Archive for November, 2005

Hello Everyone,

As I mentioned to someone in a letter a little bit ago, I’m sitting here in front of a monitor that is flashing on and off repeatedly, very quickly, and it’s driving me crazy. I’m not sure how long I’ll hold out before I decide I can’t take it any longer… In Bolivia, and now I find that in Argentina also, there are Internet Cafes about every block. So you can get Internet just about anywhere for a pretty cheap price. In Bolivia it costs about 40 cents of a Dollar an hour, here in Buenos Aires it costs about 70 cents, but it’s still not very expensive. But with that you get pretty slow computers, and bad monitors and keyboards, etc, so it’s not always real nice. At least the keyboard works well on this one.

I wanted to explain a little bit about the Cell Church Vision that we are working with. I know that some of you have a pretty good idea, but I wanted to help you explain things a little more clearly.

Since about 2 1/2 years ago we have working with cell groups in our church. Cell groups are small groups that meet in homes during the week. A big thing that is important to understand when I talk about the cell church, is that a cell church is TOTALLY built around it’s cell groups. It’s not a church that has cells as a ministry in the church, it is a church where the cell groups make up the church. The cells are the center of ministry. We don’t have a youth ministry or a men’s or women’s ministry. We have cell groups. All ministry occurs in the cell groups, or occurs to fortify the cell groups.

The main idea behind the groups that we have is this… All Christians have the responsibility to share the gospel message with the people around them. We believe that God’s heart is intent on saving the world with his love and grace. That’s why he came to this world. He came for the lost sheep, not the ones who are OK. The great commission is for all Christians, not a select few. Understanding that basic principal, we must find a way for every single Christian to be able to fulfill the ministry that God has for them. In the traditional church, many times we talked about sharing the gospel with our friends, etc., but it rarely ever happens. So the idea behind the cell groups is to facilitate each and every Christian to fulfill his or her God given ministry while they live here on Earth.

Everything that we do in the church has that Goal in mind. We have something that we call “The Ladder of Success”. There are for steps to that ladder:

• Win
• Consolidate
• Disciple
• Send

Every single person who enters the church must climb this ladder. This is what God has called us to do. We WIN people to Christ in many ways, but most of it comes directly down to Personal Evangelism in a cell group. Directly after that we have the second step, Consolidate. CONSOLIDATION is the process of helping the new believer to become firm in his or her walk with the Lord. After receiving Christ, we take the new believer on a 3 day weekend retreat called the “Encounter” with God. In the Encounter we teach Salvation, Inner Healing & Forgiveness, The Faith in God, Repentance, Freedom from Spiritual Bondage’s, The Importance of the Cross, The Holy Spirit in our Lives & The Cell Church Vision. The week after the Encounter, we have these people go into 3 hour weekly classes called the School of Leaders. Here begins the Discipleship Step. In the School of Leaders we basically teach the necessary basics for one to become a cell group leader. First we teach certain themes that help the new christian maintain everything that they received in the Encounter Retreat. Then we teach them basic Doctrine and the necessary habits for them to grow individually in Christ. Examples: Prayer, Daily Devotionals, etc. After that we teach them basic leadership skills and how to lead a cell group. After about 16 weeks of classes, we send them to a Re-Encounter, where we reaffirm all that God did in their lives in the Encounter. Before they can graduate from the School of Leaders they have to have gone to the Re-Encounter and they must have opened their own cell group.

After graduation from the School of Leaders they can then go and minister in an Encounter Retreat. Also we have a second level of classes that they must enter. It’s called the “School of Teachers”. In the school of Teachers we teach them doctrine much more profoundly, Also we teach them the life of Christ, and Consolidation, which is one of the largest and most important parts of the vision. After 4 months of the School of Teachers, and after going to an “Encounter of Leaders” they graduate and can then minister in the Re-Encounter and also teach in the School of Leaders. Of course all that is part of Send. Here’s a basic laid out list of the Ladder of Success.

———————————————————————————- WIN

• Sunday Service
• Cell Group
• Personal Evangelism
• Special Events

• Encounter Retreat
• School of Leaders Level 1
• School of Leaders Level 2
• Cell Group (The Cell Leader is personally responsible for each person’s spiritual growth.)

• School of Leaders Level 3
• Re-Encounter
• Open Cell Group
• Graduate From School of Leaders
• Minister in Encounter Retreat
• School of Teachers

• Graduate from School of Teachers
• Leaders Encounter
• Form Group of 12 Disciples (12 cell group leaders under that person)
• Minister in Re-Encounter
• Teach in School of Leaders
• Form his 144 Disciples (Work with your 12 disciples to help them form each of their 12)
• Much much more

This is just an overview of the ladders of success, and it is a little more extensive than this.

