Small groups build healthy churches
In church planting, behind-the-scenes ministry is foundational
Our church plant went from three small groups to over seventy groups (years later). God blessed! We also made many mistakes. Here is some of what we learned.1
Multiplying small groups
I was the lead church planter for the team which started Oyumino Church in Chiba. The continual starting and multiplying of healthy cell groups was one of my highest priorities.2 I believed this priority was biblical and the right methodology from my study and church experience.3
My Japanese church internship during our first term convinced me even more that we needed to prioritize starting and multiplying lay-led cell groups. Our partnering denomination is full of godly pastors and members. However, I increasingly saw that it was largely made up of small, single-cell churches. The denomination had grown rapidly since the 1950s through church planting, but those church plants usually reached a maximum size between 20 and 50 members. The effectiveness of the evangelism, pastoral care, etc., was largely limited to what the pastor did. The “priesthood of all believers” was professed but weak. Few churches were implementing the Ephesians 4:12 mandate that pastors are not primarily called to do all the ministry but rather “to equip the saints for the work of ministry” (ESV).
To help our new church (Oyumino) have cell group DNA from the beginning, we waited to start public worship until we had three small groups gathering weekly. We continued to start new groups and improved our mentoring of leaders.
Over the years, we regularly taught that we wanted to be like the early church, meeting both “in the temple and from house to house” (Acts 5:42 ESV; cf. Acts 2:46), that is, in larger worship gatherings and also in smaller group gatherings for closer fellowship. We stressed that both are the church.
I’m thankful that we tried to mentor our growing number of cell group leaders. On the other hand, I am sad that in my later years as lead pastor, I gave less priority to the mentoring of lay group leaders and less intentional time to the multiplication of new groups. That hurt church health.
In our best years, we had three identical training opportunities each month; group leaders joined one of those mentoring times monthly. The investment in those leaders brought much fruit as they cared for many people in their groups. Those three short meetings were among the best uses of my time.
Which numbers should we watch?
Over the years, we grew to over 70 small groups of different kinds. But what outside people saw was five Sunday worship services led by four Japanese pastors. When outsiders observe a church they can easily miss the fact that the smaller groups behind the scenes are foundational for the health of the more visible parts of the church. It’s like a healthy tree. Its unseen root system is vital for the tree’s healthy growth.
Numbers like blood pressure and pulse rate can be indicators for physical health. Similarly, churches often look at worship attendance, baptisms, and giving to evaluate church health. I now believe that the more important numbers to show church health are related to the small gatherings for fellowship, prayer, training, evangelism, and serving.
Vital signs to pay attention to are growth each year in:
- regular cell group gatherings within the church,
- number of cell participants, and
- cell leaders being mentored by church leadership.
Behind-the-scenes ministry is reflected by the continual growth of these three numbers. By God’s grace, this growth will generally lead to more fruitful evangelism, better pastoral care, deeper discipleship, and more church leaders. All that generally leads to more worshipers, baptisms, and giving.
Jesus will build his church (Matt. 16:18). We must believe this promise. We must be careful of pride and thinking too much of our human effort, wisdom, or church planting methodology. That is a great danger in my prideful, sinful heart. As Psalm 127:1 states, “Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain” (BSB). This does not mean that human builders stop building. God also ordains the means and works through us. He calls us to be wise builders, using all the means and wisdom available. May we be wise builders as we labor under Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit, to see Christ’s church built in Japan.
1. More in-depth analysis and free church-planting resources: https://www.alive.international/church-planting-resources/
2. We called our groups “cell groups” and “small groups” interchangeably.
3. Acts 2:42, 5:42. The Jethro principle of Exodus 18:13–26. See link in endnote #1 for a longer explanation of the biblical rationale and book resources on this subject.