Five Fold Fluidity

The Five-Fold Can Be A Fluid Model

I have written several manuscripts about the five fold, still trying to decide what to do with them. I wrote a Master’s Thesis in 1999 researching the history of each of the five fold in British and American history. I rewrote it in simple language in a manuscript I called Revealing and Releasing Jesus. I followed it with four fictional novels based on the five fold: Five, Five=One, Five Squared, One of the Five. Someone recently commented that I had given them a neat formula, only to crush and destroy it by having varying applications in different situations. They discovered the secret to my five-fold formula or star shaped circle; it is very versatile and very fluid.

The church loves simple models and formulas. If a church perfects a successful model, others immediately duplicate it. Leadership conferences are born around it, but the Holy Spirit isn’t into duplicating. He is into creating and loves to speak into unique situations. The Holy Spirit applies Godly principles to bring the best outcomes for the kingdom of God.

I believe the five fold to be linear based and should not be hierarchal in nature, for no one five-fold passion should be elevated above another. Each with its own place, vision, voice, and point of view, if allowed to dominate or be overpowering, can bring division in the body. If that same vision, voice, and point of view be in a submissive, service spirit as equal peers, it can bring unity to the body. The five fold is powerful when it operates in unity from each, through each, and to each of the five. It creates a circle of love.

They keys to this models success is found in allowing the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus Christ, to be in charge, for it is a very fluid spirit, working in many ways naturally and supernaturally. The Spirit knows the will of the Father, how to glorify the Son, and how to instruct the saints, the Bride, the Church. Giving up control is difficult for any institution because control defines an institution’s image. Giving up control to something unpredictable and fluid can be scary. The Church’s stringent control over the Holy Spirit led it into the Dark Ages. Why does the church old on to its traditions, just as their Jewish forefathers had, getting the same frustrating results? When the early Jewish founding fathers of the Church yielded to the Holy Spirit rather than traditions, a powerful movement of God emerged, the Church.

So I ask you, the reader, “Can you trust the Holy Spirit?” Are you willing to allow Him to “teach you all things” about the kingdom of God. Is he directing your spiritual journey? Are you holding on to control, or are you willing to release it to him? For the five-fold to work effectively, relinquishing and releasing is mandatory. The model won’t work if the Holy Spirit isn’t in charge! It will only be another lifeless institutional model if implemented without the Holy Spirit’s leading, guidance, and instruction.

In the next several blogs we will look at this model and its potential if we yield to the unpredictable, the Holy Spirit to initiate it, mold it, lead it, direct it, and form it according to the diverse believers’ talents in the body of Christ. Institutions love to reproduce themselves, thinking their way is the only right way which brings division in the body of Christ. The Holy Spirit produces organisms, living forms of a living gospel of a living Word in unique and diverse ways, yet producing unity. If Jesus prayer of John 16 is to come true, unity is mandatory. “Father, make them one as we are one!” The “laying down of your life for your brethren” is the mandatory ingredient for unity, and the Holy Spirit who works with the heart and the spirit of man can do that by bringing repentance, revival, and restoration.

Let’s continue to look at scenarios of how the Holy Spirit can work in this model, uniquely through the people yielding to it and their specific situations.

Five-Fold Prophetic Word Continued

 Part III: The Prophetic Five-Fold Word of 1993:

     On the evening of April 15, 1993, while sitting quietly in my living room, I asked the Lord a question, “What is the five fold ministry all about.  How is it to work? “

     Here is what I wrote down that night: (Continuation of the last two days blogs)

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     In Acts 2 apostle Peter sees a glimpse of the whole Body as people begin speaking in the native tongues of many languages of nations of their known world.  Little did Peter know that he had much to learn about vision of apostleship (House of Cornelius, acceptance of Gentiles, etc.), but the apostolic vision came upon Him (vs. 5-13)

     When questioned, Peter kicked into the prophetic (vs. 14-21) as he quoted Joel 2:28-32  and shows its fulfillment.

      (Versus 22-36) Peter flows as a teacher, explaining the prophecies of Joel using Psalms 16:8-11 as a teaching text, and explains the purpose of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. When he proclaims Jesus as the Messiah, it “pierced their hearts”.

     (Versus 37-41)  Peter, the evangelist, manifests himself as he leads 3,000 to the Lord’s gracious salvation.

     (Versus 42-45) illustrates the pastoring that took place in those early days to the 120, then 3,000, then 3,000 plus as they grew.

     The results was the birthing of the five fold ministry and its fruits:

          1)  Unity in faith - continuing with one mind (Acts 2:46);

          2)  Knowledge of the Son of God - Peters sermon of Acts 2:14-42;

          3)  Maturity - fellowshiping with gladness and sincerity of heart (Acts 2:26);

          4)  Measure of Stature - having favor with all the people (Acts 2:46);

     Acts 2 is only a measure compared to what we are about to see:

          Pastoring:  Who would have ever dreamed of Pastor Cho’s church reaching the 3/4 million mark?

          Evangelist:  If Peter could have seen into the future at how Billy Graham has been used with massive meetings and satellite TV international hookups, he would have said, “What is only 3,000”!

          Prophecy:  As we are currently witnessing this movement, the Lord is exhorting, encouraging, edifying, purifying, and challenging His Body as the Church is again “hearing from the Lord”

          Apostolic:  The Holy Spirit is birthing vision of Jesus and His Church in men and women who will “see over” the work of the Holy Spirit who is doing the work, not try to “oversee” the work of the Holy Spirit and interfering with it, and will have their spiritual eyes open to the revelation of Jesus Christ as He prepares to return for His Bride.

     We are truly living in an exciting time:

          The Evangelist will need the prophet to give him/her direction and spiritual insight to break down the darkness of a city and bring revival.  Old evangelistic modes will be replaced with new strategies planned and implemented by the Holy Spirit.  The evangelist needs the pastor to nurture the new converts, and the teacher to teach them while the apostle watched over them to “guard this new body” and develop it toward maturity”.

          The Pastor needs the evangelist to birth his flock; the teacher and/or the prophet to nurture and verify the flock, and the apostle to help it mature into the “fullness of Christ”.

