met a couple of church folks we were all just casually talking we had a conference last week and some of them said you know what I will never forget the times when I was in that life group and some of them mentioned they said in 2014 when you know we had a life group this life group leader said this and it's come you know last year the Lord did it for me there was no pastor involved there was no prophet no prophet involved or no great preacher nothing but I'm so happy to know that you know this person maybe in their late 30s now remembers what happened almost 10 years back in that life group and the prophetic word that came at that season and then she said it took almost 10 years for it to fulfill but God has fulfilled it right so cell groups are a wonderful place where it's a place where you can really build up people so the goal of the APC 12 model is disciples the cell group meeting is just a way to facilitate it but outside of the cell group a leader must be willing to step out so here's the thing if you are a cell group leader a small group leader a pasturing cell groups you must be willing to step out meaning it's not just okay I finished my cell group today is Wednesday or today is Saturday I finished my cell group okay I can take rest now I don't have to worry about it for the next two weeks it should be something from within where we say okay now that I know I have a weak gap so somehow I must be willing to minister to them during the week maybe a call maybe a text message maybe just a few moments of prayer with them will really help right so eventually every person will belong to cell groups one cell group where he is being ministered to by a cell group leader and one cell group where he ministers to others as a cell group leader now let's go down right if cell groups alternate weeks this will amount to one cell group meeting each week so if a cell group leader is able to once all the members of his initial 12 have started their own cell group he can start another cell group of another 12 while continuing to minister to the original 12 so if he didn't so this is really interesting so what we can what we do at APC is and we recently did this in January 2023 where we know we we had a youth girls life youth girls life group was meeting for approximately two little more than two years right they started off just before the pandemic early 2020 and what happened is because it was a youth girls life group many girls started joining right and they really had a wonderful time now everyone were growing in the Lord even though it was COVID they would meet online and I remember talking to the cell group leader and she was saying you know what I've been with these girls for two years and they're very strong now and she said it's time for them to step out and do something on their own so she so she mentioned to me she said out of this 12 I think there were about 10 people in the group out of the 10 people she gave me 5 names right and she said these are 5 girls who are potential leaders for becoming life group leaders so what we did was we began to call them and we had a conference call Zoom call we kind of talked to them and we knew that they were ready to start their own life group so out of these 10 5 of them started their own life groups and that started in January 2023 right and and this original life group leader is continuing to minister to you know the 5 who are remaining in the group but the other 5 have become like cell group leaders and they in turn are discipling new girls who are coming into the cell group and I was so excited because you see how when we train up youth the right way and we know that they are leaders we can just release them so that they fulfill God's call on their life and now these 5 who have not yet started eventually will also start their life groups so you see that ripple effect you start a life group raise up leaders release them to start their own life groups then they raise up other leaders so it's just a constant cycle that happens right now our objective in becoming a cell church is not to have cell groups or cell meetings our objective in becoming this church is to make disciples where everyone is minister to and everyone becomes a minister right and that's our focus at APC everyone is minister to and everyone becomes a minister and look at the difference between the APC 12 cells model and the care cell right the APC 12 model number one criteria is disciple making right that's the number one criteria market there disciple making number one criteria that we have at APC and what we also do is we encourage cell group leaders to be part of our weekend school trainings now we are also encouraging our life group leaders to attend probably a couple of classes at bible colleges they can take either online or through e-learning because many of them are working but we are pushing them saying okay come on if you want to make disciples we have to prepare ourselves we need to be equipped enough to make good disciples so that's something that we always focus on and if you see the goal for care cells it's more of evangelism and fellowship now I want to make sure that I make this point now fellowship right is also very important in APC 12 model we also take at most importance in providing fellowship for our church members disciple shape disciple making is the main goal but there is also fellowship that is community building all of that is there so it's not like APC is like only disciple making you go to the church you know you will become a disciple or you go to the cell group you know become a disciple no it's not like that we have certain goals certain the reason we have the cell group is disciple making but we do have other things as well right now look at this cell leaders responsibility is to disciple the cell members develop them as leaders and equip them to become disciple makers look at here cell leaders responsibility is to