Larger Gatherings, Hierarchy, and the Cell Church Movement
What happens if you are suddenly packing in 40 to 50 people in a home for a meeting? It’s time to consider having more than one meeting. Remember, in body life, you are getting to be with the saints and spend time with them throughout the week. If you are not meeting-focused, but relationships throughout the week are driving the church, then having different meetings at different houses throughout the week is not taking away from anything. However, if the weekly meeting is all you are doing, it will be very hard for you to want to break it up. We’ll call it multiplication instead of dividing.
If the group or network of believers you are with begins to get very large, it is important that you all come together with everyone on occasion. I would suggest that once every two weeks or at least once a month you all gather together at a park, meet under a pavilion, someone’s back yard, or occasionally rent out a community facility if you must.
At times like these, it’s important how you physically set up the room because you are not in someone’s house. You never want to go back to the pulpit / stage / pew format because you have a large group meeting. For example, instead of having the chairs in rows all facing one direction, arrange the chairs in a circle. You may have to double or triple layer the circle. You can even have a table in the center with some wine and some bread for different ones to partake of at any point during the time. Encourage people to come up and have the wine and the bread whenever they want to during the time to remember the Lord’s death and resurrection. The point is that in large meetings, stay away from religious trappings and the old mentalities like having a stage up front with a worship team. This is not conducive to different ones leading out with songs and group participation. We don’t want chairs facing a stage or a worship team because we are not focused on a worship team or any one person. It’s the body that is edifying itself. We are focused on Christ and Christ who is in all the peoplepresent at the meeting. If someone has an instrument to play, let them play it while they are in their own seat. If you have several musicians, let them be behind the circle. Pass out song sheets instead of using an overhead projector.
I know this all may sound really nit-picky. But let me explain why this is important. There are so many things that we associate with “church.” Some of these things are not bad in and of themselves. But very subtly we can revert to a way of thinking that causes us to lose the organic, the spontaneity, and the freedom that we should all have and are trying to gain.
Although the Lord will always have us with a core group that we are committed to and devoted to, as mentioned before, I do visit various traditional meetings on occasion because it’s important that I meet with others in the city. We all are members of the same church, whether other people know it or not.
As I attend these traditional meetings, they are all set up the same way – chairs in rows facing a stage, worship team on the stage, overhead projector, and a lecture podium. What’s the problem with having all these kinds of things in a large meeting?
All of these things throw the group into feeling like they are “in church.” Every traditional meeting I attend feels like a church service. Because it’s a church service, there are unspoken rules of what people should do in the meeting, when they should do them, and how the people are to conduct ourselves. They always have some degree of a formal feel. The Spirit of God is only allowed to flow in certain ways and in certain activities. Things are very limited. In those meetings, because we are in a church service, everyone there expects certain things to happen - and only those things happen.
The “givens” in our meetings that put us in church mode, often quench the Spirit and end up governing the time. Setting the chairs up in the typical way, passing money plates, overhead projectors, stages, worship teams, the clothes we wear, the meeting time and place, even doing the same thing every time, all contribute to this problem. Any of these things can throw us into the churchy feel. Personally, I don’t ever want to meet on Sundays. In fact, the people I’m with have made it a point to not meet on Sundays at all. We don’t want a churchy feel in our meetings. I don’t ever want to feel like I’m going to church. We want to seek Jesus with other saints, not go to church. We’ve associated churchy things with Jesus Himself and He has nothing to do with any of that.
What kind of things should you do when meeting with a large group? If you are not in a “church service” many things can happen that are in the flow of the Spirit and that are spontaneous and edifying. Sometimes the benefit of meeting in non traditional ways is not so much what you do but when and how you do it. You get to do things out of conviction of heart because it’s real to you in the moment, not because you did it last week.
Some examples of possible large group activities are: Worshiping the Lord, breaking up into smaller groups and praying for one another, or, someone may have a short teaching to give to the whole group. A teaching may come forth at the beginning and then you might worship with song at the end. You may not sing at all. Someone may stand up and share a testimony. It may lead to other testimonies. The whole large group may spend 30 minutes praying for only one family. A brother may gather all the men outside for a talk that is specific in charging every man to lead his household (the ladies will pray for the men while they are outside). It may be a time of healing and forgiveness where different ones approach people they need to clear things up with. As people lead out and share various things, it will inspire others to share and lead out with things. Who knows what might all happen! Let all things be done for edification.
Don’t plan on having a typical music, then message following meeting. Whatever you do, avoid a canned, pre-planned church service. Stay away from the religious things that throw us into the rote, predictable, church meeting mentality. Should we pray after a message has been given? Why should you pray after the message? Is it real in your heart to do so? If it is with conviction and it is real, then pray. If not, wait on the Lord for what is real. It may take years of you having to find true conviction to get free and non-religious. Out of a reaction, w e can even become religious about trying to be non-religious. As men of flesh, and with hundreds of years of error in our culture, it takes tremendous focus and dependency on the Holy Spirit to stay fully engaged and totally real. We have to remember that our bent will always be towards systems and methods that allow us to become passive and not active in faith on a daily basis. You may go through all sorts of gyrations and reactions to various practices. That’s OK.
For example, my family and I rarely pray before our meals. Why? It doesn’t seem real to me or my wife. It feels religious. But, whenever we have grocery day and my wife comes home with a van load full of groceries, we unload the van, and pile the groceries on the kitchen table. As a family, we give thanks for all the provisions. Currently, that’s what is real for us. But we don’t do it every time. Only when a family member has faith to pray and give thanks, do we do it. And, it may not be real and fresh forever. Being real is a wonderful way to live. The kids get to see you live out real faith in Jesus in front of them.