          The Teacher needs to hear the apostle’s vision, and the prophet’s fresh word, then dig into the Word, the Bible, to verify it and teach its principles.  He/She needs the evangelist and pastor to prepare the ground and planting of the seed for his watering through the Word.

          The Prophet needs the pastor to balance his/her assertiveness; the teacher to authenticate the Word; the evangelist to initiate the word, and the apostle to verify the fresh word.

          The Apostle needs the prophet to give a fresh Word to verify his vision or revelation of Jesus; the teacher to check it out through the word; the pastor to see if his “heart” lines up with the Word as a shepherd, and the evangelist to birth the Word.

          Together they function 1) in unity 2) in revealing the knowledge of the Son of God; 3) maturing or preparing the church, the Bride, for her Groom, and 4) measuring the stature or having the church as the Revelation of Jesus Christ shining, bringing respectability.

Five-Fold Prophetic Word Continued

 Part II: The Prophetic Five-Fold Word of 1993:

           On the evening of April 15, 1993, while sitting quietly in my living room, I asked the Lord a question, “What is the five fold ministry all about.  How is it to work? “

           Here is what I wrote down that night: (Continuation of yesterday’s blog entry)

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          There will be NO TOP DOG in this church structure.  The apostle is not the top dog, neither is the prophet, evangelist, pastor, or teacher.  The day of the super pastor, super evangelist, super teacher, and super prophet are gone.  Instead we will be in a new day, a day of the supernatural pastor, the supernatural evangelist, the supernatural teacher, the supernatural prophet, and the supernatural apostle.  No office will be greater or lesser than another.  In the past we have been fed teaching emphasizing the greater spiritual gifts by the way that they are listed in the Bible, and blew it, for that is not true.  Beware we do not do the same thing to the five fold offices.

          Only as the members of the five fold ministry allow their star to rotate, will they see “the light of Jesus” radiating from them.  That rotating (Circle on the diagram) is the life flow of the Church!

            I see in the spirit, like on a clear night the sky being full of stars displaying the splendor of the heavens, so the earth will become like the heavens, each Spirit lead, five (fold ministry) pointed star local body, glimmering, making up county, state, and national galaxies of stars.  When the Lord returns all these star galaxies around the world will come together to shine in the Second Coming or the Feast of Lights in its “fullness”, Jesus Christ.

          The Lord showed me how these offices worked in Acts 2 when on Pentecost a “measure of His Spirit” birthed His Church, and those same offices brought “unity”, gave “knowledge of the Son of God”, began to “mature the saints”, and gave “stature or form”.  (Ephesians 4: 13) The Body of Christ will mature into His “fullness” as His Second Coming approaches.

          An apostle had to be an eye witness of Jesus Christ in the First Century, and Paul defended His apostleship by having his road to Damascus experience.  An apostle in the end times church too will have a revelation of Jesus Christ, not in a vision of His earthly or His resurrected body, but as a revelation of His Body, His Church, seeing the big picture, the reason for all five points of the star.

          The apostle will see the book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, becoming fulfilled.  Instead of the book being viewed as eschatology, as a book of end times tragedies and joys (Biblical scholars were blinded in their charts and theories of Jesus’ First Coming, why would they not be any different in His Second Coming?), the apostle will see it as it’s subtitle reads, The Revelation of Jesus Christ.  The Holy Spirit will open his eyes to reveal Jesus’ Church, His end time’s body to the apostle.

           The Old Testament priesthood is archaic: the New Testament priesthood is going from its birthing in Acts 2 to its fulfillment in the “fullness of Christ”.  The Church is about to experience a newness, another drastic change in its preparation for the communion of the Bride.  It will learn how to “sing a new song” not only individually, but corporately.  It will learn worship that they thought only could happen in the heavenlies as depicted in the book of Revelations, but that worship will be activated in the earth.

          The Church will experience a “communion” of worship with the heavenlies and the Church on the earth.  The heavenlies too sense His soon return, and will join in with the saints on earth, so when the trumpet sounds the groom's coming, His Bride will be ready and waiting because she will be in the act of worshiping, adoring, exalting, lifting up her coming Groom.  The Church, the Bride, is about to experience a “true romance” as it anticipates its coming Groom.  This will take place in her worship and in the relationship of her members to the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and to each other in a depth that she has never yet experienced.

          So the apostle will “see over” the local star, or national, or international galaxy, not “oversee” it as church leaders have done in the past.  The apostle can not do this without the other four points or offices of the five fold ministry, or they can not see the whole picture.  Rejecting one of the other offices by not communicating, serving, receiving, being accountable to, or accepting them will cause spiritual blindness and cause the apostle to see “only dimly” or “in part” when the Holy Spirit wants to show the apostle the “fullness of Christ” for his local body and clarity.

                                    (Continues in next blog…..)

Five-Fold Prophetic Word

Part I: The Prophetic Five-Fold Word of 1993:

     On the evening of April 15, 1993, while sitting quietly in my living room, I asked the Lord a question, “What is the five fold ministry all about.  How is it to work? “

             Here is what I wrote down that night:

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  The Lord began to show me how He wants His Church, His Body, to represent Him ruling and reigning in this time.  Jesus is currently reigning in the heavenlies on the right hand of His Father interceding for His Church, His Body, or the remnants of his earthly body, His true (Spirit and Truth worshipers) believers.  His glorified body is sitting by the Father.  The Holy Spirit has been activated to get his Bride, the Church, ready to be in a position, condition, or place to be prepared for His Second Coming, so they too can be glorified with Him.

     As a child I used to put my hands together, interlocking fingers, and begin to recite, “Here’s the church; there’s the steeple” while raising my two pointing fingers up.  Then I opened my thumbs while saying, “Open the door”  as I unfolded my hands showing my interlocking fingers, “and there’s the people”!  God’s Church is still His people. It never was meant to be a building, and never will be.  But the Lord is calling His people to the Five Fold Ministry in these end times.  He gave me a diagram to illustrate this point.  We think of a church building to be in this shape.  We put a cross at the top of it to distinguish it from any other building. The Lord is building a building, not in the natural, but in the supernatural. The building has five points.  Each point is a member of Ephesians 4:11’s Five Fold Ministry. (There is no set position for each office on the diagram.  They can be rotated.)

