Final Project Submitted

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INTRODUCTION
It is a familiar scene; an attractive young couple comes into a pastor’s office to
talk about scheduling a baptism for their newborn child who is with her grandmother for
the evening. They sit down in at the small conference table in the church office. The
instructional materials, congregational policy, register paperwork, along with two Bibles
are set out for them. The pastor notices their long glances at the Bibles sitting before
them. The couple seems tense; they are in unfamiliar territory. The pastor tries to put
them at ease with a warm smile and some small talk, but when he invites the couple to
pray, they nervously bow their heads bringing their chins to their chests, their elbows
close to their sides and folding their tense hands. The pastor prays a short prayer of
welcoming and thanksgiving for this couple. At its conclusion, there is a long exhale
from both young parents. They give the same exact exhale as when they receive their flu
shot.
As the pastor then begins to explain the Lutheran understanding of baptism, the
couple is intrigued. They love their baby and they joyfully receive the Good News that
she will be connected to Christ forever. When the pastor directs the couple to the Bible
to show them that this is fundamental to the Christian faith, the tension completely
returns. The pastor announces that they will read a passage from the third and fourth
chapters of St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians. The young man and woman fumble
nervously with the Bible searching the Old Testament until the pastor announces that
they can find the passage on page 1001 of the Bibles before them. As they turn to the
page, the pastor points out the exact paragraph by placing his arm across the table and

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showing the husband where the passage is. Both husband and wife are ashamed. He
went to Catholic schools as a child and she was a daughter of this very congregation.
They both feel they should have known more.
There can be another scene. Nine people gathered in a living room of a small
starter house of a couple in their thirties. They are of diverse ages. There are some
children playing in the finished basement. The people gathered talk about how their day
was and how their week is going. After a few minutes, a middle-aged woman leads the
people in song of praise and a small liturgy. The group then sits down and the young
father who lives in this house begins to lead a Bible study on the biblical text their pastor
preached on the previous Sunday. They discuss how this text applies to the experiences
and life they are living today. As questions about the text arise, they consult the sheet
provided by their pastor, which provides some historical and literary background
information about the text.
After about 20 minutes with the text, the young mother who lives in the house
begins to ask people for their prayer requests for the evening. She announces that their
first prayers will be for the young couple that is here for the first time. They plan to have
their daughter baptized at the church and the pastor asked them to come to this meeting as
part of their preparation for the sacrament. The infant carrier sits on the floor next to the
sofa where they are sitting. The people gathered all congratulate the couple and welcome
them to their community. The group presents the couple with a Bible; there is a personal
message from each person present inside the front cover. The leader then gives them a
copy of Luther’s Small Catechism, and asks the people present to read the section on
baptism with the couple. Some others share about their own child’s baptism. They

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conclude the gathering with prayer and they lay hands on the new couple; they are
moved. As they are walking out to go home they comment on how they have never felt
this way before at church and they are glad.
As I have ministered in New Jersey these past 13 years, I have met countless
people like the couple described in the opening paragraph above. Many people who are
coming to our congregations are coming from diverse backgrounds, but they all seem to
have one thing in common, a basic unfamiliarity with traditional Christian practices such
as daily prayer, Bible reading, witness, serving, and giving. Alongside this phenomenon,
there is a feeling that our lives are becoming more isolated all the time. Even as
communication technology breeds, an exponential number of new ways for people
communicate it seems that people are becoming more distant from each other. Facebook,
My Space, Twitter, text and email are no substitute for a direct look in the eye, or gentle
and comforting handshake, as they share a story of meaning face to face.
A pastor’s attraction to the cell group method would come from two basic needs
of ministry: the first being to invite and encourage people to come into community with
Christ and others, the second to help equip people to grow in their relationship with Jesus
Christ. Students of theology who wish to see how church structure informs our
theological thinking should be attracted to the theological implications of being the
church in this way. Ordinary people are attracted to the possibility of having purposeful
and powerful relationships with others centered in Jesus Christ.
Cell groups are no mere program of the church they are an intentional way to
structure the church to be a community in Christ. They represent an attempt to build a
more horizontal or bottom up way of being the church than the dominant approach in

4
most churches.1
Whether this attempt succeeds or not is an open question that will not be
addressed in this study. The vision of community laid out by those who espouse cell
groups will be examined to see how it might help us structure our churches in a way that
helps people encounter the present Christ.
If this structure can foster genuine Christian community then it demands a fair
hearing and viewing. Lutherans confess “(I)t is enough for the true unity of the church to
agree concerning the teaching of the Gospel and the administration of the sacraments. It
is not necessary that human traditions, rites, or ceremonies, instituted by human beings be
alike everywhere.”2
How we organize, our communities should be open for discussion so
long as they are centered in Christ present in Word and Sacrament. We should regularly
reflect on whether or not our congregational structures help us proclaim and teach the
Gospel (enthusiastically!) and administer the sacraments rightly (& lovingly!). In 1526,
Martin Luther wishing to consolidate the work of the Reformation within the structure of
the congregation3
expressed such a desire by writing in his “German Mass and Order of
Service”
The third kind of service should be a truly evangelical order and should not be held in
a public place for all sorts of people. But those who want to be Christians in earnest
and who profess the gospel with hand and mouth should sign their names and meet
alone in a house somewhere to pray, to read, to baptize, to receive the sacrament, and
to do other Christian works.
In short, if one had the kind of people and persons who wanted to be Christians in
earnest, the rules and regulations would soon be ready. But as yet I neither can nor
desire to begin such a congregation or assembly or to make rules for it. For I have not
yet the people or persons for it, nor do I see many who want it. But if I should be
1
Neighbour, Ralph, Where Do We Go From Here? A Guidebook for the Cell Group Church, (Houston:
Touch Publications, 2000), 67-69.
2
Kolb, Robert, & Timothy Wengert, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church, (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000), 43.
3
Schwarz, Reinhard, Luther, (Göttingen: Vandenhoek and Ruprecht, 1986), 164.

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requested to do it and could not refuse with a good conscience, I should gladly do my
part and help as best I can.4
As it was in Luther’s day there may indeed be a chasm between the vision of the church,
as it should be and the reality of the church we actually live in. This does not make
striving for the ideal of a more intentional and intensive Christian community any less
compelling. As faithful followers of Jesus Christ, we must proceed forward in hope. We
should never forget despite the fact that our communities are oft broken and barely
functional at times that that is not the point. The point is Jesus, who is met and lived with
in community as we gather in the company of our sisters and brothers in the faith.
4
Luther, Martin, Luther's Works, Vol. 53: Liturgy and Hymns, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald
and Helmut T. Lehmann, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1965), 63.

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CHAPTER 1:
THE CELL VISION OF THE BODY OF CHRIST
Cell group ministry is a very special and unique way for Christians to minister to
one another. What differentiates cell ministry from all other types of ministry that may
go on in a particular church such as Bible study, Sunday school, youth group, service,
and outreach ministries, is that each cell sees itself as the Body of Christ. Each cell is an
intentional expression of the Body of Christ in the home where it meets. Each cell is not
only part of the wider church-- it is church. The cell is a way to experience the church;
more accurately is a way for the assembled believers to be the church.5
If indeed the cell
is church, then Jesus Christ is present with, among, and as the cell. In his Berlin lectures
of 1933 Dietrich Bonhoeffer proclaimed “Just as Christ is present as Word and in the
Word as sacrament and in the sacrament, so he is present as Church in the Church.”6
Thus, the term “cell” reveals what these groups are supposed to be. If the church
is the living Body of Christ, it must be an organism, therefore just as cells make up
organisms so the Body of Christ must have component cells. It also describes how the
groups should grow. An organism grows through cell division, so does the Body of
Christ.7
This division not only accounts for the growth of the cells but also for their
eventual death. Cells will die just as they do in any organism. Unlike most ministries
that do not account for the decline of the ministry, the cell church understands that death
is part of the process of ministry as groups are intentionally encouraged to disband if they
are not growing after a certain period.8
5
Neighbour, Where Do We Go, 9-10.
6
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Christ the Center, (New York : Harper and Row, 1966), 58.
7
Neighbour, Where Do We Go, 86.
8
Boren, M. Scott, Making Cell Groups Work: Navigating the Transformation to a Cell Based Church,
(Houston: Cell Groups Resources, 2002), 140-141.

