THE OUTLINES These outlines are meant to be used as a tool. AS WE LISTEN TO THE HOLY SPIRIT FOR GUIDANCE AND DIRECTION BEFORE LEADING A CELL TIME – AS WELL AS DURING THE MEETING – WE CAN EXPECT GOD TO USE US TO ACHIEVE HIS PURPOSES. As leaders we need to be encouraging the young people to minister within the cell. Hearing from God for other members of the group is something that should be encouraged at all times. Prophetic gifts such as words of knowledge, prayers of wisdom and prayers of faith should be expected. Instructing the young people in appropriate levels of touch in single-sex ministry is part of the leader’s responsibility. We should also instruct the young people to not pray their best thoughts for other people and to not preach at each other through the ministry times. Also as leaders we need to encourage the individual to step out from a place of fear. Discourage them likewise from praying from a vested interest. Always suggest things that you have discerned about how to pray, and then allow time for all in the cell to listen to God. Always, allow young people to ask for ministry.
CELL MEETING 1 – DON’T FORGET YOUR THOOTHBRUSH:
Welcome & Icebreaker (20 mins) Spend some time introducing people to one another and having a coffee. Make people feel comfortable and relaxed. Then get the young people to pair up with someone they don’t know well. Ask them to find out three things (the zanier the better!) about their partner. For example, what colour their toothbrush is!! Then ask them to introduce each other back to the wider group. Worship (20 MINS) Give each person an object and ask them to think how it could relate to God. For example a bottle of Tippex could talk about ‘God’s forgiveness, making them white, getting rid of the black bits’. A football could symbolise that God is active and strong, and he’s always on the ball in our lives’. Use objects such as Durex, tea bags, umbrellas, kettles, chewing gum, chocolate etc. Be creative. It’s amazing what people will come up with then they’re stretched! Word (35 MINS) AIM: to identify wrong attitudes and concepts of church. Spend time asking everyone to brainstorm on a large sheet of paper what Church is. Ask everyone to call out words and get another young person tot jot them down. What does the Bible say it is? Use these scriptures: Acts 2:42-47 Romans 12:4-5 1 Peter 2:5 Ephesians 4:15-17 Ephesians 2:20-22 Ask different young people to look up the different verses and report back to the group about what they have found out about the Church. Again, get a young person to jot them down on a sheet of paper. The question we then need to ask is, do we need to change how we see the church? Identify on the brainstorming page the wrong and right concepts of church that were put forward earlier. Ask the young people to identify hurts or bad attitudes they might have towards the church, leadership or individuals who need to be dealt with through repentance and forgiveness. That should lead into a time of ministry. WITNESS (15 MINS)
In this the first witness time, get the young people to think about two of their non-Christian friends. Ask them to write the names of the friends on a piece of paper. Then ask them to close their eyes and think about how Jesus feels about their two friends. After a few minutes go around and ask the young people to share what sort of emotions Jesus has for the friends of group members. Then pray.
CELL MEETING 2 – THE SOUND OF MUSIC
Welcome & Icebreaker (20 MINS) Play a game of Race Pictionary. Divide the group down into two equal teams. Have ready a couple of big sheets of paper and markers. Get each team to work out who is going first and then in which order they will play. Secretly tell the first two players a word. Get them to draw that word without talking, without using symbols and without using any mime. When each team has guessed the word they need to send out their second player who will tell you the last word in order to get the next word. See how many words each team can do within a tenminute time frame. WORD (35 MINS) Aim: what is worship? First, ask the question, what do you think worship is (John 4:32, Romans 12:1)? Then ask, why do we worship God? Then ask the group to make a list of the ways we can worship God. What do I find difficult about worship? That will lead into a time of ministry. WORSHIP (20 MINS) Try accapella singing. Singing without instruments is often an excellent way of expressing worship to God. There can be a sense of freedom and of unity. Get the young people to stand close to each other in the middle of the room, facing in all different directions. Explain that this is uncomfortable, but will help you all to harmonise. Eye contact is hard to keep in this situation. Get everyone to close their eyes. Encourage young people at the end of songs to sing out the next song. Pick songs that most people know, and that are very simple or have only a few lines. Don’t try and ignore the funny bits of doing this. Remember, we can enjoy ourselves when we worship Jesus. WITNESS (15 MINS) Spend some time feeding back from last week about anything that came from praying for the friends of cell members. Pray for the same friends in groups of two to three. Ask the young people to pray for each other that they’d be open and honest about their relationship with Jesus with those friends.
CELL MEETING 3 - SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME
WELCOME AND ICEBREAKER (20 MINS) Ask the young people to tell the cell about their favourite film character.
WORSHIP (20 MINS) Break the group down into smaller groups of 2-4 people. Get them to create a drama without words that shows God’s love. I the groups get stuck you can always suggest doing something about The Cross. Get them to spend no more than ten minutes doing this, and then ten minutes relating their dramas back to the whole cell. Then have a song about God’s love to meditate on. WORD (35 MINS) Aim: God lovingly relates to people.