conduct the cell meetings right so there's no there's no place for okay can I raise up other leaders because in the mindset of a church or a this is I'm the leader and I have to make sure that the event the meeting is conducted well right so it's not about thinking ahead it's just about you know okay I need to care for these people make sure that the cell group happens well look at APC 12 each person is committed to one cell leader but here in a cell group people can visit any cell right so for example you know a family can decide suddenly okay I want to go to that cell church right they want to go they can go right but in APC we have made certain differences right now if you're a youth if you're a youth girl you cannot say I want to go to a youth boys life group and there are certain restrictions right you cannot say a youth girl very rarely goes to a family life group or families can't say can I go for a youth life group a young couples group cannot say can I go to a you know maybe we have also some of the older folks starting life group so senior citizens group so there are certain you know criteria that we have made but in a care cell there's no criteria a boy can go to a family group a family can go to a youth group basically a cell church a care cell will not have those distinctions but we have made it and the reason we've made it is because we can it's an effective way of disciple making right and we are also making sure that you know things are done the right way right and the APC 12 model every person will become a leader of a cell and disciple at least 12 others now in the care cell person can attend a care cell and never become a leader now this is this is a bit sad to read itself right a person can attend this care cell and never become a leader so he or she can attend can have great knowledge could have you know grown so much in maturity in Christ like this grown in the word grown in the spirit flowing in the gifts of the spirit may have been attending a care cell for 10 years but can never become a leader right because there's that person who is in charge of the care cell and only they will be in charge so that's the differences now we're not saying that APC 12 model is the best model and care cells are not you know they are not good at all no we saw through care cells how the churches grew and people are also being evangelized in this fellowship all of that is there but it's just that the main goals for APC 12 and the care cell are different right so do you have any questions feel free to stalk me right let's go down why the model of the 12 right now God's number for fruitfulness and multiplication is 12 so you got you see here the 12 tribes right 12 tribes Genesis chapter 35 was 22 to 26 now it's not that you know it has to be 12 12 is the greatest number sometimes it's 7 sometimes it's 12 no it's that it's not that we because there are 12 tribes that's why we have the APC 12 model it's just basically that you know it's makes sense 12 12 of them under one leader and another reason for 12 here it says that the way God multiplies his people in Genesis 49 28 you know we see that God multiplies his people and so so that's why we have the 12 model right now if you ask me why can't it be 13 it can be 13 also it's not like 13 is a bad number now it can be 13 if you plan to have 13 you plan to have 11 you can do it right it's not that 12 is the set number it's not like a magical number where everyone will come and get discipled and go no can have 12 you can make it even 15 and nowadays what we do have is two life group leaders for example you have two young men and they co-lead the group we have that in APC as well so they co-lead so one week this this person ministers the other week the other person ministers and they co-lead the group right and and so there will be co-leaders as well so you can think of having 15 people in the group because now each leader can take up 7 or 8 people each and minister to them on a personal level then another reason for 12 is God's government the way he governs his people yeah so those are some of the reasons why we have the APC 12 model any questions any questions before I go ahead any thoughts right there's I just thought I'll ask this anyone here you have been a life group leader or a cell group leader previously do you want to share anything that you know you went through this thought will make it a little bit interactive anything that you went through maybe it worked maybe it didn't work and any thoughts that you have or you've also been part of a life group what are the things that you noticed that were good and things that weren't good if you'd like to share we can spend some time just opening it up for a little bit of discussion as well anyone would like to share maybe it could be back in your home churches Mangi or Prabhakar you would like to share anything Prabhakar I know you got your own ministry Rupa yeah go ahead Rupa network keeps going Rupa you can go ahead please sir sorry I got this good morning sir here in Anantapur we have a not part of a church but one lady she was called by God and she left her government services and she started cell groups in various areas in this place it's like going to one area where there is a believer and inviting the people around so that they will we have we have a chance to share the gospel with them and slowly disciple them when they come to the Lord in that way there are so many people more in thousands in the last few years who have come to know the Lord and I was also following that pattern in different places in villages nearby villages where there are not no churches but many few believers we used to go there every week once in a week each village so that we could share and disciple there now during the covid sir we started a small zoom meeting in the evenings morning and evening we started it for a prayer for praying for the people but slowly it led to