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The cell church sees communities in biological terms. Just as an organism must
have diverse types of all its cells to function so must the Body of Christ.9
The cells
realize that they are not self-contained units of the church but rather that they are diverse
parts of a larger structure of church life.10
Additionally as organisms have more than one
function so does the cell. The cell group way of being the body Christ is holistic in
nature. Each cell is a holistic part of the larger church and necessarily has more than one
function. While cell groups fellowship, they are more than a fellowship. While cell
groups study the Bible, they are more than a Bible study. While cell groups minister,
they are more than a ministry. While cell groups pray, they are more than a prayer group.
By doing some of each, the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts.
The vision for cell groups is that they will be communities in Christ that are tied
together to form the Body of Christ. Those who look to the cell model of the church
advocate what they see as a different way of being the church that is a more vibrant
alternative to the ways that we are being the church today. They argue that this way of
being church is a simply an attempt to reform the church to be structured more faithfully
to our scriptural witness of what the church should be.
The contrast is that between a church that tries to build community and the church
that tries to run programs. Cell church advocate and missionary Ralph Neighbour argues
that American Christian churches regardless of denominational affiliation have lost their
way because of they have been built around the execution of program whereas Scripture
calls us to be part of community (koinonia) in Christ.11
There is no inherent problem
with programs; there is only a problem when people promote programs as an end in and
9
1st
Corinthians 12: 4-31.
10
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of themselves. Healthy and faithful ministry programs should always be a means to an
end, which is community in Christ. Programs can lead us astray when they become idols
and therefore an end in and of themselves.
In contrast, because cell groups are communities specifically built to encounter
Christ, they more effectively approximate the goal of the church to provide Christian
community. This is because in the cell group the prime criterion is the encounter with
Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. The cell vision uses a structure of small gatherings
of Christians to be the means to the end of community in Christ. Its only goal is the
corporate encounter with the triune God. Growth in numbers of believers attending the
church, or the edification of disciples, is an outgrowth of the encounter with Christ in the
cell community. However, the first focus is always being “in Christ”.
There is always a difference between the vision and the reality, which it attempts
to describe. This is certainly true of the cell vision at times. There will also always be
gaps and blind spots in the vision. One must remember that the people who make up the
community of the cell church are simultaneously sinners and saints. However, the cell
church movement has something to witness to the wider church about what it means to be
members of Christ’s body.
The History: a Burned-out Pastor and the Book of Acts
In 1964 pastor David Yongii Cho was the pastor of a 2400 member church in
Seoul South Korea. That year he underwent a physical, psychological, emotional, and
spiritual breakdown due to his exhaustion of trying to minister to this congregation and to

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satisfy his own personal ambition for that church to grow. 12
As he wrestled with what
God was doing in his life, he was led to the book of Acts. He began to understand that
the church should never be dependent on the personal ministry of an individual pastor.
The church should be a place where “God’s servants are given to the church to equip the
lay people so that the lay people can carry out the ministry both inside and outside the
church.”13
The orientating verses for his vision were Acts 2:46-47 “Day by day, as they
spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with
glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And
day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” (NRSV)
Pastor Cho saw that there was more to a vibrant church life than corporate
worship alone, there also had to be a place for more intimate gatherings where one could
live out their faith on a daily basis in their own homes. Therefore, he decided to
commission the deacons of his church to hold church in their houses. They would still
gather for the corporate worship on Sunday but they would meet during the week in the
homes of the church leaders for worship, study, prayer and ministry. 14
The two-part
pattern of small cell meetings combined with a corporate celebration would become one
of the hallmarks of cell group ministry.
Through many challenges, the church had released the God-given growth
potential of the laity over the succeeding years. By 1980, The Central Full Gospel
Church had over 8000 cell groups and exceeded 100,000 members. The church currently
has over 25,000 groups and a membership over 250,000 people making it the largest
individual protestant congregation in the world. Pastors from around the world went to
12
Cho, David Yongii, Successful Home Cell Groups, (Gainesville Fl: Bridge Logos, 1981), 4-6.
13
Cho, Home Cell Groups, 16.
14
Cho, Home Cell Groups, 18-19.

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Korea to learn the model. Huge cell churches sprang up in other places around the world.
Cell churches in Bogotá Columbia, the Ivory Coast, El Salvador, Ecuador, India, and
Singapore to name a few would duplicate the exponential growth found in Korea. By
some estimates, as many as 75 million Christians participate in cell groups worldwide.15
Naturally, such dramatic growth drew people’s attention and there was a rush to
embrace the model of the cell church as a magical way to enable exponential
congregational member growth. For the most part the pastors from the United States who
would go to Korea to learn the model would have a different experience. What happened
when most of them returned to the United States and tried to adopt the model was that it
did not work as expected. They faced misunderstandings and opposition in parishes as
well as within denominational structures.16
What had actually happened was quite easy to see. Many churches adopted Cho’s
model of the cell church unreflectively. They forgot the simple maxim that the context
matters. The model that works in one context will probably not work in another if it is
adopted unreflectively.17
People also did not critically examine where the barriers to
implementation might be. They were naively unaware that people who had a stake in
current structures of ministry would want to hold on to their ways of doing ministry that
they were used to and had sometimes served them well. People were used to behaving as
the church in certain ways and for many the cell church was far removed from what they
had experienced as church. As a result, some who advocated cell churches began to argue
15
Boren, Making Cell Groups Work, 17.
The International Charismatic Mission of Bogotá is the second largest individual protestant congregation
in the world with over 20,000 cell groups.
16
17
Schwarz, Christian, Natural Church Development: A Guide to Eight Essential Qualities of Healthy
Churches, VI Edition, (St. Charles IL: Church Smart, 2003), 17.

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that one should concentrate solely on new church plants as it is easier to build from the
ground up rather than transform an existing congregation.18
For many others the vision of the cell church as genuine community in Christ
would not die. What slowly started to happen during the 1990’s is that churches of
nearly every denomination and theological persuasion began to experiment with cell
groups in one form or another. They began to use the principles espoused by the cell
church movement and apply them in their context. Many churches then began see new
life as they adopted the principles of the cell church rather than simply copying the
model. Indeed many evangelical and mainline congregations proved quite capable of
applying the principles in new and creative ways.19
Other small group systems would
spring from this well. Although not cell groups per se they were influenced by the cell
movement, the most well known of these is the meta-church model. 20
What are Cell Groups?
At first glance, cell groups seem to be simple to define. The standard definition is
that of a group of 4-15 people who meet in homes for edification, fellowship and prayer.
Indeed many churches today have thriving small group ministries. Cell groups differ
from other small group structures in that congregations who use this concept see that each
cell group is a fundamental building block of the congregation. The cell concept fosters a
structure where congregants can experience Christian community one relationship at a
18
19
20
French, David, A Case Study of the Home Cell Group Approach in a Small Suburban Church,
(Memphis, TN: DMin diss. Harding University Graduate School of Religion, 1995), 30.

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time on a basic level. The small groups are not seen as a program or component of a
congregation’s ministry; they are seen as being an identical expression of the ministry of
the entire congregation. Each cell group meeting thus becomes an intentional ministry
point of the congregation. 21
The over-arching goal of the cell is to build up believers so that they can reach
out. Both sides of the equation need to be present in order for a thriving cell ministry to
develop. If only concerned about building up the individual the groups become atrophied
and too close knit. The groups therefore eventually stagnate and die. If the groups only
focus on bringing new people in, they lose the opportunity for real and sustainable
growth and quickly fly apart. 22
For this reason, churches that wish to experiment with
cell groups must be intentional about making sure that groups both build up and reach
out.
“The cell agenda in a nutshell is to fulfill the greatest of all the commandments: to
love one another. To love one another inside (edify) the cell must minister. To
love one another outside (evangelize) the cell must multiply… The cell is both
inward looking and outward looking. It seeks to help each cell member grow into
ministry. Most of all however, is the importance of the group being outward
looking, bringing Christ into the lives of un-reached people” 23
The combined principle of edification/ evangelism is one of the most important
underlying characteristics of multiplying cell churches. A simple way cell churches
facilitate this within small group meetings is with the concept of the open chair. This is
just an empty chair that tells people there is always room for one more. On a deeper
level, the empty chair becomes the open chair because it is an object of focus and prayer
reminding people that the group is always a public one. It means that the group is
21
Boren, Making Cell Groups Work, 20-21.
22
Hadaway, C. Kirk, Home Cell Groups and House Churches, (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1987), 113.
23
Geok, Ong Swee & Ralph W. Neighbor, Cell Leaders Guidebook, (Singapore: Touch Outreach
Ministries, 1994), 20.

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always ready for the outsider to come in, always ready to help a stranger in need, and
therefore always has a place open for God.24
If the group is open for God, it is open “for
you”. Personal story and witness actually make the open chair possible. “When a home
cell meeting is full of life, and when people are happy and sharing their faith and
witnessing to what the Lord has done in their lives, other people are drawn to them…
they want to know why this little group of Christians is so joyful when around them are
so many troubles.”25
The edification /evangelism principle is not merely a goal or orientation but a
process that happens both within the individual believer and within the corporate life of
the group. Cell group strategists describe this process spatially as upward, inward,
outward, and forward. The groups first come together to worship God, so they focus
upward through prayer. They then work on the relationships within the group and focus
inward so that they start to care for each other both in the group and in daily life. The
groups then focus outward because they understand that God has placed them together
for the sake of the world so that they can help lost people become disciples. Finally, the
groups move forward when they learn how to listen to and follow Christ on a deeper level
of discipleship. The forward focus involves following the example of Christ and other
Christians and then mentoring others to follow Christ more closely. “Because true
disciples make other disciples”26
To facilitate the upward, inward, outward, forward process, cell groups are
intentionally structured in a holistic fashion. A typical meeting will contain four
24
Donahue, Bill & Russ Robinson, The Seven Deadly Sins of Sins of Small Group Ministry, (Grand Rapids
MI: Zondervan, 2002), 129-130.
25
Cho, Home Cell Groups, 56.
26

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components; the most common arrangement is called “the four W’s” which includes
portions designated for welcome, worship, Word, and work (or witness). The goal of the
welcome portion is to build relationships within the group. The goal of the worship
portion is to bond and strengthen one’s relation to God. The goal of the Word portion is
to determine God’s will for the life of the individual and the group so that both are built
up. The goal of the work portion is outreach. This portion begins with intercessory
prayer and moves to service with the goal of building new relationships with those
outside the group or working on some ministry task.27
The edification/ evangelism principle is also secured by monitoring the life of the
cell though accountability and oversight. Cell groups are arranged into a covenantal
system with direct oversight by the pastor and an appointed leadership team. Each lay
cell group leader serves at the pastor’s discretion alone and must belong to a leadership
team. At their weekly meetings, they report on the life of the cell and receive feedback,
support, and training. The pastor and the leadership team direct the overall life of the
cells and develop or choose the curricula used at the all the cell meetings.28
The groups and leaders are arranged into an oversight structure. Section leaders
are assigned for every five groups to monitor the quality of cell life in each and provide
support for them to thrive. Five section leaders are formed into a team and are
monitored by a zone pastor who is on the paid ministry staff. In midsized cell churches,
zone pastors would report directly to the senior pastor. In larger and mega- cell churches
five zone pastors will meet as a team under the supervision of a district pastor who
reports to the senior pastor. The system is designed to reach a consensus of the whole
27
Geok, Cell Leaders Guidebook, 20-21.
28

