TABLE OF CONTENTS.....................................................................................................

LIST OF TABLES................................................................................................................

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................

How the Tutorial Fits into the Dissertation..........................................................................

Purpose.............................................................................................................................

Goals................................................................................................................................

Problem Statement For This Tutorial..................................................................................

Research Questions...........................................................................................................

Delimitations......................................................................................................................

Definitions.........................................................................................................................

Assumptions....................................................................................................................

Overview Of This Tutorial................................................................................................

CHAPTER 2 THE NEED FOR LEADERSHIP IN THE CELL CHURCH........................

Rapid Multiplication Makes New Leadership Essential.....................................................

Mindset For Rapid Deployment Of Leadership................................................................

Reliance On The Holy Spirit.........................................................................................

Deployment Of Young Christians...............................................................................

Deployment of Facilitators As Opposed To Bible Teachers.........................................

Deployment Of Women...............................................................................................

Willingness To Face Failure.........................................................................................

Leadership Giftedness......................................................................................................

CHAPTER 3 TRAINING MODELS FOR CELL LEADERSHIP.....................................

Models For Training New Christians On The Path To Cell Leadership.............................

Ralph Neighbour’s Training Process............................................................................

General Training......................................................................................................

Sponsorship............................................................................................................

Training For Outreach..............................................................................................

Bethany World Prayer Center......................................................................................

Models For Training Cell Leaders And Interns................................................................

Serendipity Model.......................................................................................................

Balance Between Up-Front And On-Going Training.................................................

Difficulty In Training Such Diverse Leadership..........................................................

Meta Model................................................................................................................

Less Up-Front Training............................................................................................

More Ongoing Training............................................................................................

Change Of Emphasis...............................................................................................

Personal Observations.............................................................................................

Cho Model..................................................................................................................

Mistaken Analysis Of The Cho Model.....................................................................

The Training Cho Actually Offers.............................................................................

The Cho Model Today............................................................................................

Neighbour’s Training Model........................................................................................

Personal Journey In Cell Training.................................................................................

Conclusion On Cell Leadership Training Models..........................................................

CHAPTER 4 FOUNDATIONAL PRINCIPLES FOR CELL LEADERS.........................

Difficulty In Identifying Leadership Characteristics...........................................................

Biblical Leadership..........................................................................................................

Old Testament Principles.............................................................................................

New Testament Principles............................................................................................

Essential Church Growth Qualities...................................................................................

Goal Setting.................................................................................................................

Church Growth Attitudes.............................................................................................

Visionary Leadership...................................................................................................

Toward A Definition Of Vision.................................................................................

God Inspired Visions...............................................................................................

Vision Separates Leaders From Managers...............................................................

Communicating Vision.............................................................................................

The Practical Side Of Vision....................................................................................

Vision And Cell Multiplication..................................................................................

The Devotional Life Of A Leader.....................................................................................

The Pastoral Role of the Cell Leader................................................................................

The Communication Role Of The Cell Leader..................................................................

Create Responsiveness................................................................................................

Do Not Dominate The Cell Meeting.............................................................................

Maintain The Flow Of Participation..............................................................................

Guide The Group Into Deeper Levels Of Communication.............................................

Respond Properly To Each Member...........................................................................

Ask Stimulating Questions............................................................................................

Conclusion..................................................................................................................

CHAPTER 5 HELPFUL PARADIGMS FOR TOP LEADERSHIP IN CELL MINISTRY

Shepherd/Rancher Paradigm............................................................................................

Span Of Care..............................................................................................................

Transitioning From Shepherd To Rancher.....................................................................

Ranchers In The Cell Church Today............................................................................

Situational Leadership......................................................................................................

Description..................................................................................................................

Application To Cell Ministry........................................................................................

CHAPTER 6 DISTINCTIVENESS OF LATIN AMERICAN LEADERSHIP..................

General Latin Leadership Traits........................................................................................

Authoritarianism...........................................................................................................

Emphasis On Control And Power............................................................................

