Skip to content Session 2 - Create A Discipleship Environment Mar 21 · 1 hr 4 min ...more
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Rev. Paul Jeyachandran leads the Intentional Disciple Making Church (IDMC) Movement, which is all about calling churches back to its disciplemaking roots. Visit us at idmcmovement.com
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0:00 What a joy. What a privilege for us to study the word of God again in this conference. In the first session, we talked about the transformation of life. It all begins with our0:12 life becoming aligned to the King and we pledge our allegiance to him. And therefore we are ready to advance his kingdom. Hallelujah. In the second0:24 session, we're talking about creating a discipleship environment. Now, if you are a leader in the church, whether you are leading a small group or whether you are0:36 leading a household of faith, whether you are leading as a ministry, as a pastor, I want you to pay attention to this because this will give you the nuts and bolts in what it takes to run an0:47 IDMC, an intentional disciple making church. Now, I want you to pay attention to this because we can't move a church towards disciple making church0:59 within a year. It takes roughly about 7 years. If you start from a place of health, in other words, all the teams are in place, everyone is aligned and everyone is1:11 have bought into the vision of moving towards a disciple making church, it takes about 7 years. Or it could be about 5 to 7 years. But if it's not, then bringing the church, nursing the church to1:23 health and to help it, to give it an impetus, to give it a life, It takes about a 7 years. Listen to me carefully. I want to I want to give you a couple of things for you to pay attention.1:35 There are 7 stages of church life. Now, I want you to just put on a thinking cap and think with me. When a church is formed, it's what you call the season1:47 of launch. You're launching the church. From the place of launch, they go into the next step, which would be a momentum. Sometimes when the Lord puts his1:59 hand upon the church, when he starts to work in the lives of the people, suddenly there is a momentum. And this momentum, after a while, the people who are there should recognize what is2:11 causing this momentum, what is the areas in which God is working in, what are some of the things that's producing this growth. Now, in any church plant, once you have that momentum, you need to ask what2:23 it is, what is causing it. And you will always understand this. 20 percent of what you do produces 80 percent of the growth, not 80 percent produces 20 percent.2:35 The 20 percent produces 80 percent. So you got to know what is that 20 percent? What are the fundamentals? And as you enter into that season, that produces a strategic momentum because now you can repeat those2:47 things over and over again. But then you enter into a phase of sustained momentum. So the first level is launch. Second is momentum. Third is strategic momentum. And the final 1 is the sustained2:59 momentum. Now you learn how to do this over and over again. And there is a spiritual multiplication that happens. Now, sadly, anything that goes up, there is an inflection point.3:10 If you don't address it, if you don't plan it, strategize it for the next season, it usually will go down as a bell curve. Now, on the other side of the pen, on the bell curve is this, there is3:23 maintenance. See churches enter into that phase of maintenance. Once they go into a maintenance mode, they enter into life preservation. In other words, they just start to fight about3:37 holding on to positions, titles, there's divisions, there's a lot of those things. See, if you don't intentionally build, it will slump into maintenance more. And once you're in a maintenance more, it's all about3:48 preservation. People preserving their power, their titles, their positions, and all those things. Finally, it enters into a place of life support. And that is where it dies a slow death.4:00 Now, the reason I'm starting with this is because we got to be intentional in creating environments. See, my observation as a leadership mentor, as4:12 a person who has been a consultant for many churches, I want you to listen to me. There are 3 types of churches. The small churches usually tend to be culture driven. What do I mean by4:23 culture driven? Culture meaning it's a small Filipino church or a small Indian church, Sri Lankan church, Chinese church. It is in a small church mindset or a small church. It's4:35 usually driven by culture. That's the predominant thing that holds them together. In a mid sized church, medium church, it's usually it's a community. It's usually because there are well established4:47 relationships. Not only that, they are engaged in the local community. So they are driven by community. But in a large church or mega church, it's usually cost driven. C A U4:58 S E cost driven. In other words, it's purpose driven. But even when you look at all these churches, many times they are all program driven. You could be a large church5:10 that's that's program driven or a small church that's program driven. But I want to highlight to you that programs do not disciple people. It is people who disciple people. So we got to move5:22 away from being program centered, program