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under the vision of the senior pastor who is called to hold the community together by
safeguarding the vision and mission of the congregation 29
Accountability is also maintained by the fact that groups are allowed to die if they
are no longer growing. Most cell churches encourage cells to think about disbanding if
they have not had any new members within a certain period. If they choose to continue,
they receive coaching and direction to try to restart the life of the cell. Usually one can
see if the group is stagnating or not by assessing the life of the cell after six months.
Most often, if a cell does not multiply within one year it is never likely to do so.30
In addition to the edification / evangelism tension, a second tension is the
cell/celebration dynamic. The cells must see that they are part of the larger whole. The
cell meeting never supplants Sunday worship. The goal is to have each cell member
attending worship as well as the cell, and each worship attendee participates in cell life so
that the cell becomes the primary (in some cases exclusive) entry point in to the
congregation. In addition thriving cell churches also encourage people to participate in
congregation-wide equipping events (educational) and harvest (evangelism) events. 31
Most intentionally planted Cell churches will require all members of the church to
be cell members. Churches that are transitioning into the cell model will often differ with
this requirement until the cell movement within the congregation has reached enough
momentum. Others never fully embrace the cell model for this reason. The largest cell
church in the world Yoido Full Gospel in Seoul Korea has a formal cell membership
29
Dr. Cho’s system is commonly called the “5x5” structure. Another system used in many cell churches is
called the “groups of twelve” (G-12). In this system, the leaders of 12 cell teams are part of a leadership
team supervised by a team leader who is often a paid congregational staff member.
30
Boren, Making Cell Groups Work 140-41.
31

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requirement for all members of the congregation.32
Even though some churches trying
to build community through cell groups may not yet have a formal cell membership
requirement, all cell churches emphasize that small or cell group participation is the just
as important to the life of the believer than attendance in the corporate worship service.
Most cell systems start with a unified curriculum to balance the unity of the
church with the diversity of the cells. In Korea, Dr. Cho provides all the cells with a
standard text for all the cells to guard against the groups wandering away from the rest of
the community. The Word portion becomes the anchor that connects the groups together
with a common theme.33
Many cell churches introduce this theme and text in the sermon
each week before the cells dive in during their meetings. The goal is not for the groups to
rehash or repeat the sermon. Each leader is expected to plan and prepare a lesson that
meets the contextual needs of her or his cell. The goal is that the Word is applied to the
daily lives of those attending the cell.34
The Cell group as a Building Block of Basic Christian Community
Each cell is seen as a building block of basic Christian community. Cell life
becomes the central way people engage the community. This is at times controversial for
traditionally structured churches as this aspect stands in opposition to the core values of a
Christendom mindset.35
Many mainline churches over the years have emphasized the
32
33
Cho, Successful Home Cell Groups, 109.
34
Comiskey, Joel, How to Lead a Great Cell Group Meeting so People Want to Come Back, (Houston: Cell
Group Resources, 2001), 35.
35
Frost, Michael & Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st
Century Church, (Peabody MA: Hendrickson, 2003), 8.

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corporate communal life (main worship gathering) of the congregation over the intimate
communal life (small group) and the personal (one on one). Healthy Christian
communities should emphasize all three ways of being in community. Each way of being
in community has an effect on the health of the entire community. The presence of
holistic small groups is one the eight quality characteristics of healthy churches
determined by the church researcher Christian Schwarz, and this characteristic has been
shown to be the one most strongly linked to overall church health, because small groups
become microcosms of the whole church.36
Intentional relationships on all three levels
will help the individual Christian and the health of the community as a whole.
Thus cell groups are not only about themselves; they are about how each of the
groups and therefore each of the individuals that make up that group fit into the larger
whole. They are an intentional attempt to balance both unity and diversity. Dr. Cho
explains his commitment to both unity and diversity.
The size, the strength, and the influence of our congregation is not isolated from
the overall Church of Jesus Christ, nor is it isolated from a denomination. We are
in full fellowship with the Church universal and with our denomination, but first
and foremost we are a local church…I am demonstrating that the system of home
cell groups works within the local church and within established denominations.37
Therefore in many ways cell groups are a structure to help bridge the tensions between
discipleship and evangelism, between groups within the congregation and the
congregation as a whole, between the unity we have in Christ and the diversity of our
gifts, talents and experiences. It is in these tensions where we see the promise of cell
36
Schwarz, Christian, Paradigm Shift in the Church: How Natural Church Development Can Transform
Theological Thinking, (St. Charles IL: Church Smart, 1999), 170-71.
37

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ministry. We also see in them the challenges that need to be overcome if we are to be
more fully connected to each other and the Triune God as the Body of Christ.

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CHAPTER 2:
CORRESPONDING VISIONS OF BIBLICAL COMMUNITIES
Since the cell movement and method is all about building community in Christ it
becomes important to see how it corresponds to other examples of the faithful living in
community with God and each other. The New Testament authors wrote the gospels,
histories, letters, and revelations in order to be read to Christians living in communion
with Christ and their brothers and sisters in the faith. While we do not act out of an
impulse to restart an ideal community that is unjustified by the texts,38
we do need to look
at the principles, values, virtues, and the faithful witness of the communities reflected in
Scripture. As Scripture is the source and norm for Christian living we are called to
examine how our contemporary communities are both being faithful to the Spirit of the
biblical vision of community and how we may have diverted from the vision laid out for
us by Jesus and his faithful disciples. Cell groups have some very strong correlations to
the communities represented in the New Testament. We will briefly examine some of
them and show how biblical virtues of community are represented in the modern cell
group movement.
The Spirit Filled Communities (ekklhsia) of Acts
Acts charts the birth, rise, and growth of the church so it is the logical starting
point for those who seek to understand the nature of Christian community from the
Scriptural witness. Indeed, it was written for this very purpose. The evangelist Luke
38
Willimon, William H., Acts: Interpretation a Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, (Atlanta:
John Knox, 1988), 109.

20
paints an idealized portrait of the early church for the purpose of “formation and
equipment of disciples.”39
All the events of the early church described in Acts serve this
purpose. One learns not so much about how the church actually may have lived
historically but rather how the church of Luke’s day would like to be perceived and what
core virtues it holds dear. To this end, Luke sets out to show how God has the potential
to act in the lives of both individuals and communities.
The Holy Spirit is therefore the key agent in the unfolding drama of the
development of the early church. This gives the reader of Acts the clear message that
that same Holy Spirit will have the potential to break into the life God’s community in
the present. It is the coming of the Holy Spirit that represents both a starting point and
the literary high point of Luke’s account of the early church. Not only does the Spirit call
the community together, but the Pentecost experience of Acts 2:1-21 functions in the
exact same way that the account of the coming of the Holy Spirit at Jesus’ Baptism does
in Luke 3:21-22; the Spirit provides the impetus and authority for the work of ministry.40
In Acts 2:47 the growth in number of those who are being saved is seen as the direct
work of the Holy Spirit.
Acts paints a picture of the Spirit filled community. Luke presents a community
that is both charismatic but also intentionally structured to perform certain crucial
actions. Those who work with cell groups are attuned to this dynamic. Luke’s vision of
community is revealed in his description of the actions of those who make up the
community. These fledgling communities respond to struggles of identity, mission, and
39
Willimon, Acts, 4.
40
Rolloff, Jürgen, Die Apostelgeschicte: Das Neue Testement Deustch, Band 5, (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck
& Ruprecht, 1988), 37.

21
even conflict (Acts 15) just as contemporary Christian communities do.41
Luke shows
how many little Christian communities scattered in cities throughout the Roman Empire
are in fact one community gathered in Jesus’ name and filled with the one Holy Spirit.
“Churches composed of those who give heed to Christ arose wherever missionaries
shared the story of Jesus, in synagogues, homes, and the house churches.”42
The Spirit
always leads a person to Christ; just an encounter with Christ will always reveal the work
of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit regulates both the unity and diversity of the community.
Throughout the book of Acts Luke tracks the growth and expansion of the Holy
Spirit filled community in Christ on its march throughout the Roman Empire. The nature
of this community will be described early on in Acts 2:42-47 and the ideals lifted up in
this passage will show what an authentic Christian community grounded in Spirit filled
love should look like. The passage is a summary of the work of the Spirit throughout the
chapter that provides both a literary transition and a foreshadowing of how the
community will act in the remainder of the book of Acts.43
The basic elements of what
the community should be doing to live out their faith are presented in a concise four-part
form. This description will become critical for modern cell group proponents. The
summary shows that the gathered community in Christ “devoted themselves to the
apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”44
The gospel
proclaimed on Pentecost is no mere piece of abstract information but an embodied reality
that must be lived out through tangible actions. As seen in Chapter 1, those who espouse
the cell method of small groups will point to this witness that faith must be relationally
41
Willimon, Acts, 109.
42
Reumann, John, Variety and Unity in New Testament Thought: the Oxford Bible Series, (New York:
Oxford, 1991), 271.
43
Conzelmann, Hans, Grundriβ der Theologie des Neuen Testaments, (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1992), 312.
44
Acts 2:42 NRSV

22
lived out. Here in Acts 2:42 are contained in two groupings the four elements to the
embodied gospel, teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayers.45
The first pairing begins with the element of “devotion to the apostles teaching”.
The apostles according to Luke are the witnesses of the resurrection and their teaching
contains the message and implications of the Good Friday and Easter events. Their
teaching will make plain who Jesus is (Christology) and why the times are important
(eschatology). The teaching will also help the community deal with the day-to-day
questions of life. The apostles are the sent agents of Jesus; therefore, the apostolic
teaching will hearken back to Jesus’ teachings to resolve lifestyle and ethical questions.46
This teaching of the apostles also provides stability for the community. “The church is
not to drift from one momentary outburst to the next, to resuscitate Pentecost on a weekly
basis; rather the church moves immediately to the task of teaching, keeping itself straight
about what it is and what it is to be about.”47
The teaching of Jesus that the apostles
recount will point each member of the community to the reality that each person is called
to follow the one God and therefore will always have much in common.
The gospel is further embodied in the community through fellowship
(koinonia). In the second part of the first pairing, Luke reveals how teaching leads
to community. This fellowship is based on the common experience with Jesus the
Christ and the salvation that Christ gives each member of the community. The
recognition that all belongs to God and that people are free to hold things in “common”
(koina) becomes a visible sign of the unity each person has with the other in the
community of Christ. This commonality is neither economic, nor political, but
45
Willimon, Acts, 40-41.
46
Roloff, Apostlegeschicte, 66.
47
Willimon, Acts, 40.