Caudillo Style Leadership........................................................................................

Christian Caudillo Leadership...................................................................................

Assigned Status...........................................................................................................

Climbing The Ladder...............................................................................................

Spanish Supremacy.................................................................................................

The Underclass........................................................................................................

Assigned Status And Cell Ministry...........................................................................

Idealism.......................................................................................................................

Comparative Studies on Latin American Leadership.........................................................

Research By Dr. Geert Hostede...................................................................................

Power Distance.......................................................................................................

Avoidance/Uncertainty Paradigm.............................................................................

Individualism............................................................................................................

Masculinity..............................................................................................................

Research By Robert T. Moran And Philip R. Harris.....................................................

CHAPTER 7.....................................................................................................................

CONCLUSION...............................................................................................................

APPENDIX DR. BOBBY CLINTON’S LEADERSHIP RESEARCH.............................

Emergence Theory.........................................................................................................

Mentoring......................................................................................................................

Definition...................................................................................................................

Basic Characteristics Of Mentor—Mentoree Training.................................................

Type Of Mentoring Models.......................................................................................

Co-Mentoring...........................................................................................................

REFERENCES CITED.....................................................................................................

CHAPTER 1:INTRODUCTION

Many believe that leadership is the key element behind successful cell-based ministry. My conviction is heading in that same direction. In fact, a major part of my research in Latin America will be attempting to discover those characteristics that distinguish effective cell leaders from non-effective ones. That is, those cell leaders who are able to multiply their group versus those who cannot.

From the outset of this tutorial, it is wise to point out that I will be focusing on church growth leadership. Therefore, as much as possible, this study will be pragmatic. In other words, my focus is on those leadership traits that get results. Perhaps Carl George sums it up best when he talks about leadership that gets results,

...It means the willingness to put the inspiring of your people, getting them into action,...In short, take responsibility for meeting the goals you set.... True leadership commits to results. Leaders pour their energy, excitement, prayer, blood, and sweat into solving the obstacles between them and the vision God has given for that church (1994:86).

Why am I concerned with church growth leadership as it relates to cell-based ministry? Primarily because it is my conviction that cell-based ministry represents one methodology in the broader field of church growth. In other words, my interest in cell-based ministry stems from my enthusiasm for church growth. Although cell-based ministry only one method among many that God is using today, it is a method that God is using mightily throughout the world today.

How the Tutorial Fits into the Dissertation

In a general sense, this tutorial will give me an overview of leadership in the cell church. Therefore, beyond my dissertation, I will benefit by having a better understanding of how to identify and train effective leadership in the cell church.

More specifically, this tutorial will provide much of the material for two chapters in my actual dissertation. These two chapters are:

Chapter 6- Issues Of Latin American Leadership And Cell-Based Ministry (25 Pages)

Chapter 9- Leadership Patterns In The Case Study Churches (30 Pages)

Purpose

The purpose for this tutorial is to analyze leadership in the cell church. It will primarily focus on the training of effective leadership from the new Christian to the head pastor. At the same time, this tutorial will try to contextualize leadership training and theory to the Latin American context (especially chapter 7).

Goals

I have at least three broad goals in this tutorial:

1. To discover how best to train lay people for small group leadership

2. To analyze the principles behind effective top leadership in the cell church

3. To contextualize leadership training and theory to a Latin American context.

Problem Statement For This Tutorial

The central research issue of this tutorial is an analysis of cell-based leadership in the Latin American context.

Research Questions

1. What are the needs of leadership development in the cell church?

2. What are some of the ways to train new Christians to eventually become cell leaders?

3. What are the best training models for cell leaders?

4. What are some of the key leadership principles for those who lead cell groups?

5. What are some key leadership paradigms that might be helpful for top cell leadership (section leaders, district leaders, head pastors, etc.) in the cell church?

6. What are some of the patterns of Latin American leadership? (with the cell church in mind)

Delimitations

The material on leadership is vast—both from a Christian as well as a secular point of view. I have attempted to sift through a selected portion of that literature in order to apply it to the topic of cell-based ministry, and more specifically, in a Latin context.