driven to becoming purpose driven. And in that purpose driven, 1 of the core things that Jesus left us to do is to disciple people.5:34 Now, if you read the Matthew 28, the Great Commission together, it actually says it's not just discipling people, it is discipling the nations. There is a bigger agenda here that we need5:46 to embrace. But a lot of times churches don't think about discipling the nations and discipling people because churches are too busy running programs.5:59 See the the the biggest need in the church these days is requiring volunteers or staff to run programs. We need a champion to run this. We need a champion to6:11 run that. Can I humbly say this? Programs are not what we should be thinking about. We should be thinking about how do we spend our resources to deepen the lives of the6:22 people in the church. I remember meeting in Sydney, a man who has been mightily used by God. He is head of a church. I don't want to name it. And he has over6:33 3400 churches all over the world. And during our lunch together in Sydney, he said to me, Paul, I can't wait to hand over the church so that I can move into the6:45 deepening of people's lives. I asked him, what do you mean by that? This is what he said. We spend a lot of planning and strategizing and resources into running events.6:57 That's what we do. We spend a whole lot because we had a mega church. We run a lot of events and therefore we spend a lot of resources, think time and staff time. It's all spent on7:09 running events. But what I want to do is to deepen the lives of people. And that requires a different way of thinking and operating. Now listen to me7:21 carefully. This is what this conference is about. Because what does Jesus want us to do? He's not impressed by the numbers. That's why the first session we started by saying, it's not how many, it's what are they7:32 becoming? What kind are they when they come to your church? And what are they becoming as a result of being part of your ministry? Colossians chapter 1 and verse 28, the Bible says him we7:44 proclaim warning everyone, teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ. This is the key that we want to present people7:56 mature in Christ. But if you have eyes to see you will see this in the world today. Like 1 theologian said I look for the church. I found it in the world. I8:08 look for the world. I found it in the church. In other words, rather than becoming mature and becoming holy and becoming people who are spiritually multiplying themselves, we have a8:19 church all over the world that is filled with superficiality, carnality, impurity, and it's filled with apathy and it's filled with mediocrity. Listen to me carefully. This8:31 is why we need an intentional disciple making church. So how do we move towards that? That's what this session is about. This is a practical outworking, so I'm gonna give you the next 40 minutes8:43 just to unpack how do we do this. What are some of the key things that needs to be in place? There are 2 things that you need to implement. The first 1 is a discipleship training environment.8:55 And secondly, it is the discipleship community. It's a discipleship training environment and a discipleship community. So let's look at it 1 by 1. How do we establish a9:07 discipleship training environment? What is the X factor in discipleship training? See, anytime, even in a company, I used to be9:19 invited to do professional development trainings for secular staff. And in that season of my life when I was doing that, 1 of the core things I realized is you've9:30 got to be a best trainer, A best trainer that engages people. See companies don't bring in trainers just to train their people, executives or their management team with somebody9:42 that's no good. You've got to be the best. So how do you become the best trainer? See, even in church where we got to think like that. We need the right models. We need the right trainer. We need the right teachers9:54 and the right mentors. And what makes them right? It's not just the skills and the knowledge and the experience alone. The 1 key thing that makes the people in the church world the right10:06 trainer, the right models, or the right mentors, or the right leaders is because they are practitioners. Not just that they know stuff, not that just they are skilled and experienced, but they actually do10:18 it. That's why 1 of the core things that you and I, we need to recognize is we got to differentiate between the the person who is speaking something and the person who is living it out.10:30 In this last couple of years, we have been plagued with the scandal after scandals. Now, this is the reason why, because there are a lot of people who say a lot of things, but they don't do a lot of things. That's why10:41 you and I, we need to look for practitioners. That's the difference. There is no substitute in this story was told of a man who ran a grocery shop in a street10:53 corner. Now this man had to rush off for another appointment. So he called his nephew and said, I want you to look after the shop while I'm away. And the customer, our king, whatever they ask you need to11:05 give. And if they if you don't have, you couldn't find what they are asking for. Always improvise. Never send them back empty handed. Always improvise and give them something. So this young boy was