23
theological. At the root of all of this is the common participation of each person in the
community in Christ.48
This community centered in the person and actions of Jesus will
function as an alternative family for those who make up the community. The believer
will understand that the categories where one was assigned to by society no longer
matter.49
This realization leads those gathered in Jesus’ name to compassion and
concrete acts of inclusion of others who call on God’s name.
The natural implications of living in community leads to the second pairing of
Acts 2:42, which starts with the breaking of the bread. It is yet another “tangible and
visible expression of the work of the Spirit.”50
Much more than some mere social
gathering, the work of the Spirit through provides a picture of the joy-filled end time
meal of Jesus.51
This meal is one where all the barriers within the world that artificially
separate God’s children from one another are broken down. Whether or not this was the
formal practice of the Lord’s Supper, one cannot deny that the physical act of eating with
others is a breaking down of the walls between people. By this simple fact alone, it acts
as a “sacramental religious activity.”52
The breaking of the bread itself most certainly has
its origins in the table fellowship practiced Jesus himself.53
One could see that the one
who had eaten with tax collectors, sinners, and Pharisees would leave behind a practice of
eating with one another to show how God’s boundaries are different from the culture at
large.
48
Roloff, Apostelgeschichte, 66.
49
Wright NT, The New Testament and the People of God, (Minneapolis: Fortress,1992), 448.
50
Willimon, Acts, 41.
51
Bultmann, Rudolf, Theologie Des Neuen Testaments, (Tübingen: JCB Mohr, 1984), 43.
52
Willimon, Acts, 41.
53
Bultmann, Theologie, 61.

24
Prayer is the obvious final element. All call to the one God just as the people of
Israel do. The apostles appear to have kept the Jewish hours of prayer for daily devotions
(Acts 3:1). 54
This devotion to prayer predates the Holy Spirit’s initial formation of the
community at Pentecost (Acts 1:14). Prayer is a universal religious activity and yet in the
context of Acts it becomes honed to a razor focus. Prayer becomes the method by which
the community comes to anticipate the next drama to unfold by the Spirit’s leading.
Through prayer the community is called and sent (Acts 10:9,13:3), hearts are prepared for
faith through the coming of the Spirit (Acts 10:2, 16:13), new communities are
established (Acts 14:23), the faithful survive adversity (Acts 7:59, 16:25,26:29), and
God’s power is made manifest (Acts 9:40,12:5, 27:29, 28:8). Devotion to prayer is even
a recognized full-time activity of the faithful (Acts 6:4). For Luke prayer is always
sufficient and enough because it paves the way for the work of the Spirit.
In the pattern of Acts 2:42, the final element prayer is tied to the meal, as it is in
Judaism where a blessing is said over the bread and the cup of wine. 55
Luke ties the four
elements together in order to show how all the elements of the community work together
and how each are related to one another. Apostolic teaching shows how we should
understand our common life in Christ. Witnessing the power of breaking bread together
leaves us no response but to lift up prayer in order to praise God for breaking downs the
barriers of sin, and to petition the Spirit to make this reality more manifest in us, our
cities and world. All together, this summary of the community life draws to our attention
that for Luke the community is the chief focal point of God’s redemptive activity in Acts.
54
Willimon, Acts, 41.
55
Bultmann, Apostelgeschichte, 61.

25
This community is well rounded and yet focused on its Savior. 56
One will notice that all
the communities of Acts will act in ways faithful to the summary description laid out in
Acts 2:42.
Luke shows that the community although grounded in the teaching of the apostles
is always ready to adapt to new circumstances as in the controversy with the Hellenists in
Acts 6:1-7. Being ready to adapt actually demonstrates faithfulness to the Holy Spirit.
Acts 6 reveals some basic facts about the Christian community according to Luke. The
first is that “Leadership within the church arises from the community’s quite mundane
and functional needs.”57
In Acts 6:1-7 the seven are chosen because the widows of the
Hellenists are being neglected. This situation arose out of the practical reality that, as
members of the ancient Diaspora community they were a long distance from their place
of settlement and from immediate relatives who could care for them. The Hebrew
widows in contrast would more likely have intimate family and connections nearby. The
early Christian community remains true its Jewish roots and maintains philanthropic
attitudes and actions toward these widows. The growth of the community resulted in the
consequence that there were now more widows than the community could handle
previously.58
The answer to the crisis; raise up and empower some leaders.
The second fact of community leadership according to Luke is that true Spirit led
leadership arises from below and does not trickle down through some authorized
hierarchy. “The process of ordination moves (bottom up) - leaders arise from the needs
of God’s people for guidance and service. At the same time leadership is from above, a
56
Willimon, Acts, 42.
57
Willimon, Acts, 59.
58
Roloff, Apostelgeschicte, 109.

26
gift from the Lord.”59
Luke shows God’s power from above by recounting central truths
about Jesus and the power of God through the Holy Spirit. At the same time, he
demonstrates objectively how the people affected by the Spirit live faithful lives of
discipleship from below. The power of the Spirit and the Grace of God come down
directly to the community of disciples who are working things out on the ground. God
meets the faithful where they are. The mediation for Luke happens through the
community as a whole.60
The third fact of community leadership revealed is that the Spirit ordained
leadership is always an adaptation for the present circumstances. When the
circumstances change, the leadership will change. The twelve Apostles are wrestling
with that change in Acts 6. The Seven will be sent soon be sent to new positions of
leadership as missionaries. So Spirit filled leadership is always growing and evolving. 61
Luke would find the later church practice of static offices of ministry to be alien to his
portrayal of the community in Acts.
Each individual Christian community in Acts now matter how dynamic, cannot
have it all; it must be a part of the larger body of Christ. The community at Antioch was
foundational to the formation of Christianity. In this community, one can notice for the
first time that the Christian community is no longer a mere sect of Judaism but a
community grounded in its exclusive identity with Christ.62
In Acts 11:19-29 the Antioch
church while explosively growing needed the moorings of strong and sound teaching that
Paul and Barnabas would bring. At the same time the Jerusalem church, which was in
59
Willimon, Acts, 59.
60
Conzelmann, Hans, The Theology of St. Luke, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1961), 207.
61
62
Becker, Jürgen, Paulus: Der Apostel der Völker, (Tübingen: JCB Mohr, 1989), 107.

27
dire need because of famine, would need the material help of the sisters and brothers in
Antioch. There is a sense of flow in both directions, Antioch could only truly be a
community in Christ if it maintained the apostolic teaching; Jerusalem could only
continue to exist if it promoted mission. The relationship between Jerusalem and Antioch
shows that not only must the church grow and evangelize, but that the new Christians
must also be nurtured in the faith with the teaching of the apostles. 63
Luke shows that
evangelism must always lead to discipleship teaching. The guides to that teaching are the
Christians who have lived out the faith before, both those living today and those who are
of the communion of saints awaiting the final resurrection who lived Spirit filled-lives of
purpose and power.
Luke demonstrates this twofold pattern early on in Acts 2:46 as the early
Christians of Jerusalem meet in homes, break bread, and go to the temple. Their home
meetings are not a separatist endeavor. They meet in the temple to carry on the sound
teaching and worship handed down to them by their Jewish ancestors and Jesus himself.64
They honor and hold on to the sound teaching and practice of the faith while living out
the dynamism of the Spirit. In Antioch they will see that the Jerusalem church “and the
Twelve who reside there stand as a warning to the church that (when) we ignore our past,
we jettison the apostolic ‘facts’ of our faith at the greatest of peril.”65
Dr. Cho relied heavily on the book of Acts for his leadership in bringing about the
cell church movement. One can see there are many obvious parallels between the cell
method and vision of the community Luke portrays in Acts. With the orientating verse
of Acts 2:46, the cell/celebration dynamic is the first one comes that to mind. At first
63
64
Roloff, Apostelgeschichte, 67.
65
Willimon, Acts, 107.