The Cell Church Movement
There is a definite shift in large congregations to have what are now called cell churches. For terminology sake, cell churches are not the same as home churches - although cell churches are typically in homes. Home churches are autonomous in nature. In other words, in a home church, each group is independent. Home churches are completely free to have any focus, vision, or emphasis the Lord is leading them in at any time. A cell church on the other hand, typically is an expression of a larger, traditional meeting with a definite hierarchy in place. The pastor provides the vision for the group and the cell group leaders carry out that vision in the cell church meetings. Cell churches can be a wonderful place of fellowship, intimacy, and connecting - and I don’t speak against them in that regard. Although cell churches are the new thing, the hierarchy in the traditional church system that governs cell churches is nothing new.
Autonomy for a gathering is critical. Every home gathering is different. We all are in different places. The dynamics of those you are meeting with and are being knit with is going to change and grow all of the time. There will be different seasons with different focuses and emphasis. If the Lord wants to provide a particular focus on a particular night or accomplish certain things in the group for a season, it can easily be short circuited by the cell church agenda. Handing down the topics and subjects to be covered in the home meetings can kill the flow of life.
Of course, if those present in a particular home meeting have nothing to share and tend to not function or participate, then they would probably really enjoy a cell church and get a lot out of it. A man instituted hierarchy may seem like it provides safety, vision and promotes growth. This may be true to a certain level. But ultimately, it will stifle the church. A hierarchy is like a lid that will only allow growth and various expressions to go so far. Let me explain.
If I were part of a large group of people who all went on a trip to the planet Mars, I would definitely want a system of hierarchy in place. I’ve never been to Mars before. I would not know what I was doing. I would not know how to put on the space suit. I would not know what to do in the space ship, etc. I would definitely want a group leader to be my authority. I would need my group leader to tell me what to do and when to do it - and I would like it. I also would feel much more comfortable if my group leader was under some sort of authority as well. If I am going to a distant planet, I want my group leader to report to a project leader. And I want the project leader to be a man of great experience. If I am getting on a rocket and flying out into space, I want to know for sure that the project leader is held accountable by the science technicians and by the safety engineers. Ultimately, I need to know that someone is in charge, like a director of the space program. This man had better be a trained and licensed professional and have great experience. All of those in leadership had better be trained and licensed professionals because I certainly don’t know what I’m doing in this whole situation. I would want a hierarchy to be in place, I would want to be told what to do, and exactly when to do it.
I understand that a lot of people feel this way in the church. They don’t know what they are doing. The spiritual life, functioning in the church, operating in their gifts, leading their families, meeting in simple ways, and proper relating to one another is all like a trip to Mars. I understand that people largely want someone else to take the responsibility for them. It’s just a fact of where people are at. This is largely due to the fact that we’ve enabled people to stay where they are in basic Christian skills.
The traditional church setting has largely caused the basics of the Christian faith to remain a mystery. We’ve not required anything of men. For hundreds of years now, the common Christian man is only required to show up to a meeting and then go home. Passivity is now engrained in our entire Christian culture. We’ve learned and have been trained to be dependant on an artificial and unbiblical hierarchy of man. We feel the need for this type of leadership because we’ve grown accustomed to others having the spiritual responsibility in the church. We all as individuals are to carry much more responsibility than we are used to having.
The hierarchy we see in the church today is not a Biblical one. Sure, in the early church there were men who led. There were people who did overseeing, but they never exercised control. Their leadership was extremely loose and hands off. The elders in a city didn’t hand out a worksheet each week to all the home meetings to complete in order to make sure the past Sunday morning sermon was emphasized.
There would be no problem with a man doing the work of an apostle in a town, and a network of believers was established in that city who were sharing life together. It would be good for the man who planted the church there (the apostle) to give plenty of teaching especially in the beginning stages of the work in that city. But then he would move on to a different city as Paul did. Once the true seed of the Kingdom was planted in the city, a true apostle would not have to make sure that each house gathering was all on the same page each week. He would not have to make sure that every gathering was focusing on what he thought the weekly focus should be. The church is not to be micromanaged. The apostle Paul did however, bring correction when needed, and he provided encouraging letters of teaching that were read in all the gatherings. He trusted the Spirit of God to grow the church.
The gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia were encouraged by the leading brothers in Jerusalem with this… “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials: that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols, blood, things strangled and from fornication; if you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well. Farewell.” (Acts 15). That’s a very hands-off approach. We can trust the Lord to organically and naturally lead a gathering of saints in the way He sees fit.
Because we have created and promoted largely an entire culture of spiritually starved Christians, many believers will not feel adequate to be a part of a fully functioning Biblical home church meeting. Because true hospitality is so rare in the West, the setting of home church is difficult to maintain in our culture. If healthy, Biblical, relational church were a part of our daily climate, people would grow much faster, have confidence in functioning, and be able to fully thrive in a simple church setting without the need for an artificial hierarchy to be in place.
The cell church movement is a hybrid. It is a compromise. I think the close relationships that are developed within the cell churches are good however. But, the agenda handed down from the pastor, the hierarchy that is in place, and the name other than the one church in the city, are not good.
I’ve wondered however if cell churches are not the Lord’s mercy in some way. Knowing how kind He is, I would not be surprised if through the cell church movement, He is shedding light and meeting us where we are as a culture. Of course, the more likely case is that the Lord is shedding light to vast numbers of people by helping them to meet in more simple, New Testament ways. And the traditional church has simply observed this and has created its own version.
I do believe that very soon (and it’s already happening) as the church grows and learns how to live and function more Biblically, that we will see a mass exodus out of traditional meeting places and even the cell churches to autonomous living room gatherings throughout every city.
