Following & Equipping Through Obedience

Qualifications For The Five Fold – Part I

Now as Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon who was called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen, and He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.  Matthew 4:18-22

As He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting in the tax booth, and He said to him, “Follow Me!” And He got up and followed Him. And it happened that He was reclining at the table in his house, and many tax collectors and sinners were dining with Jesus and His disciples, for there were many of them, and they were following Him. Pharisees saw that He was eating with the sinners and tax collectors, and said to his disciples, “Why is He eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners?” And hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick, I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.” Mark 2:14-17

He carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God…. And the wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were the names of twelve apostles of the Lamb. Rev. 21: 10, 14

While on earth, Jesus was choosing men to become foundation stones for his New Jerusalem, choosing men to be evangelists, shepherds, teachers, prophets, and apostles. What kind of men did he choose? What were their credentials? What did Jesus do to “equip” these saints for the work of service that would impact centuries to come?

It is interesting to note that he did not pick one scribe, the theologians of his day, nor one Pharisee, the highly religious person of his day, nor started a school for rabbis, the spiritual teachers of his day.  In fact scribes and Pharisees are the only people he verbally criticizes with a venomous zeal.  In stead he chose every day, common, religiously untrained people: fishermen, tax collectors, and others by trade who were willing to lay down their occupations and careers to “Follow Me!”

Jesus was willing to live with them, walk with them, spent time talking, discussing, teaching, modeling, directing, just doing what he expected they would eventually do.  He invested Himself in them; in turn, they dropped what they did, followed Him, and invested themselves in Jesus! 

Jesus was looking for was obedience: He spoke; they followed! He did not ask for resumes, conducted no interviews, nor demanded any formal academic or religious training. He spoke; they followed! Religious people were busy taking their sacrifices to the Temple, but Jesus said, “To obey is better than sacrifice.” He spoke; they followed!

To be an effective follower of Christ, a believer in Christ, a disciple of Christ, an evangelist propagating Christ, a shepherd leading a flock for Christ, a teacher expounding the Word of God about Christ, a prophet proclaiming the life of Christ, or an apostle overseeing the Body of Christ, you have to be obedient!  When Jesus speaks; you must follow what He says in obedience! It is that simple.

Were these disciples very obedient? Scripture records they squabbled amongst them selves over power, who would sit on Jesus’ left or right when he rules His kingdom; He taught them in parables, then He had to reteach it to them in simple terms for they did not understand; He often rebuked them, “Oh ye of little faith;” Peter becomes known for “opening his mouth and inserting his foot”, yet Jesus chooses him to become “a rock” in this movement; and they all run, flee, and hide in fear when Jesus is crucified and become skeptical when first told of his resurrection.  In spite of all this, they still qualify because Jesus chose them, and they followed. Jesus continues to extend Grace and Mercy, and they continue to receive and take it.

Ephesians 4 encourages the Church to “equip the saints for the work of service.” These initial followers were not yet equipped for service in spite of their training, in spite of walking by Jesus side, in spite have a personal relationship with Jesus, their Messiah. Peter denies Jesus three times, yet before his ascension Jesus affords Peter the opportunity reaffirm his love for Him three times, then commands, “Follow Me!! 

Acts 1:4 records: “He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised.” If they were obedient, he was about to “equip” them. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” Jesus’ followers, his disciples had been trained, had walked a spiritual journey with Jesus, but now they were going to be “equipped”; they were going to be “empowered” and that “empowerment” would require “obedience”. When Jesus’ Spirit, the Holy Spirit, speaks; you must follow what He says in obedience! It is that simple.

As I have said often in past blogs - bottom line: Can you trust the Holy Spirit? Will you be obedient to what He reveals and says? Empowerment comes through obedience.  He has equipped you with His Holy Spirit; now go in obedience!

Plurality Is Better Than Singularity

The Need For The 5 Fold

Five = One Is Better Than Doing It Alone!

Often there is strength in numbers. I remember receiving a phone call from a girl in distress who claimed to be fighting a spiritual battle in her head. She felt satan had been hassling her, and she did not know what to do about it. As we began to pray about it, she received a revelation that changed her life. She said, “Wow, it is like I can see the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost standing beside satan. Three against one! But with you and me together, it is now five against one; satan doesn’t have a chance!”

There is power in plurality. God knew that it was not good for man to live alone, thus Adam had Eve, the Lone Ranger had Tonto, Snoopy had Charlie Brown, and so on. “Where two or more are gathered, there I am,” Jesus said. In the midst of plurality you find Jesus!  That is one of the secret mysteries of a true five fold model: five different passions, drives, and points of view, yet when unified in purpose and in mission by each laying down their lives for each other through service they become a dynamic force for the kingdom of God!  There is a dynamic power when “5=1”! When five different drives, though diverse, go the same direction in unity together; they are unstoppable! “Satan doesn’t have a chance!”

If that is true, then why does the church not openly embrace the five fold?  Bottom line: Control. Who is in control? In the five fold model that I have presented over these 350 blog pages, each believer has to relinquish control and “release” those diversely different from themselves to be who they are in Christ Jesus in freedom. The Holy Spirit must be in control! We are only vessel’s of God’s Spirit, living temples. As soon as we try to take control, power politics become the issue.  Most Christians, sometime in their life, has fallen victim to “church politics” as parties fight for who is going to control the church and the church’s doctrines and direction. The only way to avoid church politics is to relinquish your need to be in control, be submissive to the Holy Spirit’s control, and blindly, in faith, obey his leading.  That will lead to being submissive to the other four in humility, which will lead to unity in purpose, direction, and ministry: 5=1!

5 different voices = 1 united voice; 5 diverse passions & drives = 1 unified direction; only when 5 different people are willing to lay down their lives for each other in service, humility, and submission = 1 body, with 1 Lord, Jesus, following 1 Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus Christ!

It’s a dynamic theory, a work in progress, a goal that I am shooting for in my life time, a dream for unity in the Body of Christ, His Church, His Bride, which he will return for during his second coming. 

America & The Church: Facing The Challenge Of Community

The Need For The 5 Fold – Part II

The Issue: How To Develop Community (Continued)

Today’s churches look for programs and models that have been proven “successful” by other churches and pattern their program after it. The five fold doesn’t recreate; it creates. “In Jesus Christ all things are new,” as the scripture says.  The Holy Spirit can direct one local church to do one thing, yet has another church do something completely different.  The Holy knows the hearts of men, so it knows what we are or are not willing to do, our faith levels, our commitment, our foundations of faith. 

If your church wants to reach out to the urban neighborhood, you might pattern other ministries: begin with a door to door evangelistic thrust handing out tracts about your new ministry, offer a soup kitchen, create a community food and clothing bank, develop a Rescue Mission or drug free half way house, etc, but do these proven and highly effective ministries fit with your congregations gifts?  Will your church be over taxed eventually causing burn out if they tackle on all of this? Do you have the resources needed?

On the other hand, if examined from a five fold perspective, the five gather to “seek” the voice and direction of the Lord in what to do to revitalize this neighborhood.  During time of prayer and worship, the evangelist cries out in intercession for the lost, the shepherd sees the overwhelming need in the community and begins to prayer for provisions and direction, the teacher searches the scripture for a relevant scriptural foundation to base this endeavor, the prophet seeks the presence of the Lord, desires to hear from Him,  and seeks a living gospel, and the apostle intercedes with the other four for the cause of the whole project.  The Lord may first direct the team to do nothing but pray and intercede for a time, or canvas the neighborhood to feel its life or pulse, or walk the streets just to talk to people and begin basic relationships, etc.  Out of those faith walks may come hints of direction.  The Holy Spirit may reveal the needs, desires, atmosphere, and character of the community, giving the five a “sense” of the proper direction. Soon the needs, dreams, desires, wants, wishes, and challenges of the community become clear, and the Holy Spirit gives the five a plan to implement. Now they have to be obedient and “just do it”, not doubt.

Often the believer with an evangelistic bent leads off the endeavor, birthing the project.  As it begins, the shepherd kicks in and begins maintaining an effective infrastructure.  Both of their efforts come in line with Biblical examples taught by the teacher and are given life through the prophet while the apostle is amazed at what the Holy Spirit is doing, releasing the other four in the freedom to minister according to their desires and passions effectively.

Instead of a soup kitchen, the Holy Spirit may make the members of this church open their homes to strangers, released prisoners, drunks and drug addicts helping them to kick their addictions, feeding them around their own kitchen tables while building relationships, making them feel part of a family, being accepted just where they are.

Service is always central to the five fold, for Ephesians 4 says we are to “equip the saints for the work of service.” The more the church community serves the neighborhood, the more the neighborhood looks at your church not as a religious institution but as a group that builds relationships and serves.  When the religious barrier drops, the effectiveness of service through relationships thrives.