28
glance, one may think this dynamic is only about the spaces and groups where the church
meets. The cells meet in homes and then a public place for the wider celebration.
While this is a healthy way of organizing and meeting together as an extended
community, the real reasons become apparent upon a deeper meditation of the book of
Acts. The celebration helps keep the cells grounded in genuine apostolic Christian
teaching, while the cells help people experience the Spirit on an intimate, free, and
bottom up level. The Lucan balance of sound teaching and freedom of the Spirit is given
structure through the cell/ celebration dynamic of the cell church. Ralph Neighbour
maintains that it is critical that the senior or head cell church pastor must be a charismatic
and anointed leader;66
Luke reminds us that he or she must also be grounded in Christ
centered sound Biblical and apostolic teachings handed down from the living and
historically faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. The committed cell pastor must have the
same the commitment that he or she instructs the cell leaders to have; each must always
remember he or she is a part of a wider body of Christ.
In a healthy cell church, the cells should provide place for the Holy Spirit to work
through the disciples as Luke portrays in the book of Acts. The Lucan archetype of Acts
2:42 shown above is a kindred spirit in the intentional and holistic nature of the cell
meeting with its four “W’s”. Prayer and breaking down of barriers happens in the
presence of the Holy Spirit. Teaching about how to live life as God calls and
understanding how we have both our sin and redemption in Christ in common can happen
through the gathering of Christian community through the cell. The gospel is embodied
as the Body of Christ through the holistic cell meeting; Christ’s body meets in a home as
a gathered band of disciples. Also in common with Luke’s vision, cell churches provide
66

29
space for bottom up leadership through delegation and multiplication. Leaders like the
Seven of Acts 6 are encouraged to grow in new directions of leadership as the Spirit leads
them. All this happens within the community of Christ, which like Luke’s portrayal of
the early church cares and supports those in the fellowship as family in Christ.
The final parallel is the edification/evangelism dynamic as shown above this is
right out of the book of Acts. The Antioch assembly must be taught and nurtured for a
year by Paul and Barnabas. When they are ready, the Antioch church must send out its
teachers to new Christians to share the Good News. As demonstrated in Chapter 1, this
same dynamic is a hallmark of how the cell church lives as a discipleship community.
Believers are built up in order to be sent out.
The Community (ekklhsia) in Jesus Christ of Matthew
Matthew’s Gospel is another important place in scripture to look at the nature of
what it means to be a community in Christ. Matthew will have a different take on
community than Luke does. One will clearly notice that while Luke emphasizes the role
of the Spirit, Matthew will emphasize the presence of Jesus Christ at the center of the
community. Thus, Matthew provides both a corresponding and complementary witness to
the nature of Christian community shown above in Acts. Cell leaders will also use
Matthew’s vision to guide their churches faithfully live out the gospel.
Although the community is only explicitly mentioned in Matthew Chapters 16
and 18, Jesus’ presence in the community of disciples throughout the Gospel is an
underlying reality that cannot be denied. In Matthew 1:23 quoting Isaiah, Jesus’ birth is

30
proclaimed as meaning “God is with us”. In Matthew 28:20, the risen Jesus promises to
be with us until the end of the age. In Matthew 18:20, Jesus promises to be with the
community whenever it gathers in his name.
One can see this community most clearly in that same 18th
chapter of Matthew’s
Gospel. Where the author paints a vivid picture of a community that lies behind the text.
By examining this text in particular, one can find out about the ideals and values of this
community of disciples. Matthew reveals in Chapter 18 a basic form of living in a
community of disciples. The materials presented in the chapter are highly relevant for
the long-term maintenance of the church’s fellowship.67
They also seem to be born out of
the actual experiences of this group of disciples behind the text who are actually in
community and working through the challenges of maintaining healthy relationships with
each other.
The chapter starts with the admonition to welcome the children and that in doing
so one will welcome Jesus (Mt 18:1-5). Humility and sacrifice to maintain relationships
is also a crucial component for maintaining this community (Mt. 18:6-9). Central to the
chapter is the parable of the lost sheep (Mt. 18:10-14) which reveals the importance of
maintaining the cohesion of the community. The chapter also deals with reconciliation
and conflict, which is inventible consequence of sinful human beings participating in
community. In the chapter a disciplinary internal judicial process to govern the life of the
community is represented in a detailed fashion (Mt. 18:15-20).68
The virtue of this
process is its promotion of transparency, as conflict is not ignored or minimized, but
67
Hare, Douglas R. A., Mathew, Douglas Hare, Interpretation: a Bible Commentary for Preaching and
Teaching, ( Louisville: John Knox Press, 1993), 208.
68
Overman, Andrew, Church and Community in Crisis: the Gospel according to Matthew, (Valley Forge
PA: Trinity Press International, 1996), 262.

31
revealed to the community so that it can be brought before God in prayer to bring about
communal healing. The chapter ends with Jesus’ admonition to Peter to be as persistent
in his forgiveness as God is persistent.
The nature of persistent forgiveness is explained in its fullness in the parable of
the unforgiving servant (Mt.18: 21-35); forgiveness demonstrates one’s true commitment
to the community. The unforgiving debtor betrays his fellow slaves by his total lack of
empathy. He indeed shows by his actions that he was never really a part of this tightly
bound community. 69
In contrast, Jesus’ guaranteed presence (Mt. 18:20) is a
demonstration of his persistent forgiveness of the community that gathers in his name.
The structure of Matthew 18 reveals a community committed to active inclusiveness,
compassion, humility, and understanding that comes together to meet its Lord Jesus.
Despite all that is revealed, one should be careful not equate Matthew’s
community with the modern church. For Matthew, the term often translated “church”
(ekklhsia) at a basic level means the assembly or community of disciples. This
assembly shown in Matthew does not have any institutional overtones; it only tries to
describe how disciples are in community. ekklhsia simply means the community of
disciples of Jesus. 70
Matthew 18 clearly focuses on the internal life of the assembly of
disciples in contrast to Acts with its external focus. The emphasis on reconciliation and
group integrity that we see played out in Matthew 18 serves a practical function of giving
the community of disciples the knowledge and tools they will need to have to survive the
tribulations explained by Jesus in the final extended teaching passage of the gospel
69
Patte, Daniel, The Gospel According to Matthew, (Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 1987), 257.
70
Wright, People of God, 386.

32
(chapters 24-25). They will realize that they are stronger when they are together in Jesus’
presence than when they are scattered.
Matthew 18 also falls between Jesus’ second and third passion predictions of the
Gospel.71
This sets the context of the teaching that Jesus gives in this chapter. The
passion of Jesus will have a fundamental and foundational effect on the community itself.
It will change the way that the disciples belong to and act in community. The self-denial
of Jesus going to the cross on behalf of others will become the prime example of what it
means to be in community. The thread of self-denial runs throughout each individual
section of teaching within the chapter.72
Acts of Christian self-denial for each member of
the community of disciples become the building blocks of a consensus to maintain unity.
Chapter 18 will explain both the ideal and intrinsic value of self-denial, and explain how
to live it out in a community in a healthy way. One will understand that self-denial
should not mean self-destruction for the disciple. The idea is highlighted particularly in
verses 18:15-20 “where both sinner and offender are given protection by the assembly.”73
The goal of the community is to live out the teachings of Jesus in an energetic, affirming,
and healthy way.
Chapter 18 of Matthew has been called a “community rule.”74
While not as
comprehensive a rule as the Rule of St. Benedict, it does reveal how those who follow
Jesus should be in community with God and each other. The picture painted by Matthew
is one of a community that balances the needs of the many with the needs of the one. The
community is composed of individuals who are so valuable, that the community as a
71
Schweitzer, Eduard, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus, (Göttingen & Zürich: Vandenhoeck & Rupprecht,
1986), 233.
72
Patte, Matthew, 245.
73
Schweitzer, Matthäus, 242.
74
Schweitzer, Eduard, The Church in the New Testament, (1965, NY: Herder and Herder), 74.

33
whole must sometimes sacrifice to minister to the one individual. The dignity of the
individual is protected at all times. Each person is as valuable as the next. There is no
office or position of prestige represented where one has either expanded responsibilities
or honors. Those who are in trouble rightly receive extra attention, but that is only a
situational reality and not an ontological one.
The other side of this balance is that the community must protect itself from being
consumed by an individual agenda. For without the community itself, there will be no
individual disciples. The process keeping the community together is measured and
careful. It protects people who are in dispute with one another, but it always remembers
the priceless nature of community so that no one is allowed to harm or destroy it.
Matthew’s community is a realistic community and understands that there will be
conflicts, so transparency and honesty are lifted up as prime virtues. A community such
as Matthew’s recognizes that some will not be able to live within its ideals or its bounds.
Good communication is encouraged and modeled to keep problems small and avoid
unforeseen disturbances. Prayer is a necessity to keep the disciples aware of God’s will
for their individual and collective lives. The community sees that individual relationships
are very important. The healthy maintenance of those relationships is encouraged. Small
gatherings become a critical place where the needs of the individual are balanced by the
needs of the whole.
The values of the community inspired by Jesus are only lived out one relationship
at a time. The core values of this community are based on the values of Jesus: humility,
openness, acceptance, sacrifice, and self-denial balanced with self-esteem. The
individual relationship each has with another within the community is modeled on the

34
prime relationship of the believer: the relationship to Jesus himself. The believer’s
relationship to Jesus is in turn modeled on Jesus’ relationship with the Father. Each
disciple is a child: dependent on God, open to new things and people. The community
itself is a tapestry of individual relationships united in the one relationship that each
person has with the Son of Man.
This is a utopian community in the best sense of the word. The community is a
good place for anyone to be. It is also a utopian community in that it represents an ideal
to shoot for and not concrete reality in either history or the present. The representation
of the community in Matthew 18 is a “goal directed norm” for an actual community to
move toward finding. No church or community (even, or especially Matthew’s) in the
past or in the present has fully lived out Jesus’ teachings. 75
What we can say is that
some have lived Jesus’ teachings more vibrantly than others. We can also say that some
structures that disciples use to create community are more faithful to that vision of Jesus
than others. In its best sense, Matthew 18 can be used as a foil to compare our modern
Christian communities with the ideals laid down by Jesus and his community. We can
also look at Christian communities of other times, places and cultures, then compare
them to Matthew 18 and see what we can learn from them so that we can move toward
being the people of God in new and more life giving ways.
The community fostered by contemporary cell groups is far more structured and
organized than the one revealed in Matthew’s Gospels, however the virtues of the cell
group system correspond well to the vision of community laid out in Matthew 18. As in
Matthew, the groups explicitly gather to encounter Jesus and likewise cell groups take
75
Soares-Prabhu, George M., The Dharma of Jesus, Francis X. D’sa, editor, (Maryknoll NY: Orbis, 2003),
183-84.