Each house or building or local (national or international) church of believers needs in it at least one apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher to:

     1)  Equip the saints (vs. 12);  

     2)  Build up the body (vs. 12); until we all attain to: (vs. 13)

          a)  Unity of faith;

          b)  Knowledge of the Son of God;

          c)  Maturity;

          d)  Measure of Stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

Currently we only have a “measure”, but the Holy Spirit wants to lead us towards the “fullness” as He prepares the Bride who will be ‘without spot or wrinkle’, the glorified Body of the Church in the ‘fullness of Christ’ for the coming groom at Christ’s Second Coming!”

The Lord has assured me that men will make mistakes as the Holy Spirit leads them through this end times process of preparation, for one way man learns is through error.  Repentance can only come after a fall or mistake, so He will develop a repentant heart, a repentant Church.

The Lord has shown me how in my life time that He has raised up evangelists, pastors, teachers, prophets, and soon apostles not only locally but of international proportions.

In the 1970’s when the charismatic gifts were being poured out, in man’s lack of Godly wisdom and understanding, many were seeking “their gift” not knowing that the Lord’s desire is for us individually and the Church corporately to grow into the “fullness of Christ”, not in meager mustard seed measures.  We are, as a Church, to blossom into His fullness, the Bride ready for the groom.  In the ‘90’s many will scramble to find “their office”, again showing their lack of maturity in Christ.  If people scramble to do this, we will only have the shell (see diagram) of another Church structure with no life in it, and legalism will set in, and self appointed “offices” will fight and bicker with each other, and like other empty structures the Church has built in history, it too will crumble.

The Lord showed me that the star stood over where the Christ child lay during his First Coming, and a star will also mark His Second Coming.  This star will not be in the heavens above the earth, but inside the framework of the Church.  (See diagram)  That star, that light, will be the Holy Spirit manifesting Jesus Christ in His  Church through the five fold ministry.  Each “office” of the five fold ministry can not stand alone, just like a Lone Ranger Christian can not stand alone, but they need to be:

          1) Communicating with each other;

          2) Accountable to each other (Each office is a point of the star and will keep its point sharpened by the other four!)

          3) Serve each other, never Lord over each other.  There is no jockeying for positions, for you can rotate a five pointed star and no one is ever always on top.  They must give to each other!

          4) We will have to learn to receive from each other too!

          5) We will have to accept one another as peers, equals, not a hierarchy positioning.

                                    (Continues in next blog…..)

How Far Can You Fall?

The Pinnacle Of A Pyramid Is Really Up There!

I am tired of a hierarchal pyramid church structure telling me that we are a “family”, the family of God, where we play different roles like mother, father, child, pet dog, etc., but we are equal as family members. I know very few Christians who view their pastor as an equal. His position dictates his spirituality, thus one elevates his stature, often out of noble causes like respect. Church elders, deacons, and board members are treated differently again out of respect to an elevated position. The pastor is looked upon as a super Christian, the leadership as superb Christians while regular none titled members feel inferior, rejected, and sometimes even lost.

I have been impressed, but the last three pastors at our local church have been home grown, birthed, nurtured, and equipped in the faith by our own local body. The last two were saved as youth, went off to seminary only to return to their home church, became Youth Ministers, and eventually given the reigns of leadership as senior pastor. What has been tragic is a pattern I have seen develop over the last two decades: People come, get inspired, become active, given leadership positions, directed up the hierarchal ladder in positioning until they have attained top positions as elders or pastors.  The trouble comes when they resign. The last two resigning pastors left so they would not be in conflict with the new pastor. 80% of resigning elders also left the congregation over disputes or conflicts. Those respected as leaders because of the “character” of their lives, abandoned the character of the family when conflict rose its nasty head, and the fall from high up leadership down the bumpy pyramidal wall became rocky and brutal, forcing resignations, hurt, and despair. Leadership preaches how to solve conflict, but have not modeled it very well in the past.  This is not only true for my local church, but churches everywhere, and it got to stop.

We need to look for “linear” models of leadership, not hierarchal ones. We need leaders beside their people, not above them, so when someone falls, there won’t be permanent damage by falling a great distance. That is why we MUST apply I John 3:16, the laying down of our life for our brethren, as a mandatory Christian practice. If we are laying down our life, one will fall on top of you when they fall, not fall beneath you to be trampled. We can pick each other up together! That is body ministry!

Instead of diversity and our weaknesses hindering us, if we embrace the five fold as a linear ministry of equal peers accepting one another as a priesthood of believers, our strengths will breach each other’s weaknesses, and the body as a whole will be strong.

I have a personal friend who has been so damaged by the revolving door of pastors at his church over the years, that he now is skeptical about building a relationships with any new pastor, which is a lonely position to be in. Just because someone is paid as a professional does not elevate his spiritual status nor eliminate his need for fellowship and relational commitments. We have to think linearly.

Attending a funeral yesterday brought home the feeling of lost no matter how many times you attend funerals. Grieving comes with loss. Every time a pastor leaves a congregation there is lost, but we do not look at it that way, nor give the congregation time to process it that way, but immediately build hype about the expectations of a new leader with new hope, new life, and new direction. Families grieve over loss. The Family of God, the local church, needs to do the same, or embrace those who have fallen from their hierarchal positions to allow them to be regular pew sitting Christians again. They are equal brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus; let’s treat them that way if they allow us.

I am tired of the awkwardness of hierarchal changes in leadership structures, looking at the fall of one as being the potential for rise for another. True linear leadership never “lords” or “hovers over” nor “micromanages” those below them, but walks beside them. Jesus is the true example of that process. He always walked with his disciples.  When ascending to heaven, above his brethren, he sent his Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus Christ, to not only walk with believers but personally indwell them. “Do you not know your body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit?” Even his Spirit is not in a hierarchal position over you, but with you, in you, being a part of you! Relationally, as believers in Jesus Christ, that is where we should be with each other, then no man can fall far, only into the arms of the one beside them! That is commitment; that is unity; that is the truth of Body of Christ if we follow linear leadership. We must be our brother’s keepers, even when they have fallen! 