Each neighborhood has its own flavor, its own uniqueness, its own personality and character from the diversity of people living there, the culture they have creative, and even the architecture and history, so the plan to conquer it for Christ has to be personal, unique, and diverse to be effective and can not be a copy of another church’s work.  This is the power of the creative work of the Holy Spirit, and what better avenue to funnel that creativity than through the five fold giftings, passions, and point of views to bring unity in one’s community and neighborhood through diversity?

America & The Church: Facing The Challenge Of Community

 The Need For The 5 Fold – Part II

The Issue: How To Develop Community

The Black population in America cherishes community, and speaks of it boldly when talking of their corporate experience.  Their sense of community was developed through centuries of slavery and suffering, for only through their own personal bonding together did they have a corporate sense of purpose and understanding.  The Leave It To Beaver communities of the 1950’s featured neighborhoods that did social activities together, worshiped together at local corner churches, while serving and helping one another, but by the Archie Bunker All In The Family and Ray Ramano Everyone Loves Raymond eras, America experienced dysfunctional families and communities.  Families no longer sat on their porches visiting, sharing in community picnics and fairs, sitting together around band shells to be entertained but passed one another in their cars traveling to different destinations for social, religious, and business purposes. Today “personal visitations” is becoming obsolete, as Social Networking through Smart Phones enables communications and becoming “bf”, best friends, through Facebook, texting, emailing, Skyping and FaceTiming, etc. while even sitting in the same room, muting oral communications as fingers fly across their phone’s keyboards. Technology redefines community, so how should the Church adjust to redefining community.  First Century times featured breaking bread together, eating together, fellowshipping or hanging out together. Distant correspondence came through letter writing even most of the population were illiterate. With the invention of the printing press, that changed, as people could entertain themselves by reading a good book and local libraries became part of the community. By the twenty-first century with the Internet and World Wide Web one does not have to even leave their personal dwelling or living space to communicate with the world, anyone, anywhere as long as there is Internet connection.  The sense of community has gone through small towns and neighborhoods to a world wide view.

One of the challenges America and the Church faces in the 21^st Century is how to define “community”, the bonding of relationships.  Several churches sensing demographic change in the late 20^th Century changed their church names away from denominational traditions to “community” churches, hoping to maintain an old paradigm of past years, but now with a new generation, new mindsets, new technology, and a new way of looking at the world, the Church has to have a paradigm shift if it is to be effective in birthing, establishing, influencing, and impacting 21^st Century community.  “Church” is a community of believers, and the church has to determine how to define “church” in a changing demographic world influenced by technology, redefining what “church”, “doing church” and “meeting at church” as well as what “a church service” means.  How does it do that?

At the local level, I believe doctrine of Priesthood of Believers must be again unveiled, teaching the role of every believer in their faith walk individually and corporately, called the “church”.  Are we willing to respect past history and traditions, but be willing to lay them on the altar and allow the Holy Spirit to do a new thing for this new generation?  Are we willing to provide “new wineskins”, new forms, new mindsets, and new visions and points of view for new ideas, directions, and ministries of service to be birthed, generated, and maintained by the Holy Spirit?

If there was ever a time the five fold was needed, it is today to “discern” where the Holy Spirit is leading for this generation!  By having an evangelistic, shepherding/pastoral, teaching, prophetic, and apostolic spirits come together to lay down their lives for one another, serve one another, and support one another, the Church can corporately listen to the “still small voice” of the Holy Spirit for guidance and direction.  If they seek the “voice” of God in unity, they will also hear him in unity. God does speak when we are willing to listen.  The challenge comes in what to do when he speaks, for the Holy Spirit demands “obedience” to what has been “revealed” by the Heart of the Father through the voice of the Holy Spirit.  For the Church in the 1st Century and the 21^st Century, “obedience” defines “righteousness”!

When the Holy Spirit gives direction to a local church or congregation, then the evangelistic spirit among them must be “released” to birth this new sense of community; those believers who exemplify the shepherding/pastoral spirit must be “released” to minister to one another to develop and sustain that community; those with a teaching spirit need to be “released” to exhort the written, the Logos Word, the Bible, to ground them in Biblical principles defining community; those who flow in the prophetic spirit must be “released” to make this grounded Logos Word a Rhema, living word to bring “life” to this community; and those believers given the gift of the apostolic spirit, the God ordained ability to see the big picture must be “released” to “see over” what the Holy Spirit is doing amongst the group and allow them to “release” the other four passions to do “the work of service” to birth, develop, maintain, grow, and reproduce this aspect of community which the Holy Spirit defined. That is how the five fold works.

The way the Church defines and does “community”, does “church”, by the end of the 21^st Century hopefully will look drastically different than it did in the 10^th, 15^th, 20^th, and even beginning of the 21^st Centuries. Jesus has empowered his Bride, the Church, to move toward change, to birth, develop, and maintain a Church without spot or wrinkle to prepare the Bride for the return of its Groom, the return of Jesus.

America & The Church: Facing The Challenge Of The Elderly

The Need For The 5 Fold – Part I

The Issue: The Elderly

One of the last things Jesus did on earth while on the Cross in pain was to take care of his mother upon his death.  He instructs his beloved disciple John to take Mary as his mother.  He “releases” John to not only “take care of the widows” but to “take care of his mother, a widow”.  We never hear much about Joseph, his father in the gospels except at Jesus’ birth and searching for his 12 year-old son who was at the Temple doing “his Father’s business”. The narration of Joseph is then silenced, I assume probably through death, for Mary is alone at the Cross, given to John to be cared for.  In Paul’s apostolic letters, the Church is always exhorted to take care of the elderly.

The Church always has asked, and still does: “How are we to take care of the elderly, the widows?” Are they to build “Assisted Living Homes” and “Nursing Homes” that are popular today, or teach their followers to have their parents move in with them as their responsibility?

With the large number of Baby-Boomers in America, a growing “older” population is begin to wonder, to worry, to fear its future. Who will take care of them? Their parents lived in the Post-World War II prosperity, establishing retirement funds and government programs to take care of them when aging.  The Baby-Boomers are trying to follow their father’s footsteps, but with the prosperity era closing as everything is becoming “world-wide” instead of nationally centered, prosperity is being shifted globally affecting the wealth of America. The younger generation, now in their 20’s & 30’s, do not have employer financed Retirement Programs, but are offered personal IRA, Individual Retirement Funds, that they personally finance in spite of lower wages and a dwindling middle class.  As the wealthier get wealthier, and the poor remain poor, the middle class is finding a large chunk of itself now falling under the poverty level. What future for “old age” do they have when barely maintaining a current cost of living?

How is the American Church to address this dilemma? This blog’s purpose is not to specifically answer that question because it does not have specific solutions. What it does have to offer is a tool that can effectively come up with an answer: the five fold.

As a church locally or nationally, it needs to pull together its resources of evangelists, shepherds, teachers, prophets, and apostles to address the question and come up with the solutions. Reading Acts 15 may help, for the early Church found itself engulfed in a church political question about the Jew/Gentile relationship and how it would effect the Church and its future. They faced the tough questions, challenged the hypocritical attitudes of its time, make the question personal to Peter, Paul, & the others present, called on the Holy Spirit for a solution, and came to one in unity.  They then released the evangelist to “birth” or announce their decision among the entire church, released the shepherd particularly among the Gentile Church with guidelines on how to maintain, grow, and develop this new organism, the Church, released the teachers to teach their congregations how to “live out” this word of unity they now had, released the prophets to make this written edict, this written word a “living word” by actually sending out people from their midst, whom I believed were prophets, to help the Church now make this decision a “living decision”, and released the apostles to not have to “do” the work, but only “see over” what the Holy Spirit just decided and “release” all the others to use their gifting, passion, and point of view toward the unifying good for the entire Body of Christ, the Church.  That is how it works!

To answer the question “how to take care of the elderly, the widows”, the Church at large, particularly the church locally who needs to implement the answer among themselves, needs to bring together their diversity of passions and points of view, their evangelists, shepherds, teachers, prophets, and apostles to ask the Lord through His Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus Christ for “revelation”, to reveal the answer to all present that will bring “unity” in vision, direction, and purpose upon a solution to the problem, then release each of them to use their gifting to make this written agreement a living agreement. In old times a man was only worth the value of his “word”; his “word” was his bond”, but the “word” was of no use unless nor valued unless it was “lived out”!