looking after the shop11:16 and the man went away and a lady ran into the shop and said, I urgently need toilet paper for my family. Now, this boy searched high and low. He could not find toilet paper in that11:28 shop. So instead, he came to the lady and he thought about what his uncle said. So he said to her, Man, I can't find the toilet paper, but how about this sandpaper?11:40 Now you and I know you can't substitute a sandpaper instead of a toilet paper. Same thing you can't substitute. There's nothing can be substituted. You and I need to be practitioners. That's why11:52 a disciple is someone who is constantly learning from Jesus. He's following Jesus. He's loving Jesus. He's obeying Jesus in all things. You don't want to be discipled by12:04 someone who is carnal, who's immature, who's living in sin and is ungodly. Because that's not how we start, isn't it? So it always starts with a transformed life. But then they are12:16 practitioners. They are obeying God. They are they are willing to take the truth and wrestle with the truth and apply the truth in their life and see the benefits. And now they are ready to pass it on to others. So 1 of12:27 the things that we need to pay attention to is the discipleship training environment. Bruce Lee said this, I fear not the man who practice12:39 10000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced 1 kick 10000 times. In other words, he's a man who has practiced even the little he knew12:51 he practiced. So I don't want you to write yourself off. As long as you have a heart that you want to obey God and you're sincere and you are ready to13:02 be a trainer, a mentor, a coach, a discipler because you have that heart, the posture that says, I may not know much, but the little I know I'm applying in13:14 my life. Luke chapter 6 and verse 40 says, a disciple is not about his teacher, but everyone when he's fully trained will be like his teacher. In other words, you and13:26 I need to aspire to be like our teachers, like our mentors, but when we need to be fully trained. That's why training is important. So set up 7 practical considerations for discipleship13:38 training. Firstly, be relevant. Match training to felt needs. You and I, we need to understand for the training to be effective, you got to understand who13:50 is God bringing in your life, who is other ones that you're called to disciple. The stage of life matters. Are they young parents? Are they young professionals? Are they business owners?14:02 Are they students? What are the issues they deal with? You've got to understand not only that, which generation are you looking after? Is this the baby boomers? Is the Gen X or Gen Y or Gen Z or the14:13 millennials? We need to understand who we are called to disciple in this season. Not only that, also their spiritual hunger. Are they seekers? Are they interested in14:25 knowing about God and wanting to align their life to God? Or are they not interested? They're disinterested. Are they people with no interest? Are they zealous for God? This matters. Not only that, you also14:37 need to evaluate the stage of life. You know, there are people, there are 5 stages of life. 1, there are people who are struggling in the season of life they are in, or they are barely surviving. There are people14:49 who are really struggling, are surviving or they are in a place where they are stabilizing. It's like a young new baby has been born in the family but now it's been a year they are now stabilizing or they are15:01 succeeding. Maybe they have achieved a certain level of success in life in different areas of their life or they're living in that season of significance. Each of these matters, what you say to them, how you15:13 disciple them, in what training you give them matters Because we need to match the face of their spiritual growth with the developmental years. I want to recommend a book that you should15:25 read. The book called You Lost Me. It is a book about how the young people, the next generation is walking away from the church and the reasons are being examined and reflected15:37 upon in this book. It's a research paper. I want you to read that book, You Lost Me by David Kinnaman. Now, second 1, we believe on the job training. We believe in the on the job15:49 training. In other words, there are 4 stages of training, isn't it? Firstly, in any secular world they will tell you this, there are 4 stages. What is it? First, I do, you watch. You take someone with16:00 you when you're doing the work of ministry. When you're discipling, you're bringing someone along and you say, do, you watch. Secondly, you do, I do together. You and I do it together. Thirdly, you16:12 do. I watch now that you have gained a little bit of experience and understanding how things work. Now you do. I watch. Fourthly, you do it on your own. And and at this moment you bring16:24 someone else to train under you. Now, want you to listen to me carefully. Many times we want to train them, train them in a classroom. No, no, you got to train them in life, in real life16:35 situations. That's why in all our trainings, we help people to take on a leadership role. And then on the job, we train them as they keep maturing in the functions and16:47 the frameworks and how they think about things and the spiritual formation in their life. Now listen to me. But I want