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Selected Question:
Can you briefly describe your structure, which you call the J12? |
Answer:
Answered by Little Falls Christian Centre
It would be advisable to first understand how the Jethro system and the G12 system works before you read this BRIEF reply. In some societies having more than one Cell Meeting per week (as in the G12 structure) can put a lot of pressure onto the leadership. For this reason we have decided to combine the best of both structures. A good tip is never to follow a model churches pattern to the finest detail. The best route is to take what you can and adapt what you need to for your context. How do you do that? By rather looking for the underlying principles that cause a specific model church to be successful and try and adapt these principles to your local context. This is what we did to obtain our hybrid J12 system of Cells. The physical structure of the Jethro remains intact, i.e. 5 Cells per Zone Supervisor forming a Sub Zone. 5 Sub Zones forming a Zone. 5 Zones forming a district etc. All of these are grouped together according to a geographical boundary as in the Jethro system. Where we cause a hybrid of a pure Jethro system is by applying the following G12 principles to the structure. - Every Cell member is viewed as a potential leader. This is based on the premise that every person can reach 12 people for Christ during his lifetime. Major emphasis is then placed on leadership development. In a pure Jethro structure there is one perhaps two interns at a time and the way that an intern is released into leadership is when a Cell multiplies according to a mother daughter multiplication. In our system, we view each member as a leader. The Cell leader mentors his whole cell group to become leaders. Each member is afforded the same opportunity to become a Cell leader. All members are challenged and invited to attend our leadership development or equipping track. Leaders identify themselves in this process.
- Secondly, leaders are released more easily to rapidly grow new Cells. Instead of a Cell waiting to multiply (as traditionally a mother daughter cell multiplication), if a potential leader has brought 3 genuine Cell members to the original cell, he can be released to plant a Cell. This will only take place with the permission of the Zone Pastor and the new Cell leader may not take any of the existing Cell members, but only new members that he has brought to the Cell. This can similarly only happen after he has finished the leadership training and he has been a member of our Church for more than 6 months and active in our Cells.
- Cells multiply at 12 instead of 15. Most Cells stabilise around 10 members so the lower multiplication target is much easier to attain. Communication lines are more effective and better Cell participation is also achieved in a smaller group. In a lot of our previously disadvantaged areas, the housing if very small, so practically it is very difficult to accommodate more than 10 people in a house (the rooms are too small). In these Cells the target is theoretically 10 people. But in practice the Cell multiplies as soon as it is ready. We dont follow a number when it comes to multiplication, we focus more on having willing trained leaders and induce birth to a Cell group.
- The leadership development strategy of the G12 structure is applied. I.e. in series of 4 weekend encounters, new leaders are trained at a fast pace to keep up with the leadership demand. Most Jethro based training systems are founded on a minimum of 6 months to a year. In our training cycle it would take a leaders 4 months. In practice however, most of them take 6 months or longer to be trained properly.
- Leadership meetings as designed in the G12 model still take place, but only on a monthly basis. This can also be doubled to two meetings per month and making the one meeting for administration and the other a spiritual meeting. (G12 leadership meetings take place weekly).
- The level of Zone Pastor does not exist in the J12 structure. The District Pastor relates to the Zone Supervisor not through a Zone Pastor anymore. A district can start at 20 Cells. The District Pastor relates to these Zone Supervisors directly. If there are more than 12 Zone Supervisors the District Pastor will double his leadership meetings to have a maximum of 12 Zone supervisors in leadership meetings at a time. Most Districts multiply and birth a new District when they reach 60 Home Cells or theoretically 12 Zone Supervisors.
- Relationships are maintained by the following meetings;
- Senior Pastor has weekly Cell meetings with District Pastors (Full time Personnel)
- Pastors have monthly or bi monthly Cell meetings with their Zone Supervisors.
- Zone Supervisors have monthly Cell meetings with their Cell leaders in their Sub-zones.
- Cell leaders have normal Cell meetings with Church members & invited visitors every week.
There is continual mentoring and relationship building taking place behind the scenes. In practice the District Pastor is in constant communication with the leaders in there Districts. Example: on average I would be contacting each Z.S. twice a week and the Cell leaders at least once per week.
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