The uniqueness of “trusting the Holy Spirit” is that he may tell one group specifics on how to “take care of their elderly” differently than he may another individual group because of different societal norms and values and traditions of that group.  One way may be effective in one area that would not be effective in another.  One area may be strong in family values, thus calling upon individual families to be the strength of their joint ministry, while in another location where the family has disintegrated, the church at large might have to become the family to teach individual families how to function Biblically, how fathers are to father properly modeled by their heavenly Father, mothers to mother with godly nurturing, siblings to encourage one another, not challenge, fight, nor kill one another, etc. See the Holy Spirit knows and will reveal “the heart” of the local church and what is needed for “heart restoration” in solving the problem.

Once the answer or solution has been “revealed”, for “revelation of Jesus Christ” is at the heart of the workings of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus Christ, then the church needs to “release” the evangelistic spirit in its midst to “birth” or “rebirth” that solution in their midst, “releasing” the shepherding spirit to grow and develop that solution based on Godly principles taught by the teacher through the Word of God, the Bible, whose relevancy will be “revealed” through “releasing” the prophet to make it a “living” “active” solution, to be “seen over” by proper apostolic oversight, those who see the big picture of the entire solution process, but who are willing not to do the work, nor control what is being done, but continuing to “release” the other diverse giftings, passions, and points of view toward the unifying solution to the problem.

That is how the five fold is to work to solve problems.  Church, lets face our challenges, especially taking care of the elderly, the widows, the senior saints who have labored for decades for the cause of the gospel as they enter the fall season of their lives, by trusting the Holy Spirit for solutions, Biblically based, by actively living out the solutions to resolve the issue until the challenges dissipate.  This is the first century Church model as outlined in the book of Acts; this is the twenty-first century Church model we, the Church, needs to implement and exercise in our time, today.

America & The Church: Programs & Institutions Verses Relationships

The Power For The 5 Fold In Ministry

When faced with challenges, the Church instinctively turns to programs and building institutions to solve their problems.  Not that it has all been bad, but usually not lasting.  As discussed in previous blogs the YMCA originally was a program turned institution to be an evangelistic outreach in Great Britain in the 1800’s.  Reaching out through recreation in a gymnasium, the gospel was shared.  Today it is just called the “Y”. We have lost the “C” for Christian in Young Men’s Christian Organization, and the salt has again lost its savor. Many hospitals were first founded as “clinics” reaching out to the poor and today have become medical institutions and Wellness Conglomerates whose bottom line is a financial profit, and again the religious influence has given way to the secular.

In order for the Church to be effective in problem solving the challenges that now face society it must turn to relationships for the answer rather than institutions or programs.  Evangelism has become a church program rather than a relationship building activity. The church will finance large massive Evangelistic Crusades to win just one for Christ, yet the largest majority of Christians were introduced to Jesus through a personal friend with whom they had build a relationship.  If the church is people, then the power of their ministry must come through relationships between people.

For example: To answer the question “how to take care of the elderly, the widows”, the Church needs to go beyond its current mindsets of programs and establishing institutions.  Jesus never started a Widows Fund, nor built an Assisted Living Center, nor a Holy Spirit Nursing Home, to take care of the elderly. He built relationships and established ministry through those relationships. The disciple John is called “the beloved”, and it is he that Jesus established a relationship worthy of the honor of trusting John to take care of his mother after his death. Most people take care of family members because of relationships.  If relationships weren’t built when the family grew up together, then one will look for programs and institutions to help them with their problems and situations.

Building relationships is a disc in the backbone of Christianity. If an activity isn’t built on or around a relationship, it is bound to become a religious activity, eventually losing its potency and meaning, and you find yourself eventually only going through the motions while losing the real substance and purpose for it in the first place. Jesus never established a program nor an institution during his short three year term of ministry; he build relationships. His relationship with only a small select group of 12 set the foundation for His Church.  Those 12 established relationships with others as the movement grew.  The breaking bread together and continual fellowshipping among the saints built the foundation of the church when there were no buildings, no priests, no clergy, nor formal religious training.  You learned the Christian walk by walking it out with someone else, just as Jesus did with the 12.

I believe in the power of the five fold because it has to be established on relationships: relationships with 4 others who are totally different in passion, voice, and point of view; relationships built on the principle of “laying down your life” for them through service; relationships that help you and them mature individually into the image of Jesus Christ and corporately bringing unity amongst the five of you.  The five fold is not a program.  The five fold is not an institution based upon offices.  The five fold is based on what you do through relationships, that which drives you toward service, your passion.  Outside relationships, the five fold is doomed to become a program or institution of offices, just like so many other services of ministry that the Church has lost.

In the next several blogs, let’s look at the Church strictly in the terms of relationships and see how powerful the Church can be if it meets challenges through relationships with others to determine solutions.  Then we can perceive the power of a five fold ministry and its effectiveness if it is built on relationships, service, and laying down one’s life for his/her brethren/sisters.

America & The Church: Why We Need The 5 Fold More Now Than Ever?

Only Unity In Vision Through Diversity Can The Church Meet Today’s Challenges!

With all the negative adds during an election year, all the faults and weakness of America is exposed to the world.  The United States has its challenges, many that are huge in nature and scope, but the candidates all promise change if elected, stability if they become Commander in Chief, learning from the past, and prophetically looking to hope for the future, while promising oversight to the ideals of the Constitution.  Sounds like the Five Fold to me: birth (evangelist), maintenance & growth (shepherd), learning from the past and teaching of our founding principles (teacher), hope for the future (prophet), and oversight for the good of America (apostle).  Even secular government understands the power of the five fold in creating a well-balanced effective form of government to serve its people!  Why doesn’t the Church recognize that same power and practice it?

Four years ago, Obama ran on the motto of “change”; this year Romney ran on the motto of “real change”.  Change is the promise to kick off both campaigns. Evangelists thrive on change, on birth, and on rebirth!  “You must be born again”; you must be willing to change. The politician knows you can’t move forward unless there is change. The demographics of the country change, and so must the way the country is to be govern.  The Church also knows it cannot move forward unless there is also change.  Societal demographics change, yet for centuries that Roman Catholic Church maintained only Latin for their Masses, the format for Protestant services are still basically the same since the Protestant Reformation under Martin Luther.  The evangelists majors in birth and rebirth. Who better to move the Church forward than the evangelist if we want revival.  Every Revival Movement in Church history is birthed in the evangelistic spirit.  The Church needs to equip, develop, and release those Christian brothers and sisters whose passion is for birth, rebirth, the evangelistic spirit.

Who is going to take care of the elderly, the severely ill, the poor, the homeless, the rejected and dejected members of our society?  Because we have Social Security, Medicare, and Public Welfare in place, we “expect” those services and rely on the government to “maintain” them and “take care” of those in need!  If you want to lose an election attack those institutions where people have become dependent on their services for basic survival. Government understands the importance of taking care of its people; the Church needs to also understand that principle.  Those in most churches “depend” on the “pastor” and his staff to take care of those in need in their congregation, so they can avoid direct contact with those in need amongst their brethren.  Every church, without exception, needs the pastoral/shepherding element if it wishes to keep and maintain its sheep. The evangelist may birth, but if what was birthed is not maintained and experience growth, death will occur! The church needs to equip, develop, and release those Christian brothers and sisters whose passion is to help their fellow brethren and those in need to grow in Jesus Christ through practical daily applications.

Knowing ones history, ones strengths, and ones principles that is the backbone of its existence and applying those truths to move forward is the strength of a teacher.  Educations is always at the core of national political election, because education is always the investment in one’s future, its strengthening of its presence, and the power of unleashing future potential.  The Roman Catholics understand this principle establishing a parochial school system in American to instill Roman Catholic ideals in its youth.  The Church as a whole must embrace this truth, realizing that through education the Church will maintain, develop, and strengthen itself for the present as well as the future.  The teaching gift of the five fold is so desperately needed to implant, develop, grow, and strengthen, equip, and release those brothers and sisters in the Lord in their calling, their destiny, maturing them toward the image of Jesus Christ while developing Church unity.

Hope is essential for a country to continue to develop, and government has learned that role; ask F.D.R. & Churchill in the leadership roles they played in their countries during World War II. In times of darkness, the prophetic voice is needed not only for correction, but to resound the “Word” of “Hope”.  The Constitution of the United States is a written document outlining the ideals of America, but if the people do not make the Constitution a “living document” which is applied in everyday life, it is useless and legalistic.  The same is with the Church, for if it takes the Law, the Bible, the Logos Word, the written Word, and is not willing to make it a Rhema Word, a living Word, then their religion is legalistic and worthless.  The Church needs the prophetic life to continue to make relevant one’s faith.

