Value #7

Relationships are essential in building God’s kingdom.

Serving and building trust is fundamental to experiencing health in the church of Jesus Christ. Ephesians 4:16 tells us we are “supplied through joints and ligaments.” Those joints and ligaments are God-ordained relationships where we learn to trust our God in each other. Cell groups become greenhouses to train God’s people to trust God more and to trust others.
Due to the breakdown of marriage and relationships in our society, we are called as believers to model healthy God-given family relationships in the church. As cell members becoming living stones who are built into a spiritual house through relationships, our churches will also experience health and blessing. It all comes down to relationships—with God and with others.
Hebrews, chapter 3, verse 13, states, “Encourage one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness” (NIV). Encouragement begins in the home, as fathers and mothers encourage one another and their children to walk in the ways of God. This happens because of the relationships we have in our families, but we cannot stop there. Our cell group is a great place for establishing relationships and encouraging each other. Cells are our spiritual family.
The way to build relationships is to spend time together. A cell group in our church fellowship has seen eight people come to Christ recently. This did not happen by handing out tracts or street evangelism (although these are also good strategies for outreach), but came by the members of the cell reaching out to people at their workplaces, neighborhoods and schools.
The body of Christ needs family-type relationships with one another. Spiritually lost people can be won to Christ through building a relationship with them. Remember, “People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

Carl Good, DOVE Manheim, serves on the DCFI Apostolic Council.

Value #8

Every Christian is both a priest and a minister.

A quick glance at a church history book will almost always reveal Martin Luther as one of the key players in bringing reformation to the church. Among other things, he emphasized scripture alone as the final authority for Christians and also the priesthood of all believers. Martin Luther taught that every believer could go right to God himself and didn’t need an intermediary. These are vital truths that Martin Luther taught us from the scriptures.
However, Martin Luther did not teach the ministry of all believers. The ministry of all believers is a truth that is being released in the church now by the Holy Spirit to bring another great reformation in the way the church thinks and functions.
In Paul’s landmark letter to the Ephesian Christians, he included a statement teaching them that it is the job of leadership to train the believers to do the work of ministry. The leaders were not supposed to spend their time doing ministry, they were to invest their time by teaching others to do ministry. Ministry is not a job for the “professionals” to do; it is for everyone. Every believer can and is expected to evangelize, baptize, disciple, cast out demons, heal the sick and do the works of Jesus.
I once heard of someone describe an American football game as “22 players on the field badly in need of rest being watched by tens of thousands of people in the stands badly in need of exercise.” This might be a somewhat humorous description of a football game, but it is also a painfully honest description of what the church has looked like for hundreds of years. Scripture and the Holy Spirit cry out for this to change.
If we are going to get everyone on the “kingdom” playing field, this will include the strength of the young and the wisdom of the old. Both Jeremiah and Malachi spoke prophetically of the kingdom of God bringing the generations together to enjoy and proclaim the blessings of God.

Brian Sauder, DOVE Manheim, serves on the DCFI Apostolic Council, gives leadership to DOVE Canada and is the director of DCFI’s Church Planting and Leadership School.