people joining from various places in Andhra and different places so that we have start after the covid God gave me this thought that why don't I start disciple them because they are very keen and interested to know to know the word so this is going on every Monday to Thursday we have evening 6 30 to 8 o'clock they come from different places and we are whatever I am learning in the Bible college we are doing it book by book all one after the other and we are really learning and they share that they are able to minister and cater to the local churches where they are attending and to the groups where they are going there so that's how God led me thank you sir thank you so much Rupa so wonderful to hear how the Lord is using you to minister to people it's wonderful as you were speaking I was reminded of this book I will just type it down wonderful book as leaders not sure if this book is still available but it's called Christian Leadership by Oswald Chamber it's a wonderful book which talks about how as leaders we can be strong leaders especially when we are ministering to people we need the wisdom of God to understand in terms of making decisions how to make those decisions so it's a wonderful book if you can do get a copy of this book as well okay Elisha has written a comment here I am a cell leader in my local church our cells are not doing so well but I am learning from the APC 12 model that we can regenerate our cells performing cells with members of common interests like the girl cell group or the age cell group also releasing cell members to start their cells from time to time is also an addition yes Elisha so this is very important and again Elisha we also learned it the hard way but over time we learned it meaning because we used to just have cell groups but anybody could come anybody could join but over time we realized that hey if I am 20 year old and I am going and sitting in a life group with people who have 20 year old children the wavelength is completely different right so of course that fellowship may be there but there is no common interest right so over time we came up for this idea and the reason we have only boys and only girls is because we thought it wise because one it is good to keep it separate to avoid any you know any confusions or problems later on but boys will be able to share their thoughts with the leaders and girls again will have their own ideas so yes Elisha so one of the ways that you can what you can do is if you are a cell group leader and if you have time in your hand what you can do is you can think of 2 days right so you can probably look at okay one or 2 days in a week or however whatever works for you you can think of one okay I will do a youth boys group so you have all the youth boys come and then you can also think of doing a family group I am just giving you an example so you can think of doing a family group so both happen in different days yeah so so you can choose how to do that okay Kennedy asks a question do you have teaching programs of how to run and manage a cell group of the 12 model so what we do have is Kennedy we have a life group leaders training right now one of the criteria to become a life group leader in our church is they must be a member of our church for at least a year right so they should be a member and so in a year they will understand what is ABC what is the vision of the church and what do we want to achieve as life groups and so and sometimes you know we also take decisions slowly there may be people who are 1 year or even 2 years in church but we see that they are not yet ready to start a life group what we tell them is you attend a life group right you see how it is right and then over time maybe 6 months 8 months we give them an opportunity to start so apart from this we do have teaching programs for example we have the weekend schools right so we make sure that and we encourage our life group leaders to attend then we also have you know monthly meeting with the life group leaders just to talk about you know life groups and just encourage them in terms of you know material sometimes we do understanding the prophetic gifts of the Holy Spirit you know leadership so we have our ABC publications that we use to keep you know keep building them up on a regular basis so yes Prabhakar you can go ahead thank you pastor actually one of the insights has been in ministry as most of the places are like highly persecuted especially we are facing a lot so I used to we used to do this life group cells and before Covid there was a different scenario and during the Covid it was completely changed because we could go and meet in person so we started online services during that time it has been continuing by till day and then post Covid most of the people actually you know due to the gap most of the people left so we started going and you know counseling them one by one and bringing them back to the congregation and from last year the person who started Monday Bible devotion classes with you know slides presentations and doing topic to topic you know so that most of the people got back interested in studying the word of God we giving them assignments but one thing is there that the age group is like as you said the wavelength is different because the people like the age of my parents are also the part of this thing so we can't just go and so we have certain things to deal with them but it is it is actually fruitful as youths are connecting through media and through technology we can you know get into them so in highly persecuted areas we can't go in person meet and create like such groups so we are doing it online so that the ministry should go on and weekly once a weekly we all gather together and worship the God so this is one of the inside pastor which we are doing thank you thank you so much Prabhakar for sharing yeah that's very true see God has given us wisdom as well when we know that okay this