Cell Church Paradigm part 2

A couple of weeks ago my family and I went to Canada for a vacation and to see a Church Planting Missionary in the Toronto area.

I saw Jeff Christopherson (in the picture on the right) at the Pastor's conference last year when he spoke about their dreams for planting churches in that region. In his sermon he encouraged us to dream dreams for God. I was really impressed with the fact that I needed to nail down this dream thing that God has placed on my heart.

Through the Annie Armstrong week of prayer Jen and I were stirred up for Canada as we read of another missionary's story. He shared in his story how he would go through town after town weeping with the realization that there was no church or bible study to share the love of Christ with those people. Canada is extremely unchurched. We began to pray about the possibility of going to Canada to scout for future either mission trips or to consider the possibilities of being church planter missionaries ourselves. We usually think of going to someplace like Mexico or some other Latin American country, but was completely oblivious to the mission opportunities that lie much closer to us to the North. It was during that time that I called up the NAMB (North American Mission Board) missionaries in Canada and Jeff was one of them.

Jeff planted a cell church called "The Sanctuary." They are successfully planting reproducing churches in an area that is quite difficult for this. All of their growth comes from new converts. In fact, in the beginning they told any possible transfer Christians that they didn't want them joining. They didn't want all that baggage that they would have brought into a new congregation. They have two things that they value which are multiplication and community transformation.

Our discussion was interesting in that I got the sense that Jeff was trying to talk us out of going. I understand the wisdom of doing that because you don't want someone coming into a situation with "pie in the sky" expectations. They will bail out on you when things get a little difficult. I appreciated his candor. He shared with us the cultural differences as well. I know that if God is calling a person to something...they wont be able to let it go. Right now, I have put the whole thing on the shelf. Yet I am praying for a city in which we can sponsor such as London, Ontario. I really want to see a church planging movement happen here.

I came away with that meeting that the strength of a cell church is its ability to mentor leaders and empower them to lead. I believe that a cell church can have great impact in the U.S. if it is done right, with no short cuts.