My Testimonies (Becoming a Cell Leader): The work in Lagos (as with Dominion Impact Church) began with four members, including Elijah. The quest for numerical and spiritual growth of the church pushed Elijah to inquire from the Lord as to what could be done to increase the church’s numerical and spiritual strength.
The answer to this hunger came in the early part of 2004, where Elijah was instructed in a night vision by God to adopt “House Fellowship” as a strategic way to grow the church. Elijah shared this with the lead pastor who gave permission to start. However, there was reluctance in Elijah’s spirit to start because he sincerely desired a new method of doing it. He didn’t feel it right to do it the same old way that was being done in Nigeria. He believed that a new, tested method was needed.
At last it came in 2004, when Pastor Bill arrived in Nigeria on invitation to speak on “how to build a great church through small groups”.
Before his arrival, Elijah didn’t have the slightest idea on what Bill was coming to speak/teach on. It was the second day of the meeting, whilst sitting on the floor of Bill`s hotel room, before leaving for the conference that Elijah knew that God had sent pastor Bill to give answers on how to grow the church in Lagos. Unknown to Elijah, the Spirit of God had moved upon his Senior Pastor to share with Bill, Elijah`s passion for cells/small group ministry. Without hesitation, Bill willingly obliged for Elijah to have further training on cell groups at Maadi Community Church (MCC), Cairo, Egypt. Elijah later joined Bill in that training, between October and December, 2004. This was a great experience of international exposure for Elijah. And according to Bill, it was worth investing in Elijah during his stay with him at MCC.
Also, Elijah says he will never forget the rich advice he received from the late, Pastor Dave Petrescue (Senior Pastor of MCC) on cells during his three months stay at MCC. It was Pastor Dave who shared with Elijah his passion and vision of Samson’s setting fire to the tails of foxes to destroy the camp of his enemies. This further strengthened his passion of equipping believers in Christ for greater exploits. The encounter with Dave greatly reshaped Elijah’s world view of ministry.
Elijah returned to Nigeria after his three months of internship at MCC and shared his experience with his ministry leadership team. A decision was immediately reached to make their apostolic base, Dominion Impact Church, a cell-based church. Elijah was then given additional responsibility to guide leadership in incorporating cells ministry in the life of the church.
In Lagos, the cells work commenced with one cell in 2005, but by His grace, Life groups steadily grew in number, resulting in growth in church population and spiritual enrichment.
Besides increase in numerical strength, Elijah witnessed that it took less effort to disciple and raise-up new leaders through cells. This was evident as nearly 40% of the members of Dominion Impact Church became the working force of the church. With cells operating, Elijah saw himself as merely performing a supervisory role in the church. According to him, evangelism and discipleship is made easy through cells.
It wasn’t therefore surprising at what God did through the small group launched at the on-set of the ministry operations at Assurance Pentecostal Church Int’l. God is helping APCI to repeat similar fist and even greater one since July 2014 when our ministry operation took effect with small groups in place.