You don’t know it, but you need a Kingdom Cell.

You might not have heard of a Kingdom Cell and you may not think you are missing one. Let me explain why you are.

Your world has changed dramatically in the last 15 years. You trust much less than you used to, you have fewer friends than you used to and your mental health has been challenged like never before.

All these factors mean that you are unlikely to currently be experiencing the kind of one-but-not-the-same relationships that I wrote about last week are meant to be at the core of the Christian church.

In order to understand the kind of fellowship you need, you need to understand a simple truth that has largely gone missing from the church: God has a unique calling on your life that the church is meant to help you fulfill.

Most churches are organised on the basis of the ideas of Donald McGavran, which means that they measure success by attendance. The Apostle Paul suggests that church leadership should measure success by what happens outside the congregation:

to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up

Ephesians 4:12

You might be a business person, a nurse, an artist, a full-time parent or seriously disabled. No matter who you are, God cares as much about what you do, and how you do it as he does about what the Pastor does and how he does it. One verse that highlights this is Ephesians 2:10:

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Most churches are not geared to build deep relationships, and are not structured to helping people find their unique “works of service” (calling).

We need Kingdom Cells.

In my book 6 Radical Decisions, I came up with the label Kingdom Cell. I was trying to describe a kind of relationship that I had experienced and valued in my time in Fusion. It was also the kind of relationship that I saw throughout church history whenever the church was at its best.

What a Kingdom Cell isn’t

Some people reading this will have had experience with accountability groups. A Kingdom Cell does provide accountability, but the reason we are gathering is not to counter one specific issue. A Kingdom Cell is about your whole life.

Others might wonder what the difference between a Kingdom Cell and a small group is. A small group normally has a leader, some kind of planned input and 6 or more people. A Kingdom Cell doesn’t have a designated leader, doesn’t have planned input and is best with no more than 5 people.

Many modern churches are structured around mountaintop moments. A Kingdom Cell is extremely ordinary, but the very act of bringing your whole ordinary life to the table each week makes an extraordinary difference.

Reflections on two years in a Kingdom Cell

As I arrived at Citywide Baptist Church I knew that I needed to put the theory into practice.

As I prayed about who to invite into this kind of relationship I ended up inviting Gus (who is a senior manager with kids at a similar stage to mine) and Mark (who was a CFO and former executive pastor with kids who are slightly older than mine). After about 12 months my mate Phil asked whether he could join us.

Early on I made it clear that the purpose of the group was to have fellowship on the journey of what it meant to follow Jesus in every area of life. Two years on and that’s exactly what it has been.

We began meeting at the local Banjo’s bakery at 7:15 each Wednesday morning and slowly getting to know one another.

I found it challenging to name how I was going each week. I also found it hard to remember the details of the other guy’s families and workmates. It soon became apparent that we were quite different people on different journeys.

Within weeks I found myself looking to Wednesday mornings as a cornerstone of my week. I had space to explore what I was doing at the church, how my marriage and family were going and many, many other things. The one thing we made sure to ask each other was how our faith was going.

One of the guys told me that the real benefit of the Kingdom Cell is that it changes the trajectory of your life. It is a big call, but it’s true.

There is something about having space each week to look at where you are up to with God and for the rest of your life, that allows you to see possibilities and make changes.

As Phil prepared for the end of his life he repeatedly told us how important the Kingdom Cell had been for him. At the funeral, each of us reached for words to describe both how much we valued Phil, and in that context reflected on how important the Kingdom Cell was.

The truth is that we have all grown in ways we simply wouldn’t have any other way.

A decade ago there was a WWII television series called Band of Brothers. That is what a Kingdom Cell is. It is a band of brothers or sisters who have one another’s backs on the adventure of life.

We are continuing to meet weekly and now are talking about how we encourage others to find similar connections.

Here is what we have learned:

Starting a Kingdom Cell

Kingdom Cells are most usefully made up of people who are at a similar life stage, of the same gender and who are called to similar vocations.

As I have reflected on our experience I would suggest that there are six simple rules that help a Kingdom Cell work:

1. Be Real
2. Everyone talks
3. Everyone leads
4. What happens in the cell stays in the cell.
5. Minimum advice, Maximum listening and care.
6. Everyone gets prayed for.

There are also three questions that emerge one way or the other each week:

• What’s been happening this week?
• How  am I going with Jesus?
• How can we pray for each other and for the people and situations God has put on our hearts?

I hope you can find yourself in a Kingdom Cell. You will find that the trajectory of your life will change.