How does God relate to me personally? lovingly relating to us all as individuals.
Lead a discussion on the implications of God
Questions could include: how do we respond to God loving us; do we see God as different from a loving, relating God; how do we see him; what is your personal experience of God’s love? That should lead into a time of ministry. WITNESS (15 MINS) Get the young people to ask God what is holding their friends back from hearing about God’s love for them. Write those things down on a piece of paper. Swap pieces of paper and pray for someone else’s friends
CELL MEETING 4 – ALL CHANGE AT THIS STATION
WELCOME & ICEBREAKER (20 MINS) Get the young people to fill in …………………………………… the dots. One pet peeve I have is
WORSHIP (20 MINS) Ask each member, ‘Why God is God’? Together as a cell write each characteristic on a piece of paper and place on the floor. Then play music and get people to move between the bits of paper. When the music stops, get them to pray all out loud together about that part of God’s character. Encourage them to thank God personally for it. Keep the young people moving. These prayers don’t have to be long-winded! WORD (35 MINS) Aim: how can I help you be all that God wants you to be? Bible verses – Ephesians 4. Ask the questions – what’s the goal of our Christian life; how do we become more like Jesus? Along with answers like prayer and Bible reading we need to put across, that we also need each other to grow. How can we help each other? What stops us from asking for help? Often we fear being honest and vulnerable with others. Discuss. Then ask the young people to talk about areas of their lives where they want help. At that point as a leader you must be open and honest yourself. That will lead into a time of ministry. WITNESS (15 MINS) First, pray for inspiration and then brainstorm ideas for friendship evangelism projects. The idea is to plan an event solely for their non-Christian friends to meet socially with their cellfriends. That could be an event such as a football match, pizza and video night or going out ice-skating.
CELL MEETING 5 - ITS GOOD TO LISTEN
WELCOME & ICEBREAKER (20 MINS) Turn to person next to you. Find out as much as possible as to what you have in common with each other. Then relate those back to the wider group. WORSHIP (20 MINS)
Write a psalm with no ‘religious’ words in it, each member contributing a line or two. Read it out and use it to stimulate prayer. WORD (35 MINS) Aim: God communicates with people Ask a person (pick one of the more outgoing members of the group) to read an important message to the group from the Bible. At the same time start discussing something else over the top. Every time the young person stops reading. Apologise and ask them to start again. Continue to interrupt. Then ask the questions: what’s the problem here? how could this show what happens in our relationship with God? The point is that God wants to communicate with us. Are we listening, or do we interrupt, or not even begin to listen?
Then ask: have we ever heard from God? How? how do we know it’s God and not ourselves or the devil?
Spend time listening to God for different members of the cell. Ask a member of the group to sit in the middle and then spend time as a ell quietly listening to God. Then relate back what God was saying. Ask someone to write it down. WITNESS (15 MINS) Put all the names of the friends that the cell have been praying for all over the floor. An even better idea is to ask the young people to bring photos of their friends along. Spend time walking around, praying for the friends.
CELL MEETING 6 - POWER TO THE PEOPLE
WELCOME & ICEBREAKER (20 MINS) Think of a thing you succeeded in when you didn’t think you would. Each member needs to write that down and place it in a box. Each person then needs to draw out a response and see whether they can guess who wrote it. This is a great way of seeing whether you and the young people know each other. WORD (35 MINS) Aim: God gives us power Discuss Philippians 4:12. We’re asking the young people here to look at whether they’re accessing god’s power in their daily lives. Are they overcoming problems? Are they being freed from habitual sin? Are they seeing healing in their lives? And are they experiencing God’s power in evangelism and ministry? Talk about: how does God give power? why does god give power to people? what if God doesn’t seem to give me power when I ask?
Ask the group whether they have any needs. Get the group to pray that God’s power would meet individual group members’ needs. For example, if someone is sick or someone is feeling low.
WORSHIP (20 MINS)
Use the latest worship music or CD/Tape to worship God. Either spend time listening and reflecting on one song, or choose a few songs that can be linked together. Photocopy the lyrics so that everyone has access to them, and discuss them prior to playing the song. Encourage the young people to relax and come into the presence of God. Ask them to focus on the words and their meaning. Play through the songs a couple of times. Then pray through whatever God has been speaking to the young people about in that time.
WITNESS (15 MINS) Ask the young people to talk with the group about the struggles they have in praying for their non-Christian friends. Some might feel nothing is ever going to change. Others might even feel angry at God. Get the group to pray for those who are struggling.