History of Experience?

A Historic Jesus Or An Every Present Jesus!

We are a data driven society. We want to know facts in order to rationally figure everything out. What happens if the rational or natural becomes irrational because of the supernatural? What do you do when the explainable now becomes supernaturally unexplainable?  How do you handle it when the facts of data are face-to-face with actual experience that goes counter to those facts and data?  How do you handle faith?

It is amazing what we know “about” subjects but really don’t “know” the subject. For example, we know a lot about “marriage”, what it should and should not be, how it should or should not work, yet once we said “I do” and experienced marriage do we discover we know very little about it!  We learn more and more about it as we experience it! I love to talk to couples who have been married 35 years or more, for they can share wisdom that is not data driven, but experience driven.  Marriage works, but only if it is applied, if you experience it, work through it, embrace it, live it.

I’ve met people who know a lot “about” Jesus, so they think, yet they do not really “know” Jesus because they have not experienced him! They can spout off about the historical Jesus, their conception and “scholars’” conceptions of what Jesus was like when he was a human here on earth, but they know very little about the Jesus of today, personally or corporately.  If Jesus today is the corporate church, they know him as an institution, a religious organization, not as a living organism of relationships between his people. You have to “experience” Jesus as an “”organism”, a living form through his people in order to truly understand him. How?

The five-fold is all about relationships, the laying down your life for your brethren in a peer-to-peer relationship of equality and acceptance. It is all about bringing life to the individual believer, developing him in the image of Jesus Christ, and to the corporate body of believers called the church, bringing unity in spirit and truth. If you pattern Christian life after church history, you follow traditionalism, the very thing that opposed Jesus when he was on earth. Jesus came to earth to bring life for man to experience life in Him not to establish traditions never to be broken. If you follow only a historical Jesus, you establish your understanding of Jesus through tradition, laws, decrees, etc., not out of personal relationships and experiences.

It amazes me how someone as dedicated as a seminary student can know some much about Jesus, yet not have personally experienced him, but it happens. I know ministers who deliver excellent sermons and exegeses “about” Jesus historically, quoting Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, and every known scholar, yet never having personally experienced him as a living, unexplainable, supernatural organism.

In order to understand the five-fold, you have to experience the five fold. Just knowing “about” it is not good enough. It is one thing knowing everything about evangelism but never evangelizing, know about care, nurturing, and discipleship but never shepherding anyone, knowing about the Word and being able to quote it verbatim but never experiencing or living it, knowing about God personally but never prophetically listening to his still small voice, knowing about administration from a business model, but never seeing over what the Holy Spirit is already doing while networking his people from an apostolic framework. My goal is not for the Church to know about the five-fold but experience it, live it, making it an organism of personal, sacrificial relationships.

We face a challenge in these days to either bring life through experiencing Jesus, or follow the “traditions of men” as the Bible calls them, and continue our Westernize view of the gospel of “knowing about” our faith through facts and data while quoting scriptures. We need to live our faith, live out of our faith, and experience our faith if we wish to see it as an organism. What a challenge! Let’s do it!

The Five Fold Option?

Part IV: Possible Linear Pattern To Evaluate!

If we are demolishing old structures and looking for new, what possibilities are there? One may be the five fold model under the following pretenses:

• The five fold is not offices or positions but passions, desires, and points of view that drive a believer in a certain direction.      
• The five fold is not part of a hierarchal system of professionals with titles over nonprofessional believers.
• The five fold is evidenced by what one does, what motivates that person, what drives them, not who they are or what position they hold.      
• The five fold is a linear process of believers walking beside other believers in their Emmaus walk of faith together, not hovering “over” someone.
• Since each of the five fold separately has divided the Church so far in history, each must learn to serve each other and submit to one another, being willing to “lay down their lives for their brethren” in order for it to work.

Each of the five fold:

• Is a peer to the others, an equal in the faith, that is driven by a passion, desire and point of view.     
• Needs the other four, for one’s gifting, or strength, augments the other’s weaknesses.
• Needs the other four to become balanced in ministry and approach.     
• Walks beside one another serving, not ruling. (Jesus modeled this when on earth as a man.)     
• Is relational to the others either birthing, nurturing, teaching, developing, or networking through service     

Every local church, body of believers:

• Needs an evangelist to birth new converts, birth new projects, be the midwife to what the Holy Spirit is doing    
• Needs an shepherd to nurture, care and develop the sheep in practical day to day faith.      
• Needs an prophet to bring spiritual life to a church, draw others into worship, and listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit through obedience.       
• Needs a teacher to keep everyone grounded in the Word, the Bible through apostolic teaching rather than religious dogma      
• Needs an apostle to network people serving people from their strengths and callings      
• Needs the five fold to bring birth, develop maturity, and cultivate unity.     

The five fold is a linear model worth evaluating to see if the Holy Spirit can be released among God’s people in the spirit of service.

Demolition Or Historical Preservation?

Part III: Demolition… Ka-Boom! There She Falls!

Isaiah 57:14-27:  It shall be said, “Build up, build up, prepare the way, remove every obstacle out of the way of My people.” For thus says the high and exalted One who lives forever, whose name is Holy, “I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. “For I will not contend forever, neither will I always be angry; for the spirit would grow faint before Me, and the breath of those whom I have made because of the iniquity of his unjust gain I was angry and struck him; I hid My face and was angry, and he went on turning away, in the way of his heart. I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will lead him and restore comfort to him and to his mourners, creating the praise of his lips. “Peace, peace to him who is far and to him who is near,” says the Lord, “and I will heal him. “But the wicked are like the tossing sea for it cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up refuse and mud.  There is no peace,” says God, “for the wicked.”

I love historic sections of cities, the “old section” of town that is rich in heritage and history. What happens though when it turns into the “slum” of the city. Slumlords become tenant renters never fixing up their place, trash is strewn throughout the streets, crime, prostitution, and drug selling is found around every corner. At this time the section of the city gasps for life, shakes in fear, and loses hope. Soon “death” hovers over the streets instead of “life”. Something needs to be done when so much “life is lost”!  This is the time for renewal; cities call it urban renewal; churches call it revival.

