Cell Break-out

Rich and Louise are keen missionary types living in Sheffield with wonderful heart for the gospel and the poor. I was inspired by what they had been up to recently and thought it might be encouraging especially for those of you looking for your cell/ small group to be more effective.

Throughout Jesus’ mission he was out in the community, discussing faith with his disciples and anyone who wanted to join in.
Jesus and the twelve were like a mission team. They would go into the village, challenging people to walk in forgiveness, bringing good news to the poor and the broken.
As a community, Jesus led his disciples out into the world, then, on occasion, the disciples and Jesus would retreat back onto a mountain or to some other more private, intimate place. There they would interact with each other, deepening each other’s understanding of faith and encountering God together.
The community of Jesus and his disciples was holistic; they lived their mission together, shared life and experienced God.

Recently God has been challenging our cell group. It has all happened in a kind of accidental way, God has used our circumstances to lead us.

For many months, our cell group met on a weekly basis in our home. We would eat together, worship and work out faith. There was nothing particularly wrong with what we were doing and many cell groups successfully operate in this way.
However, our cell group met some distance away from where the culture we wanted to reach lived. The group members found it difficult to come and the reality was that inviting people to join us was almost impossible.

A girl joined us; she was/is struggling with faith, God and life. Her only comment afterwards was that she thought the group was weird. I invited another guy, he was interested in finding faith, but coming to our house was just too difficult for him. And why would he come? Our house is, after all, our house. It is not neutral territory.

God seemed to show us that Jesus met in the community, in the meeting place, where everyone met. Jesus and his community of followers would go out and discuss faith/life/God in the community and if people wanted to join in, fine.
In some ways they were a forum about God. Anyone could come, as you were, with whatever questions you had. Subsequently, we moved our cell group into our cultures meeting place, a café - bar.

We are careful to be intentional about who we are and what we are doing. We are followers of Jesus. We meet and we talk about Jesus. It is important that we aren’t attempting to deceive people into the kingdom. Everyone we invite to join us knows that we are going to talk about the person of Jesus and how to walk in his ways.

Since doing this we have encountered several new people. Here are some of their stories.

A 21 year old joined us. He has walked with the Lord before and he knows a lot of the Bible. Since meeting him God has been almost whispering in my ear:
‘he needs to know that he is forgiven and that there is grace for him.’
In fact, the first time I met him God gave me a direct prophetic word for him. It was terrifying!
Recently, he has been speaking about going back to college. That is exciting not because we value education so highly, but because I see Jesus giving him hope for his life again. It is like God is saying,
‘you are worth something! You can do it. I see beyond all that you see.’
It is a blessing to be a witness to it!

Last week he brought his friend along, apparently his friend is a ‘secret follower of Jesus.’

Last week I was deleting old emails. I found one from someone I had previously invited to my house. I thought I would send him one last email and leave it to God. Here is his reply to my invite to join us:

'Your invitation sounds great, to meet and have an informal chat about faith/life. Beer is a good social lubricant! Anyway if it is OK with you I will come along and say hi. As you said in your previous e-mail, faith is something that can be explored together. And who knows may be our meeting was not a coincidence?'

A girl joined us. She has recently become a follower of Jesus. All she wants to talk about is Jesus. And why not? She been inviting people along to join us and talk about how to follow him. She is a blessing to us.

A few weeks ago we met a busker in town. He invited us to a gig. He is a very good musician.
At the gig he came and gave us a copy of his CD, asking us to give him some feedback. He wanted us to contact him again. My wife replied and invited him to talk to us about faith and God sometime. Here is his reply to that email:

'As for meeting up for a beer and a chat about God and Life, I would be more than happy to.
I rarely think or talk about anything else.'

We have since spoken to him, while he was busking. He couldn’t believe that we met in the place we did. He said something like, it isn’t that a place of hell. I thought great, that is where Jesus would be. Our busker friend seems to struggle with the word Christian and the idea of Christianity, but so do I.
I have to confess that I have made mistakes with this guy. Our invite to him is to learn about Jesus. I think God has revealed that our friend is like the people of Athens, he needs someone to say ‘this is the unknown God!’ but still I say the wrong thing, and feel awkward. My wife is much better at talking to him than I am. We are, after all, still learning.

It is only the beginning for us. Last week we invited everyone back to ours to join us on the mountain with our God. Only two could make it, but it was good. Our model is to follow how Jesus lived. We will continue to meet in the café-bar every week, returning to the mountain on occasion. It is exciting to be out. It is also terrifying. Through it all we feel God’s grace moving and what is more, we see it!