However, I am the first to admit that I have not covered all of the relevant literature. Much more could be said and studied. My only excuse is that tutorials such as this one must have a stopping point. I also felt that my contextualization of Latin leadership fell short due to the limited amount of literature that I was able to find on the subject.^[1]

In this tutorial, especially, I felt like I needed to use inclusive language (taking into consideration both male and female). Since so many cell leaders are women, I felt that it simply was not right to constantly use he, his, and him when describing cell leadership. On the other hand, I did not want to blow up every sentence with two pronouns. Therefore, when referring to cell leadership, I decided to randomly choose to use she and her, while at other times using he, his, and him. I hope that this style is not too “rough” and bothersome to the reader.

Definitions

Throughout this tutorial, I will be describing characteristics of effective leadership, so at this point I will only offer a few generalized definitions which will be more clearly defined by the end of this tutorial. Actually, the study of leadership is a very complicated and at times fuzzy science. This is due to the variety of factors that must be taken into account when considering leadership effectiveness. For example, Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus write,

Literally thousands of empirical investigations of leaders have been conducted in the last seventy-five years alone, but no clear and unequivocal understanding exists as to what distinguishes leaders from non-leaders, and perhaps more important, what distinguishes effective leaders from ineffective leaders and effective organizations from ineffective organizations (1985:4).

However, perhaps it is in order to attempt to define leadership here. Dr. Bobby Clinton defines leadership like this, “A leader, as defined from a study of Biblical leadership,…is a person, with God-given capacity and with God-given responsibility who is influencing a specific group of God’s people toward God’s purposes for the group” (Leadership 1993:14). This idea of influencing a group of people towards God’s purpose is also taken up by Dr. Peter Wagner while defining the leadership gift in the New Testament (Rom. 12:8),

The gift of leadership is the special ability that God gives to certain members of the Body of Christ to set goals in accordance with God’s purpose for the future and to communicate these goals to others in such a way that they voluntarily and harmoniously work together to accomplish those goals for the glory of God (1994:149).

From the above definitions, we can safely say that leaders both set goals and successfully influence people towards those goals. Since church growth thinking forms the underlying philosophy of this tutorial, we will specifically be analyzing effective leadership from this standpoint.

Assumptions

These are some of the assumptions that will play a large role in this tutorial:

1. It is God’s will that His church grows.

2. God uses a variety of methods to grow His church.

3. Cell-based ministry is one of those effective methods that God is using today.

4. Church growth leadership is the preferred style of leadership in the cell church today.

5. Effective cell leaders are those who are able to multiply their cell groups

Overview Of This Tutorial

In this tutorial I will:

1. Establish the leadership need in the cell church

2. Set forth various training models for cell leaders

3. Establish important church growth leadership principle for the cell Leader

4. Talk about leadership paradigms for top cell leadership

5. Discover how Latin American leadership differs from North American leadership.

CHAPTER 2: THE NEED FOR LEADERSHIP IN THE CELL CHURCH

In order for a cell church to experience dynamic growth, it must rapidly raise up new leaders. If a cell church is going to fulfill the Jethro principle, a multiple layer of leadership is needed. There must also be leadership progression. In other words, as successful cell leaders demonstrate their talent for leading others, new, more challenging roles must be made available to them. The cells must never become self-serving, inward-looking enclaves of Christians seeking to be “discipled”.

Rapid Multiplication Makes New Leadership Essential

The rallying cry of the cell church is “born to multiply”. Successful leaders all seem to have one thing in common. They are able to translate intention into reality and to sustain it (Bennis and Nanus 1985:226). Eddie Gibbs says, “By multiplying cell groups the growing church creates leadership positions and an ideal training ground for future leadership. Wasdell describes cell groups as ‘leader-breeders’ (1981:260). I like that term “Leader breeders” because this is exactly what must happen in a rapidly growing cell church.