No country is strong unless its leadership is strong and has the capability of “see over” what is happening to its people in good times and in bad, then release those forces, those people, those services, those government programs needed to keep their nation strong and solvent.  The same is with the Church, but unlike the C.E.O. mentality of leadership that the American business model has projected: a leader who is in control, is dictatorial, who believes the buck stops with him and his ego.  The Church needs leadership that is humble, based on service and selflessness, who is willing to release others rather than doing it himself, who is willing to see what the Holy Spirit is doing in the Church’s midst and hear the voice of the Holy Spirit to be subservient to that voice in obedience, recognizing the Holy Spirit’s control, not their own.

Again, government recognizes the power of the five fold: birth, maintenance & growth, education, hopeful application, and proper oversight. Ephesians 4 outlines the same principles for the Church to follow in “equipping”, or preparing, its members, the priesthood of believers in Jesus Christ, through service to develop individual maturity into the image of Jesus Christ, and corporate maturity through unity to usher in the return of Jesus, the groom, for His Bride, the Church.  Church, let’s not only recognize the need for the five fold, but begin to utilize the truth Ephesians 4 has to offer.

The Five Fold Is Already In Your Church; I Sincerely Hope So!

Ways The Church Might Change: Point 10

[In a previous blog I have outlined 10 possible changes the Church may face in the future. This is point 10 in the series: God has been reestablishing the evangelist, pastor, teacher, prophet, and apostle back into the Church. They are in the Church now!  This generation has to be open to allowing the Holy Spirit to bring them together through submission and releasing one another to operate in their passions, callings, and voices to bring unity to the body of Christ and being effective.]

As you have seen throughout this series, I believe revival in the Church will come through relationships vertically with the Godhead and horizontally among believers while demanding total trust in the Spirit of Jesus Christ to lead the way.   If you have read my series on metamorphosis, you would also know that I believe that the Church is in a time of transformation, a cocoon stage, where the current slow cumbersome caterpillar structure of the Church is being transformed into a complete different structure, a hard shelled resilient structure of a butterfly that will allow it to fly.  The Church is in a period of change, but as members of the Church, the Priesthood of Believers, the Bride of Christ, are we willing to embrace these changes?

One of the changes that is occurring is the reestablishment of the five fold of Ephesians 4 back into the church as passions, gifts, points of view, and voices in individual believers to make them more Christ-like and bring unity within the Church that has not existed for the last 20 centuries.

Every local Christian church needs an evangelistic passion to win the lost and proclaim the message, “You must be born again” of “the water and the spirit”.  With revival is always a powerful movement of new believers in Jesus Christ.  The evangelistic spirit is the spirit of birthing, and every local church needs that spirit in order to grow in number.

Every local Christian church needs a pastoral, shepherding spirit that nurtures, cares, develops, equips, trains, and releases their believers towards ministry, “works of service”.  The evangelist births, but the pastoral/shepherd nurtures these newborns through their spiritual childhood and adolescence to prepare, equip, and train them in Christ-like character development to release them to be able to stand and advance the kingdom of God as mature believers. The pastoral/shepherding spirit is the spirit of development, and every local church needs that spirit in order to grow in character in Christ-likeness.

Every local Christian church needs the teaching spirit. The Word of God, the Bible, is the foundation of all that happens in the Church. Every Christian, without exception, needs someone to help them understand the Word of God for themselves through the tutorage of the Holy Spirit.  Every Christian needs to memorize scripture, exercise the knowledge of knowing or recalling scripture, and bases everything they do upon the Word of God. The teaching spirit sets the foundation for the Church, so every local church needs that spirit in order to stand firm.

Every local Christian church needs the prophetic spirit, the capability to hear the still small voice of the Holy Spirit for themselves, as well as being able to take the Logos Word, the written Word, the Bible, and make it the Rhema Word, the living Word.  The 1^st Century Church took the Logos Word, what today is known as the Old Testament, and made it the Rehma Word, the living word, as they lived out their new faith and recorded it, thus the New Testament.  The prophetic spirit activates life into the Church, so every local church needs the prophetic spirit to move forward in living out their faith.

Every local Christian church needs the apostolic spirit, the ability to “see” what the Holy Spirit is doing and saying and be obedient to it, the ability to identify giftings in other believers and equip and train them in their Christian development, and the ability to release other believers in their gifting, their calling, their destiny in Jesus Christ.  Instead of administrators in a business sense, the Church needs developers and investors in other Christian believers, people with spiritual parenting skills. The apostolic spirit brings unity, direction, harmony, and stability to the Church, so every local church needs the apostolic spirit for direction and over sight.

Now for the shocking conclusion: I believe all these spirits are already in people in your local congregation. The five fold is already present, seeking to be manifested right among yourself.  All we must do is embrace the Holy Spirit to birth, develop, and release these passions, visions, and points of view among us, the believers in Jesus Christ, the Priesthood of Believers.  They need to be “activated” among the laity in order to be effective. Clergy/laity labels must cease, so all believers in Jesus Christ can be empowered, developed, equipped, and released into their destiny in the kingdom of God.  The key to the next revival is that it will touch “all” believers in Jesus Christ, not just the professionals, nor the old establish believers, nor the chosen few.  It will be a massive world wide movement to remove the “spot and wrinkles” of the Bride, the Church, in preparation for the Groom, Jesus’ return.  It will impact Church structure like no movement in history has, not even the Great Reformation.  I prophesy that the way my great-grandchildren do Church as adults will look nothing like the pew sitting, hymn singing, pulpit preaching church services of my great-grandparents.  Church, if we want REVIVAL, we must be prepared for change, and be open to what the Holy Spirit desires to lift the name of Jesus and establish the Kingdom of God over the entire earth! Revival, come!

Why Wouldn’t Your Church Be Open To The Five Fold?

Don’t We All Need Evangelists, Shepherds, Teachers, Prophets & Apostles?

Often the churches that we attend have strength in one gifting of the five fold ministry of Ephesians 4 but also finds themselves weak in other areas.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the local church could offer and supply all five areas and giftings instead of just emphasizing one or two?

Every local church needs an evangelists or they will not grow in number, remain stagnant, and eventually die out; every local church needs a shepherd or their members will not spiritually grow in Christ-likeness; every local church needs teachers to keep their local church anchored on the Word of God, the Bible; every local church needs the prophetic so they can be able to hear the voice of the lord individually and corporately; every local church needs the apostolic to encourage the growth of the other four individually, yet network them together for effective service in unity.  So then, I ask the question again, “Why aren’t our local churches open to all five ministries of Ephesians 4?

Isaiah 57 exhorts us to “remove the barriers from my people.”  Often those barriers are called traditions, those pillars that worked in the past on which the local congregation built their ministry.  It is hard to release old traditions that have worked effectively in the past for newness, for in them we find security, history, stability, and control.

Another barrier can be called the clergy/laity barrier, which distinguishes two distinctly different classes in a supposedly non-distinctive church.  Who do we train in most churches, staff for professional development, or the saints for their sanctification in Jesus Christ and the unity of the corporate body? 

A third barrier can be structure, for today’s church structure is liken to a caterpillar, cumbersome, slow to move, but moves steadily while trying to consume as much as it can to continue is journey and produce rapid growth. It order to become a butterfly, a complete different structure is needed so it will be allowed it to fly. There needs to be a metamorphosis, a spiritual cocoon of change which will restructure, remold the way we currently do church. Remember, caterpillars can fly! Butterflies can! But it will take a restructuring to bring flight, so the Church can “soar as if on eagle’s wings.”

So the bottom line is if the church is to be open and receptive to all five giftings to properly function in their midst, then they have to be open to a restructuring where the local church is equipping the saints for the work of service, not just the staff.  When the local church is ready to equip, prepare, maintain, care, nurture, release the priesthood of believes that meets in their midst, that is the people of God, then it will be receptive to the five fold.  Until then, old wine will break through new wineskins as the Bible teaches. Old structures will not hold new ideas and ideals, only new forms and structures will embrace them. Does the church want “break out revivals” as is its history, or do they want “revival from within” because it is willing to restructure? Those are the hard questions the church has to answer in this 21^st Century.

The Simplicity of Shepherding; Just Caring For Others

How Do You Prepare God’s People For Works of Service? Part VI

Bottom Line: Pastoring/Shepherd is as simple as caring.  Everyone wants to be cared for, loved, and accepted. Shepherding is all about caring for the sheep, their nurture and development. A good shepherd lives with his sheep and knows each individually. Shepherding is all about relationship, a relationship between a shepherd and his sheep.  Jesus is our chief shepherd, and he has a personal relationship with each of his sheep.  In the five fold sense, we too can be shepherds if we invest individually in the lives of brothers and sisters in Christ who we get to intimately know, nurture, develop, and build up a bond around caring.

You don’t have to be a professional Christian to be a shepherd because it is not about position but about relationship. “Investment in others” is the key ingredient to shepherding.  You continue to pour yourself into others to help them develop into becoming a more Christ-like Christian. It is imperative that Christian elders, those older in the faith, give out, invest, and pour into younger Christians for their spiritual development.