to highlight 1 of the things that I just said. There are 4 steps to taking16:59 someone under your wing and grooming them. Right. The fourth step is you do it alone. But this is where a best trainer will instill not just you do it alone, your commission17:11 to do it alone, but your commission to go and start your own apprentice with somebody with someone bringing bringing someone else with you. And then you do the same thing. This is the reason17:23 why we need to understand spiritual addition is 1 by 1. Train them. Spiritual multiplication is we train them to be a trainer. So it's not the end product is not a17:34 disciple. The end product is a disciple maker. The end product of all our training is not just a person who has graduated to be a leader, but he's graduated to produce leaders.17:46 Listen to me carefully. We are called to be disciple makers. Thirdly, employ the training resources that others can provide. You know, 1 of the things that always get asked is what is the materials17:58 that we use in our mentoring? See, you don't need to go past the Bible. The Bible is the material. Start with the scriptures. There are 66 books, 39 in the old testament and 27 in the new testament. This18:10 is your material. You want to teach them theology. You want to teach them theological frameworks, theological foundation, spiritual formation. How do you do that? From the word of God. You and I,18:22 we need to go back to the scriptures. But there are beautiful resources available and even there are some available from our IDMC resources in our website. You know, my mentor and spiritual father, Reverend18:34 Edmond Chan and pastor Ann Chan, they have written discipleship curriculums like Roots and Wings, Life and Legacy, Faith and Fire. And this year they're also releasing Grace and18:46 Glory. I want you to listen to me. These are materials that are available like Henry Blackaby wrote Experiencing God. It's a beautiful book to be able to take you through the experience of knowing God through18:57 the circumstances of life. How God speaks through different means. Listen, this is a way to disciple people In our church we actually offer a 3 year curriculum. There is a 3 year19:09 discipleship curriculum that's available on the internet for free for anyone who registers. First semester is ordering your inner life all the way to spiritual formation and spiritual leadership. Now, all19:21 these are available materials. You can always take from someone else. But what you need to understand is to develop and cultivate that heart to invest your life in a few19:33 key individuals. Always remember this. It is the life upon life. It's investment of my life in a few others that matters before God. Is the discipleship19:45 model. Number 4, send out key leaders as learning teams for selected training. In other words, send your teams like even this conference that we are offering for you for free. It19:57 is so that you can bring your team together and watch it together. So send your teams, your key leaders as learning teams for selected training so that they can glean from the training. Now, 1 of the things that I20:08 observe is this. There are people who are serial conference attendees. In other words, they go from conference to conference and conference. They take notes, they file it somewhere, and they never look at it. But can I20:20 humbly say this, create a learning agenda with your team? Create a learning agreement with your team. What do I mean by that? This is what you do. When you register for a20:31 conference and you're attending your conference, there should be a briefing and a debriefing. What do I mean by briefing and a debriefing? Before the conference you brief them. This is what I want you to20:43 do. When you go to the conference, pay attention to everything that is being taught. Take plenty of notes And then write a reflection paper. What is the reflection paper? The reflection paper should be20:55 what you have thought through, what you have processed, what are the things that I'm learning, what are the new things that I'm learning, what can I apply in my ministry, in my cell group, in my family, in my church?21:06 What are some of the things I can apply immediately? Those things should be the reflection paper. And as a result, you do a debrief with your team. Come together and think about it. How can we21:17 apply these things that we are learning in a church level, church wide level? How can we apply it in the cell group level? How can we apply it in the leadership level? Look at those things. The reason I'm saying this21:29 is because years and years ago, this is going back at least 12 years ago, I was in another city in Australia. And I heard pastor Edmund Chan21:41 speak for the first time. And my heart was really drawn to that message. It was in the year 2006 when I first heard about the21:53 inner life. And I was so drawn to that teaching that I took plenty of notes and I came back home and I was reflecting upon it. And there was a slow change that started to22:05 take place in my thinking, in my life, and as I started to apply those things. Then by divine appointment, I was again in another city. It within a conference where pastor Edmund was teaching in22:17 20 10, 20 11. And in those 2 years, the things that I have taken down as notes and as a result of reflecting