I recently heard about a cell church in Medan, Indonesia that was established in the mid 1980s. It now has almost 10,000 members due to the fact that the cells never go over 15 in number. The goal of each group is to give birth every year. If it does not, the cell is absorbed into the other cell groups. The goal is crystal clear in this cell church: Evangelism first, then discipleship (Davis 1996).^[2] In this church, there is a constant need to raise up cell leadership to serve the new cells. In fact, a 700 member "in house" Bible School to was formed to train cell leaders, as well as church planters and missionaries.

If we are going to release leadership rapidly to serve the needs of growing church, we need to use every potential leader. Paul Cho is an example of someone who has done that. Under his leadership, the church has grown to more than 625,000 members along with 22,000 cell groups. Neighbour points out that because Cho’s church adds 140 new members per day, the church has found it necessary to plant churches of 5,000 members (Neighbor 1990:24). One of the chief reasons that Cho has been able to maintain such rapid growth is that in his church there is a ratio of one lay leader to every ten to sixteen church members (Hurtson 1995:68). For example, in 1988 alone, 10,000 new lay leaders were appointed for ministry (Hurton 1995:194). It is this type of rapid deployment of leadership that is needed in the cell church today. Yet, how is this accomplished?

Mindset For Rapid Deployment Of Leadership

From my experience in cell ministry, in order to have a constant pool of leadership available to lead the new groups, a new mentality must penetrate both the leadership philosophy and the church philosophy.

Reliance On The Holy Spirit

In many churches, there is an underlying, if not stated, assumption that if a lay person is going to assume leadership responsibility, he or she must be formally trained. And yes, formal training can be very beneficial. Yet, a philosophy that relies on formal training for new leadership oftentimes minimizes the work of the Holy Spirit. Paul the apostle is a case in point. During the first century, when Paul established churches throughout the Mediterranean world, he trusted in the Holy Spirit to work through the young believers who he left behind to lead the new churches (Allen 1962:84-94). Speaking of Paul’s method, Allen writes,

…the moment converts were made in any place ministers were appointed from among themselves, presbyter Bishops, or Bishops, who in turn could organize and bring into the unity of the visible Church and new group of Christian in their neighborhood (1956:9).

Unlike the apostle Paul, we often hang educational nooses around the necks of our potential leaders. No wonder, we can’t find enough to lead our cell groups! I’m personally convinced that we should be risky when it comes to raising up cell leadership. We need to rely on the Holy Spirit to work through those who show enthusiasm, clear testimony, and desire to serve Jesus (Kreider 1995:41-53).

Deployment Of Young Christians

Like Paul the apostle, Paul Cho uses young Christians in cell leadership. When he was asked where he got his leadership for his 22,000+ cell groups, without even hesitating he said, “We get them from our new Christians” (Galloway 1995:105). I do not believe that this quote means that Cho immediately places these new Christians into leadership, but it does mean that Cho understands that tomorrow’s cell leaders will come from the ranks of today’s new believers, and he plans accordingly.

In fact, it is a well-known truth that new Christians are oftentimes the most effective evangelists. Wagner notes that the potential for evangelism is much higher in new Christians that mature ones (1976:91). This is primarily due to the fact that new Christians still have contacts with non-Christians. Mike Berg & Paul Pretiz in their excellent book, Spontaneous Combustion: Grass-Roots Christianity, Latin American Style, note that many of Latin American’s grass roots churches are alive with new Christians. They say,

There is a quality of pristine faith in a believer’s first love that should emulated. With this is the need to be more sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s illumination of the simple believer. We can be grateful for new found perspectives by believers in the GR church (1996:127).

It is probably for this reason that Pete Scazzero, the pastor of a growing C&MA cell church in New York, uses new Christians in cell leadership. Carl George dedicates six pages to Pete’s church in his book Prepare Your Church for the Future. Here is what Pete says about leadership in cell ministry,

Our future is limited by our leadership…Give me ten solid cell-group leaders, and our attendance will grow by another 100, because we’ll have provided an environment where the Holy Spirit is gifts can be released to do the work of the ministry…Several of the cell-group leaders (X’s) and apprentices (Xa’s) are new Christians. ‘Young Christians who lead cell groups grow like crazy…especially as they learn to base their identity in Christ instead of in their ministries or on their egos (1992:203,204).

