QUOTE
Unit 3: The Second Wave: South American Innovations
Lecture: Equipping Tracks Build A Healthy Core Group
The cell church began at Yoido and then was interpreted worldwide in two variants: the pure cell church and the metachurch. Cell churches in South America adopted the cell innovation and revised it for their cultural background with great success. I believe these modifications are a new, or second wave of cell innovation.
A Faith Community links worship with a discipleship system. Churches in the second wave offer multiple opportunities to gather and experience community. These gatherings occur in both Awings@ and without conflict; they include weekly worship in an overcrowded facility to occasional gigantic rallies in stadiums filled to capacity. In the small group wing, community is experienced in the cell and also a variety of other small groups and weekend retreats. Joel Comiskey=s book, Reap the Harvest, is my favorite description of the discipleship system in these churches, while Leadership Explosion is the best book on the use of equipping tracks for training new believers to become leaders in a healthy core group.
Two books by Larry Stockstill and Billy Hornsby discuss the implementation of these principles in our example church for Unit 4. Bethany World Prayer Center, near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was inspired by the Elim Church 5×5 system and had a net growth of six hundred families in 1993, their first year of cell ministry. In 1996 they gained a net growth of two thousand families. Bethany is now the primary proponent of the second wave G12 cell management structure in the United States.
The key theme of the second wave church is that everyone can become a cell leader. Fulfilling this vision has led to the finest disciple maturation systems known. Equipping tracks aim to rapidly mature new believers to serve as cell leaders within one year.Fulfilling this vision has led to the finest disciple maturation systems known to date; the best book on these equipping tracks, in my opinion, is Comiskey=s Leadership Explosion.
NOTE (my response)
DISCERNMENT QUESTIONS
RESOURCES
RH: Joel Comiskey, Reap the Harvest: How A Small Group System Can Grow Your Church (Houston, TX: Touch Publications, 1999)
LE: Leadership Explosion: Multiplying Cell Group Leaders to Reap the Harvest (Houston, TX: Touch Publications, 2000)
CC: Larry Stockstill, The Cell Church: Preparing Your Church for the Coming Harvest (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1998)
CDC: Billy Hornsby, The Cell-Driven Church: Bringing in the Harvest (Mansfield, PA: Winds of Fire, 2000)
Footnotes:
The quote is from Major League Disciple Making: An Overview of the Best Research on the Cell Church, an online course developed for the Institute for Discipleship at www.BeADisciple.com in 2009. Course materials, including these lectures, can be downloaded here: http://www.disciplewalk.com/IFD_MLD_Class_Links.html
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