new wineskins for the new wine

We made our share of mistakes
Although the church had grown rapidly in a relatively short span, we made our share of mistakes. The Lord began to deal with pride and unhealthy control in our lives. We found the Lord’s purpose for cell groups was to release and empower His people, not to control them. We repented before the Lord and before His church.

Our cell-based church had reached a crossroads. We were experiencing the pain of gridlock among some of our leadership. There was an exodus of some good leaders from our ranks. It was painful, and Larry Kreider, who was serving as the senior pastor, almost quit.

In retrospect, we feel the mistakes we made were partly due to our immaturity as leaders and partly due to our not having an outside accountability team to help us when we ran into conflicts in decision-making. And perhaps the Lord in His providence was repositioning some of His players elsewhere in the body of Christ.

But the Lord kept taking us back to the original vision He had given, calling us to be involved with the "underground church." Today we walk with a spiritual limp, but we are so grateful to the Lord for what He taught us during those days.
 
It became clear that in order for DOVE (an acronym for "Declaring Our Victory Emmanuel") to accomplish what we were originally called to accomplish, we needed to adjust our church government and "give the church away." The vision the Lord had given us, "to build a relationship with Jesus, with one another, and reach the world from house to house, city to city and nation to nation," could not be fulfilled under our current church structure.  We recognized the Lord had called us to be an apostolic movement, but we did not know how it should be structured.

It took more than two years to prepare for this transition. On January 1, 1996, our church became eight individual churches, each with their own eldership team. We formed an Apostolic Council to give spiritual oversight to DCFI, and Larry Kreider was asked to serve as its international director. The Apostolic Council gave each church eldership team the option of becoming a part of the DOVE Christian Fellowship International (DCFI) family of churches and ministries or connecting to another part of the body of Christ. Each of these eight churches expressed a desire to work together to plant churches throughout the world and became a part of the DCFI family. The majority of the overseas church plants also desired to become a part of the DCFI family of churches and ministries.

We have found apostolic ministry provides a safe environment for each congregation and ministry partnering with DCFI to grow and reproduce themselves. This new model emphasizes leading by relationship and influence rather than hands-on-management. A senior elder and team (we prefer to call the leader of a congregation a senior elder, rather than senior pastor, simply because he may or may not have the actual anointing of a pastor) has a leadership gift to equip believers to do the work of ministry in cell groups within a congregation. The Apostolic Council members are responsible to spend time in prayer and the ministry of the Word and give training, oversight and mentoring to local church leadership. They also are called to give clear vision and direction to the entire movement.

Becoming an apostolic movement
Unlike an "association of churches," which gives ordination and general accountability to church leaders, we see an "apostolic movement" as a family of churches with a common focus—a mandate from God to labor together to plant and establish churches throughout the world. Although some may call us a new denomination, we prefer the terminology "apostolic movement." We do not mind being called a new denomination, but denominationalism—an elitist attitude toward others in the body of Christ—separates us rather than focuses on our need for the Lord and for each other. We believe each denomination and movement has a redemptive purpose from God, and we need to honor, serve and learn from each other. We build on the shoulders of those who have gone on before us.

As a cell-based church planting movement, we are intent on training a new generation of church planters and leaders just waiting for a chance to spread their wings and fly! We are called to mobilize and empower God’s people (individuals, families, cells and congregations) at the grass roots level to fulfill His purposes. Every cell group should have a vision to plant new cells. Every church should have a God-given vision to plant new churches.