Cell group day 1: City University Campus, Buenos Aires, Argentina

It was our first cell group meeting. There was Victoria, a committed student leader in her second year of university; Paula, a new person in her first year of study; and me, the missionary who had arrived to accompany and train leaders. The other people who were invited didn’t come.

Victoria had spent a year in a cell group where another very young student had led them in a study that involved many “What do you think this passage means?” style of questions. Paula, who moved to Argentina from Peru a year ago, had heard of the student Christian group and wondered what we did.

So how to engage them with Scripture from the beginning? To show them that God speaks to us through his living Word?

We decided to read through John’s Gospel in the group. Today was just introductions to ABUA (the Argentine student movement), each other, and the Bible studies to come. So for half an hour we read John 20:30-31.

We each took a few minutes to look for something that stood out for us, and a question.

From our three ‘light bulb’ observations we observed that John provides ample evidence to believe in Jesus as Messiah and Son of God, that those who wrote this down were eyewitnesses and therefore trustworthy, and that by believing in him we could have life.

Not a bad beginning!

Victoria’s question was: “If we are alive now, what does ‘life’ mean in the context of John’s Gospel?” Paula asked: “Jesus did many miracles. Were they special miracles for a special reason, and why don’t we see many of these sorts of miracles today?” I asked: “If John has chosen these, from a whole lot of miracles, what is special about each of these particular miracles?”

But we didn’t answer those questions. Instead, we realized that each one of us now had something to investigate as we read further. When we start at John 1:1 next week Victoria will be looking for the meaning of ‘life’ in John’s Gospel. Paula will be hunting for what is special about the miracles that Jesus did. I will be asking what each sign particularly adds to our understanding of Jesus as Messiah and Son of God.

This really gripped them with anticipation (me too!).

We then talked about a point of application—either for us as individuals, or together as a cell group. We all realized that we had the ability to show people the evidence for who Jesus is, and how they can know God. Both individually and as a group, our purpose is the same that John had in writing the Gospel.

Finally, I asked with whom we were going to share something that we had learned that day. We all realized that it was a win/win situation. If we shared what we had learned, then people might be interested in joining our group. If they couldn’t join the group, then they had still learned something vital from God’s word through us.

God’s word had done its work.