Revival demands change: individual changed lives as well as structural institutional changes. If we keep the same institutions, we get the same results, and the slum mentality will remain in a new environment until it eats away at any progress that was made. Often total demolition is a necessity before renewal can be birthed or maintained.

Isaiah pointed out that to “build up, build up,” first “ remove every obstacle out of the way of My people,” needed to happen. Demolition to religious structures had to be done before renewal was to begin. The Tabernacle had to give way to a Temple when the nation Israel was established. The Temple eventually had to be destroyed, never to be rebuilt, when Christianity was birthed because Christianity professed that the believers’ bodies were the temples of the Holy Spirit, not physical structures. Old structures had to give way to new ones. The previous “Books of God” were now called “the Old Testament” giving way to the new “Books of God” called “the New Testament”. Old influenced the new, but a time came for the old to be old, gone, done away with, “Ka-boom”! It was replaced by something new, something better! That is how God has worked historically as recorded in the Bible, and will continue to do so!

I have written blogs in the past on excerpts of a manuscript I have written called “Metamorphosis” where I believe the Church is going from their current caterpillar stage into a cocoon stage that will “restructure” what a caterpillar looks like. In fact what comes out of that caterpillar will not look like a caterpillar at all; it will be a butterfly, a completely new structure. The old will be gone; behold the new!

What will this new structure look like? Well that is what almost 500 of these blogs have been written about.  I believe we will have a new structure build around the five fold as passions, beliefs, and points of views of average, normal believers in Jesus Christ who have linear relationships with each other of “laying down their lives for their brethren.” This sacrificial love will transform the way we do Church in function, worship, and personal relationships. It will be revolutionary in our thinking, because it will be a new structure. Old hierarchal clergy/laity structures will fall as well as institutional, organizational mindsets based on those structures.

If everything we do becomes relational, either vertically with the way we worship the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, or horizontally, the way we accept one another, it will force us to rethink how we do Church, what is the Church, and demolish old mindset while openly receiving new ones, new revelations as the Holy Spirit reveals.

“Ka-boom”! Another structure falls, another organization, but in its place a butterfly, an organism suitable for flight into the heavenlies, replaces it, a better structure, a better form, a re-form, a newness: revival!

Organizational Structures

Part II: Understanding Organizational Structures: Pyramidal Versus Linear

We have asked the question, “How can we keep from becoming an organization, an administrative and functional structure, and remain an organism, “a living thing, a living being, an individual?” In order to answer this question we have to look at understanding organizational structures.  In America, the hot bed of world capitalism, we worship the “Business Model” of Corporate America with C.E.O.’s, Boards, Stock Holders, and Workers. This mentality has also infiltrated the American Church.

Christian church leadership America primarily follows the C.E.O. model of a Senior Pastor heading a staff of associate pastors, staff, and personnel being monitored by a Church Board. All positions, paid or voluntary, have titles, job descriptions, and professional expectations. The Stock Holders are their parishioners whose “tithe” finances the institution. They are told they are investing in the “kingdom of God”, when most of their investment goes to building and grounds maintenance, professional staff salaries and benefit packages, and paying for programs to bring nonchurch people into their building or enrich or entertain their constituents. Benevolence and missions, the origin of this organization, is now lost in the miniscule regions of the over all budget, as most finances goes to maintenance of the system.

We who have been part of this system all our lives feel it is normal, acceptable, never questioning it, and believing that supporting it is “God’s will”, but what about new believers or even nonbelievers? How do they see it? A fact is that the church has been losing membership over the last couple of decades, and are losing the “young” that are to be the anchors of the church of this century. What will it take to attract the “young” adults back into the “life” of the Church? By returning to the “organism”! The question is how?

We, the Church, need to look through their eyes. When I was young, I wanted to believe I was “anti-establishment”, opting for relationships over religion and systematic organizations. Now older, I catch myself defending my “religion” and the organizations that support my lifestyle while hearing the “young” still crying out for “relationships”. Today’s 20-30’s have been labled “flat-worlders”, believing in linear relationships as being “friends” on Facebook, supplemental “likes” as accepting comments and websites, and networking with others, all relationship on a linear, horizontal plane. They look at hierarchal structures as “speed bumps” (See earlier blog). Social Networking has given them a voice of peer acceptance and equality, but hierarchal structures and leadership have stifled that voice, minimizing their importance and losing the feeling that they are neither “accepted” nor “equal” to anyone, thus they don’t come to church, primarily because of the structure.

So the structure must change from a hierarchal one to a linear, horizontal, accepting one of peer equality as believers of Jesus Christ, a priesthood of equal peers, without titles or positions of stature.  It is what we do, not who we are, nor what title we wear that gives us validity.  It is the “laying down of our lives” to one another that says everything, so titles and offices become irrelevant to our actions and attitudes.

Changing our “religious” mindsets to “relational” mindsets will not be easy, for it will demand structural changes to our established organizational thinkings laid down for centuries. The over emphasis of organization brought the “Dark Ages” for hundreds of years; the emphasis of returning to becoming an organism will bring “Reformation”, or revival. Reformation will not just include “re-forming” our structures, but disposing many of them so the Church can remain fluid in following the Holy Spirit as it had to do during its birthing process. Relying on the Holy Spirit and being obedient to him will trump established church tradition or the Church will forever be fragmented, which is not the will of the Father. Jesus prayed, “Father, make us one,” and to do that drastic change will have to evolved.

How do we have this change evolve? By tearing down the old, and believing in ICorinthians 15 that in “Christ Jesus all things are new!” It is hard for even me to accept, but urban renewal begins with the demolition of old structures, in spite of the local historical federation wanting to keep everything as it was when first established, before new can be build.

Organization or Organism

Part I: Can We Keep An Organism From Eventually Becoming An Organization?

