In my opinion ( yes my humble opinion), one of the reasons why some churches grow is because of how their small group ministry is structured. I have been to many churches with small group ministries but having such ministry does not guarantee that the church will grow and expand. As what I’ve said in my earlier blog post on small groups, if your philosophy is inward-focused there is a greater chance that your church would be stagnant.

I could still remembering attending one of the staff meetings of our church where our founder Pastor Steve Murrell said, ” Victory is not a cell-based church, it is a discipleship based church. If cell groups is not the most effective way of doing discipleship, we would gladly scrap cell ministry.” ( This was during the Yonggi Cho days that is why I use the term cell group, we now call it victory groups)

What Pastor Steve was saying is that we are a church who thinks about discipleship. We are a church that focuses on discipleship. All roads in Victory leads to discipleship. Discipleship is our main thrust. Discipleship is not just another department in our church, it is the whole church making disciples.

So don’t build a church with small groups. Plant a church that has discipleship all over it. That is the only way Jesus patterned to the church on how to make disciples and change the world.