The G12 vision, also referred to as Groups of 12 or Government of 12, is a controversial strategy for church cell groups and church growth. It is based on the idea that each person should mentor and raise up twelve disciples in the Christian faith, and subsequently each disciple is to mentor 12 other disciples.
The idea of the G12 is to reach out and disciple every member and to hold every member accountable to Christ’s teachings. The main leader would disciple 12 people, they would instate Christian values, teachings, prayer and ministry on a weekly basis until their disciples were ready to lead their own groups. Each disciple would find 12 new disciples and repeat the same process until there were 144. In both theory and example this process leads the church to grow exponentially, without losing accountability of Christian values due to the eventual size of the church.
It is based on the methodology used by Jesus to begin his ministry. Following his 40 day temptation in the desert, the first act of Jesus in his ministry was to form a group of 12 disciples (Mark 3:14). Additionally, in the book of Acts the first action taken by the 11 remaining disciples (considering Judas Iscariot’s betrayal) was to re-establish a group of 12. Seeing fit not to leave it at 11, or allow 13, but rather to cast lots, which fell on Matthias, to fulfill the 12 (Acts 1:26). It was only after they re-established the group/government of 12 for the church that the day of Pentecost came (the moment when the disciples were all filled with the Holy Spirit)
This number 12 is considered significant as representing Government.
