Target: Cell Churches who have not yet transitioned
or who are busy transitioning or have transitioned to a Cell Church
(Beginners and Advanced).
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Selected Question:
We read your answer on transitioning a Cell Church and your reluctance to supply us with a detailed transition plan. We unfortunately are in an area where we cannot attend an ACT seminar. Can you please help us with additional information that will help us to transition correctly? |
Answer:
Answered by Little Falls Christian Centre
I still maintain that you are going to at least require a coach to assist you with the process. Books can be written on the subject of transitioning. What is contained in this reply is a brief Strategic plan on transitioning a Church to Cells. Please note that this applies to transitioning an existing Church and not to planting or starting a new Cell Church eventhough a lot of the principles will be the same.
STRATEGIC PLANNING: - Strategic plans are simply putting your dreams into a clearly understandable logical plan that everyone can follow.
- Every large task or huge obstacle is broken down into simple smaller tasks. The old saying a mountain is climbed one step at a time.
- A strategic plan only becomes effective, when each task is assigned to a responsible party and a time when that task should be completed.
- Successful strategic planning takes place when the key players are involved in the planning and execution of the tasks on the plan.
- You cannot change everything at once, you start at a point and work from there.
Example of a Strategic Plan: (This plan will not make sense, unless you have read some material like WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? By Ralph. W. Neighbour).
CHANGING THE CULTURE OF THE CHURCH:
| STEP | ACTION | DESCRIPTION | | 1 | Communicate the vision and values of a Cell Church | You as the Senior Pastor and your leaders prepare the whole Church for change by teaching them about Biblical values for living in a community. | | 2 | Initiate a prayer thrust | Unless the Lord builds the house those who build it labour in vain. Leaders and all staff must spend significant time in prayer for the changes and they in turn must motivate the whole Church to pray. | | 3 | Retrain the Church Leadership into Cell life. | Leaders, staff and the main influencers in the Church need to be retrained into the Cell way of life. The best way is too start a cell with them. The only way they are going to catch the values will be to experience them. | | 4 | Change the calendar and modify your budget | You need to work on an annual calendar. Place all the Cell related events in the highest importance. Similarly in preparing the budget the Cells must take the bulk of the finance. I.e. prepare to invest in Cell leadership training etc. | | 5 | Plan the restructuring of your Church | Think about how you can form districts, zones, cells etc that will facilitate the Cell ministry. These can be according to natural existing affinity with each other or geographically etc. | | 6 | Modify the programs in your Church | Think about how you can adapt every area of your Church to now operate according to Cell principles. E.g. Break up your outreach team into Cells etc. Plan how you will gradually make these changes. | | 7 | Address the concerns of the members | All change is perceived as loss at first. Find out what the members perceive as loss by moving away from programs, communicate how Cells are more effectively going to meet those needs. | | 8 | Begin a prototype Cell | Begin a prototype cells with the leaders, staff and key influencers of your Church. This must be practical on the job training and exposure to Cell life. Take however long is required until these leaders have fully grasped the vision and values and are enthusiastic about operating Cells. | | 9 | Build in accountability mechanisms. | This can be a formal reporting system between different levels of leadership or more effectively, have every member of your Church relate to a mentor in an accountability partnership. | | 10 | Begin a formal equipping track | A purposeful equipping track to train Cell leaders must be put in place. Invite all interested parties to join. Our Church first spent a year training up everyone interested about Cells and then we initiated the equipping track. | | 11 | Launch childrens or intergenerational cells | Children need to learn how in the Cell environment. This might mean that your Childrens Church is adapted to include Cells or that Children are included into adult cells (intergenerational Cells). | | 12 | Establish youth Cells | In the exact same way that the adult Cells operate, youth Cells must be developed for young people to participate in. |
BUILDING A FOUNDATION THAT WILL LAST:
| STEP | ACTION | DESCRIPTION | | 13 | Build a base congregation | Statistics have proved that once you have 120 members actively involved in Cells then you can move totally into becoming a Cell Church. We call this a Base congregation. In larger Churches you are concentrating on at least 3 Key people that have helped you from the start, 12 core leaders, and seventy support staff. With this amount of supportive leadership you have a good foundation to continue. | | 14 | Lead from a strategy | A strategy is simply a plan that will help you attain your goals. You need to know how you are going to achieve your goals and work according to this strategy. | | 15 | Develop your leadership structure | Decide on how you are going to group Cell members with leaders and then do it. E.g. leaders of ten, fifty, thousand etc. | | 16 | Add to your equipping | Find out what the training needs of your fledgling Cell church are and supply additional training. E.g. training on spiritual warfare, prayer etc. | | 17 | Develop a training centre | One unique characteristic of every successful Cell Church is the fact that they all have an existing established training centre. Not only for training Cell leaders but all levels of leadership. | | 18 | Plan to expand | What is going to happen if your Church doubles in a year? Will your facilities handle growth? How many leaders will you need etc? God is only going to work according to your level of preparedness. The more you are able to handle, the more He will give. |
WHAT SHOULD THIS PLAN STIMILATE IN YOUR HEART?
A book can literally be written on each of these steps. This is the start of the process there is a lot that can be added to this plan. If you dont understand any of these steps then this should be stimulating you to find material on each of these topics. For example if you dont understand fully how to initiate prayer in your Church then you need to get additional material on the subject.
All the books at CCI are with a specific purpose in mind. Our motive is never to benefit from the sales of these books. These books are available with the specific purpose in mind that you can acquire the understanding of every process mentioned in this strategic plan. Similarly, every step is explained in detail in the ACT training seminars.
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