35
relationships extremely seriously. The edification/evangelism principle of cell groups
corresponds well to Matthew 18 where the lost sheep are found, children are welcomed,
people examine their lives for stumbling blocks, learn humility, and practice forgiveness.
Because there is built in accountability in the cell group system there is also a high degree
of transparency. Leaders meet in their leadership team meetings to foster that
transparency so that as in Matthew 18:15-20 relationships can be restored through the
reconciliation of Jesus.
The cell vision and the vision of the community of Matthew have much in
common and Matthew 18 can provide churches that minister through cells a model for
disciples of how to relate to one another within the cells. The most obvious parallel is
Jesus’ guaranteed presence in even the smallest group of disciples possible (two!). “For
where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them."76
St. Paul: The Church in Their House (kat oikon autwn ekklhsian)
Because the theology of St. Paul has been foundational to the founding of our
faith, it is often easy to forget that all of his letters were written to people on a personal as
well as a theological level. In the salutations and greetings at the beginning and ending
of his letters one sees the names of those with whom he was corresponding. The
communities to whom Paul wrote did not meet in a public building or social hall; they
met in individual homes. These fledgling Christian communities were a minor group in
society with little if any wider social acceptance. The writings of the New Testament
76
Matthew 18:20 NRSV

36
reveal that these communities were acutely conscious of the risk of persecution. The
types of spaces that our communities meet in today would not have been accessible for a
variety of reasons. Nor would they be of any practical use to these first Christian
communities.77
Paul’s letters therefore provide a valuable resource for those who wish
to look at how Christians can meet as community in their own homes.
It is most probable that all early Christian communities met in private homes. In
Paul’s letters, we see the most tangible historical evidence of this probability. The phrase
“the assembly at (name’s) house” designates specific communities that Paul was wishing
to greet. 78
In the first letter to the Corinthians Paul also speaks of baptizing the whole
house of Stephanas and later commends this house as the “first fruits of Achaia” and
greets the house of Chloe. “The local structure of the early Christian groups was thus
linked with what was commonly regarded as the basic unit of the society” 79
The household was the building block of all of the subsequent structures of the
Hellenistic-Roman society. The household a person belonged to would be the way a
person was commonly identified by the society. The household was the primary social
network; therefore, it was foundational for business and trade because most production
would occur within its bounds. As the basic unit of society, the household would also
hold an esteemed place within the dominant religions. Household religious rituals would
be the most influential for daily life by helping provide a structure and rhythm of activity
for those who made up the household. In order for one to exist socially on any level, one
77
Conzelmann, Hans The History of Primitive Christianity (Nasheville: Abingdon, 1973),108.
78
h kat oikon autwn (autwn, sou) ekklhsia Romans 16:5, 1st
Corinthians 16:1, Colossians
4:14, Philemon 2
79
Meeks, Wayne, The First Urban Christians the Social World of the Apostle Paul, (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1983), 75.

37
must be part of a household; it was how one engaged society.80
Thus, whether out the
necessity of history or the providence of God, the household becomes the “basic cell” of
the early church. One must be careful in attending to the historical context of the text of
St. Paul. The ancient household was much more inclusive than the contemporary idea of
a “nuclear family”. Many households would have included “slaves, freedmen, hired
workers, and sometimes included tenants and partners in trade and craft.”81
The household became the locus of missionary activity for the work of the
Pauline assemblies. To mission within households was the most culturally relevant way
of being the church. People were used to relating to each other through the structures of
household relationships. In the later writings of the Pauline corpus, the household
(oikeioi tou qeou)82 would become a metaphor for explaining the structure of
Christian community. Using the dominant structure of the contemporary society
provided for an easy and natural way for the communities to assimilate people into
network of relationships to provide material, emotional, moral and spiritual support. The
use of the household as a base also became a self-evident mission strategy. If a key
member of the household came to the faith, then the entire household might have come
into the faith, (although this appears not always to be the case).83
Christianity was not the
only religious movement to be centered in the household. Many of the ancient mystery
religions also centered their activities around and in households. 84
80
Becker, Paulus, 258.
81
Meeks, Urban Christians, 75.
82
Ephesians 2:29, 1st
Timothy 3:15, see also 1 Peter 4:17.
83
Birkey, Del, The House Church:A Model for Renewing the Church, (Scottdale PA: Herald Press,
1988),55-60.
84
Schüssler-Fiorenza, Elisabeth, In Memory of Her :A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian
Origins, (New York: Crossroad, 1992), 177.

38
The early Christian assembly centered in the home provided a unique and
advantageous opportunity for women. Within the household women were in their
socially accepted sphere of activity. Women were to run the day-to-day activity of the
household. When the assembly met in a home, it was meeting in a space where women
were not only allowed to be active, but were supposed to be active. Thus, the
prominence of women in the New Testament letters is in some part due to where the
assemblies of disciples met. The society of the time usually did not allow women to
engage in public roles of leadership, but because the early communities met in the
domestic space where women were allowed to utilize their gifts, women were able to
have a public leadership role. The leadership roles of women reflected in Paul’s
correspondence came about in part because the meetings of the first Christians assemblies
were public meetings taking place within the home.
The distinction between private and public activity was different in the ancient
world than it is in our day. We live in a society much more concerned with privacy than
the ancients did. “It is clear that the house churches were a decisive factor in the
missionary movement insofar as they provided space, support, and actual leadership for
the community.”85
The household provided structure that provided for stability, intimacy,
confidentiality, and social solidarity. These social aspects may have made the Christian
beliefs easier for some to accept. It is the gift of the house church in Paul’s time to be in
the world but not of the world. While the assemblies that would meet in homes adapted
the dominant structure of society, they used that structure to form an alternative
community to the society. The community that was created would have a radically
85
Schüssler-Fiorenza, In Memory of Her, 176-77.

39
different focus than the world around it and their groups would have their own unique
culture. 86
The Hellenistic-Roman society was hierarchical in nature. There were stark
divisions within the society and within the household. There were strict customs and
conventions for how persons on the different rungs of society should interact with one
another. Each person was supposed to understand his or her place within the society. In
direct contrast, the house churches that Paul started and nurtured understood that all
would be equal before God. When one was baptized, one understood that she or he now
had equal dignity and worth with her or his counterparts in the faith. The ladder of
hierarchical society was replaced with the horizontal Body of Christ. “As many of you as
were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or
Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you
are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:27-28 NRSV)87
While there were some scattered instances of crossing social boundaries in the
ancient world, Christian groups were far more inclusive of the different ranks of society
than other types of groups and communities in the ancient world. Evidence for this is
revealed in the language that Paul uses to speak with his communities. He calls those
whom he addresses “brother”, “sister” and “children”. This is the language of the family.
Being part of the body of Christ, (1st
Corinthians 12) means being part of a family.
Believers were seen as being in a familial relationship with Paul and each other. The
terms above emphasize the mutual love Christians have with one another and
demonstrate to the Christians that the obligation of love trumps the obligations of social
86
Meeks, Urban Christians, 77-79.
87
Becker, Paulus, 260.

40
stratification. Therefore, the early Christian assemblies provide a powerful alternative to
the world around them.88
The early Christian communities did not see themselves as isolated outposts of
alternative culture. Paul cultivated the implicit understanding that each of these
communities was united with all the other Christian communities in the one Body of
Christ. Each house assembly was an individual expression of the complete Body of
Christ. In a practical way, the term “the assembly at (name’s) house” distinguishes that
assembly from the expression of the entire church for which Paul uses simple term
assembly (ekklhsia).89 However, the individual assemblies were not autonomous
communities; each individual assembly represented the entire Christian assembly around
the world.
We see how individual communities represent the whole of the empire-wide
assembly in Romans 16:23 where Paul sends greeting from Gaius who hosted Paul and
the whole Church (olh h ekklhsia). Gaius as a host for Paul becomes a host for the
whole church, because Paul represents more than one person. The missionary represents
both the community that sent the missionary and the assembly that has received the
missionary. As an ambassador for Christ, Paul represents the entire body of Christ.
While in all probability Gaius merely hosted one house church, his hosting of the visiting
missionary shows the tangible connection Gaius’ house church has within the whole
church.90
The cell church movement takes much inspiration from the structure of the early
church in St. Paul’s time. Each cell is seen as the house churches were, as a part of a
88
Meeks, Urban Christians, 79-89.
89
Meeks, Urban Christians, 75.
90
Käseman, Ernst, Commentary on Romans, (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 1980), 421.

41
larger whole. The church uses the home as the locus of ministry and mission. Cell life
provides an alternative to the life of the culture of the world. Cells become the places
where ministry is carried out. The main difference for us is that if we want to use homes
for ministry it is optional for us. We have buildings and spaces that can accommodate
our communities. We are not living in a society where being Christian is a stigma of
something strange or alien. We do not suffer persecution or reprisal. However, the
examination of the early Pauline church shows us that there were both practical and
theological virtues for organizing the community in this way. Intimate space is fostered,
relationships that normally do not happen did. People see their entire lives in terms of
their faith relationship, and multiple entry points into the community are fostered. People
we never before identified can be developed into leaders. Much of what the cell church
movement is about is to remind the wider church of how the early church used their
culture in a creative way to build up the body of Christ.
It is fascinating to see that both St. Paul and Dr. Cho realized the value of the
ministry of women despite living in patriarchal cultures. The reasons for the
engagement of women in Korean cell ministry were virtually identical with those of early
Christianity; women were able, permitted, and expected to operate in the household
sphere. Thus for the early church and the cell movement, the ministry of women became
crucial. 91
How women have come to leadership in cell ministry may also explain one of the
phenomena demonstrated in cell group churches. Cell churches in societies outside of
Europe and North America have grown to sizes that dwarf even the largest of our mega
91
Cho, Home Cell Groups, 23-30, 50-52.

