CELL Group Mission Statement

CenterPoint cell groups exist to build a God-centered community by facilitating spiritual transformation in the lives of those who attend a group. This transformation is extended to those who do not know God through invitation into authentic Christian community .

C.E.L.L. Defined

The C.E.L.L. acronym is vitally important to what we do because it reminds us of what we are trying to accomplish. We should all be familiar with what it stands for because it casts the vision for our groups.

C —Commissioned by Christ

E —Encountering Christ

L —Living Lives of Compassion

L —Loving Communities

All that we do in cell group can be summed up by one of these four categories. These categories function in two ways. First they describe what our groups are intended to accomplish: a place where we can reach the lost, help the hurting, foster a sense of community identity, and be in the presence of our Lord. Second this acronym reminds us of what should regularly occur in our groups. If we lose sight of even one of these four components, our groups will neither be what they are intended to be nor will they accomplish what they are intended to accomplish.

Community 

God intended it. Most have allowed culture to shift our mindset from the community to the facility. Our cell groups are an attempt to reclaim our Christian identity by a shift back to tightly-knit communities meeting in homes. Some say that the church building can be the greatest single hindrance to world evangelism. It can begin to focus inward, places too much responsibility on the professional clergy, and fails to advance the priesthood of all believers. When we look at the New Testament and at church history, we find that the church never spread so fast nor grew so strong as it did in those beginning days when it developed relationships in small groups.

Group Size

There are three types of groups in the congregation. Each type accomplishes different things:

Large-sized groups are times like our worship celebration on Sunday morning. When there are more than 40 people involved it is a large-sized groups. The benefits to this size group are: we all get to be together, we may see people we have not seen in some time, it is encouraging to praise God in a large-sized group, and sermons reach a wider audience. However, our relationships in groups this large tend to stay on the surface and we don’t often feel as tight a sense of community here as we do in smaller groups. We do not provide the opportunity, nor are people comfortable with sharing their lives and spiritual struggles around this many people.

Medium-sized groups are groups of 16 to 40 and typically include smaller fellowship activities. Community is closer knit than the large-sized groups. but relationships still tend to remain on the surface and there is still little time for personally sharing opinions or more personal issues.

Small-sized groups are groups of 4 to 15 and typically include smaller Bible studies and cell groups. Because of the smaller numbers, we get a deeper quality of interaction between group members. People are more willing to share their lives with fewer people because it is less intimidating. Relationships finally get below the surface and that is where spiritual transformation can most easily take place.

Our normal way of thinking is that bigger is better. That is not the case in our cell groups. There are important things that happen best when we are with a smaller number of people. Typically groups operate best when they are between 4 and 15 people. The most important aspects of our groups cannot take place as effectively once the groups surpass 16 people on a regular basis because our relationships at that level tend to be more on the surface. There are several reasons why more people normally means a lower quality of interaction. The first was mentioned above and that is comfort. It is not comfortable talking about personal issues around 40 people in a classroom setting or in the foyer. Second, the more people you add to a group the more relationships that are formed. For example:

# of people          # of relationships             # or people           # of relationships

 2                                 1                                      8                                  28

 3                                 3                                      10                                45

 4                                 6                                      14                                91

 6                                15                                     16                               120

Group Multiplication

Relationships increase exponentially as the number of people in the group grows. That means it is very important to keep our groups small in order to preserve deeper relationships for those in the group. Because our groups are designed to invite others in, there will come a time where the group exceeds our goal of 16 people and will be ready to multiply. Our rule of thumb is once a group exceeds 16 people for four consecutive group meetings, the group multiplies into two groups. The leader will begin working with an “apprentice leader” appointed by Pastor Dick. The apprentice leader will become the leader of the second group and the multiplication process will continue.