WHAT A WONDERFUL article on Mary and Gordon Cosby. I felt their convictions and assessments were right on everything...except one very important misunderstanding which needs to be corrected. They said that early on they experimented with cell groups based on the groups of the Wesley movement, but it was an inadequate model because it did not direct persons outward to mission.
As a matter of fact, the major preoccupation of Wesley’s groups were and are the opposite of what the Cosbys suggested. Their whole design and thrust is to connect personal faith to social mission.
If the cell groups Gordon and Mary were speaking of were overly introspective and inward, of all things they weren’t reflective of Wesleyan groups. When Cosby was thinking of what an ideal group would look like, then he was envisioning what in reality is a Wesleyan group, where personal holiness is formed into actions of social (or "outward") holiness through mutual accountability.
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