CELL MEETING 7 - PART OF THE WINNING TEAM
WELCOME & ICEBREAKER (20 MINS) If you could take anyone, historical, present or future to MacDonalds, who would it be and why? WORSHIP (20 MINS) Take a psalm. Use it and convert it into modern day language. Give a line or two to each of the young people. Then come back and read it all together. WORD (35 MINS) Aim: teamwork Use a team building game to look at how we can work together. Give different people roles within a body. For example, make a few people the eyes. They can have their eyes open while the rest of the team need to be blindfolded. Get the majority to be the legs. They’ll need to carry people. Get someone to be the mouth and someone to be the brain. The mouth can talk to the wider group while the brain can only whisper the instructions to the mouth. Give the brain a task. It might be that you want the team to get outside and retrieve something from the garden. Make sure the task is quite complex and relies upon all the team members. Come back and discuss how the team worked together. There should be both positives and negatives in that experience. Ask the group how they can learn from this about being a team, and why they should work together as a team? Lead into a time of ministry focused around the question, why do I find it hard to work as part of a team? WITNESS (15 MINS) Ask the group if anyone has had the chance of sharing about Jesus or their life recently with non-Christians? Give a personal example of when you talked to someone about your life or faith. Then go on to pray for opportunities in the upcoming week.
CELL MEETING 8 - WHAT’S THE USE?
WELCOME & ICEBREAKER (20 MINS) Who do you turn to when things get tough – besides God?
WORSHIP (20 MINS) Encourage one of the young people to lead this worship time. Ask them to choose three or four songs that might be accompanied, sung accapella or that might be on a CD. Get the worship leader to get the young people to all pray out by focusing on the characteristics of God.
WORD (35 MINS) Aim: how can God use me? Has God used me before? Ask people to talk about the times God has used them before. Look at the things each individual is good at or that they do. Go around the group and get the cell to write about what each member is good at. Some of the young people might be good at talking to new people, while another might be great at hearing from God. Get the young people to think about how God might want to use those things? Challenge the youth to think of an opportunity to be practically used this week by God. Ask them to come back next week and tell the rest of the group of their experiences. Give them ideas.
WITNESS (15 MINS) Get the young people to think of their two friends and ways that they can make them feel loved this week. Pray about it as a group.
CELL MEETING 9 - IT’S GOOD TO TALK
WELCOME & ICEBREAKER (20 MINS) Think of a way – not using words – to express the type of week you’ve had. Tell the group about your week in this way. WORSHIP (20 MINS) Singing a new song is biblical. Use a karaoke tape of old/new secular music and choose a song where most people know the tune. Then set about changing the lyrics to worship god. Have fun. Use this song at different times in cell meetings. The group should have it as their own. Make sure the lyrics are understood by everyone. Avoid jargon! WORD (35 MINS) Aim: we can communicate with God Give roles to different young people to play in a small drama. Ask one person to be Fred and another to be God. Get them to stand at opposite ends of the room. Then ask three of the young people to stand between Fred and god. Explain they are barriers that Fred has in praying to God. One will be called Unbelief, another, Independence and the third Wrong Understanding. Have written out the following statements for the three barriers to read: Unbelief – ‘there’s no point in praying. God isn’t interested and there’s nothing he could do anyway’: Independence - ‘I can manage this situation without god’: Wrong Understanding – ‘God knows everything anyway so why bother to pray’. Discuss the above drama. Then ask, what are the barriers to prayer in your life? That should lead into a time of ministry. WITNESS (15 MINS) Get the young people to pray for the needs of one of their two friends. Ask God to reveal himself in the answer to the prayer, or to give the cell member an opportunity to share about praying for them.
CELL MEETING 10 – JOURNEY TO THE HEART OF GOD
WELCOME & ICEBREAKER (20 MINS) Try and think of the world in 20 years’ time. What sort of things will have been invented by then, do you think? Get every member to think of something. WORSHIP ( 20 MINS) Go around the cell and get people to share what God has been doing in their lives. Telling stories of God’s goodness to us gives him glory and is worship!
26. WORD (35 MINS) Aim: discovering God’s heart for the lost Ask different group members to read out the following scriptures: Luke 15: 3-7 Luke 15: 8-10 Luke 15: 11-32 Use the stories of the Prodigal Son, Jesus and the sheep and the story of the coin to illustrate how God feels about lost people. Then ask: do we feel the same way as God does? If not, why not? Some of the reasons that could be discussed are that we are too selfish, that we don’t have an understanding of hell and that we are insecure and find it too difficult to reach out. Challenge everyone by asking whether we want God’s heart and to think about what that might mean to them as individuals. That will lead into a time of ministry.
WITNESS (15 MINS) Spend time praying for the friendship evangelism project. Get the group to then pray that their friends would come and that they’d have a good time.
ASK THE YOUNG PEOPLE TO PRAY FOR EACH OTHER WHY DO WE WORSHIP GOD? ALWAYS ALLOW YOUNG PEOPLE AS ASK FOR MINISTRY AS LEADERS WE NEED TO ENCOURAGE THE INDIVIDUAL TO STEP OUT FORM A PLACE OF FEAR ENCOURAGE ONE OF THE YOUNG PEOPLE TO LEAD WORSHIP