Home Friendship Group Inquiries...

[Landmark Laf]

I was asked to start a thread to answer some questions about HFGs...

If you have any questions whatsover I'll do my best to answer. If I cannot capably answer your question, maybe someone else on the board will be able too. If no one here can, I'll take it to Pastor Langford (Landmark Lafayette, LA) or Tamel (Parkway Apostolic, WI) or Lejeune (Jesus Worship Center, LA) until someone can.

Question or Argument...let's go.

[In His Service]

Bro. Matt,
I believe that you have stated that much of your churches ideas are based on the G-12 teachings. Would you care to share why these ideas are seen as biblical and why apostolic think they should use and idea that a false prophet or teacher says they learned directly from God?

I know you made a short comment on another thread, but how about a longer and more in depth post on such.

Thanks
Be blessed
Bro. Timothy

[Truthseeker]

The current ministry system in most Apostolic churches is not patterned after the bibilcal ministry. So the G12 thing can't be any worse then the system we see now, can it?

[Landmark Laf]

Landmark Lafayette does not use the G-12 ministry. We currently are a Home Friendship Groups church. There are differences. For the most information you can visit Parkway Apostlic in Milwaukee, WI. They have tried both ministries. www.pac1.org (http://www.pac1.org).

If you do a lot of in-depth research on small groups of any kind, you will find that, excluding 'care groups,' they seemed to sprout up in random spots at the same time. Originally, Home Friendship Groups, Small Groups, Cell Groups, G-12, G-12-3, Fellowship Groups, etc. were seperate forms of house to house ministries. Now, for the most part, they have been meshed into 2. HFGs and G-12.

HFGs were started by the church pastored by Rev. Anythony Tamel (Parkway). He has a piece in a book that is on the website listed by so many members of this forum (www.gloriouschurch.org (http://www.gloriouschurch.org) or com). They did more research than any of us could possibly imagine on ministries that have been effective over the years. Studied modern people's habits and favorites. And most of all, studied the Bible and asked to hear from God. Eventually, Bro. Tamel and his group began to study the book of Acts more and more. Not as the book of Salvation, which it is, but as a book that directs the church in many more ways. "...went from House to House." This phrase made them explore home groups.

As for the actual format and structure of the group.
Format. They knew they wanted prayer, but not a prayer meeting...Bible reading, but not a Bible Study...Worship, but not a church service...Fellowship, but not a social club. After putting all these together they came up with what we use now. As for edifications. You will be hard pressed to find edifications, in this format, that are not written by Rev. Anthony Tamel, his assistant, Rev. Rick Langford, and a pastor in California (name escapes me). And trust me, they put as much time into a simple edification as they do into their sermons.

Structure. They knew they wanted everyone in a leadership to be forced into accountability. After all, it is a known fact that if you must be accountable you will do your best. After a few mistakes and a bunch of trial versions, they settled on the current system of Pastor>District>Zone>Section>Cell. Everyone reporting to the one above them, like a domino effect. It has worked beautifully for countless numbers of churches.

Yes, for some churches it has failed. But every seminar starts off with this phrase, "If you do not put your whole heart into it, it will fail."

As far as a specific answer about false prophets and such. Well, the entire concept of going from a house to another house to minister to people was not introduced by a false prophet. The disciples did it, Paul wrote about it. If going from house to house is wrong, then doorknocking, prayer walks, and young people hanging out on Friday nights is wrong. All an HFG does is create an atmosphere to glorify God.

[Landmark Laf]

Pastor Langford recently posted a couple of articles onto www.LandmarkLafayette.com (http://www.landmarklafayette.com/). The first is an article about Landmark Lafayette's Small Groups, how we came to love them, and what they have done for us, plus more. This article was published in Forward Magazine (sent to all UPC pastors) and can be found at www.LandmarkLafayette.com/smallgroupshistory.htm (http://www.landmarklafayette.com/smallgroupshistory.htm).
The second is an article casting the vision for 2004. It lists vision specific to our various ministries and our goals for the year. It also lists financial accolades, church assessment, and more. It can be found at www.LandmarkLafayette.com/Vision2004.htm (http://www.landmarklafayette.com/Vision2004.htm).
Enjoy, and don't forget to give your feedback at LandmarkLafayette.com.

[jdcord]

Good posts, bro. Matt.


Is your church a "cell church", or a church with cells? I ask because of something you said in your 2nd post:

They knew they wanted prayer, but not a prayer meeting...Bible reading, but not a Bible Study...Worship, but not a church service...Fellowship, but not a social club. After putting all these together they came up with what we use now.
For whatever reason that sounds like more of a church with cells to me than a "cell church". Not that there is anything wrong with that - whatever God leads for you.

We are believing for and expecting a revival in the upper five figure range (possibly extending into the six figure range; we have a population of a little over 1 million people in our area), and after much prayer and fasting, and years of study and research, we believe that a "cell church" is the only way to accomodate such a revival. After all, how will you fit 20, 30, or even 50 thousand people into the format of a traditional Sunday School service (the Sunday School Director would keel over *L*)? Or fit them into one building 2-3 times a week for that matter? It is not even near practical, and would be a logistical nightmare.

So we have decided to go with the G-12 concept (along with a bit or two from the Jethro model), and are working to make our cell groups be the actual church: we want divine intervention to be the norm in our cell meetings, we want worship, praise, Bible study, prayer, a move of the Spirit, the gifts to flow freely, deliverance, healing, miracles, baptisms, HG infillings, weeping, laughter, snot, spit, all of it. The cells will also eventually have their own separate prayer meetings (rather than our traditional church prayer meetings), and coordinate and do their own outreach. We'll even switch the taking up of tithes and offerings to the cell groups at some point. The organization and administration of the church will eventually be the cells groups. But just like you were saying about your set up, every cell leader will be accountable to someone above them, all the way up to the 12 elders (who are accountable to the pastor).