upon it and writing it down and processing it before the Lord,22:29 the Lord did a deep work in my own life. As a result, our church moved towards becoming an intentional disciple making church. And this is the key. And that is how22:41 it all started. I was waiting upon the Lord 1 time and it's become my practice. Was in a pastor's retreat and I was just jotting down what the Lord was saying and I was praying before the Lord. It was in another22:53 city in Malaysia on a on a hilltop and we were in this beautiful facility. And my only agenda in that place was I need to hear from God what the Lord has for the church. Started to write down23:04 something as a plan. Out of it came my 3 year Bible college curriculum. And as a result, today that is being a blessing to people all over the world. Pastors write to me on a weekly23:16 basis, monthly basis. I receive emails from different pastors to say it has been a tremendous blessing in our leadership team, in our church. I'm not give glory to God. The reason is because we learn and we23:28 apply. So my key question to you is what are you doing with what you are learning? So develop a learning agreement and develop a learning team, a learning team23:40 together, a learning community together. Wonderful. Now, when a church is driven by programs, usually the pastors become managers of events.23:51 Pastoral staff are busy just running events to events. And as a result, happens is the church is over managed and it's usually under led. So that's why 1 of the key things24:03 in my observation is the church needs to develop people who can go to conferences, glean and become integrators. See, do think there are 3 kinds of leaders that are required in a local church.24:15 If you're taking down notes, write this down. There are 3 kinds of leaders, leaders who are initiators. These are the people who are innovators. They think and they innovate or they come up and they improvise24:27 on systems that are already in place. They are initiators. In other words, they take leadership, they take charge and they initiate things. Initiators, we need them. Secondly, the group is integrators.24:39 Integrators are people who take the learning that's coming in their midst and they say, how do I apply it within the structure of what we already have in place because we cannot disrupt the church see I work with a lot24:50 of mega church pastors and they they the system is already in place you can't disrupt it so what you need is people who are integrators who can take the new learning and assimilate it into their thinking25:02 and come up with how can we make this work? How can I move my church from being program driven to purpose driven to becoming more IDMC? How do we do that? So this is important. The25:14 third 1 are implementers. Who are the implementers? Implementers are people who go through the phases of implementation. What should be phase 1? What should be phase 2? What is the outcome that we are working towards?25:25 Let's work towards these things. This is what you require. I'm speaking to the leaders today and I want you to take home this message. I want you to put up your hand if you're an integrator and implementer, work with25:36 your leadership team so that you can continue to create a learning agreement and continue to implement things. But again, remember this, it takes about 7 years to build an IDMC. See IDMC25:48 is not it's not a it's not a program. It is not a curriculum. IDMC is not even a model of church. IDMC is a way of26:00 life. It is the way I am wired. It's the way that we are wiring the church rewiring the church to be intentional in focusing on discipleship. That's why you 1 of the core26:12 things that we got to address is the obedience in the hearts of the people. It is the discipleship begins with our obedience. It's how I walk with Jesus. That's why in the first session we started by saying walk with him26:24 pledge your allegiance to him abide in him then the advancing the kingdom will come. So 1 of the core things you and I we need to understand is come back to this. We need people who are learning26:35 and integrated, assimilated and implemented. Praise God. Number 5, develop an all level leadership development system and all level from the new believer to the to the person who26:47 is in staff on in church teams. Everyone should have a plan and a purpose to be discipled and mentored and trained and equipped and released. There should26:59 be a plan in place. See, we operate with a philosophy here in the IDMC church. Every member should be discipled and every leader must be mentored.27:11 And that's the key. We need everyone to be discipled and every leader should be mentored so that they can continue to grow. So what is the plan that you're putting in place? If you're a pastor, can I humbly ask you to27:23 read this book, The Simple Church, Simple Church by Thomas Rainier and Eric Geiger? Now this book really changed my whole thinking about church. Simple Church. In other words,27:35 simplify. How many of you would be honest enough to agree that ministry complicates itself? Ministry is complicated because people are messy. So ministry will become messy, will become complicated. So leadership role27:47 is to simplify the church, to keep simplifying what are we working towards. And there are 4 words that this whole book