Regardless, of what system, one of the main characteristics of any Cells is the fact that they should breed a culture of transparency and mutual accountability. G12 if it is operating correctly, has this value as it's foundation. Effective transparent relationships take time. In our opinion, if effective mentoring is taking place, the leader will only have time to mentor 12 people effectively. 12 people should keep a leader more than busy. Obviously people grow to the point where they are now capable of assuming this role in others. It took Jesus 3 years, full time to effectively mentor his 12. How long will it take us? when we are only mentoring people through a series of meetings and telephonic contact per week.

True mentoring is the success of G12. In practice it is difficult. E.s.p. in a 1st world environment. It is easy, at the first level, where perhaps the original 12 are full time. It has less impact with lay leaders and the larger the structure the greater the mentoring is filtered down, and the quality diminishes. To combat this the senior leaders in G12 take on additional meetings. At some point the line has to be drawn, and the original leaders have to have faith, that they have been successful into imparting to others. They blindly have to accept that down the 'ranks' the principles are being carried over to the 3rd, 4th and 5th generation cells. The bulk of the G12 leaders who email us, express frustration that the quality diminishes the further down the structure they go. And that they can do nothing to control it.

To answer your question, busy leaders can only afford to sustain a certain amount of relationships. Each leader needs to ask themselves how much relationships they can effectively maintain, and stick to that number. It works on a ratio of number of relationships Vs quality. Purist G12 advocates will argue the number of only 12 in a life time.

The principle of 12 model is probably the closest to Biblical mentoring. Not all of us are like Jesus who are fortunate to take our 12 out of their occupations and effectively mentor them. Conversely, the original 12 did a good job with the next generation, probably in the same circumstances that we have, otherwise we would not be here. Could it be possible that they did not attempt to fully mentor 12 at a time. Perhaps there was only one person at a time? Requiring us to initiate a G1 or a G2 model? Example, Paul and Timothy or Paul and Barnabas etc. At least we know, it must be from house to house