We look at it this way, we are preparing and mending our nets in expectation of the tremendous catch that the Lord is going to give us.

[Landmark Laf]

We are most assuredly, a Cell Church. Everything we do is centered around the success of these groups. We have put our whole heart and all of our resources into small groups. We are a Cell Church. Sorry if what I said made you think otherwise, I was simply referring to what made us start thinking more and more about HFGs. Landmark Lafayette, an HFG church.

[Found Truth]

Our church started out with 2 groups and my groups split into a third. That third group grew along with the other groups but rather than having them all split on their own some from each group was taken to make the group I am in now. So this group I am in now seems to be the weakest group due to the fact that everyone came from different groups. It was like starting all over in most of the relationships, also some of the people didn't really seem to want to move to this new group. I have been in this now for several years...and a lot of the original members are no longer attending. For a long time it was just the leader and his wife and me. Then when my husband and I got married it was the four of us. It has grown since but I know that there is a lot of things that need to be changed but I am not the leader of the group. The people that attend other than my husband and the leaders don't do any part of contributing. We go from our home to the leaders home each week. It seems as though our group is very elderly and my husband and I are young (mid 30's). The leader is elderly and goes on and on and on about stories we have heard over and over again. He has seizures and has my husband go over the lesson most all the time. His wife told me that it is really too much for him now and she wanted to go to the pastor but it is hard for some elderly people to give up things they use to be able to do, such as driving. What do I do besides pray? I want to see our group grow and reach others.

[PCH]

We are just now starting HFG's ....... Our first session will be Wedneday the 4th....I have very limited knowledge, and the church has somewhat limited funds at this time.....can anyone give me some guidance on how to do this correctly?

I am very serious about this....we are progressing forward

Any help, anyone can give...I WOULD BE GRATEFUL!!!!!

[ronb]

I am overseeing the home cells in our church and have been a teacher as well.
Do you have lessons? If so, how long are they? Most cell meetings should be no
longer than 45-1 hour.
What we do is gather at a predetermined house. We have a light snack, usually pop,
cookies, chips, or coffee. We do that for about 15 minutes to introduce everyone to
the visitors (hopefully, you will have some).
We sit down in a circle of chairs. We introduce ourselves by going around in a circle.
We let people know about our goals, and guidelines for the meeting.
We usualy have what is called an icebreaker, it is a question that the leader asks,
and the answers first, and then one by one you go around in a circle asking each person, and listening to thier answers (keep it brief, and don't let anyone hijack the meeting from you). Also, watch out, as the goal of a cell meeting is to let people
open up.
The icebreaker may be as simple as, What are you thankfull for?
You may answer, Blah, Blah, Blah.
They will come to answer, I am not thankfull for anything, I don't think God loves me.
They could break down in tears. You need to be sensitive as leader to feel after the
Spirit, and the person.
What I have done is ask everyone to gather round and we would pray and minister to this person.
In the lesson itself. We usually have a begining, middle, and end (like a very short sermon) with either questions in between, or at the end.
We always have the intention of ministering to one anothers needs, to minister to the visitor, and to be a bridge for them to hopefully attend service with us.
I hope this gives you a little help, although it's a bit brief.
God Bless.
Ronb

[PCH]

Sounds pretty good, and I think I have somewhat of a hold in regards to this aspect of it........ what about music...... Parkveiw and others have told me they have a time of worship, like 3 or 4 songs.....do you do that....of so....is it basically worship type of music?

[ronb]

Yes, we have been fortunate, and blessed to have a lot of guitar players in our church.
Every cell has at least 1. They are not experts, but we get the job done.
We ousually sing at least 3 songs right after the icebreaker question. If God is moving (this is where the job of a leader comes in. While everyone else is worshipping, the leader is keeping his eyes open, looking for peoples responses to worship, as he worships as well) the leader may extend a particular chorus if people
are being moved on by a particular song. It will be up to the leader to be sensitive to
how long it should go. If God isn't moving in a strong measure in the cell that day, the worship that you do can get people ready, draw their minds in to the lesson, and
the presence of the Lord.
At the end, after we have finished any questions, we will almost always have at least one song just before we have prayer and dismissal, God if he hasn't already,
can move in this part of the cell.
Hope this helps. As you know, while God is the same God all over, we are all individuals, and every church has it's own individual dynamic.
You will have to try and maybe experiment a little to find out just what will work for
you.
One thing is important though is consistincy. You have to be in it for the long haul.
God Bless!

P.s. We have 4 cell groups on thr go each with 1 cell leader, 1 assistant cell leader,
2 people that can play guitar in each cell. We usually use praise choruses. If you can
photo copy sheets of the songs for new visitors, that ca be a help as well.

[Seventyx7]

Bro Matt, I see you are very active in your cell group at your church there in Layfette. My girlfriend lives done in Kaplan and has a work there and she has mentioned your church there with it's cell groups. I'm in a home missions church and we have been there for about 5 yrs. We are having no growth. Sad to say no outreach and no fellowship get togethers either. I'm going through a struggle right now because of it. We have had as high as almost 50 2 yrs ago at Easter to now only about 20 and that's only if everyone shows up on Sunday morning. I am interested in reaching souls in my neighborhood and at my work and would love to see our church filled up but, until this happens something else must take place. This cell group was interesting to me but, don't know how to go about to start it. Does your church have seminars on how bring this to pass and on how this all works. I'd appreciate any other information that I can give my pastor so he can look into this more. We all have to do more. The Lord is coming back soon and we must reach the lost. Thanks for any input.