Spiritual development does not necessarily mean formal academic religious education. It just means helping someone along to “mature” and “grow” into the likeness of Jesus Christ. Just practical things are important like: how to get through tough times, how to handle grief, loss, and setbacks, how to develop and independent prayer lifestyle, how to develop a disciplined life of Bible reading allowing the Holy Spirit to be one’s teacher, how to hear the voice of God for oneself and be obedient to that voice, how to receive from the Lord and others as well as how to be a giver, how to build proper, healthy, relationships with others that builds trust, honesty, and integrity, how to love unconditionally, what it means to “live by faith”, how to trust the Holy Spirit, etc.  All these can apply to practical daily applications, and we need older, practical, experienced Christians who have wrestled within themselves and gone through these issues in their personal lives to help other younger Christians walk through their journeys.

As I have discussed in an earlier blog, there is power in walking out one’s faith in pairs like the 70 disciples Jesus sent out or the Road to Emmaus experience. Jesus invested in only twelve intimately for the purpose of their spiritual development that would be the foundation for this new group, the Church. As the Church grew, elders, older Christians, and the Apostles invested in others in developing them toward the maturity of Jesus Christ individually to bring unity to the body corporately.

Finally, what is the cost? We cannot determine the cost in dollars and cents but in time.  Shepherding takes time, commitment, and availability. To shepherd you have to keep your time flexible, for your commitment is to the sheep, and when they need you, you need to be available.  Commitment to your sheep will demand unconditional love at inconvenient times over unconventional circumstances. Godly parenting takes time, commitment, and availability. Children demand their parent’s time, their loyalty or commitment, and their availability at all times. The proper development, nurture, and care of your children all hinges around the time your willing to give, the commitment of unconditional love at inconvenient times in unconventional circumstances that you are willing to give, and the availability of your time to them.  Christian parenting, Christian shepherding is no different.  It is the responsibility of the family structure to reproduce itself from generation to generation through developing, nurturing, and caring for the next generation. 

In most churches today, we believers do not take or offer our time to shepherd others because we are too busy. We won’t commit ourselves to developing caring relationships that build community because we will not commit our priorities in developing the kingdom of God because we are too busy with secular life.  We aren’t available because we feel that we are already over booked!  As parents we have to some times quit taking our kids to soccer practice to keep them active, to the library to keep them reading, to their friends to develop a social life, to youth group to keep them in the church, to grandmas to build family relationships, to school center activities and after school activities, so our children don’t “miss out”, but rather stay home, cuddle up on the couch with them, read a book to them, discuss their day, let them tell their stories of their day from their point of view, hug them, accept them, listen to them, and just unconditionally accept them for where they are at in the developmental stage of their life in their present conditions. That is shepherding: spending time investing in them.

A wise financial planner teaches his clients how to “invest their money” wisely to earn good dividends; a wise Christian teaches younger Christians how to “invest their time” wisely in others developing, nurturing, and caring for others while building lasting, intimate, meaningful relationships bonding together the Body of Christ into a community.  That is shepherding.

Evangelism: Savoring Tips & Guidelines

How Do You Prepare God’s People For Works of Service? Part V

Even though every believer should do evangelism, most of us do not know how to do it or feel very awkward when trying to evangelize.  Here are some tips:

- Natural Story Telling: Evangelism should be a natural response of just telling the story of our own spiritual journey.  Often just telling how you met the Lord, what has comprised your spiritual journey, how your journey has become a lifestyle are all ways of evangelizing.  I remember once when some friends were evangelizing, I just shared about how making Jesus Lord of my life and the power of the Holy Spirit had an impact on my spiritual walk. This left a dramatic impact on those I shared it with, and they not only made Jesus their Savior but also Lord and were willing to receive the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. Evangelism can be as simple as telling your personal story.

- Personal Evangelism: Evangelism is most effective when one on one. Even though we Christians spend millions on television and radio programs, one on one evangelism is still the most efficient and impactful method. There is nothing that beats personal contact, eye contact, and personal discussion and care.

- Building Relationships: Often building relationships of trust, respect, and care open doors for people to want to hear our stories, our message. Relationships are key to communications in the kingdom of God, and establishing them with unbelievers is of essence if we are to win them for Jesus.

- Outside The Walls: Evangelism should occur outside the walls of our church buildings. We need to quit relying on the Pastor and his staff to “give” an evangelism message through their sermons.  Evangelistic sermons have their place and effectiveness, but should not be a substitute for our individual sharing with people in the work place, those we recreate with, our neighbors and friends. 

- Vulnerability: Care is the best thing we can give an unbeliever. Everybody needs to feel cared for. If you build a relationship with a person who thinks you genuinely care for them, they will listen to you and believe that what you said is valid.  Evangelism is all about care: Jesus cared so much for us as sinners that he was willing to lay down his life on the Cross for us.  A key component to evangelism is your willingness to lay down your life for others, just not Christians, but non-Christians too. Only when you are willing to lay down your life and expose your life, will others become vulnerable and open up and expose their lives to you. 

- Stay Simple: Try to refrain from talking “Christian-eze”. Keep your message simple and sincere. Don’t talk down to them as if you are a saint, and they are an ain’t; talk face to face, eye to eye, peer to peer.

-Win With Love: We often think of Bull Horn Evangelists with a Hell-Fire & Brimstone Condemnation message, emphasizing a need for a savior.  What kind of God do we want to portray? What kind of God do we want to offer? True, there will be a judgment day, but we are living in an age of Grace, so we should extend grace, mercy, forgiveness, unconditional love, and a willingness to go the second mile in spit of who they are or how they act towards us. “Loving them into the kingdom” is far more effective, especially for their later spiritual growth, than scaring “the hell out of them”!

- Just Be Who You Are In Jesus; Be Genuine, Not A Hypocritical Phony:  Two men hung on either side of Jesus. The three were peers as “condemned criminals”, but the one criminal recognized that Jesus was innocent; he had done no wrong, yet he was suffering the same fate as the two who had “earned” their death sentence.  Jesus’ righteousness stood on its own, recognized by one of the criminals, rejected by the other. The one who acknowledged it was assured by Jesus to be with him in heaven, the other not. Don’t try to be some spiritual giant, someone who you are not; just be yourself in Jesus. Allow the Holy Spirit to use you and speak through you, and let the unbelievers whom you are a witness to draw their own conclusions. Hopefully it will be the same as the criminal who is with Jesus in heaven today.

Hopefully these are some tips that can be useful in your journey toward evangelism, the telling of what Jesus is and has done in your life.  Evangelism, like faith, is simple. Just be genuine, be yourself, be caring, and keep it simple.

Evangelism: Mid Wife, Coach, Husband, Mentor, Model

How Do You Prepare God’s People For Works of Service? Part IV

How do “equip” or “prepare” someone for evangelism? Good question. In the past the churches that I have attended have had many “evangelistic sermons” by visiting evangelists, or the local pastor preached on the topic of evangelism, or a Bible Study group studied evangelism through some book written on the topic.  No one ever went with me out of the streets or took me along when they evangelized until I broke from the church where I grew up to aide a minister who was starting an inner-city church in our area. He was an evangelist at heart, for that was his passion. Often I went with him on his evangelistic excursions and watch him work.  That was the best training that I ever received on evangelism; when someone actually walked it out with me.

Evangelism is all about birthing. Women understand the process better than men for they have experienced labor pains, birthing pains, the joys associated with the actual birth, the instant motive to mother at birth, etc. When I was born, my father was not allowed to be present. When we had our children, I was allowed to not only go into the birthing room, but was allowed into the Operating Room during a Caesarian procedure.  Today entire families can be in a birthing room as the mother sits in a bathing pool while all witness the birth.  Experiencing a birth is a wonderful memory etched in one’s life forever. It is a joyous moment, a fulfilling moment, an exciting moment, a moment filled with hope and promise filled with dreams for the future.

A father learns that a pregnancy is a nine-month ordeal, not just an instantaneous event. The mother goes through different stages throughout the pregnancy: throwing up, sickness, urges, cravings, cramps, discomforts of a child on her bladder, kickings, movement, and eventually contractions. At birth, all those discomforts and miseries vanish into ecstasy and joy, but pre-birth is a process.  Often when evangelizing one-on-one we forget that there may be trials, discomforts, and even pain in the process of leading one toward the saving grace of Jesus.  It may take days, weeks, months, even years of constantly serving, sharing, extending grace to an unbeliever to prepare his/her heart and spirit to receive the grace he/she so drastically needs.  The most effective evangelistic strategy is “walking with” the unbeliever through this stage of his spiritual journey in unconditional love and grace so that they can see their need. Later we will see how after birth, one needs to also have someone “walking with” them through nurture, care, development, and spiritual growth. The Church is all about “body ministry”, not being alone, but having someone “walking it out with you.” 