42
churches in the United States. 92
Perhaps the growth in the numbers of cells in these
cultures is partly due to the fact that the family structures in more traditional societies
more directly correspond to the household structures in the Hellenistic- Roman world
than do the loose and broken families of our contemporary culture. The cultural
comparison between East Asian culture and Hellenistic culture would be an interesting
question to be addressed in a future study.
The biblical witness shows the pastor wanting to use the cell church concept in
our own culture examples of how a similar way of being the church helped engender
growth in early Christian communities. There is a rich treasure trove of Biblical material
to use in this search. A more detailed study on this point would explore some of the
other New Testament witnesses such as the Johannine corpus or the examples
communities contained in the Hebrew Bible.
92

43
CHAPTER 3:
CELL GROUPS AND CORRESPONDING TYPES OF SMALL GROUPS IN
CHURCH HISTORY
In the previous chapter, we saw that Christians have been gathering in small
groups for as long as the church has been in existence. Small groups in homes were the
only way Christians could meet together while they are on the margins of society in the
Roman world. With the Roman Empire’s acceptance of Christianity in the fourth
century, churches were able to meet publically in public spaces. The necessity to meet in
private homes for liturgy and ministry diminished as the church rose in prominence and
imperial favor. Home faith life would continue to be nurtured particularly through
instruction of the faith within the family, but such instruction would have little
connection with the public church. The rise of monasticism would provide a vehicle for
people to live a life of more intensive faith where the expression of faith would intersect
with all areas of one’s life. However because monasticism was a segregated phenomenon
there would be no space for the family to live out this intensive faith with other
families.93
In spite of these developments in European Christianity, small groups of
Christians continued to meet in homes at various points in Christian church history.
These meetings would fall into two basic types; the first type was comprised of house
churches. These small groups met intentionally in homes as self -sustaining churches.
They may or may have not been connected to other house churches in some sort of
network. This project will not address these types of gatherings. The second type of
93
Hadaway, Home Cell Groups, 45-47.

44
groups met in private homes in addition to the main worship or mass in the public
spaces.94
These types of groups are the exclusive focus of the present chapter.
Groups meeting in homes in addition to the Mass or worship service would
spring up at interesting times in church history and at points when the church was
actively seeking reform. The existence of such a type of group would itself be a sign
that a renewal or reformation of the church was going on.95
The usual reason for the
emergence of the gatherings was a desire on the part of some Christians to meet together
in order to live out their faith in a more intensive and vibrant way while at the same time
remaining firmly planted in the culture in which they lived. The cell group movement
historically falls into this category; the cell church movement embraces the tension
between being culturally relevant (in the world) but also at the same time being intensely
committed in Christ (not of the world).
Some Seeds of the Reformation and Small groups
The historical context of the period leading up to the events of the Reformation is
that the spiritual longings and tensions that would ultimately lead to the Protestant
reformation were well under way long before Luther’s lifetime. Some of the same
tensions would lead to the small group movements that would arise later on in the
Reformation. Although not a small group movement the Brothers and Sisters of the
Common life, which arose in Holland in the fourteenth century, has its roots in some of
94
Bunton, Peter, Cell Groups and House Churches: What History Teaches Us (2001 Ephrata PA: House to
House Publications), xi.
95
Hadaway, Home Cell Groups, 38, Birkey, The House Church, 65.

45
the same desires that modern cell church proponents express. Also known as the
Devotio Moderna, the group was composed of men and women who wished to live a
deeper religious life while not withdrawing from society. The men and women took no
vows and worked to serve God while living a common life.96
The brothers and sisters of
the Devotio Moderna share with the modern cell church movement a desire to equip
people to serve God in daily life. They differ in the fact that, despite their living in the
towns they served rather than in monasteries, they lived in ways similar to monks and
nuns where men and women lived a chaste life in separate sex segregated communities.97
At this point in Christian history there was not a place for men and women, families and
differing generations to gather into intimate groups to live out a more intensive and
intentional religious life than the society at large.
There are other points of contact with later small groups and the cell group
movement. The focus of the Brothers and Sisters of the Common Life devotion was Jesus
Christ. Through their Christ centered focus they sought imitation of Christ by examining
his life and those of the early church so they could strive to reconstruct it for themselves.
Using the writings of the early desert fathers as their guide, they centered on the inner life
of the heart of the believer rather than upon outward actions or works. 98
The existence of this group showed that before the Reformation Christians were
looking at creative ways to resolve the tension between living a deeper life of faith with
being part of wider society. The Devotio Moderna was an attempt to live in the
96
Williston, Walker, Richard Norris, David Lotz, and Robert T. Handy, A History of the Christian Church,
4th
Edition, (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1985), 383-85.
97
Mathilde van Dijk, "How to be a good shepherd in Devotio moderna: the example of Johannes
Brinckerinck (1359-1419)," Nederlands archief voor kerkgeschiedenis 83, no. 1: 139-154, 2003, ATLA
Religion Database with ATLASerials, EBSCOhost, (accessed June 18, 2009), 151.
98
Mathilde van Dijk, "Disciples of the Deep Desert: Windesheim Biographers and the Imitation of the
Desert Fathers," Church History & Religious Culture 86, no. 1-4: 2006, 257-289, Religion and Philosophy
Collection, EBSCOhost,(accessed June 18, 2009), 264.

46
intersection between the spiritual life and the common life. Thomas a Kempis’ (1380-
1471) “Imitation of Christ” as the best-known literary work of the group demonstrates a
commitment of the Devotio Moderna to a focus on Christ that it would share with later
lay movements.99
The focus on the inner life of the believer by calling people to examine
the condition of their heart is another area where the brothers and sisters devotional life
would have much in common with later movements. While it cannot be demonstrated
that there is any historical dependence of later groups discussed below on the Devotio
Moderna, their existence shows the resolve of Christians to live a deeper life of faith
while not withdrawing from either society or the wider church. Much of what modern
cell churches are about is addressing this same resolve.
Small Groups of the Reformation
The Reformation begun by Martin Luther (1483-1546) would unintentionally
pave the way for the development of small group movements later on. These later
movements’ emergence was a natural result of the consequences of three of the
Reformation’s core concepts espoused by Luther himself. The first was that the true
church is not always reflected in the institutional church, the second is the concept of the
priesthood of all believers so that all Christians can hear confession and proclaim the
forgiveness of Christ, the third is the honoring of the vocation of parenting and that
families are “little churches.” 100
All three of these concepts have been used by
99
Walker, History, 365.
100
Bunton, What History Teaches, 1-3.

47
contemporary small group proponents in teaching the values and virtues of churches
using small groups in general and cell groups in particular.
We saw above in the introduction that Luther’s Preface of the German Mass of
1526 lays out an ideal scenario where something like modern small groups could occur.
Luther however thought that the implementation of this “third order of divine service” to
be premature.101
Furthermore, with spread of the Radical Reformation Luther would see
the danger that these groups would present if those properly equipped or called did not
lead them. He also would express concern that the formation of groups within the
church would leave those not ready to join them neglected of pastoral care. Most of all
Luther would be worried that formation of such groups would work against the good
order of the church.102
Therefore, those looking to Luther for guidance in their attempt in providing
space for people to live in a more intensive Christian community while not withdrawing
from the world will see a mixed message. On the one hand, Luther has a natural
sentiment toward people wanting to be “Christians in earnest.” He would even model
practices to encourage this through prayer with and instruction to guests at his house.
Luther would also advocate that when the gospel was heard rightly in the home it was as
good as hearing it from any pastor.103
On the other hand, Luther feared that encouraging such gatherings in actual
practice might lead people astray because of a lack of good order. He was realistic about
the common Christian, understanding his or her God given value while remembering the
101
Luther, Martin, Luther's Works, Vol. 53 : Liturgy and Hymns, 53:63.
102
Bunton, What History Teaches, 7.
103
David John Zersen, "Lutheran roots for small group ministry." Currents in Theology and Mission 8, no.
4: 236,1981, ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials, EBSCOhost, (accessed June 23, 2009).

48
capacity of the individual to be led astray. Contemporary cell church advocates would
counter that the cell church in practice is a well-ordered way of being the church.
Leaders are trained; not just sent out. The groups are accountable through their leaders to
the wider vision of the church. The curriculum that people study is determined
exclusively by the regularly called and ordained pastor. Much of Luther’s concern for
good order is addressed in how cell group churches are organized into a structure of
oversight and accountability.
Up until the present day, the fear of churches using small groups is partially a
result of the excesses of the Radical Reformation. As the temporal authorities and the
public church rejected the movement, the Radical Reformation would rely on small
groups to spread its message out of necessity. The rejection was mutual; the radical
reformation chose to set up a community made up exclusively of true believers. It sought
through its embrace of primitivism (returning the church in an historical point in time to
resemble an ideal community, most often the church of the New Testament) to create the
so-called true church. 104
The contemporary cell church bears little resemblance to the groups that existed
because of the Radical Reformation chiefly because they are structured to work within
the existing church and not as a rejection of it.105
The radical reformation sought to
resolve the tension that the cell church embraces: the tension between living a more
intensive brand of discipleship of Jesus Christ while not separating from the wider church
or the culture. In order for the cell church to live out the edification/evangelism dynamic
explained in chapter 1 it can never resolve that tension.
104
Bunton, What History Teaches 9-10.
105

49
The spiritual antecedent of the modern cell church movement would be found in
the strain of thought beginning with the reformer Martin Bucer (1491-1551), who first
among the reformers put in practice something resembling an intentionally structured and
accountable small group system.106
Bucer rejected the separatism of the Radical
Reformation and the Anabaptists. He advocated the adoption of the Augsburg
Confession in Strasbourg and was influential in its eventual acceptance in southern
Germany.107
Bucer was a tireless worker for Christian unity during the Reformation.
The avenue for working toward unity of the differing branches of the Reformation was
discourse over what was fundamental to the faith and what was secondary. He advocated
open debate and acted to bring the differing branches of the Reformation together to
share successes, failures, convictions, differences in theology, and how to live in
discipleship. He viewed that in reality there was only one true church despite the
differences held by its differing branches. Building off Augustine and Luther, he thought
that the church would always be a mixed affair with both good and bad encompassing its
membership.
Bucer also felt the way which people lived their daily life in relation to God was
more important than the theological debates of large councils. He advocated strongly the
role of the Holy Spirit and the fruit that is borne in the believer’s life when the Spirit is
active. Those that lived out their faith would show themselves to be living by the Spirit
106
107
Walker, History, 452 & 458.