summarizes in Clarity, movement, alignment, focus. That leaders ought to27:59 be clear in what we are sharing with the people. How are we aligning the people? What is the vision that we are sharing with the people? It needs to be clear. And the vision is about moving people that are in28:11 different levels towards greater commitment. Greater consecration. How do we move them? There must be clear steps. Don't think programs think steps. Thirdly there should be an alignment.28:22 That means how does the kids ministry disciple their kids? How do the youth ministry disciple the youth? How do the adults, the family zone, disciple the families? We need to be aligned together. Finally, there must be28:34 courage to say no to things that distract us. That's where the focus comes in. Now, I want you to read this book together because it will allow you to think through things as a church leadership.28:46 How can we make our ministry more effective? Praise God. Number 6, develop a curriculum based on 4 essential courses. Every training should come under these28:58 4 categories of courses. What are they? Number 1, foundation courses. This is based on the doctrine and word. In other words you can take a study on systematic theology or29:10 biblical theology or Old Testament New Testament survey. It has to be a foundational course. Number 2 formation course. Formation course is all about spiritual disciplines.29:22 How do we spiritually form? Spiritually formation. Cultivating the spiritual disciplines in our lives. Number 3, function course. This is where skills are developed. So this is a practical29:33 course. How do you resolve conflict? How do you wage spiritual warfare? How do you deal with immature people, carnal people? These are practical trainings that we got to give our people. Number29:45 4, frameworks. Frameworks are how do we do assimilation and effective thinking. In other words how what are the mental models we think about? See in an IDMC church 1 of the mental models that we29:57 carry is every member a minister. In other words, every member is a cubed and trained to be a minister. That's why we can lay, we can raise a lot of lay leaders to be30:09 pastors. We can release them with authority and with delegated authority and with delegated responsibility they can carry out the mission that God has given us. So 1 of the things is we got to30:21 cultivate the thinking. Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 12 the Bible says to equip the saints for the work of ministry for building up of the body of Christ. Hallelujah. In other words, pastors are30:32 equipers. People are the ministers. That thinking we need to develop and we need to release it in the life of the church. Number 7, set specific training goals and outcomes. In30:44 other words, you and I, we need to examine ourselves. All these training that we do. What's the outcome? What are some of the things that we look back and we will rejoice that we have achieved it or God has30:56 given us grace to celebrate these victories. I'm going to give you 3 words I want you to write down. If you're a pastor leader, this is important for you to write down. Clarify the win.31:08 See, everyone wants to be part of a winning team. You want to know that you're winning, winning together. In other words you've got to know what is it that you are winning in. So clarify the win. Running a31:20 program this many people attended that's not the win. The win is the life change. The stories of life change. People are now growing in spiritual maturity. A church that continues to multiply and31:32 advance. Clarify the win and set specific training goals and outcomes. There's a book I would like you to read if you're a pastor or a leader. The book31:44 is 4 Disciplines of Execution by Sean Covey, Steven Covey. Is that Steven Covey? Yeah, Sean Covey. This is the book 431:55 Disciplines of Execution. Now, let's look at the second 1. Establishing a Discipleship Community. What is the establishing a Discipleship Community? The importance of cell32:07 groups. You and I, we understand that we are entering into a new normal. We are functioning in a new normal. In the new normal, we go back to the old ancient32:19 way of doing church. What is it? It is always in smaller communities. The Lord has started the early church in homes and in smaller32:30 communities. So you and I, we need to pay attention to this. Rick Warren said this as the church grows larger in size, the church should also grow smaller in its32:42 relationships. In other words, we need to grow larger and smaller at the same time. We need to grow larger because God will add more people and there will be spiritual multiplication. But at the same time, we will be32:53 gathering in smaller groups so that we can build intimacy, we can build depth, and we can grow together. Discipline community. And I pray that you are already you already have33:05 a cell group or a connect group or a life group, whatever you call it. You have a small group ministry within your church. Now let's look at this. Number 1, the fundamentals. A study of the world's largest churches33:16 revealed 3 simple trends, word and prayer, cells and community and evangelism and missions. I want you to think of a tree, The root system. What is in33:28 the root system? Word and prayer is the root. I want you to