I once attended a mass evangelistic rally with Dr. Tony Campolo as the speaker/evangelist. Since it rained, the event was held indoors, and the crowd was predominately people who already had accepted Jesus as their savior. Dr. Campolo asked how many people there had accepted the Lord through television or radio. A sparse few raised their hands.  How many through mass evangelism? A handful of hands were raised. How many through one-on-one, someone speaking to you personally? Hundred raised their hands.

So how do we equip or prepare someone to be an evangelist? We walk it out with them. Go in pairs, mentoring, modeling by doing, being involved with people’s live, releasing people when they are ready to branch out on their own and take someone with them, multiplication.  The greatest investment we can give to someone is “our time”, not our money. Spending time with them, developing an atmosphere of trust, care, grace, and unconditional love are the tools for effective evangelism. There may be trials, temptations, failures and even falls, disappointments, and pains along the way, and they will probably fight you all the way, resisting the invitation you give them, but that is part of the “pregnancy” phase.  In faith, one has to “believe” that the unbeliever will become saved, will receive the saving grace from Jesus that will have eternal consequences, will walk beside them and believe for their “miracle of salvation”, and will bathe them in prayer.

There is no greater exhilarating experience than the moment one becomes “born again” nor when someone else accepts the invitation of a “born again” experience with Jesus Christ. It is like a mother at birth: the miseries and pains are forgotten; the joy of (eternal) life is rejoiced.  Most mother’s experience multiple births in their lives, and an evangelist is the same. A believer pushed by the evangelistic spirit immediately seeks another pregnancy to produce another spiritual birth.  They are driven by the passion for birth and rebirth. Evangelists are truly spiritual midwives. 

So how do we equip believers to be effective evangelists? Walk it out with them! Model by “doing”, then allowing them do “do” it before releasing them to be on their own, hopefully for them to take someone else under their wing to model and multiply the process.  It is not about academic education of understanding the topic of evangelizing, but about actually “doing it with others”. That takes time; that is the price of investment into the kingdom of God.

No, Not More “How To Do Books”!

 How Do You Prepare God’s People For Works of Service? Part III

- Question: How do you  “prepare God’s people for works of service”?

If you check out a Christian book store, you will find whole sections on “How To” books.  “Books for Dummies” have become popular in an effort to teach the “dumbest” how “to do” the simplest task.  Churches love to organize Bible Studies and Small Groups around reading these How-To books. You can probably find books entitled “12 Steps To A Successful Prayer Life”, “7 Ways to More Effective Evangelism”, etc. If the pastor detects a weakness in his congregation’s spiritual and moral life, it will call for more sermons about the topic, more discussions through organized Bible Studies and Small Discussion Groups. 

Nikki shoes has a slogan I think is effective: “Just Do It!”  Their commercials show athletes who are talented. Rather than talking about their sport, they are to “just do it!”  Enjoyment is in the “doing”, the competing, the experiencing the event. As a Church we should understand that it is not what you say that is important, but what you do.  It is in the “doing” that is effective, for the “doing” brings results.

Part of “preparing the saints for service” is “doing” it in front of them as an example, then releasing them to “do it”.  Leading by example was the most effective teaching approach for Jesus  He lead by example, often creating what I call “God Moments” of experience in his disciple’s life by being there with his disciples “doing it”.  Jesus taught his disciples to “walk the walk” rather than just “talk the walk”.  There was no “walk” that Jesus made his disciples do that he himself did not walk.  He wanted them to bear one another’s crosses, only after he bore his own because he led by example.  He tried to teach them about what was ahead for himself and them, the Cross, which proved ineffective because they did not understand until He lead by example dying on the cross and then they too had to experience for themselves in their lives. The had to “just do it”, experience it in order to be effective.  Showing by example “leads the way”, but “releasing them” will force them to “just do it”!  Paul soon learned not to think of the consequences, “just do it”!

I will take experience over theology any day.  It is important to “know” what you believe, but it is eve more import to “do” what you believe. As an experienced public school teacher of 40 years, I will take a field trip over book work in a sterile classroom any day.

So how do we apply this to the five fold?  Evangelism means “being there” (available) for the birth and knowing what to do and “doing it” when birthing a newborn into the kingdom of God.  Pastoral care means “being there for someone in need” and actually “meeting their need”.  Teaching means literally “walking beside someone” in everyday field trips through life while “doing” the kingdom of God principles that you are teaching.  Prophetic means “hearing from God” for yourself and teaching others how to hear from God for themselves and be obedient to what they have heard. Apostolic means seeing over someone’s personal spiritual development because you are physically there for them throughout their journey, then releasing them to “just do it”, to begin to fly as eagles (Isaiah 40).

How do you “prepare the saints for service”? You “just do it”, not just talk about it.

The Power of Pairs

How Do You Prepare God’s People For Works of Service? Part II

- Question: How do you  “prepare God’s people for works of service”?

I never thought this way before, but maybe one reason for Jesus to send disciples out in pairs was that one disciple was “equipping” the other “to serve” others by first “serving” the one with them by example.  What better way to teach “serving” than by leading by example and serving the one with you. There is power in standing beside someone who is older in the Lord, more mature in the Spirit, and “experience” with them the power of their spiritual walk and journey.

As a 24 year old, I had the opportunity to walk with a man through the streets of my city.  Growing up in a conservative, plain dressed, religious community of faith who believed their lifestyle was their witness, I did not know how to verbalize my faith and “birth” others into the kingdom of God, called evangelism. I use to watch in awe as he would lead others into the kingdom. I have used some of his techniques throughout my life to “birth” others into this kingdom. I am eternally grateful that I got to stand beside this man and learn by his example of “doing it”, not just talking about it.

Jesus led by example, with usually another disciple by his side watching everything he did. He didn’t teach “about” healing; he just healed. His disciples “experienced” the power of healing literally right before their eyes. He didn’t teach “about” God’s, his Father’s, provisions; he just fed the 5,000. He later had to discuss the principles of the kingdom with them to enhance their understanding of what they had seen and experienced. Although he often spoke in parables that only were understood by the power and openness to the Holy Spirit, it was the doing, the actually playing out before his disciples that proved the most effective way to teach.

Paul and Barnabas were sent out together. Barnabas, the older of the two, was known as “the encourager”, just the person needed to balance Pau’s intense personality.  Later Paul would take Mark, Timothy, and others with him, now as the elder, teaching the younger how to advance the kingdom of God.

If we, the Church, are to “equip” or “prepare the saints for service”, maybe we should “pair up” with another Christian for a season to learn from them by experiencing daily activities in life’s journey or to pour into someone else’s spiritual life preparing them for the future.  The price: our time, our availability, our dedication, our unselfish giving, and our unconditional love.

When Jesus paired up the 70 to prepared towns before he would come to them, the results were astounding as Jesus literally saw satan falling from heaven. There is power in preparation, and we must begin to prepare those younger in the Christian faith than ourselves by walking beside them, teaching them what we know through example and experience, equipping them for their life long spiritual journey. That is the principle of power pairing in the kingdom of God.

First, We Must Understand Kings & Kingdoms

 How Do You Prepare God’s People For Works of Service? Part I

My wife is an eternal romantic; “Camelot” is her favorite movie. There is something about a good looking King Arthur, a Lady Guinevere, and Sir Lancelot.  “Camelot” was to be a place of peace, tranquility, and equality as the knights sat around a Round Table to share power. Everything appeared perfect, but a love triangle brings down the kingdom.

Americans know very little about kings and kingdoms. The American Revolution was all about breaking from those traditions, the tyranny of a king and rule by the people, yet today American seems not to have faith in its governing system. The President’s most popular day is his Inauguration Day, his first day in office. After that his popularity drops. Currently only 18% of Americans feel Congress, the rule of the people, is doing its job, yet they fail to “vote the bums out” because they selfishly work to get building projects, roads, government grants, and jobs into their districts, so their constituents keep them in office.  Americans do not know what “submission” as a “subject” to the king really means.

First, you must realize that in a kingdom, everything revolves around the King, the people are only his subjects. The king has all authority, rules, reigns, governs, and judges. As long as you are in the kind’s favor, you are safe, so loyalty to the king is of utmost importance to maintain your life and lifestyle. Bottom line: Everything is done for the good of the kingdom through serving the king.

The king gives his nobles “territories” to govern for the price of loyalty, requiring them to come to the King’s aide in season of battles. The King’s subjects are servants, the doers that keep the kingdom running: the blacksmith, the carpenter, the chambermaids, the knights, the farmers, the weavers, etc. They do their occupations to support the kingdom.