Personally, I’ve never placed brand new Christians into cell leadership positions. However, I have utilized younger Christians that demonstrate purity and zeal in their Christian life. Brand new Christians should be steered into a training track and then encouraged to become interns in a cell group.

Deployment of Facilitators As Opposed To Bible Teachers

Perhaps, there would be more willingness to release leaders if we would remember that cell leaders and interns are not Bible teachers but facilitators. A facilitator’s job description focuses more on guiding the communication process, praying for cell members, calls, visitation, and reaching the lost for Christ. George wisely adds, “…in the church of the future a leader won’t be known for his or her ability to handle a quarterly or written study guide so much as for a skill in relating to people in such a way that they allow access into their lives" (1994:68).

Because cell ministry focuses on raising up facilitators as opposed to Bible teachers, I do not believe that it is essential that a potential leader be required to know large amounts of Bible doctrine, be a gifted teacher, or even a recognized leader in the church in order to lead a cell group. If a person has demonstrated his or her love for Jesus Christ and if that person is walking in holiness, cell leadership is a distinct possibility.

Deployment Of Women

Most of the most rapidly growing cell churches make extensive use of women in ministry. This is not a new phenomenon. Back in the days when Wesley turned England upside down through a powerful small group ministry, the majority of his cell lay leaders were women (Brown 1992:39).

Today, Paul Cho is the prime example of a cell ministry that was launched by women and that now uses women as the vast majority of cell leaders (1982:21-32). The women who lead the cell groups in Cho’s church are not considered authoritative Bible teachers. Rather, their authority is derived from their submission to pastor Cho’s leadership. George wisely observes, “If a church focuses its groups as teaching ministries, some people will have problems sitting under women. But if the groups are to encourage the “one anothers” of spiritual life, the gender of the person facilitating the meetings or leading the groups won’t matter (1991:135).

In fact, I have discovered that women can oftentimes guide the group into deeper communication than men can. Generally speaking, women are better communicators than men. Since participation that results in more in-depth sharing is one of the major goals in the cell meeting, women should be called upon to lead groups as much as possible.

Willingness To Face Failure

Soichiro Honda, the founder of Honda Motor, wrote, "Many people dream of success. To me success can only be achieved through repeated failure and introspection. In fact, success represents the 1 percent of your work which results only from the 99 percent that is called failure" (quoted in Peters 1987:315).

Bennis and Nanus have noticed that successful leaders learn from their failures and become stronger as a result. They say, “…for the successful leader, failure is a beginning, the springboard of hope” (1985:71). Peters believes that a company should promote failure. He counsels executives to hold “Hall of Shame” parties, to give rewards to those who have fouled up recently, to share freely (top executives) about their own failures, etc. (1987:316-317). Peters promotes fast failure; “Fail and get on with it” is the motto. The reasoning is clear. Without the freedom to make mistakes, there will be little innovation, little progress, data will be faked, those at the top will be kept in the dark, little learning will take place, and the fun will be drained from the company (1987: 320).

These principles from the business world have huge implications for the cell church. The ever expanding needs of the cell church means that new, untested leadership will be placed in leadership roles. After all, every leader starts somewhere. Some leaders will fail and choose to withdraw. This is to be expected, and it is not the end of the world when it happens. Some groups will be dissolved.^[3] However, the majority will learn from their mistakes, correct them, and press on.

An over cautious, perfectionist attitude toward leadership must not be allowed to dominate the cell church today. Although some groups will fail, with the proper control and administration over the cell groups, we have found that the vast majority of groups succeed.

Leadership Giftedness

Even though there is an attitude of risk and willingness to trust the Holy Spirit to raise up new cell leadership, relatively few will ultimately serve in cell leadership positions. During the Church Growth Lectures at Fuller Seminary in 1984, I was surprised to hear Paul Cho himself say that only ten percent of his congregation have the proper gifts to be a cell leader.

