St Luke's Church Eccleshill - Articles from "The Link"

Love God, love others, love the lost.

What is the church supposed to be all about? “Doing what Jesus said” is the most obvious answer? And what did Jesus say? Many things, but maybe the most important bits were to love God and love our neighbours (Mark 12:30-31) and to go into all the world and preach the Gospel everywhere (Mark 16:15). So maybe the title of this article is not a bad summary?

Last month I wrote of how the early church used to do this, as can be seen in the Acts of the Apostles. It was like this for many years after - but it isn’t now. What’s gone wrong?

Last month I suggested it was because the church congregations became too big. When you get too big you can’t have everyone up the front in worship, you can’t make personal friends of everyone, and you can’t adapt the meeting for the visitor. And that’s why we need to meet in cells as well as in bigger congregations.

What are cells? Cells are places where Christians are loved, ministered to, and built up for their primary calling. The cell groups of a church are where the members make close friendships: where they give and receive love and service, help each other in active worship, and seek to draw others to Jesus by inviting and by putting on events which their friends and neighbours can come to.

At its best, this is what a good housegroup can be in the life of a church. But there is one important difference between a church with good housegroups and a cell-church. A housegroup exists to support the life of the church. But in a cell-church, the real church consists of those who belong to the cells, and the church services exist to support the lives of the cells.

At St Luke’s we have made some changes to the housegroups to bring them closer to the cell-group model. The study material asks them to get to know each other better (by asking them to answer icebreaker questions), to worship together (in speech and silence and not just in song), and after the study, to consider how the group can help to bring others to know Jesus. This structure of welcome - worship - word - witness is a basic framework for cell groups. The word section (study) focusses on the bible passage of the previous Sunday, so that church services can help the group members to grow in their faith.

This is a small start, and we still have a lot to learn from the cell-church movement. The next stage is for more of us to join cells so we can grow together.

John Hartley

	*St Luke's Church, Eccleshill - The Link* magazine** The Link is published monthly at 40p (Senior Citizens 35p), and we deliver free within the parish and post copies (at the reader's expense) to those who request it. Please contact us if you would like a free copy for a trial period. June 2002, Page 1.
Home Page. Index of articles. Vicar's Letters: index, Church & School, Autism, Christening, Body & Cell, Cell Love, Cell Values. In this issue: (June 2002) Vicar's Letter, STV, Sunday Club, Services, Question, History, Jelleys.	Love God, love others, love the lost. What is the church supposed to be all about? “Doing what Jesus said” is the most obvious answer? And what did Jesus say? Many things, but maybe the most important bits were to love God and love our neighbours (Mark 12:30-31) and to go into all the world and preach the Gospel everywhere (Mark 16:15). So maybe the title of this article is not a bad summary? Last month I wrote of how the early church used to do this, as can be seen in the Acts of the Apostles. It was like this for many years after - but it isn’t now. What’s gone wrong? Last month I suggested it was because the church congregations became too big. When you get too big you can’t have everyone up the front in worship, you can’t make personal friends of everyone, and you can’t adapt the meeting for the visitor. And that’s why we need to meet in cells as well as in bigger congregations. What are cells? Cells are places where Christians are loved, ministered to, and built up for their primary calling. The cell groups of a church are where the members make close friendships: where they give and receive love and service, help each other in active worship, and seek to draw others to Jesus by inviting and by putting on events which their friends and neighbours can come to. At its best, this is what a good housegroup can be in the life of a church. But there is one important difference between a church with good housegroups and a cell-church. A housegroup exists to support the life of the church. But in a cell-church, the real church consists of those who belong to the cells, and the church services exist to support the lives of the cells. At St Luke’s we have made some changes to the housegroups to bring them closer to the cell-group model. The study material asks them to get to know each other better (by asking them to answer icebreaker questions), to worship together (in speech and silence and not just in song), and after the study, to consider how the group can help to bring others to know Jesus. This structure of welcome - worship - word - witness is a basic framework for cell groups. The word section (study) focusses on the bible passage of the previous Sunday, so that church services can help the group members to grow in their faith. This is a small start, and we still have a lot to learn from the cell-church movement. The next stage is for more of us to join cells so we can grow together. John Hartley
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