Organism

Definition: noun, plural: organisms  (Science: Biology) - An individual living thing that can react to stimuli, reproduce, grow, and maintain homeostasis. It can be a virus, bacterium, protist, fungus, plant or an animal.  Supplement - Word origin: Greek organon = instrument. 
Related forms: organismic (adjective), organismal (adjective), organismically (adverb). 
Synonym: living thing, living being, individual. (http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Organism)

or·ga·ni·za·tion noun \ˌor-gə-nə-ˈzā-shən, ˌorg-nə-\

1) a company, business, club, etc., that is formed for a particular purpose 2) the act or process of putting the different parts of something in a certain order so that they can be found or used easily 3) the act or process of planning and arranging the different parts of an event or activity

Full Definition of ORGANIZATION - 1  a :  the act or process of organizing or of being organized;  b :  the condition or manner of being organized 2  a :  association, society <charitable organizations>  b :  an administrative and functional structure (as a business or a political party); also :  the personnel of such a structure. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/organization)

It is so easy to go from being an organism, “a living thing, a living being, an individual, to becoming an organization, an administrative and functional structure. We discover how to bring life or a solution to a problem, then immediately want to organize it to make it more “efficient”.

For example, many hospitals were birthed as a “living” effort to reach out to the sick, especially those who are poor, but once established it becomes an organization to improve its “efficiency” which has brought us to America today where we have developed entire “conglomerates” whose bottom line is the business model of dollars and cents rather than for care for the poor. What started as a good cause, became an efficient system, that eventually becomes all consuming and overwhelming where the organization becomes more important than the original cause. An example is the YMCA, originally a British Christian outreach program for physical health and cheap housing, who now has lost the “C” and is known strictly as the “Y”, and is memorialized by the Village People propagating the gay population in San Francisco in their hit song, “YMCA”.!

This phenomenon also happens with the Church. A person shares one-on-one the gospel producing fruit with several others now believing. As they share their faith, the group grows in size. As it does, they soon believe they can meet more needs if they organize resources to make it more efficient, thus structure and order is formed. Soon structure and order leads to tradition, and we begin to lock in our organization standards which eventually become set in stone, and the movable, fluid, organism is stifled, if not crushed. It is also the dream of some churches to organizationally grow into “religious conglomerates” known as mega-churches where maintaining the huge system becomes an albatross to the effectiveness of the ministry.

We, the church, spend so much time and effort into organizing structures, services, and activities to be more efficient, believing that is the definition of “good stewardship”, rather than spending it on relationships and personal one-to-one contact with our neighbors and other believers. Soon we are willing to “invest” our finances to hire a professional staff to fill organizational positions to perform religious activities rather than staying personally involved in one-to-one relationships, and we wake up discovering we have also become “the institutional church”, though we tend to deny that truth. 

Five-Fold Recipe

Ingredients for Five-Fold Revival

If the Holy Spirit is “cooking” up the next revival, what would be the ingredients needed for such an adventure? Here may be a few suggestions that I would have.  None of these are new. They have been addressed in previously written blogs, but together they could become a powerful pastry!

- A Recognition That The Holy Spirit Is In Control – Without the Holy Spirit, there is no revival, yet so often we, the established church, try to dictate the dosage allowed. Often we want enough of the Holy Spirit to bring revival but keep it clean, neat, and orderly, but not enough to lose control, but without allowing the Holy Spirit total freedom, there will be no true revival.

- A Dose of the Doctrine of the Priesthood of Believers – Revival begins at the grass roots level with the masses, the believers in Jesus, the Church. I Peter 2:9-10 states, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” When God’s people and their voices get marginalized, revival validates their voice, their position in Christ, and takes them out of their darkened state into enlightenment.  Peer acceptance and equality are standard ingredients for revival.

- Diversity in the Body, the Church, is a Mandatory Ingredient - Galatians 3 verse 26 states, “For you are all sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ", and verse 28 concludes, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free man, neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Although there is great diversity in the Body of Christ, the Church, there is equality and acceptance as peers, as priests in a united priesthood. The Body of Christ transcends nationalities, races, denominations, and political points of view. The Great Commission calls the Church to be comprehensive on a world wide scale, and with today’s world-wide-web of internet activity, the church needs to look at a new set of ingredients that will “raise” the bar of evangelism, nurture, teaching, prophetic insight, and apostolic over sight to a world wide level of influence.

- Leveling The Playing Field – Today’s younger generation looks at the world from a “flat world” mentality, of peer relationships and acceptance rather than hierarchal structures of leadership. They look for leadership to be walking beside them, rather than being over them in dictatorial fashion. The Church needs to examine its hierarchal structures of leadership, modify, adjust, and sometimes even scrap the old for a more linear relationship built model based on service and sacrifice.

- A Large Dosage Of New Mindsets – If we are to embrace this next generation, their broadening world view, their peer acceptance, and their yearning for linear, meaningful relationships built on trust, respect, and acceptance, then we, the Church, must embrace new mindsets on how we do church, what it means to be the Church, and how the Church is to function among its diverse members to develop individual Christian maturity in the image of Jesus producing group unity. This is why the five fold would be the best ingredient possible to attain those goals according to Ephesians 4.

- Cook Slowly, Simmer, Heat Thoroughly – When “the heat is on” revival flourishes. Persecution and martyrdom were the ingredients that brought expansion to the 1^st Century Church. What “heat” will need to be produced to bring a “world wide” revival that transcends countries, nations, and continents. What will the Church have to experience globally to bring it to its knees, in humble recognition and obedience to a sovereign, merciful God who created this world, and whose kingdom is to reign over it? The Church in the past has looked at “revival” as a time of blessing, but this time it will come at a price: the “laying down your life for your brethren” (I John 3:16) which will bring unity, not division, preparing the Bride of Christ, the Church, for the Groom’s, Jesus’ return to a Church without spot or wrinkle. Setting the oven the right temperature always is a prerequisite for properly baked goods. You don’t want to under-bake it nor burn it, and the same is true for revival.

There you have it: some of the ingredients needed for the next revival. Come Holy Spirit, supply the ingredients, mix the diversity into one united batter, then heat precisely to have it raise it into a beautiful baked work of art. Holy Spirit, bring revival!

What If You Tithed Your Time?