He believes that the gift of evangelism is the most important gift for a successful cell leader to possess. For Cho, only those with the gift of evangelism will ultimately succeed, and he has come to the conclusion that ten percent of the congregation has this particular gift. To understand what the gift of evangelism is, Wagner’s definition is helpful, "the gift of evangelist is the special ability that God gives to certain members of the Body of Christ to share the gospel with unbelievers in such a way that men and women become Jesus’ disciples and responsible members of the Body of Christ" (1994:157). After defining the gift, Wagner, like Cho, contends that approximately five to ten percent of a church’s active members have this gift (1994:160).

Pastor Cho tried for a long time to stir up lay people with the enthusiasm to lead cell groups, only to discover that after the initial pumped up excitement faded away, many of the cell leaders became discouraged and could did muster up enough internal vision to successfully multiply their groups. It wasn’t clear to me how he now finds those with the gift of evangelism, but he does believe that the successful cell leaders will have that gift (Cho 1984: lecture).

Although I highly respect Pastor Cho’s opinion, I disagree with his statement that only those with the gift of evangelism can successfully lead a cell group. In my opinion, this would be true only if the cell leader was personally responsible to bring the new members to the cell group. However, the effective cell churches that I have studied emphasize team evangelism rather than personal evangelism, net fishing versus hook fishing.

From my analysis of cell churches, I would be more inclined to suggest that a successful cell leader must excel at mobilization and leadership in order to motivate others to invite their relatives and close friends. With this in mind, perhaps an effective cell leader might have the gift of leader, apostle, prophet, pastor, or possibly even one of the serving gifts.^[4]

Although I disagree with Cho’s contention that cell leadership must have the gift of evangelism, he might be right about the percentage of lay people that will ultimately serve in a cell leadership position. This fact, should liberate top leadership in the cell church from demanding that everyone serve in a cell leadership position. Some lay people are simply not called, nor gifted for the task. At the same time, like the issue of God’s sovereignty and our need to evangelize,^[5] oftentimes it is not initially clear who will be a successful cell leader. Most of the time, the verdict must wait until the person actually leads the group.^[6] It is my opinion that since it is not clear which gifts (and I would add talents and acquired skills) are needed to successfully lead a cell group, it seems logical to open the door for all lay people who are willing to try. Perhaps future research (including my own) will provide information that will give greater specificity to cell leadership selection.^[7]

CONTINUE TO PART 2 OF CELL LEADERSHIP

[1] I spent one day at the huge L.A. public library trying to find characteristics of Latin leadership and came up with very little.

[2] Taken from an e-mail from Don Davis, who is a Cross Cultural/Educational Consultant for Greater Asia Training Enterprises. He wrote this to Dan Gibson on Abril 12, 1996.

[3] In the C&MA it seems that we are willing to take great risks in planting new churches. Many of these churches die because the initial foundations were so weak. I’ve arrived at the conclusion that we should only start churches when we have a good chance of succeeding. In contrast, I believe that we should not hesitate to launch new cell groups. From my experience, I have discovered that it is far less devastating to both leader and followers when a cell group dissolves than when an entire church has to close the doors.

[4] I will be asking cell leaders in Latin America to describe their own spiritual gifting. I hope to find some giftedness patterns among those leaders who have successfully multiplied their cell group.

[5] Since we do not know who God has chosen to be saved, we must evangelize all non-Christians.

[6] When I was at Bethany World Prayer Center, I talked to a very shy man named Carl, who is now a section leader in Bethany’s cell ministry. Carl became a section leader because he had multiplied his own cell group six times. Pastor Larry Stockstill uses Carl as an example of how God even uses very shy people to successfully lead cell groups.

[7] When I was at Bethany World Prayer Center, I talked to five leaders (cell leaders and top leadership) who gave me four different answers concerning why some cell leaders are able to multiply their groups while others are not.