Although King Arthur’s Camelot is but myth, the kingdom of God is reality. John the Baptist, the forerunner, came to announce the coming kingdom by proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” Jesus, the King of this kingdom, while on earth, exerted his energies in teaching kingdom of God principles.

 Christians need to understand that there is an actual kingdom of God lead by King Jesus. He gives territories, in the New Testament they are called cities, to his Church to rule and reign, but expects them to unit around himself during spiritual battle.  His subjects, his believers, are to do their common occupations to support the kingdom while developing community.

Jesus, our King, is also our High Priest and our sacrificial lamb. At the Cross he established his kingdom, vertically (Eph. 4:8-10, John 3:16) and is now seated on his Throne ruling and reigning. At the Cross he established his kingdom horizontally (IJohn 3:16) on the principle of laying down your life for your brethren. I contend you can not learn or know how to lay down your life for your brethren until you have learned to lay down your life for your king. “To obey is better than sacrifice,” Jesus said, and obedience is the requirement of every subject in Jesus’ kingdom.  In America, we have the mindset that we would rather be “free” than “obedient”, so it is hard for American Christians to sometime understand the full impact of kingdom theology.

If we, believers in Jesus Christ, Christians, the Church, wish to rule and reign with Christ, we need to learn how to serve our King, Jesus, first and foremost before we can ever learn how to serve our Brethren. If we are willing to be obedient to the King, Jesus, through His Holy Spirit, he will instruct his subjects, believers in Jesus, on “how to” live out kingdom principles, to actually walk them out, not just learn about them. He has prepared the way (through John the Baptist); he has built the road (Is. 57); and he teaches while walking on the Road to Emmaus (Luke 24).

The first step in knowing how to “prepare the saints to serve” is to first teach them how to be in loyal submission to their king, Jesus, who will do the instructing through His Holy Spirit from there.

How Do You Do It?

A Mother’s Insight

A comment by my 84 year old mother the other day, “I told our minister the other day that he preached his best sermon. Preachers usually tell you what you should be doing, but they very seldom tell you how to do it,” sparked my thinking.  How true; they teach about forgiveness, but very seldom take you through the steps of how to forgive someone, or about discipleship or sanctification, all big words that mean very little to most people as far as understanding them, but seldom walk with youth through your discipleship process called sanctification to show you by example how to life a Christ-like life. I have heard sermons about the unity of the body of Christ, but it seems no one can tell me how that unity is to be accomplished.

The purpose of the five fold according to Ephesians 4:12-13, “to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” (NIV) Following the fallacy of most sermon’s, I just told you “about” the purpose of the five fold to bring unity in the body and the fulfillment of Christ-likeness to each believer, but I didn’t instruct you “how” to do it.  How do you “prepare God’s people for works of service” is what I think the Church must focus upon during this century.

In an effort to address this dilemma, I plan to write a series of blogs about the “how to”, not about the “about”. Not through the typical Christian Book Store approach of buying a “12 Steps Toward Five Fold Success” book, or writing a “15 Steps of Christian Service” magazine article, or establishing an 8 week course on the “8 Steps Toward Christian Living”, but by inviting you to join me in my walk together through “experiencing” the five fold, not just talking about the five fold. I am not sure where this walk will take us, but please join me in this walk together, learning from one another.

If It Ain’t Relationships, It Got To Be Religion

Religion Is The Absence Of Relationships

For a belief system based on relationships, Christianity can easily become a religion.  On forms and questionnaires they ask for your religious preference: Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, or other.  It has become a way of identifying different beliefs system, categorizing them for institutional purposes, but what would happen if they would just be relationships.

The center of Christianity is the Cross; the center of the Cross is a relationship between a supernatural God and natural man.  At the core of Christianity is the miracle of restoration of rebirth: a broken relationship between man and his Godhead due to sin and the restoration of that relationship through Jesus, God’s son, hanging and dyeing on the Cross to amend the sinful nature of man.  It is a message of hope to the hopeless and life to the dead. The cross conquered death: “Death where is thy sting?” It restored and offered a “living” relationship to man with his Godhead now guaranteed through eternity, never to be broken again.  It is when we, the believers in Jesus Christ, chose to back away from that relationship or sever that relationship that begins to make one’s faith a religion where one “practices his religion”, that is, goes through the motions.  It is all activity, all image, with little if any substance.  I have found myself falling into that category during my life, and often see the church doing the same.  It must have been awkward for Jesus to visit the Temple that no longer had the Ark of the Covenant, God’s Presence, in it, yet its priesthood still “practicing” the customs of Moses, still going through the motions. God’s Presence through His Son Jesus was in their midst, yet their “practice” prevented them from a relationship with their living God, thus the verbal venom Jesus displaced with the “woe to you scribes, Pharisees, and lawyers” of his time who were “practicing” their religion rather than developing relationships.

The other relationship restored in the Cross was the horizontal relationship between mankind.  Ever since Cain and Able man has been fighting one another.  There is always a war somewhere on this planet bringing devastation between mankind. The Cross was the beginning of the end of that broken relationship, for the New Jerusalem, the new heaven and the new earth, eternity in Jesus is pictured as the lion laying beside the lamb, the cobra beside the ox, enemies now brothers.  Where is this restoration to be birthed? I believe in the Church, for we have a Savior who, while hanging on the Cross, proclaimed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Jesus stopped mankind from playing the “blame game” the core of most conflicts; He extended grace, mercy, and unconditional forgiveness in relationships to, through, and from mankind to one another.

So churches (we) need to stop blaming other churches (them) as not being true to the Christian faith because there is little if any relationships between “opposing” churches in the Body of Christ.  Jesus’ prayer in John 17 is for the unity of the body of Christ, not its demise.  Churches need to do more than “network” and “tolerate” one another, but lay down their lives for each other in relationship.  Within local bodies of Christian faith, believers in Jesus Christ must begin to lay down their lives for one another in relationship if their faith is to produce life.

What better way to do this than through the five fold, where you have different points of views, different passions, different voices, but when “laid down” in “sacrificial, unconditional love” are the very things needed to bring unity and life into the Church!  Evangelism through birth or rebirth comes through a relationship between a believer and nonbeliever in Jesus Christ. Shepherding develops nurture, care, and spiritual growth through relationships between believers.  Teaching thrives on the “experiencing” of one’s living faith rather than just “knowing about it”.  The prophetic develops the relational communication skills needed between God and His people, and the apostolic is all about relationships, tying together, networking, and releasing all this different points of view, passions, and voices in one direction in unity for the spiritual development of its believers into the image of Christ Jesus and for the unity of the entire body.

Without these relationships we can fall in to “practicing our religion”, just going through the motions where one has lost their passion, feel their point of view has been snubbed, and who thinks they have no voice.  I find much of the church “practicing” their “religion” when they corporately meet on Sunday mornings, for there sure isn’t a lot of relationships going on vertically or horizontally, but a lot of “practicing”, going through the motions.

Without relationships we end up with religion. Church let’s quit “practicing our religion” but live out our relationships with our God and with our fellow brothers and sisters in the faith, for Jesus has made a way for that to happen. Church, let’s begin listening to the Holy Spirit in how to “work out our salvation” with our God and “work out our relationships” with our brothers and sisters in the faith. When we are serious about doing this, we will witness true revival, rebirth, and renewal through relationships.

Women Can Understand The Five Fold

There Is A Little Bit Of The Five Fold In All Of Them

When you think of the five fold not as offices, but as passions, points of views, and voices, you begin to recognize it in every day life.  It is not necessarily a religious thing; its just a fact of life.  It is not a foreign concept, but a common one.

You see women know about the birthing process.  It comes natural to them.  They know the process and challenges they face during pregnancy. They know that the birthing process is a painful one, yet a rewarding one that makes one to forget the pain after the fruition of birth, and after a birth they are willing to move on and have more children.  That’s the evangelistic spirit.

You never seem to prepare to become a mother, but when a woman becomes a mother the nurturing process occurs naturally.  She focuses her efforts on the nurture, care and development of her children.  She spends a great amount of time with them in their infancy nurturing, spends hours as a confidant through puberty with care and development, and spends even more hours on their knees praying once they have “released” them into adulthood.  This is the pastor/shepherd spirit.

Even though she never earned a “degree” in parenting or motherhood, she teaches her children throughout their life, not necessarily about academics, although school work is important, but through walking out life with them, teaching by example, by using life’s experiences. That’s the true spirit of a five fold teacher.

