The much anticipated fourth meeting in the internationally acclaimed “How to run a Cell Group” series took place earlier this evening. It started in rather dramatic fashion as Wendy entered carrying armfuls of Bibles which she proceeded to throw around the room. Presumably this was meant as some kind of parable or symbolic prophetic action.

The “ice maker” question was posed by Rebekah, asking us what we liked about our jobs and what positive feedback we had received. Catherine was shocked to hear that Neil’s colleagues describe him as “reliable and easy to get on with”. Steve declared that he liked to work with groups of difficult people. I guess that explains why I was invited (come to think of it, why any of us were invited).

Daryl then led us in a time of worship, which was excellent even though we didn’t have the words for the song. We managed admirably although I’m not sure that “Great in batter” is supposed to be in the song. The discussion was on “Gifts”. Heinz helped us to understand how we can encourage others to use their gifts. This not only includes encouraging quiet people to talk but helping those who dominate to be quiet. Graham seemed to know a surprising number of techniques for shutting this type of person up. Steve was able to use one of his suggestions to prevent him from giving any more.

We discussed what we might do for a group social event. Jane and Maresah were very taken with the idea of organising an event for drunken aunties. Jane even went so far as to claim that “everyone is someone’s aunt”. Thankfully, again drawing from his arsenal of techniques for dealing with problem people, Steve got us back on track by with a recap of our 5 core values. In fact, we now have 6 – A,B,C,D,E, and the new one – F. F is for “Finishing on Time”, which we didn’t manage, but seeing as we had done C (claiming to be bus drivers), D (drunken aunties) and E (eating drizzle cake), we concluded that the meeting had been a success.