A Different Mind Bending Concept About Tithing

Being a church member, unfortunately, usually breeds passivity. Sadly, we need only “attend” church services to be looked upon as a Christian in most cultures. Attending Sunday morning worship and one activity listed in the bulletin per week satisfies our stature.  We are so dependent on the professional staff to do everything, that they “enable” us by doing their job effectively. No wonder we do not feel part of the life of the local church.  Usually churches that are professionally programmed driven usually ask only one major form of activity from their casual members; their financial giving.  The offering is a central piece of every Christian program. Sometimes pre-offering speeches can be longer than the sermon, and “tithing” is a quarterly sermon theme.

What would happen if we Americans would tithe from what is most precious to them; their time?

What would the church staff do if each and every member in your church was willing to volunteer 4 hours, 1/10^th of their 40 hour work week to the church? The staff would probably generate more programs for them to attend! Really, if you have 100 members in your church each giving four hours, what would they do with 400 hours of volunteered time each week? A 500 member church with 1,000 free hours? Sounds like a cell phone plan!

If I would ask that question during a staff meeting I may get suggestions like: janitorial work, building maintenance, shrubbery trimming and clean up, painting, secretarial work, running off bulletins, up dating data base of members for email, newsletters, and mailings, etc., all institutional chores, but what happened to feeding and clothing the poor, caring for the widows in the congregation, hospital and jail visits, etc.  Most staff hired by churches are program related where they are highly visible, but who does the invisible tangibles that empower a church?  What they would list on a whiteboard as suggestions would show the priorities of that church.  With 400 hours a week of volunteering would force a change in priorities.

What would happen if the members spent their volunteer time forming nonprofit businesses in a service sector like a lunch time deli where they would feed and serve their community in a nonchurch financially profitable atmosphere?  How about a “Foot Wash”, fancy name for a car wash reflecting the foot washing passion of Jesus to the community, not as a fundraiser for more church activities, but for community benevolence. How about a moving company to help low income families and church families in moving to a new residence? These business would not only produce financial profits, but “help equip the saints for the works of service,” the Ephesians 4 principle as well as produce entry level jobs for young people, the homeless, and those wanting to start a life of financial independence while serving. Actually these acts of service are great evangelistic efforts, touching the secular community, and grafting them and the local church into stronger community bonds.

What impact would volunteered tithing hours have on the elderly if church members did not just visit them for ten minutes on a Sunday afternoon during visiting hours, but instead took them to their doctor and dentist appointments, or helped maintain residential housing that is beyond the physical capabilities of an aging widow, so she can still have the freedom of living in her home instead of being forced into an assisted living situation?

What freedom would it give a parent of a physical or mental handicap child if volunteers would spend time with that child, freeing them to go shopping alone, going to the athletic club for their own health, or just have a badly needed date without the pressures of caregiving 24/7?

These possibilities only scratch the surface; allow your imagination to soar at the possibilities of how “active” how “alive” a local church would be if we tithed from our most sacred resource, our time. I cannot find in the scriptures where Jesus asks for our money, but he does request our time when he says, “Follow me.”  “Following Jesus” will always change the way we think of doing church, the way the community sees church, the way the “staff” would have to operate, and the way we would chose church leadership.

What do you think? What impact would “tithing of our time” change the way your church would do “church”? What would “church” then look like? How would the church manage all those volunteers and hours without hiring a “case manager”, another full time professional position? Let’s hear from you! 

What The Church's Response To The Mentally Ill Should Be?

Resurrecting “Lean On Me”; A Personal Response

 A 2011 Baylor University study revealed that help from the church with depression and mental illness was the second priority of families with mental illness, while it ranked 42^nd on the list of requests from families that did not have a member with mental illness.

If we offer “care” for someone, what does that mean?  Clinically we say, “We offer services,” as a friend, “I’m there for you,” and as a church attender, “We will pray for you.”  One offers programs, one personalization, and the last a detached response. Institutional churches can offer programs they label as ministries like a drug and alcohol ministry or mental health ministry. “We’ll pray for you,” offers concern but no personal involvement or social interaction with the person, and often turns into gossip circles. The personal, “I am there for you,” option is the most effective, the most Christ-like option, but requires sacrifice and commitment of actually being “available” 24/7 on our parts!

The personal option does not need building or program structures; it just needs you! Your involvement, your time, your commitment, your concern, you “just being there.”  Often most forms of effective ministry never need a designated building or specifically designed program, it just need the human element of love, care, commitment, and involvement, just “being there” for someone.

Mental illness strives for isolation and detachment. Just “being there” prevents both of these from occurring by reinforcing the recovery process. One fighting depression often feels “overwhelmed,” unable to tackle situations alone, but “being there” eases that pain. Schizophrenia distorts one’s rationale, but having one by your side whom you trust counters that. Currently clinical help only comes during the crisis stage, but having someone sensitive to your mood, stability, and needs by you can detect when something isn’t right early. That is called prevention.

Since the “Church” is not an individual, but a collective group, the “being there” can be shared, distributed among others, not to be a burden. Intimate small group ministry that meets regularly can offer more than a clinical Group Therapy that discourages close interpersonal relationships by its members. Church small groups shouldn’t turn into programs like Bible studies, or just talk sessions, but become a process for building relationships that produce life beyond group meetings. That’s family!

Religious cults and inner city gangs draw people into their midst because they act as an accepting family. Family offers a support system to someone stripped of many of their abilities, talents, and social graces due to mental illness. Without a family homelessness and a skirmish with the lay can be a real possibility.

Bill Wither’s Lean On Me song, now decades old, advocates what one must do to be effective. “Sometime in our lives we all have pain, we all have sorrow, but if we are wise, we know that there’s always tomorrow.  Lean on me, when you’re not strong, and I’ll be your friend. I’ll help you carry one, for it won’t be long till I’m gonna need somebody to lean on. Please swallow your pride if I have things you need to borrow, for no one can fill those of your needs that you won’t let show. You just call on me brother, when you need a hand. We all need somebody to lean on. I just might have a problem that you’d understand. We all need somebody to lean on. If there is a load you have to bear that I can’t carry. I’m right up the road; I’ll share your load if you just call me.