50
and be part of the true church within the wider church. Bucer viewed sanctification as a
process that had stages through which believers would need to be shepherded.108
Bucer paid particular attention to baptismal theology in his writing. While he
advocated infant Baptism for all and that Baptism was God’s gift rather than human
choice, he also understood how the Anabaptist movement came about theologically. He
wanted find a way for Christians to demonstrate their commitment to the faith. He would
develop an evangelical order of confirmation to address this struggle. This confirmation
was not primarily a public declaration as in Anabaptism but a way for the faithful to
commit to Christ by giving themselves over to their Lord (sich ergeben). Being given
over to Christ would mean for the person to submit their life to church discipline through
confession, repentance, forgiveness, fellowship and obedience.109
The emphasis was
clearly on the daily life of faith of the believer, as Bucer would try to maintain a theology
of Baptism that embraced both belonging (free grace without human choice) and
commitment to discipleship (witness of a faith response).
Out of his baptismal theology, Bucer developed a plan for small communities of
the faithful where people could give themselves over to Christ in a more intensive way
and demonstrate commitment. Bucer instructed that lay assistants to the pastor be
appointed to help lead people into this deeper path of discipleship. The lay leaders would
meet with and interview people of the wider parish to access how mature they were in the
faith. Those who were earnestly seeking repentance and who held to sound doctrine
108
Martin Greschat, "Martin Bucer and Church Renewal in Europe," Reformation & Renaissance Review:
Journal of the Society for Reformation Studies 5, no. 1: 92-101, 2003, Religion and Philosophy Collection,
EBSCOhost, (accessed June 22, 2009).
109
Amy Nelson Burnett, "Confirmation and Christian fellowship; Martin Bucer on commitment to the
Church," Church History 64, no. 2: 202-207, 1995, Religion and Philosophy Collection, EBSCOhost,
(accessed June 22, 2009).

51
would be invited to register into the community and participate in the small groups
known as christliche Gemeinschaften.
Similar to what we saw above with Luther, Bucer wished to see both a wider state
church and a place for people to live out Christian discipleship in a more intensive
manner. Bucer went further by attempting to establish an intentional structure for this
purpose. He also did this out of a desire for Christian unity as he thought that this
structure could help gather into one public church the different ways of being the church
that were springing up in the Reformation.110
Bucer was clearly embracing the dynamic
of trying to live a more intense and committed way of discipleship while not withdrawing
from the wider church and the culture. He was also dealing profoundly with the tensions
of his time. He wanted to keep the evangelical movement unified in the midst of the
Anabaptist controversies.
Bucer’s christliche Gemeinschaften would prove controversial in his native
Strasbourg for a number of reasons. There was a political reason because of a fear by the
civil authorities that those submitting to a church authority would undermine the
authority of the state. Others were offended that Bucer’s groups practiced
excommunication of those who violated church discipline. There were also those
echoing Luther’s reservations about such endeavors who felt that he would be producing
a class system for Christians with two distinct groups. The groups would eventually be
banned and Bucer would go into exile in England where he would be welcomed as a
teacher and reformer.111
110
Burnet, “Confirmation,” 210-212.
111

52
The difference between Bucer’s endeavor and a modern cell church is that
Bucer’s meetings were clearly closed groups by invitation only when people were
deemed worthy. Cell churches have open groups, which are public gatherings open to
all. The concern for doctrine that Bucer identified is addressed in the leadership structure
where leaders require approval by the pastor to become a leader of the group. The groups
themselves allow people to encounter Christ where they are and are open to everyone.
Cell churches are structured to be unifying and not to create a spiritual elite, which was
the theological downfall of Bucer’s attempt at a small group discipleship structure. In
spite of this failure, the writings of Bucer that inspired the creation of the christliche
Gemeinschaften would produce fruit later as his ideas from the groups would find
purchase in the Pietist movement of German Lutheranism. 112
The Collegia Pietas of German Lutheranism
Pietism was a response to the rise of Protestant Orthodoxy, which elevated the
holding of correct doctrine by the believer to primary importance above other aspects of
faith. Intellectual conformity was demanded and the holistic faith of Luther and the early
Reformers deemphasized in favor of an emphasis on the correct rational understanding of
the dogmatic formulations of orthodoxy. In reaction to this trend also known as
Protestant Scholasticism, the Pietists emphasized experience and the edification of the
believers for the daily life in the faith within the everyday world.113
They argued that up
112
113
Walker, History, 587.

53
until their time the Reformation was primarily a reformation of doctrine, but what was
truly needed was a reformation of the entire life of the church.114
In 1670, the leading figure of the movement, Phillip Jakob Spener (1635-1705),
began to meet with leading lay people of his Frankfurt congregation for prayer,
discussion of a biblical or devotional book, and the singing of a hymn. The groups
eventually known as the collegia pietas started out with university graduates but because
of the Pietist emphasis on building up the average believer eventually began to include
trade people and women. 115
Spener used the writings of Martin Bucer and 1st
Corinthians 14 to help advocate
his actions and his vision for a new structure to help complete the Reformation.116
The
collegia were focused on the common person; they tried to make the life of faith
understandable to those who actually made up their community and worked to model the
practice of the faith. The groups would become the central institution of the Pietist
movement and altered the social structure of the wider society by their very existence.
The relation of the collegia to the wider church was explained with the moniker
ecclesiolae in ecclesia “little churches within the church.” 117
The collegia were clearly
seen as being part of the wider church. Like the contemporary cell group, each collegium
was seen as church and a unique expression of the entire church. Spener would maintain
114
Bunton, What History Teaches , 20.
115
Christina Bucher, ""People of the Covenant" Small-Group Bible Study: A Twentieth Century Revival of
the Collegia Pietatis," Brethren Life and Thought 43, no. 3-4: 48, 1998, ATLA Religion Database with
ATLASerials, EBSCOhost, (accessed June 23, 2009).
116
Bunton, What History Teaches , 30.
117
James O. Bemesderfer, "Pietism : the other side," Journal of Religious Thought 25, no. 2: 29-38, 1969,
ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials, EBSCOhost, (accessed June 23, 2009).

54
that he was standing on the principles laid down by Luther and felt that this could lead
toward much of what Luther wanted see fostered in the church.118
The collegia started by Spener are the most relevant example of small groups in
history of the church to the contemporary cell church. The collegia were not a separatist
endeavor; they were seen as part of the wider body of Christ. The collegia were an
intentionally structured way of providing for the deeper discipleship of the common
Christian. The collegia meetings were of a holistic quality were information is
combined with practice. The collegia were structured to encourage the communion of
the Holy Spirit among those who participated. The collegia were modeled after the
churches in the New Testament in order to foster renewal.119
Spener’s groups would
meet on Mondays and Wednesdays; in the first meeting they would discuss the points of
the sermon in depth just as cell churches do.120
Spener would also teach that groups were
to multiply and leaders should work to found more groups.121
Spener’s groups would spread throughout the Pietist movement and reveal both
the promise and the pitfalls of a cell group ministry. The promise lies in the success in
leading people to discipleship and deeper engagement of the faith. The pitfalls being the
risk of separatism as members of his Frankfurt collegia would leave the Lutheran Church
and Spener’s collegia. The separatists began advocating that the true church could only
exist in such small gatherings.
As we have seen above, the cell church seeks to embrace certain tensions. The
separatists later known as the Radical Pietists would seek to resolve the tension in the
118
Zersen, “Lutheran roots,” 238.
119
Bucher, “People of the Covenant,” 48-49.
120
121

55
same way as the Anabaptists of the Radical Reformation would. The small groups
would peel off to create communities of true believers rather than to stay and try to grow
with the wider church together. The contemporary cell church with the cell/celebration
dynamic finds the tension between being a more intensive community and being part of
the wider church the best place to be for fostering a more vibrant Christianity. As we will
read below in the discussion of Bonhoeffer, it is because Christ promises to be present in
both places.
Spener, like many who have experimented with small and cell groups since his
time found that tension too much to bear over time. Often viewed as controversial he
would cease working with the collegia toward the end of his ministry. Even without
Spener’s continued leadership the collegia structure would continue to be utilized by the
proponents of the Pietist movement such as August Herman Francke (1663-1727). The
Pietist movement would spread far beyond Germany in scope and influence the successor
renewal movements of Christianity.122
Moravians and Methodists
Two of the successor movements to Pietism employed Spener’s structure of the
collegia. Both the Moravians in Germany and the Methodists in the English-speaking
regions would employ the ministry tool of the collegia as essential parts of their
respective movements.123
The groups formed by the Moravians and Methodists would
have practically identical goals and values to those of the collegia. The contributions of
122
123
Walker, History, 593,598.

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