Mother’s have a spiritual side that is precious.  A rebellious child can never stop a godly woman from praying for them.  The turn around of many lives have come through mother’s prayers. Mothers have a spiritual sensitivity, and spiritual intuition, a hunger for spiritual intimacy men do not possess.  Not only do they dig deep in their spiritual wells of faith, but try to teach their children how to listen to God for themselves for the time when they are released as adults and hopefully will teach their children. The prophetic spirit is imbedded in motherhood.

Networking is a craft mothers specialize. Not only have they experienced the birth, the nurture, care, and development, the teaching, and the spiritual training of their children, but are able to “release” their children when it is their time to fly.  They “know” each child, and encourage them to do the birthing, nurturing, teaching, and spiritual developing for others.  In her gentleness, in her sensitivity, in her love, she encourages those younger than she to be released into their callings, their destinies, their hopes and dreams, releasing them to become independent and eventually reaching out and reproducing others.  This is the five fold apostolic spirit.

All this is embedded in each woman created by God.  I do not think it “coincidental” that the church is “the Bride of Christ”, an image of a female, for imbedded in her, the Church, are all five entities of the five fold ministry to equip those younger, to develop them into maturity of being like the Groom, and to bring the entire family of God into unity.  The five fold is part of the Bride’s DNA, her make up.

If the five fold is so natural, then why do we, the Church, spend so much time and effort suppressing it instead of releasing it? Why do we fragment it bringing division instead of embracing it to bring unity?  Why do we know so little about it when it is the moral fabric of our being as a Church?  Why don’t we listen to the “mothering” of the Bride of Christ and just release it?

THE NEED FOR TRUE CHURCH COMMUNITY: THE FIVE FOLD

The Five Fold Build On Communal Relationships

In the last two blogs we have looked at a young girl’s cry for a relationship in church she called “life together.”  This life would be a horizontal relationship of community among peers, not a hierarchal community of professional and nonprofessional people.  The church has created “offices” out of the five fold, nouns, titles.  The five fold is usually adjectives describing what believers are doing, verbs.  What today’s generation is looking for is not professional titles and offices, but a vibrant, living community of faith built on horizonal relationships among peers, Christians.

If we begin to look at the five fold relationally, we can see the passion and point of view of a spiritual gifting that is unique to the individual, but can be supportive, supplemental to the other four to fulfill their callings.  There strengths are usually the individual’s weakness, and together they can fulfill the “full” calling of Jesus Christ.  It is a relation built on peer acceptance and peer service, one giving to the other and accepting what the other has to offer.  It is a reciprocal relationship, that over time builds an accountability system of trust, honor, and respect.  It is far better to do something and accept discipline out of trust, honor and respect as nurtured in a horizonal relationship verses out of fear because of one holding power above another.

The church needs to recognize the power of five very strong passions of birthing, nurturing, instructing, guiding, and overseeing, and how, if they work together on a horizontal plain of acceptance and trust can be a very powerful and effective tool of ministry in the maturing of the saints into the fullness of Christ (individually) and bring unity to the body of Christ (corporately).

Up to now, the church has not allowed the five to “live together”, opting for their confinement and separate callings, offices, professions, and institutions, thus bringing division among them and division to the church.  If the five fold was looked upon relationally as five different, strong passions and points of view that were willing to lay down their lives for the other four by serving one another as well as receiving from one another with grace and humility, a bond of trust, honor, and respect would be developed.  We would experience a community, a fellowship of faith of “life together.”  This would produce a “full life” in Jesus Christ, a maturity of being in his image individually, as well as a “full life together” as a unified body of believers, a holy priesthood of believers.

That “full life together” that birthed the church in Pentecost under the guidance and leading of the Holy Spirit needs to be renewed and “released” back into the church.  The church needs the “full life” of an evangelist who gives, receives, and submits to a shepherd, teacher, prophet, and apostle; the “full life” of a shepherd who gives, receives, and submits to an evangelist, teacher prophet, and apostle; and so forth.  This giving, taking, and submitting creates an accountability of trust, honor, and respect with the obedience of the leading of the Holy Spirit that would create a true Christian community of “life together.” 

The gifting and calling of each of the five fold will take on a different look than it has under a structural institutional church format, for it will be based on horizontal relationships of laying down one’s life for one another for the sake of “life together” in Christ.

I know it is a different mindset than from the past, but we as Christians, owe it to the Father, his son Jesus, and to the precious Holy Spirit, for redeeming the Church vertically, but now we need to allow them to develop the Church relationally horizontally among the brethren.  This is the cry of the young girl in my previous blogs, and the cry of my own heart personally.

MISSIONS: RELATIONAL OR STRUCTURAL?

 The Clash Of “Mindsets”: Structural Versus Relational

The way one looks at church, structural verses relational, will effect they look at missions.

Most of us, who have grown up in the Church, look at missions as a place “missionaries” go or a thing do.  Missionaries are people who go around from church to church to raise (actually forced to beg for) money, so that they can be a “professional”, having an income to free them financially while “ministering”.  Unlike Paul, who was a tent maker on his missionary endeavors, a missionary goes forth as a paid professional.  What he builds is a kingdom that depends on him, for he usually remains atop of the pyramidal structure he creates.  A true missionary, like Paul, would move one, allowing those he “equipped” locally to maintain the new work, freeing himself to move on and start, plant, or birth a new work.  A good way to tell if missionary endeavor is relational or pyramidal in structure is by seeing who is leading.  Is the missionary over them, or are the natives ministering relationally to their native neighbors, brothers and sisters, families, and communities.  If missions were structured as a pyramid or hierarchy, the structure will want to stay to keep its structure and maintain its positions.  If the structure is relational, then there is no need for a hierarchal, pyramid, institutional structure because spiritual life flows horizontally among the participants.  The banned underground Church in China is an excellent example when placed beside the institutional Church in China that the government permits.  There are no westernized missionaries “overseeing” the spiritual life of the Chinese Church today, yet it is a vibrant, living organism rather than a highly structured organization partially due to persecution.   A persecuted church is often forced to abandon its structure for survival.

As a person growing up in the American church, I believe that missionaries eventually open up either missionary hospitals or Bible Schools.  The Bible Schools are to train future “pastors” to go out and start, develop and maintain new churches.  That is structural religious thinking.  Relationally, I believe, Ephesians 4 outlines how we are to “equip the saints”, not “equip a staff”, for the work of “service”, not necessarily paid professional service, to bring “maturity” to the saints in being more Christ-like, into the image of Jesus, and to bring “unity” to the body.  Bible Schools preach the doctrine of the churches that finance the endeavor and propagate their uniqueness and correctness of theology doctrine compared to other “sects” of the Church, bringing division in the Body of Christ.

If someone came in and relationally developed and released those believers in the body of Christ to be evangelistic, reaching those in their culture who are lost to find Jesus in terms that their culture understands, to be shepherds, caring physically, mentally, and spiritually to the context of their cultural community, to be teachers of the Word, the Bible, by not only interpreting, but applying the written word to their culture world (in a way like Wycliffe Bible Translators do today), to be prophets so the native people in their own land can hear the voice of God for themselves and claim God to be the God of their nation, region, and community, to be apostles releasing their own people according to their spiritual gifting to their own people in the culture of their own country but under Biblical principles, written and living.  Someone has already done that: Paul, and how he did that is recorded in most of the books in the New Testament after the four gospels.

Saul, like us, first went to where he was familiar when entering a new town, a new culture.  He went to any existing synagogue, to God’s people like his own, only to be rejected by most of them, often thrown out, even stoned by some thinking him dead.  Rejection forced him to then look to the native culture, the gentiles, who accepted his evangelistic message, received and developed his pastoral, shepherding care towards one another, got grounded in the written scriptures of his day through the unified message of the “apostles’ teaching”, grew in the intimacy of a personal relationship with their God through Jesus prophetically, and acceptance the “seeing over” what the Holy Spirit was doing through the apostolic.  Then as one of their “apostles”, Paul “released” them to do the work “of service” for which he had trained and equipped them and moved on.  Other “apostles”, “prophets”, and “teachers” in the body of Christ would pass through to help to continue to “equip” THEM and “release” THEM.  Never did Paul nor any other apostle, prophet, teacher, etc. rule over or control them, or remain there to dictate “apostolic oversight” that controlled a pyramidal, hierarchal, institutional structure, contrary to what the Roman Catholic, pyramidal, institutional church claims.

Paul set up relational “networks” throughout his known world at his time with whom he loved, nurtured, encouraged, and longed to see and be with, but whom he never “controlled”, opting in allowing the Holy Spirit to flow freely and birth, develop, and maintain His Church in a culture through those living in that culture.  The “relational” mission mind is far different than the “structural” mission mind, and the Church needs to allow the Holy Spirit to “teach us all things” in how to birth, maintain, and develop such endeavors through His people in His/their locality.