Our student ministry does something that I believe is rather unique. We call it cell family and we stole the idea wholesale from a church across town about a decade ago. They stopped doing it years ago and we’ve been dumb enough to stick with it. And yet, we’ve come to love it and it’s become an indispensable part of who we are as a ministry. What exactly is cell family? I’m glad you asked.
ONE EPIC NIGHT OF AWESOMENESS
Our high school ministry meets on Sunday nights. We built our ministry around small groups and we’re one of those student ministries that attach our small groups to our programming. In other words, we pack everything into Sunday nights: hang out, games, worship, teaching and small groups. We always leave the last 30 minutes of our night to small groups. We believe this is the best model for student ministry for a variety of reasons but we can argue about that in another post.
CELL FAMILY
What makes us unique is that every other week we meet in homes. Instead of meeting all together with all of our students and volunteers, we meet in regional homes based on school. We don’t add another night of programming, we do cell family in place of our regular large group programming. Sound like a logistical nightmare? It is. But to us, it’s worth it.
THREE LEVELS OF CONNECTION
There are a few reasons we believe this model is strategic. First off, we believe that students need to know and be known. Our dream is that students would know be known by ten adult volunteers (each cell family has 10 volunteers in it). These volunteers know each student’s name and basic story.
We also want each student to experience three levels of belonging. We want them to belong to something big. There is something special about worshiping together with hundreds of people. We also want our students to belong to something small. Small groups are the place where they can be vulnerable and real. It’s the environment in which they can be cared for and led by an invested adult.
Lastly, we believe our students need to belong to something midsize. We believe that there is something valuable in 30 or 40 people in a house. It feels a bit like a family reunion. It’s a support network. It’s a place where younger students can observe the faith of older students and where volunteers can show students what healthy relationships look like. It’s a place for students to try out their gifts and talents and it’s a place where they can have a voice.
INTERACTIVE TEACHING
Cell family is also a response to how students learn. We believe that students retain information best when they are able to interact with it as it is presented. In our cell families, we teach through discussion rather than preaching. Instead of a 20 minute presentation, we produce a 7 minute teaching video that leads into a group discussion. We believe this model of communicating better fits how our students learn.
SERVE AS A FAMILY
The last and perhaps most important reason we do cell family is volunteer community. We believe that volunteers are at their best when they are serving as a family. Each cell family is composed of 6-8 small group leaders and two volunteers that oversee the cell family. These “coaches” as we all them have two roles: care for their small group leaders and oversee the cell family programming.
Each time we meet in cell family, the volunteer team meets an hour early and has dinner at the cell family home. Over time, the combination of these meals and serving together leads to fantastic volunteer community. We want our volunteers to feel supported and together and cell family is a huge reason why we’re able to achieve this.