Biblical Foundations for the Cell-Based Church: New Testament Insights for the 21st Century Church

by Joel Comiskey

Why cell church? Is it because David Cho's church, the largest church in the history of Christianity, is a cell church? Is it because someone said the number twelve will bring blessings and growth? Is it because cell church is the strategy that many "great" churches are using? Ralph Neighbour repeatedly says, Theology must breed methodology. This book sets forth the biblical theology for cell based ministry. Without biblical truth, we don t have a firm under-pinning upon which we can hang our ministry and philosophy. On the other hand, we can plod through most anything when we know that God is stirring us to behave biblically. Cell church is not the latest, greatest church growth strategy. If it were, it would simply be a passing fad until the next hotter, more relevant strategy comes along. In fact, in many places around the world, cell church transforms the church through a purification process. Church growth is slow but cell church helps Christ s church go deeper. Joel Comiskey has been studying the cell church movement since 1991 and has discovered that the cell church strategy doesn t produce rapid growth in itself. God reserves growth for himself. He wants to receive the glory for all church growth. The first section of this book covers the Trinity, the model for all small group community. The good news is that the Trinity works within believers to mold and shape them into his image. This section explores God's emphasis on the family, starting from Genesis, Christ's formation of a new family, and then the early church's focus on family. Comiskey believes that family is the principal image of the church in Scripture. The last chapter in this section explains Jesus and his kingdom and more specifically how Jesus trained his disciples to evangelism through home-based outreach. Section two reveals how the early church met in homes. It explores what they did in those home meetings, the size of the house churches, and how home evangelism took place through ancient oikos relationships. Comiskey looks at how New Testament leadership developed naturally through the house church structure and how the early church connected the house churches into celebration gatherings (large group meetings). The last section applies all eight chapters to the church today. This last section draws out the New Testament insights that are applicable to the 21st century church."

Genres: Christianity

206 pages, Paperback

First published October 23, 2012

About the author

Joel Comiskey (Ph.D. Fuller Seminary) is a small group coach and consultant and and founder of Joel Comiskey Group. He has served as a missionary with the C&MA in Quito, Ecuador, started a cell-based church in Southern CA, and now coaches pastors in cell group ministry. Joel has written bestselling books on the worldwide cell group movement and teaches as an adjunct professor at Tozer Seminary. Joel and his wife, Celyce, have three daughters and live in Moreno Valley , California.

Reviews

[Sumner Adkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed Comiskey's writing on cell-based churches. He leans a little more egalitarian, but he did a great job providing cultural context of what Scripture is referring to when discussing the church and house-to-house ministries. More churches need to understand the importance of small groups and I think this book is a great starting point.

[Scott Hayden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Author Joel Comiskey begins with a confession that his earlier cell group ministry emphasis was all about helping churches get bigger. He admits that that was faulty. In this book, he backtracks and reaches for higher motivation.

Here are some great thoughts from the book:

Theology [should] breed methodology. (from chapter 1)

Unstable foundations for cell ministry include church growth, church health, spiritual revelation, or following fads.

"The way we use words is important."

"You have to articulate the key convictions... as the foundation for cell groups... [such as] themes of family, community, relational outreach, hospitality, and simple leadership."

"God created humankind in his image and his image is inherently relational." (p. 158)

"The one anothers of the New Testament are so vital to the life of the church." (p. 161)

God created families to reflect his triune nature... The image of family is the primary metaphor for life in the New Testament church." (p. 166)

Think of "family" not just as nuclear, but as extended. Think oikos (household). (chapter 3)

"We often use the word "nation" to describe Israel, but we must remember that they were organized according to families, clans, and tribes. (p. 57)

"Familial imagery describes what it means to be the people of God. It is the ruling metaphor that we cannot displace." (p. 168)

"The comparison of the Christian community with a 'family' must be regarded as teh most significant metaphorical usage of all. ... More than any of the other images utilized by Paul, it rev eals the essence of this thinking about community" (p. 61, quoting Robert Banks from "Paul's Idea of Community")

"...the New Testament writers chose th econcept of family as the central social metaphor to describe the kind of interpersonal relationships that were to characterize those early Christian communities." (p. 62, quoting Hellerman in "When the Church was a family")

"In the traditional Mediterranean culture, family was the basic reference of the individual, and the channel through which he or she was inserted into social life. To be born into a certain family was a decisive factor, because family was the depository of 'honor' and of position in society, and the transmitter of economic resources." (p. 62-63, quoting Halvore Moxnes in "Constructing early Christian Families"

"It was in this family setting that a person found his or her sense of belonging. As Williams Writes, 'Without a family, without kin, one is nobody.'"

"Scholars have correctly declared 1 Tim. 3:15 to be the central ecclesiological passage... The understanding of the church here goes beyond the metaphorical; the church is characterized, in its concrete organizational structures, by the perception of itself as a household... Viewed in this way, "house or family of God" becomes the model for responsible behavior as well as for church order and leadership structures, and thus the central, all-guiding image for the self-understanding and organization of the church. (p. 165, quouting Gehring in "House Church and Mission: The importance of household structures in early Christianity.")

But then, Comiskey fails to see the contradiction with all this in chapter 7: "Ecclesial Leadership: Developing Ministers from the House Structure" and advocates for women in church leadership. Also, in order to make his case, he conflates the general term "leadership" with the biblical terms "elder" and "pastor" This chapter also contains contradictions about church leadership in general. For example, he wrote"... there was no actual distinction between clergy and laity in the New Testament" (p. 123), but then later wrote how "Paul greeted the congregation and, separately, the 'overseers'" and pointed out that "Paul directed the appointment of elders, whom he also identified with the functions of 'overseer'." (p. 135) These are just samples of many self-contradictions.

Overall, a worthwhile book to read for people involved in leading cell groups. Just read with discernment, and realize that Comiskey, as he admits, is on a journey, too.

[Michael Galarneau · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not a fan of the cell model of small group ministry, and most of Joel Comiskey's stuff is centered on that subject. This book is no exception. With this book, Comiskey attempts to show a biblical foundation for cell group ministry. There are some good insights in this work, and if you are attempting to institute or rework the small group ministry of your church then you might find this book useful. If you are not sold on the cell model, that's okay. There are still many good things found here.

[Bob Douglas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my cup of tea.

I felt the book too verbose. Cell Church is obviously not a new idea, however, to believe in the Triune God for some people, perhaps most in the UK, is always going to be difficult with all the secular distractions. Cell Church might struggle to gain popularity in the UK.

[Ethan Callison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recommend any pastor or church leader to read. I really appreciate Comiskey’s cross-cultural view points as well as his attention to the original context of the NT writings and how this impacts our reading and application of following Jesus. Made me rethink how we structure our groups.

[Holly Anne Smith Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent resource for developing your Why for a small group and How.
Will read again!

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really thoughtful. Biblical. Last chapter had some great questions to work through to help me think through my biblical theology/methodology of house churches. The best book I've read recently on this!

[Scott Hayden]

I agree with most of his conclusions and want to see our own church and cell group grow in these ways. There are many insights to be gained from considering the original house-church setting of the New Testament with it's organic structure of family and flow along extended household lines and connections. (Disclosure, I took an all-day seminar from the author, so I can hear his voice and mannerisms coming through his writing.) Even though the author in his zeal is sometimes uncareful in exegesis and logic, overall, it's worth reading, talking about, and learning from.