The importance of SLMX in church community is well established (Dose 2006). These relationships contribute to the personal development, spiritual growth and emotional stability of members, highlighting the essential role of healthy relationships among leaders and members in the development of churches and their impact on communities. According to Graen and Uhl-Bien (1995), LMX is the relationships between leaders and members that can result in either high-quality or low-quality exchanges. High-quality relationships, characterised by increased effort and loyalty, enable followers to gain more influence and control (Graen & Uhl-Bien 1995; Schriesheim, Castro & Cogliser 2001). This sense of belonging fosters personal growth and spiritual development. Conversely, low-quality exchanges, where members’ efforts do not exceed expectations and interactions are guided by organisational norms, do not inspire additional benefits from leaders (Graen & Uhl-Bien 1995; Schriesheim et al. 2001). Leaders may perceive these members as part of the ‘out-group’, attributing less value to their input, which can lead to negative outcomes.

The LMX theory suggests that leaders develop different types of relationships with each subordinate, ranging from those based on employment contracts to those characterised by mutual trust and respect (Dansereau, Graen & Haga 1975; Graen, Novak & Sommerkamp 1982). Understanding these dynamics is critical for fostering effective leadership. This research sought to argue that upholding the LMX theory with pneumatic adaptations has helped build dynamic ‘home cells’ that are critical contributive factors to the growth of the Perez Dome.

Spiritual growth is critical to many Pentecostal and Charismatic Church because of the emphasis on pneumatic experiences. However, it is difficult to effectively measure the spiritual growth of a congregation scientifically. Here, spiritual growth is measured based on the response of members of the home cell to home cell activities, and communal response and care for the needs of fellow members through the LMX. These needs are spiritual such as fasting, prayer and demonstration of the knowledge of the Bible (word of God) to support each other through the instrumentality of the leader.

The structure of home cells in the Perez Dome is based on regions. There are seven regions of home cells with their respective number of cells: Bethel has 5 cells, Canaan 24, Eden 35, Judah 12, Goshen 21, Shiloh 13 and Zion 15. For Pentecostals, spiritual growth is the daily application of the Bible in the life experiences of members of the church (Shaasha, Msabah & Kyule 2024:28–46; Sims 2013). The study measured spiritual growth on three themes: spiritual development, leadership development, and discipleship and mentorship. These were determined by the leader’s relationship with the members of the cells. On the scale of 1–5, the leaders confirm that members of the cells have developed spiritually through the weekly participation in cell meetings and activities. Spiritual development is also vivid in the engagement of Scripture passages by the members to deal with life challenges. Hence, the leaders were not confronted with too many existential issues of the members.

Leadership development has manifested in the raising of cell members who have started and are leading new cells or deputising for other leaders of the cell. This demonstrates effective discipleship and mentor relationships that exist between the leaders and members. The home cell system in the Perez Dome fostered the avenue for Leader-Member knowledge that enhances spiritual growth and nurturing of leadership potentials of members through the application of biblical principles. This confirms the definition and key characteristics of Pentecostals. ‘It is noteworthy that Pentecostals point to Scripture’ (Asamoah-Gyadu 2013:11) for authority and practice in all matters. The phenomenon makes the Bible a living document and tones down the historical factor of the Bible.

Numerical growth is significant to church congregations. It is expected that spiritual growth will eventually result into numerical growth. Table 1 demonstrates the objective model and reveals a mixed picture of home cell growth, with some groups experiencing an increase in attendance, while others declined over the period. This variability suggests that some home cell groups were successful in attracting and retaining members, while others struggled to maintain attendance.

Two types of growth are explored in this study – that from the leaders perspective and that from the members perspective. An assessment of an agreement of otherwise of these two scores was therefore performed using the paired sample t-test. The paired sample t-test compared the growth scores from the leaders perspective and that from the members perspective to assess whether a notable difference exists between the two viewpoints. The mean difference between growth scores of leaders and members is –1.65750. This indicates that, on average, members have a growth score that is 1.65750 points higher than leaders. The p-value of 0.248 indicates that the mean difference between growth scores of leaders and members is however not statistically significant. The lack of significant difference between growth scores of leaders and members suggests that leaders and members have similar growth scores, indicating no significant difference in their perceptions of growth.

Table 2 demonstrates the dynamics of the existing members (baseline) and the growth (current) or otherwise. The decline in Goshen and Shiloh regions requires critical investigation to arrest and reverse the trend. It is likely that the decline identified in some specific home cells in Goshen and Shiloh regions may lead to diagnoses and solution to the LMX in that specific ‘home cell’. Because the emphasis in this research is on LMX, leadership is pivotal. It therefore calls for a relook of the leadership aptitude in those specific cells. The decline in Goshen and Shiloh regions demonstrate that the LMX may have some challenges, which is a contextual issue.

Social and welfare growth are measured based on the interpersonal relationship of members. These have some commonalities with the church growth scale developed by McIntosh (2004). Social and welfare relationship with others who may not be Christian, or members of a cell, is generally encouraged among Pentecostals to serve as a bridge to convert them to the faith (Gifford 2004:13). Social growth in the home cells in this study is measured on the scale of growth in interpersonal relationships among members, group cohesion and presence at social events (weddings, naming ceremonies, funeral etc.) of the home cells. The social and welfare growth is further elaborated in the conjoined discussion of spiritual growth, numerical growth, social and welfare growth in LMX in the following section.