think about the trunk. It's the support system. It's the cells and community is the trunk.33:40 Thirdly, I want you to think about what would bear fruit, the growth systems. It is evangelism and missions. What is fundamental in a church or in the life of a small group33:52 is this word and prayer tutor them and disciple them in studying of scriptures and praying and declaring dependence upon the Lord. Word and spirit going to gather but then the34:04 trunk that holds it all together is the cell life. It's the small groups and how intentionally do you build community. Hallelujah. We have a phrase in our church where34:16 guests become friends and friends become family. It's a movement I personally eyeball. How do our guests, when they come in as guests, they're not just new people. They34:28 are guests in our home. They are guests in our place. And I want to make them feel welcome. Connect them to a small group. They become friends. But as they do life together, as they experience34:39 life change together, God bonds them together. They become family. Hallelujah. This is important for us to understand. Secondly, the primary focus Cells are the primary34:51 focus of congregational life. Cells are not just another program. The reason why I want you to pay attention to this is because we are in a pandemic season.35:04 In this pandemic season, there's lockdowns happening globally. And when that happens, people can't congregate together in large numbers within the church. So where do they congregate? They are allowed to meet35:15 in homes. They are allowed to meet in small huddles. That's why I want you to pay attention to this language. Homes, huddles and hubs. We may have gone35:27 past the season of a mega church. We may even have gone past the season of multisite church, but we are in a place where we are35:39 seeing a network of micro churches. So that's why I want you to listen to me carefully that we need to help understand that the congregation needs to focus on35:50 discipling people in the home setting, in the small group setting, because this is the primary focus of congregational life. So if you have a church of 5036:02 people, there should already be about 5 groups in your place. If your church is about thousand people, there should be at least close to about 90 to 100 groups in your church.36:13 And you empower the lay leadership to rise up and do this. But I want you to catch this philosophy that every member of the church is in a group because gone are the days you can boast about36:25 how many people come to your events because people who watch online don't really count. But people who are part of your life group system, part of your small group system are the36:37 members in the church. So if you want to be part of a loving church community, be part of their small groups. So encourage participation in small groups. Number 3, no competition.36:49 We must phase out all competing programs. In other words, cells are given a top priority. Just have 1 small group structure in the church.37:01 Don't have so many different small groups. Like I've heard of people having interest groups, this group, subgroup, that group. There's so many things that compete with the life of the small group37:13 structure. Don't have competing programs. Just have 1 structure. In an IDMC church, we recommend 3 to 5 groups. This is the span of groups. Seekers have a37:24 group. Follow-up group where new people who have been saved have a follow-up group. But then there's the small group system where everyone in the church is part of. Then when they go to a Bible37:36 college or a discipleship training, they may have an accountability group. But when they step into leadership, they enter into a mentoring group. At any given time, a person should be only involved in37:48 1 or 2 groups maximum. In other words, if they are part of a life group, and if they are leading the life group, should be part of a mentoring group.38:00 In other words, just keep people 1 thing to focus on and keep building. Number 4, paradigm shift. What is the paradigm shift? Paradigm shift is usually church is built on volunteer38:12 paradigm. We need people to volunteer to do the things. But no, take the shared responsibility paradigm. What does that mean? Sells the small groups infrastructure allows38:23 you to play the role together, serve together, steward a ministry together. And when they do things together, there is a shared responsibility like family serves together.38:35 Cells empower the service ministries of the church. In other words, we are a family and within the family, everyone has a role to play. So even within the structure of a small group, we have each 1 to play38:47 a role. Otherwise, we just show up and we become an attendee. What we need is we need to be part of a we take ownership and we do things together. Number 5, unleashing the church.38:59 And effective cell infrastructure releases the church for ministry. In other words, cells release the church to accomplish 3 things, 3 things in specific. Number 1, pastoral care.39:12 See, even if a congregation is only about 200, a pastor cannot personally visit, pray for, marry everyone, bury everyone. He can't do everything. YouShow more
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Paul Jeyachandran
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