Successful Home Cell Groups

by Paul Yonggi Cho, Harold Hostetler

Dr. David Yonggi Cho describes his church as the smallest and the largest in the world! The plan of home cell groups developed by Dr. Cho has brought about not only phenomenal growth, but also intimate fellowship and involvement. Experience Miracle Growth "By following the guidelines I have presented here, you can bring the miracles of home cell groups and church growth to your congregation." Successful Home Cell Groups relates how Dr. Cho was led to this dynamic principle of growth. He details everything you need to know to make home cell groups work.

Genres: Christian, Church

176 pages, Paperback

First published June 25, 1981

About the author

David Yonggi Cho (born Paul Yungi Cho) is a South Korean Christian minister. With his mother-in-law Choi Ja-shil, he is cofounder and eternal leader of the Yoido Full Gospel Church (Assemblies of God), the world's largest congregation, with a claimed membership of 830,000 (as of 2007). [Excerpted from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Y...]

Reviews

[Brian Morin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story of church growth.

Great story of church growth from the early days of the largest church in the world. Starting in a military surplus tent they are now over 800,000 members and were at the time of writing about 100,000 members. Great story and easy read.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book about how a Korean pastor used small groups (cells) to grow what would become the largest church in the world.

What I liked: Cho challenges churches to change their paradigm from a pastor centric model to a lay centric model (still with pastoral oversight). Best of all, he doesn’t just argue for an idea or principle, but he is someone who has experienced its success first hand.

What I didn’t like: I’m not sure if it’s because he’s not a first language English speaker or if it’s a cultural thing, but to a Canadian’s ears Cho’s writing style came across as rather boastful.

For a western Christian one must also must take into account of the cultural differences between 1970’s South Korea (which he describes in the book as a third world country) and your own - notably the collective nature of the Korean people (at that time) and their high respect for authority (including pastors). Cho leveraged both of these to make his small group system work.

[Ifeoluwa Shobande · Rating 5 out of 5]

"My son," He said, "if you could have a deeper fellowship with the Holy Spirit, your ministry would be multiplied and empowered greatly."

So I said, "Father, don't I already have all of the Holy Spirit? I'm born again. I've been baptized in the Holy Spirit. What more do I need?" Then God said, "Yes, you have the Holy Spirit in a legalistic way, but you don't have intimate fellowship with the Holy Spirit. You may bring a wife into your home legally, but you may also leave her alone in the home as a thing, not as a person, if you don't have fellowship with her continually."


Thank you, Yonggi Cho David, for this eye opener

[Dennis Podryadchikov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite being somewhat authoritarian, a Korean pastor from Assemblies of God shares principles of fruitful home gatherings. In a simple manner, David Yonggi Cho tells about his experience of growing his church from 30 to 30 thousand members by following what he believes principles of successful church growth. This book has become a classic for leaders of home groups and home churches.

[Brent Lenentine · Rating 5 out of 5]

old book but timeless principles

This pastor and author is not all of the same beliefs but getting as many people reaching, teaching and caring for people is a timeless Biblical principle. Also the reliance on the Holy Spirit is mandatory for every pastor.

[Emmanuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pls send it to me

[George moffat · Rating 4 out of 5]

getting his concepts a applying

[W. Austin · Rating 2 out of 5]

good stuff about cell groups but be very careful with the doctrine

[Johnny · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is only loosely a "theology" book. It combines theological insights with autobiographical detail and practical guidelines for establishing small groups for churches. I found an old edition of this book and found myself tremendously grateful. As a reviewer, I could suggest that this would be much more useful if the good pastor had shared some of his curriculum for the small groups rather than merely offering broad strokes, but it resonated with me, regardless.

Successful Home Cell Groups is a story that begins in failure, but it is failure in the midst of success. A Korean pastor was experiencing phenomenal success in growing his congregation, but that success was telling upon his health specifically because he could not delegate and tried to do everything "for" God instead of "with" God. The experience of his turn-around in attitude was worth reading the book for that alone.

For me, his insights about Korean culture were also worthwhile. I hadn't understood how a fundamentalist pastor could be so open to using women in leadership. He shared how he wasn't sure about it at first, either, but how he challenged God to show him the principles in scripture and, as a result he was convinced. In support of women in leadership, he not only cites Phoebe from Romans 16:1, but notes the counter-Asian mention of Priscilla before Aquila in Romans 16:3 and, within the context of greeting the leaders, Mary in verse 6 and Tryphena and Tryphosa in verse 12. In addition, he recounted a prayer session in which he was led to meditate upon God's choice of a woman for Jesus' mother, the faithfulness of the women during the period of the crucifixion, and the fact that Jesus' first message was to Mary Magdalene after His resurrection. Of course, as a fundamentalist, he had to deal with the idea of women not having authority over men in the church so he did a very unique thing. He had all of the women leaders in the group wear hats to show their submission to the senior pastor's authority. This interesting accomodation to literalism and to Asian culture worked phenomenally.

I was also intrigued by his list of seven conflicts during the early days of the home cell ministry: 1) lack of training and unity of teaching curriculum among the women leading the groups; 2) human desire to "out host" other hostesses such that the groups became "party time;" 3) inviting outside speakers who recruited/solicited support for other ministries rather than building up the groups; 4) attendees using groups to borrow money or promote investment opportunities; 5) unwillingness among some groups to split into manageable units when they grew to 30 or above; 6) insufficient accountability for monetary offerings (such that some leaders were tempted to borrow money from the collection); and 7) some of the male leaders deciding to "steal sheep" and recruit members from the small groups for their own purposes (founding their own congregations).

I also liked his five characteristics for good cell group leaders: 1) enthusiastic, 2) sharing a strong testimony, 3) involved in overall church fellowship, 4) dependent upon the Holy Spirit, and 5) willing to invest time and money in building the fellowship. In the same way, he shared his list of motivating leaders (obvious, but correct): 1) giving regular recognition, 2) offering praise for the good work, and 3) developing genuine love.

There are some differences between his perspective about how God works in the world and mine. He comes from a dispensational perspective that allows him to say: "The Father finished His work in Old Testament times. Then, He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, who was crucified and resurrected. Now, seated on the right hand of God the Father, Jesus has finished His work. Today, we have the age of the Holy Spirit." (p. 122) Frankly, my theology has the Trinity working in harmony from before creation and still working in the present. I offer Jesus' words in John 5:17 ("My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working." NASB) Later, He states that He doesn't and cannot do anything without the Father. So, while I disagree with Pastor Cho's emphasis in this regard, I still benefited amazingly from the rest of the book. I recommend this book for those of us who work with Asians in particular, but believe many ordinary churches of predominantly European or African ancestry would benefit from it as well.

[William Dillon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit opinionated when it comes to theology - many things I disagreed with when it came to his convictions, but the principle of cell groups is helpful. I do think however that cell groups thrive within specific cultures. Author seemed to talk about him self too much. Still appreciated the things it taught.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the classic examples or using small groups as the key foundation for a larger church. One element that seems to missing from many small groups in America is the passion and focus Yonggi Cho's groups place on outreach and growth through their groups. Groups that do not grow, eventually die.

[Light]

great