structure your small groups around the purposes and the habits that produce growth the big idea
is that you need two types of gathering for spiritual growth you need large group celebration
and small group fellowship large group worship or celebration and small group fellowship this
is the way they did it in the Bible it says that they met day after day in the temple courts and
from house to house and the temple courts that's where they met for worship and then they met from
house to house in fellowship large group worship small group fellowship large group worship small
group fellowship and small groups are the cells of your of the body priced and healthy
cells produce a healthy body you'll never be any healthier than the cells in your body cells small
groups are the most effective way for closing the back door to your church you want to stop losing
people get them involved in cell groups now small groups here's the difference most churches have
small groups as a program at Saddleback small groups aren't our program they are our church
our church we tell you don't really you're not really a part of our church unless you're in a
small group that's why we have over 7,000 small groups in this church in 190 some cities from
Santa Monica to San Diego I told you the other day more people in our church are in a small
group than come to church on the weekend we're not the small groups on our program they are they are
the church the without cells you wouldn't have a body and so in the Bible that the Bible tells
us over and over again they had large group worship small group fellowship temple courts
house to house now I don't have time for complete explanation of our PD small group strategy let me
recommend a book just came out planning small groups with purpose Steve Blade and our pastor
here it was a genius of small groups just wrote this I want you to write down on your notes where
is it here to write it down maybe it's not there the church must grow larger and smaller at the
same time that's one of our slogans the church must grow larger and smaller at the same time it
grows larger through worship and smaller through fellowship and we base our strategy on the New
Testament model of Acts 542 they met day after day in the temple courts and from house to house large
group celebration small group fellowship there are many many examples of the church meeting in
homes obviously in the New Testament in fact it's interesting that for the first 300 years of the
church by the way the first 300 years the church was the fastest growing period in church history
Christianity grew faster in by percentage-wise the first 300 years than it has since now what can we
say about those first three centuries number one it was illegal to be a Christian most of
that time you were under persecution persecution doesn't hurt the church it actually makes it
stronger it was illegal on number two there were no buildings there were no church buildings I've
been in one of the earliest church buildings it's been destroyed now but it was in Molalla
in Syria built in about three three ten but before before that time everybody met in Homs the fastest
period of growth of the church they didn't have buildings and so they met wherever they could