Customer Reviews

The Cell Church

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Very worth reading. Mr. Stockstill speaks very plainly & generously about his experiences with transitioning a mega-church into what he calls a cell church. Although their cell church is still only a baby, there is plenty to learn from and apply in local settings. Pastors/leaders may do well to read the 10th chapter first, regarding dangers & chalanges, because he addresses several issues head-on that are preventing the 'clergy' from letting go & discovering options to the conventional church models that have helped our church and our country become what we are today.

Stockstill lays out the cell church in easy to understand lingo and strategy. This book crosses the ocean from Korea to the U.S. and gives us the American version to the cell church explosion. "I love his style. I'm going to read it again in case I missed something." Read the book "The purpose driven church" by Warren first and this one next and it will give you a completely new look at church growth, purpose and how to win the world for Christ. He gives spiritual insight to many of the hurdles in cell division. "The Principle of 12" will rock your world.

Gary Mindel

The writing style and/or the editing left much to be desired. The overuse of punctuation and the overly-conversational style was reminiscent of some of my old middle-school papers. Other than that, it was a good practical working out of the cell principles introduced in other books. There is meat in there if you can wade through the all the quotation marks, parentheses, exclamation points and the like.

I just finished reading this book because we are preparing to lead a cell group in our cell church. I found many parts of the book to be legalistic. Procedures outlined sounded more like a government agency processing refugees at the border--not loving individuals serving God's people. The emphasis seemed to be on getting large numbers of people into the program. Much of the verbiage was very controlling sounding--with converts being marched through a prescribed program of classes, retreats, cell attendance, etc, which are credited with bringing spiritual maturity.

There is very little to no sense conveyed that it is the Lord who saves souls, who gives power, who brings Christians to maturity, who is control of whether the church will have 50 new cells next year--not our classes and plans.

The Principle of 12 really sounded like a multi-level marketing structure applied to believers' relationships. Here is a quote: "Every new convert you win and disciple can then be "fed" into the cell of one of "your permanent twelve" who has opened a group. By helping them grow, you also grow, because once all of the positions in "your permanent twelve" are filled, the only way for anyone else to enter that group is for someone to leave, die or fall away. In that case, someone from a "twelve" under you would be raised up to fill that position."

This is not Christianity! This is artificial; this is bondage to a system.

I also don't buy the scriptural reasoning that since there were 12 Tribes in Israel and 12 apostles (those numbers are related to each other, though) that means that there is a principle that can be applied to numbers in cells. I also disagree with this use of the same "principle": "Using the "Principle of Twelve," a realistic goal would be to prayerfully bring at least "twelve" people to the Lord each year through personal soul winning." Where is God in that picture? Who saves?

There are better books about the very real strengths and possibilities of cell churches.

Larry Stockstill's book "The Cell Church: Preparing Your Church for the Coming Harvest" is 136 pages long and is divided into 11 chapters and one appendix. The main focus of the book is introducing and instructing the reader on how to build a successful evangelistic cell-based model of the church for greater missional impact.

There are several strengths. First, it is written by someone who has years of experience as a pastor of a large mega church and who has been able to effectively transition it into a cell group model. Second, it is an easy-to-read, step-by-step, practical work that is meant for a popular level audience, which will be a useful tool for anyone interested in the topic. Third, the author is mission-driven and is not satisfied with people just getting streamed into inward-looking small groups, but rather wishes to help reap a harvest among the lost. Fourth, there are numerous anecdotal stories that help the reader understand how this can work in a real-world context. Fifth, the book examines many relevant issues, such as evangelism, leadership training, multiplication, dangers/pitfalls to avoid, etc.

There are three main weaknesses. In the cell church's attempt to get away from the overly-programmed approach of the traditional congregational model, it has become overly-programmed itself with all the "hoops to jump through" for cell members and cell leaders with its potentially limitless leadership hierarchy, mandatory training classes, and ongoing dependence on big buildings. Moreover, in Stockstill's attempt to avoid certain pitfalls, he has over-controlled his cells, which are really just "add-ons" to the main congregation. Teaching is not permitted in the cells which must only discuss the Pastor's Sunday sermon (pp. 119, 120, 136), cells do not have full freedom to make decisions about finances (pp. 117, 118), and cells must direct many discipline issues up the chain of command to a team of Pastoral staff (pp. 118, 120). It's like being imprisoned in a cell! Finally, there is an attempt to artificially bring into the New Testament church a multi-level hierarchical system under the guise of a "Moses ministry model" based on Exodus 18:21 (pp.74-75) and the "Principle of Twelve" based on various Bible verses (pp.95-104). This easily leads to a mechanistic approach to structuring the New Testament church using divine numbers. None of this can be found explicitly in the New Testament for how the early house churches were formed and functioned (Acts 2:41-47, 5:12, 5:42, 20:20; Rom 16:3-5). Nothing like a New Testament basis for ecclesiology is offered in the book.

Overall, however, the book does offer good insight into the cell church model and will be beneficial to those interested in restructuring the church for harvest and hostility. Caution must be exercised, though, regarding letting the Spirit lead the cells (Acts 13:1-3; 1 Cor 14:26).

RAD ZDERO, author of LETTERS TO THE HOUSE CHURCH MOVEMENT and THE GLOBAL HOUSE CHURCH MOVEMENT