Cell-based ministry: A positive factor for church growth in Latin America

Many are aware that the largest church in the history of Christianity is comprised of tens of thousands of small groups, and David Yonggi Cho has demonstrated that a church can continue to grow rapidly without losing the quality care of its members. Several churches in Latin America have already experienced rapid growth through a cell-based ministry. These churches, while learning principles from Korea, have contextualized the cell-based model for Latin America.;The purpose of this dissertation will be to examine key variables of cell-based ministry in selected growing churches in Latin America and to compare those variables in order to describe the ways in which cell-based ministry contributes to church growth. I will examine the patterns of growth in these churches, the organizational structure of the cell-based ministry, patterns of effective cell leadership, and factors connected with cell multiplication.;Along with the interviews and participant observation in these case study churches, I prepared a questionnaire consisting of twenty-nine questions to determine which factors were significant in helping a leader multiply his or her cell group. The dependent variables were four questions related to cell multiplication. The rest of the questions were constructed as independent variables to determine what affect they might have on cell multiplication. These findings, along with the patterns and differences among the cell churches, are presented in Chapters 6 through 10.;Chapter 1 deals with the theology of the church as it relates to cell-based ministry. Chapter 2 covers the history of small groups from the Old Testament to Methodism. Chapter 3 looks at cell group strategies today, including the Pure Cell model and the Meta model. Chapter 4 focuses on Latin American cultural patterns, while Chapter 5 specifically deals with Latin American leadership patterns.;After laying the foundation for cell-based ministry in Chapters 1 through 5, Chapter 6 describes the five churches, Chapter 7 analyzes the organizational aspects of their cell ministry, Chapter 8 explores the leadership patterns of cell-based ministry in these churches, Chapter 9 examines the process of cell group multiplication in the case study churches and Chapter 10 offers a final summary and recommendations based on the research.