The correlation analysis between the LMX of Members and of Leaders, as shown in Table 3, had a coefficient of –0.677 indicating that there is a moderately strong relationship between the LMX scores of leaders and that of members. The p-value of 0.095 shows that although it is not significant at 5%, it is significant at the 10% level.

The LMX scores had an overall average score of 28.5 out of 35 (81.43%). This suggests a high (strong) LMX score on average because it’s above 25. Region-wise, the Judah Region has the highest score (30.1667), followed by Canaan (29.2500), Zion (28.7333), Bethel (28.6000), Goshen (28.3333) and Shiloh (28.0769), while Eden has the lowest (27.6286). This seems to suggest that higher LMX scores go with higher growth perceptions. The observed differences in LMX scores across regions are however not significant (p-value of 0.888).

The LMX scores have important implications for assessing the quality of leadership and its impact on home cell group effectiveness. High LMX scores suggest that leaders at the home cell group are effective in building trust and rapport with members and are able to empower and support members in fostering a positive and productive group dynamic.

The internal consistency (reliability) among the four measures of growth (Numerical Growth, Vertical [Spiritual] Growth, Welfare Growth, and Social Growth) was assessed using reliability analysis with the Cronbach’s alpha. The Cronbach’s alpha value of 0.839 (> 0.7) indicates that the items have strong internal consistency among the four variables of growth and show good reliability.

The item-total statistics for the reliability analysis, as shown in Table 4, shows that all four variables are important as a removal of any will lead to a lower Cronbach’s alpha score. However, numerical growth is the least influential as its removal will only result in a small change of 0.008 (i.e. from 0.839 to 0.831).

Given the established validity and reliability of the growth Instrument, the average score for each dimension of growth are as follows: numerical growth 10.93, vertical growth 12.58, welfare growth 12.26 and social growth 11.46.

The average score (mean) for growth of a home cell is 47.23 out of 60 (78.72%), with a standard deviation of 7.611. This is negatively skewed, thus fewer lower growth and more higher growths. The region with the highest member perception of growth is the Judah region followed closely by the Bethel region, while the lowest perception is the Zion region. The observed difference among the regions is however not significant at the 5% level (p-value of 0.344) – one respondent did not state his or her region.

The correlation between the type of growth of the leader and the net growth of the home cells was explored using correlations. The net growth is the change in the membership of a home cell. The correlation indicates that welfare is very significant (p-value of 0.001) followed by social growth, which is significant at 7%. Spiritual growth was not significant (p-value of 0.912)

A further analysis of region-wise welfare and social growth is shown in Table 5. The table shows that only social growth by leaders is highly correlated with the net growth of a region, and this is positive, strong and significant at 94% (p-value of < 6). Thus, the growth of a region is more dependent on the leader than it is on the member, and when the leader’s interpersonal relationship grows, it leads to a significant numerical growth of the region.

Table 6 shows the average LMX scores of leaders with their respective growth rates for the various home cell groups, by region. The relationship between LMX and the growth of a region, as shown in the correlation, is positive and very significant (0.325, p-value of 0.000). Thus, stronger LMX is very significantly related to growth in the home cell.

A further breakdown of the detailed correlation between the LMX and each growth components score showed that spiritual growth has the highest, and positively significant, correlation with LMX scores (Pearson’s 0.361 with p-value of 0.000). Thus, implying that strong Leader-Member relationship leads to higher growth in the spiritual life of members than in any other area – this is followed by an increase in the social growth, then welfare growth, before numerical growth.

Furthermore, numerical growth is more associated with spiritual growth (Pearson of 0.534) and social growth (Pearson of 0.496) of members. Thus, a focus on the spiritual life of members and their social growth will bring better dividend to numerical growth than meeting the welfare needs of the members.

In addition, although the spiritual growth of members is more associated, positively and significantly, with social growth (Pearson of 0.642), it is also significantly associated with welfare growth (Pearson of 0.527). Thus, when the spiritual life of members at the home cell grows, meeting the welfare and social needs of members is an obvious consequence.

The highest correlation, which is also positive and significant, is between welfare growth and social growth (Pearson’s 0.693). Thus, a strong focus on social interaction at the home cell is likely to lead to meeting the welfare needs of the people – perhaps because the greatest need of members may not be material, but relational.

Splitting the data into two sets, that is members with LMX scores lower than 25 (as Low LMX scores) and members with LMX scores greater than or equal to 25 (high LMX scores), a further analysis showed that at the 5% significance level, there is no significant difference in growth in the various areas, between those with low LMX scores and those with high LMX scores except in spiritual growth. Thus, the spiritual growth of members with high LMX is evidentially higher than those with low LMX. However, at the 10% significant level, social growth is significantly higher for those with high LMX scores than those with low LMX scores. Thus, stronger LMX leads to better social growth in the home cells at the 10% significance level.

The correlation between Leader-Member relationship and some home cell growth metrics as shown in Table 7, suggests that strong Leader-Member relationships play a critical role in fostering the growth and sustainability of home cell groups within the Perez Dome.