The Church that Multiplies: Growing a Healthy Cell Church In North America – Review

A couple of months ago Joel Comiskey was the keynote speaker for my church’s mission conference. Joel Comiskey is one of the leading researches in the area of small groups and more specifically cell groups. During the mission conference he had a lot of great thoughts which ultimately provoked more questions (but I wrote about in another post). 

Ever since, the mission conference my pastor asked the staff to begin to read Joel’s books and give a weekly report. I know it sounds boring but believe it’s better than talking about who didn’t turn off the air conditioning,  in what room or what color to paint the front sign. To be honest, I actually look forward to staff meetings now because there’s a sense of iron sharpening iron. 

Anyway, in The Church that Multiplies Joel acknowledges that in the past the cell system has failed in North America (which he defines as Canada and USA). Successful cell group systems have taken place in a different cultural context. For example, one of the largest cell churches is in Korea. When pastors try to bring Korean Cell System to the States, they usually fail to translate. 

In this book, Joel attempts to point out the main principles of cell and help leaders/pastors adapt them to their context. He makes it clear that it’s not about adoption but about adaptation. He does very good job balancing the key principles/characteristics of cell groups and at the flexibility of cultural relevance. 

What I really appreciate about this book was that Joel Comiske was not concerned about growing a church through but more concerned about developing disciples. Here are some of the key ideas from the book: 

• Cell groups should emphasize the priesthood of the believers (everyone gets to play and their are no super stars) 
• Cell Churches are just one model and should not be viewed as the end all, be all model 
• Cell Churches ought to be missional (going dynamic) versus attractional (coming dynamic) 
• Cell Churches should be simple and reproduciable. 
• The importance of community in a cell group 
• Don’t copy, adapt! 
• Pastors must be involved in the cell group so they can stay in touch with the culture and their flock. 

I definitely have some questions but they are more about application of the principles to my specific context. Definitely a good book for church planters to consider as they are considering their infrastructure. Again, this is just one model but I think it has potential of being a good model for some North American church. It takes a lot of work but what I appreciate about the cell system is that it is very intentional. 

I have a gift for those of you who are interested in the book but not sure if you want to invest time or money into it. I outline the whole book as I read through it. Hopefully this will be helpful. Enjoy! 

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