look at what Jesus did you know whenever he went to Jerusalem they were willing to kill him so what did Jesus do? Jesus didn't say okay I will be here only in Jerusalem because I am the son of God no he went away he went to Judea and Judea they accepted him they you know there was no threat on his life so he moved there so God is also calling us to walk in wisdom yes there's persecution and all of that so it's wonderful Prabhakar that you have started you know these meetings via online continue to build on them so there's no distance in the realm of the spirit right so you can also since it's online you can also think of you know as your ministering here you can also think of hey why don't we start our teens you know why don't we start only boys only girls one of the things that you can do Prabhakar is in the future you can think of leaders probably you can think okay this girl can you know train her up let her connect with people maybe the first couple of meetings you also can join the zoom call and just hear what is happening and then you can give her feedback build her up so eventually he or she is going to again a leader and so that way just by online you're able to start cell groups right so that's wonderful thank you Prabhakar for sharing thank you so much master Abraham says I became more effective in ministry because of cell groups what I'm doing in Vietnam now is based on what I learned in cell groups so thank you so much for sharing Abraham yes Elisha says have you had challenges with managing people's loyalty to life group leaders could you share any experience with us so there was no thankfully there was not many challenges but what I this happened many many years back so what happened was in our life groups we usually teach we usually discuss what happened on the Sunday sermon Sunday sermons and all life group leaders at all life groups we discuss what happened on Sunday so last Sunday we talked about purposes purposes how God has called us for a purpose so whoever is having life group this week maybe today or up to this Saturday will talk about what was discussed on Sunday but what happened was this person who was part of a life group came up to me and said in life group we had this and we had discussed about this topic and we wrote down questions and these are some of the questions but he basically had a question to ask so I heard him out I helped him question but later after the whole meeting with this person I realized that this life group leader is not discussing what was discussed on Sunday it was something random it was their own bible study so I called up the life group leader and I said hey thank you for what you're doing but here's the thing in life groups you know that a life group leader you know that we always discuss what happens on Sunday and there's a reason for it so that all of us grow together in the world so if you don't mind can you go back to that you know that process of just doing what was done on Sundays he said okay I'll do that but later on a couple of weeks down the line again I found out that he is you know they're not discussing what is done on Sundays so it became a little bit of a challenge but then I asked him again would you like to do that or would you like to you know prefer to share and discuss something of your own what you have you know prepared so he said I would prefer to you know just discuss about topics that I like and I am strong at teaching so then I told him okay you can do that but you won't be part of it won't be an APC life group it can be your own like bible study or cell group whatever you're doing but it will not be a life group and he was fine with it right and even I was fine with it but then later I realized hey but APC members are going to the life group so what is this teaching what is he teaching about he may teach something that he feels is right but it may not be biblically true so I had to go back to him and say can you also what you're talking about can you please share this document with me I would like to go through it so sometimes people he you know there will be people who get offended they say what you don't trust me or you know I've been here for so many years all that is there so this is one challenge that I had to face eventually we told him you know you can invite people to your life group but if you're having this group you have to send the material to me otherwise I will have to direct all the members to another life group so it was hard to say this but I'm happy I did it because the reason is if I had continued that I don't know what by heart they're very good they're believers, true believers really love the Lord really like to serve but then what about their teaching what if he teaches something wrong and these 10 or 12 people in the group believe that now whose fault is it it's gonna be my fault because I didn't make sure that he is teaching the right thing so it was a hard decision he said okay I don't think I'll continue the group and I said yeah it's alright so that was just that one challenge that I faced but apart from that I haven't really faced any other major problem so as leaders it is important to make those decisions these are important decisions because 12 people imagine if he says you know if this leader says something no I don't believe in the rapture for example now these 12 people under him will say the same thing now whose fault is it my fault because I haven't looked after the as a life group coordinator I haven't made sure that this life group leader is doing what must be done so that was one of the challenges that I had faced right thank you so much everyone for sharing it was a nice discussion let's take a break we'll come back at 10 o'clock and we'll continue with session 2 Christopher is it okay we take the break and we can come back and take up a question yeah thank you so much alright let's take a break we'll come back for the session 2