Now, here’s the thing. A leader can’t just open his cell group and wait for something to happen. We are taking Jesus example of choosing 12 disciples, working with them, and teaching them to be like him. So every leader has the task of finding and disciplining 12 people. Those 12 in turn, must open their cell groups, and must do the same. So everything works in multiples of 12. So, in our case, after we have 12 disciples under us, our twelve each have to have twelve, and so on. Here’s the multiplication table so you can understand clearly.

Pastors Jason & Norah Skipper Generation 1: 12 Disciples (Cell group leaders) Generation 2: 144 Disciples (Cell group leaders) Generation 3: 1,728 Disciples (Cell group leaders) Generation 4: 20,736 Disciples (Cell group leaders)

Now, I know that this seems out of this world, but it really isn’t. The church that we are visiting here in Buenos Aires has been working with the cell church for eight years, and they have 3,500 cell groups now. That is nothing compared to churches like ICM in Bogota Columbia which has around 50,000 cell groups. We just began not long ago, but we have close to 70 cell groups. That number will pass at least 300 next year. We may pass 100 by the end of this year!

Why does this work? It’s not because it’s just a wonderful strategy, it’s because it gets every christian up off of their hind-end and they start winning people for Christ together. It’s pretty amazing what happens when the body of Christ starts working together.

I hope this interests you all at least some! Maybe it’ll inspire someone to start working in their church too! God Bless…

Jason

Hi Everyone. First of all, Happy Thanksgiving from hot an humid Buenos Aires, Argentina. Norah and I arrived in Buenos Aires yesterday afternoon. We’ll be here for a couple of weeks. I tried to write a little bit yesterday from Santa Cruz, but I had problems with the keyboard and the Internet, and I ended up posting a bunch of gibberish. If you checked out the page, I’m sure you had a laugh, or at least a big question mark in your head asking what in the world happened.

Buenos Aires is quite a place. I have no idea how to describe it, because I haven’t gotten a feel for what it’s like yet. It’s huge. 15 million inhabitants. We’re staying at a friends house these days, and it is an hour and twenty minutes trip from her house to the conference that we are in. We have to take a train for ahwile, then we get directly into the subway system. This morning there were SOOOO MANY people, I have never been so packed into a place with that many people in my life. Amazing.

The conference is great. It is about the Cell Church Vision that we are working with. One of our main goals is to visit this church here, which has about 20,000 members during the next couple of weeks. We hope to get a better handle on all that they do, an the cell ministry, the kids ministry, and lots of other stuff.

I plan on using the page as a small journal of all that we are doing during this time. I’ll try to post every day or two here telling you all about what is happening, what we’re learning, etc. So please check back often!

Anyway, pray that I can get some rest. Right now we’re really tired. We live so far away, and get home late and leave early, and have no place to rest during the day. Add that on top of missing the kids, and it’s pretty bad. But we’re happy. I called Bolivia a little bit ago and talked to Erynn. The kids are fine. We just miss them and they miss us.

Love you all!

Jason & Norah

Hello Everyone!

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted anything here on the site… sorry. We have been so busy, I am always to exhausted to even think about writing! Anyway, things are going very well here. We have been enjoying a wonderful time in the church, where we are seeing lots of growth, and an incredible move of God over our lives. 2 1/2 weeks ago we began having morning praise and worship services every day at 6:30 am. We just have a great time in God, sing and pray, and have a small devotional. But this has been so good for us and for the church. We now have 45-50 people coming every morning. It’s been nice. Other activities continue, the cell groups, School of Leaders, etc.

Health wise, we are all much better now. Norah’s feeling fine now, after having some problems from her miscarriage. Erynn’s loving school, and Jordan continues to be more and more ornery and more and more cute every day!

Next Tuesday Norah and I are traveling to Buenos Aires, Argentina for a Cell Church Conference. My mentor is pastoring in the church that we are going to, so we are really excited about being with him and his wife. We will be there for 2 weeks. First for the conference, and then we will stay there to visit the church, the cell groups, the activities that they have and to just learn a whole lot more, through experience. Please keep us in your prayers constantly during this time.

Well, I have to go take Erynn to school, so I’ll quit here. I hope all of you are well! Write if you can. God Bless…

Jason, Norah, Erynn & Jordan