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Ideas
- Read and act on ‘Evangelism through Cells’ by Laurence Singlehurst and Liz West - available from Cell UK.
- The most effective evangelism seems to be ‘need-orientated evangelism’ - where the needs and questions of non-Christians friends and acquaintances are the focus. (Research indicates that successful evangelism does not depend on Christians going out and making new friends with non-Christians; there are enough non-Christian contacts within church members’ existing relationships, and new Christians will have their own contacts.) Look out for ways of helping people practically, involving others within the cell.
- One cell saw the need for something for mothers with young children, and started a mothers and toddlers group. This is not overtly evangelistic, but the hope is that relationships will build up and questions will be asked. Such a project may need people from more than one cell to get involved.
- One or more cells could lead an Alpha course together. It is important to know what will happen after the Alpha course, for bonds formed in the Alpha course can often be very strong and the members not want to go their separate ways. If the cells plan to reform after the course, it would be good if as many in the cell as possible came along to the Alpha course for some or all of the time, possibly being slowly introduced - maybe first as helpers behind the scenes, then joining a group for the last few discussions - but better if they were there from the start. If it is planned to start new cells, there needs to be a proper recognition that the old cell will not be the same again, with some kind of celebration and commissioning before the Alpha starts. We have had problems with cell members leading Alpha without proper planning about what happened afterwards; the cell thought they would come back, but their members became committed to the new group and decided to do a follow up course with them, with the aim of becoming a new cell. The old cells then had to reform without them.
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