Introduction

I recently took my family on vacation in Yosemite and before leaving, I watched the PBS series on the U.S. National Parks. I learned that most of the Yosemite trails were created during the Great Depression when the national park service generated work for thousands of unemployed people. As we walked on cliff-hanging river trails and narrow mountain paths, I developed a new appreciation for the hard work of those early trail blazers who marked out the path for us.

The cell church also has its share of trail blazers. Moses followed Jethro's counsel and blazed a new trail of manageable groups of ten and supervisors of hundreds and thousands (Exodus 18). Jesus demonstrated the power of small group ministry by preparing his twelve in a cell and then sending them out to make new disciples (Matthew 28). The early Church laid down the pattern of celebration and cell by meeting in the temple and from house to house (Acts 2:42-46).

The Church lost much of its vitality during the Constantinian era, but recaptured the biblical ideal through men like Philipp Spener, who prepared lessons from his Sunday sermon and distributed them to the weekly cell leaders. Spener was persecuted for changing the status quo of that time period.
Not long afterwards, Count von Zinzendorf, a disciple of Spener, took the small group concept further and instilled in his groups a missionary vision. These missional groups became known as the Moravian movement, the precursor of the modern missionary movement.

Perhaps more than anyone else, John Wesley pushed the cell movement forward by asking everyone to participate in a cell group as a prerequisite for membership. A person could not enter the celebration service without showing a ticket that he or she had participated in a small group during the week. Cell involvement, in other words, was the cornerstone of the Methodist movement.

David Cho is the modern day version of John Wesley in the promotion of life-giving cell groups. In 1966, Cho launched twenty home cell groups, led by women. From the twenty groups, the church grew to twenty-five thousand cells and two hundred fifty thousand people attending the mother church—easily the largest church in the history of Christianity.

Over the years, leaders have built upon the shoulders of these pioneers. Most of the modern day cell church movement is dynamic, positive, and applicable. As is true in most endeavors, errors and false assumptions also crop up to destroy an otherwise healthy movement.

I noticed that sometimes these false concepts caused the church to go astray completely. At other times, they led the pastor and church down a dead-end road of fruitless ministry. Often these errors or myths started with good intentions but grew into legalistic rules. Regardless of how the myths were generated, they had a chilling effect on the church's ministry. As a cell coach, I found myself spending more and more time trying to untangle the myths and half-truths and point the way to balanced, principled-oriented cell-church ministry.

I then began blogging on what I was seeing and eventually decided to teach the myths-truths in seminars around the world. Pastors and leaders responded with confirmation and appreciation, and I felt like I needed to take the next step and write them down into a book format, so more people could benefit.

My goal in this book is to help you avoid pitfalls and stay on the right path. I want to help you apply biblical, time-tested principles that will guide you into fruitful cell ministry. Whether you're starting out for the first time in cell ministry or a seasoned veteran, my desire is to give you the tools to help your ministry stay fresh and fruitful.

Each chapter begins with a unique twist. Around the world, there are great pastors and church leaders who have decades of wisdom in working with cell groups. They know the realities of these myths first hand, through the vice-grip of experience. I've asked some of these leaders to respond to a question about each topic in the form of an email, as if they are responding to a question from a pastor who wants to gather sage wisdom from a veteran. I am thankful for the time these leaders took to contribute to this book. I hope you enjoy their wise counsel.