MAKING IT HAPPEN, Part II - Orchard Road Christian Center

SPIRITUAL FOCUS A. Your direction much come from the Holy Spirit • Through prayer during the week • Through meditation on the Word • By considering the needs of people. • Through prayer with your leadership team 45 minutes prior to start time. You will need to be available to greet attendees 15 minutes prior to meeting. Inform your group members of this practice. B. Be facilitator of the Holy Spirit. Be able to discern the true move of the Spirit in your group versus the fleshly or carnal move of man. THE MEETING FORMAT A. Try starting with refreshments and fellowship. • It eases tension. • Late comers are not a disruption. B. Start the meeting with prayer. C. Introduce guests. D. Praise And Worship Worship gets everyone’s heart ready to receive from God by ushering them into His presence and focusing them on Him. • Sometimes no worship is better than very bad worship. • You might appoint a worship leader. • Sing choruses everyone knows. Have song sheets, always! • Use musical instruments, CDs or tapes. • Limit worship times to 8 to 12 minutes maximum. ICEBREAKER The purpose of the icebreaker question is to become better acquainted with one another. Icebreaker questions give you information about a person that would never come up in most general conversations. They are usually quite fun! OFFERING • You never TAKE an offering, you always RECEIVE an offering. • The purpose of the offering is to teach people the blessing of giving, not a sermon. • Try to always give a nugget on giving, not a sermon. • Make sure everyone is offered an individual offering envelope. • Make sure everyone is handed the large white offering envelope to put his or her offering in. • Seal the envelope with two signatures on the flap (not spouse). • Turn the offering in no later than the Wednesday or Sunday following your group (whichever comes first). MISSIONARY UPDATE • Assign a missions coordinator who will correspond with your designated missionary and report to your cell group their prayer needs, etc. MEETING FACILITATION Be a facilitator, not a leader/teacher. Draw people out of themselves. Get their opinions instead of giving yours. There will be a separate lesson on group facilitation skills. CLOSING PRAYER AND VISION • Make sure that everyone that needs prayer gets prayed for. • Break up your meeting into several small groups to pray for each other. Prayer in small group is more intense and personal. When praying, be sure to encourage people. Never leave them with heaviness or unresolved feelings/issues. • Powerful intercessory prayer and spiritual warfare should be exercised at the monthly prayer night. At those meetings, pray the roof off. If there are unbelievers around, pray a conversational prayer sticking to a simple language as we speak with God. • Do not let the same person or persons dominate the prayer each week. • Ministry should be a team effort. This is where spiritual gifts are identified and developed in cell groups. • Constantly reiterate the importance of what we are doing by sharing the FIVE CORE VALUES that will help keep us focused on our vision to win the lost, make disciples and cover the earth (metro Denver). END THE MEETING ON TIME • The number one reason people stop coming to cell meetings is because the meetings are to long. If we don’t set time limits, the meetings will last too long; and long meetings wear people out. Ninety minutes for your meeting is the amount of time we find that works best. • Call in your counts to the assigned person immediately.