I Have Been Replaced, So I Am Now Free To Move On!

What Does “Equipping The Saints” Mean? – Part XIII

It is easy to find the Senior Pastor during the majority of Christian church services: they are up front, on a platform elevated in front of all, or by the exit door shaking hands receiving compliments, “Nice Sermon”, or in a formal procession at the beginning of the service but is the central figure of everything that happens during the service.  He/she, and only he/she, is entitled to give the sermon, the official interpretation of the Word of God.  He/she is considered “a man/woman of God” unlike any other in the congregation, so he is revered, honored, held in high esteem. When he/she dies or decides to leave “the ministry”, there becomes a huge void, causing a search for another professional out side the confines of the local congregation to be brought in to “fill” the vacuum left by his leaving, but this is not the model of leadership during the first century of the Church. 

I do not know historically when the Church strayed from its Ephesians 4 calling to “equip the saints for works of service”, but it must have happened early in Church history.  By the end of the first century the Church was entrenched in the Bishop clergy/laity hierarchy model, diminishing and eroding the power of the saints ever since.  Although the Church claims “to make disciples of all men”, it has failed in “equipping” them for “service”. A Sunday Church “service” is still basically a “clergy” led “service” with the laity, the saints, being reduced to enabled followers. That is not the Biblical model set out by the 12 apostles in the first half of the first century.

I have yet to belong to, or even visit a church, where the “senior pastor” just sat in the midst of the congregation with “apostolic oversight”, just seeing what the Holy Spirit is doing with His people because the Senior Pastor had trained and equipped his congregation to do everything that they once expected him to do!  What! A laity giving the sermon or homily that had just been revealed to him through the Holy Spirit! A laity singing a prophetically motivated new song that ministered immediately to congregation in the unity of the theme being laid out by the Holy Spirit instead of “special music”, or a choir anthem, or being led by a worship team!  A member of the congregation taking the microphone, telling of a testimony of what Jesus was doing currently in their life that just so happened to go along with the Holy Spirit’s theme!  Someone sharing an originally written poem!  Someone painting, drawing, etching, or molding an original piece of art during the service!  Members of the congregation not having to be ushers to “collect” offerings, but every member of the congregation giving into containers during the time of worship as their “acts of worship”, their “acts of giving”!  The gifts of the spirit flowing among the congregation to minister to the hurting, to meet needs, to give directions, to give encouragement and edification, to make the Logos Word, the written Word, now become the Rhema Word, or the living Word, among them!  Members of the congregation “breaking bread” together and “sharing the cup” as a communal body of faith rather than a religious rite or practice!  All this happening while the Senior Pastor and his laity leadership team just blend into the congregation, “seeing over” in amazement what the Holy Spirit is doing in their midst, bringing unity through worship and purpose among themselves!

If leadership has “equipped the saints for works of service”, then leadership needs to “release” their congregation “to serve”.  Where is the safest place to release them to serve? Amongst the body of believers when they are gathered, for if they fall and stumble, which often is the best way to learn and practice, then “grace” and “mercy” can be extended so that they do not look at their stumbling as a “set back”, or “back sliding” as carnal Christians call it, but as a positive teaching method, to show them correction, to “equip” them to get up and stand strong so they do not stumble again!  We claim “Christians aren’t perfect; just forgiven”, but in our church services we propagate a climate of perfection: everyone smiles, everyone hides their hurts, everyone shakes hands and pats each other on the back as if they are old buddies. If the service is planned to the “T”, basically controlled, there will be no evident problems. If anything “unpredictable” happens, we will subdue it, for if someone is “out of line” we bring immediate judgment and condemnation to bring correction instead of allowing mercy and grace to weave their healing balms.  We claim that Jesus’ precious Holy Spirit is the pilot of our program and we the co-pilot, but we fly the plane, not allowing the Holy Spirit to break free or through our scheduled, protected, well-organized programs.

Why do God’s people, Christians, fear, as in fright, not reverence, the Holy Spirit? They are afraid if they release the Holy Spirit amongst themselves things will get “out of line”, “out of order”, people will “swing from the chandeliers” even though the church has only fluorescent lighting!  We fear chaos and confusion instead of expecting peace and unity, and we forget that the Holy Spirit’s goal is to bring “all men” to Jesus Christ, producing unity, not division!  We belittle the person of the Holy Spirit because of our lack of trust in Him, thus we belittle the person of Jesus Christ, because the Holy Spirit IS the SPIRIT OF JESUS CHRIST!

Leadership complains about how much is expected of them, and no one is going to do it if they don’t! That’s a lie: equip your saints, then release those saints which will also release leadership to move on to the next things Jesus through His Holy Spirit has for them to do!  Paul operated this way when starting churches: equipping the new saints over approximately a two year period, then released them to stand on their own so that he could move on to the next place the Holy Spirit was leading him toward to birth, equip, and release even more!  Church, maybe we should step back and examine Paul’s example as an apostle to understand the power of the laity, the saints, if they are properly equipped, trained, encouraged, nurtured, guided, then released to do ministry.  If you do that, you are blessed when you just sit amongst them and watch them “do it”! Wow! What a blessing that would be!

Surrounded By Care; The Five Fold Phenomenon

What Does “Equipping The Saints” Mean? – Part XII

We have been looking at what it means to “equip the saints for works of service” as out lined in Ephesians 4.  Part of equipping is surrounding a person with those things that will make them successful.  That is the power and beauty of the five fold; the strengths of many support the weaknesses of one.  Because the five fold is a team effort, a family effort, a community effort, no man is an island.    Personally, I have learned to realize that several attempts at ministry in the past to which I have been involved were not as successful as they could have been because I did not have that support of diverse passions, desires, and ministries around me. My weaknesses help hinder the success of ministry, but I had no one around me to support and lift me up through their diverse passion in the time of my weakness.

Let’s say that you have the pastoral passion of shepherding; you love to care for others and nurture them physically, emotionally, and spiritually toward maturity in Jesus Christ.  To get the full potential results of your ministry, you need the other four (evangelist, teacher, prophet, & apostle) components of the five fold to aid, abate, support, and equip your ministry.  You need an evangelist to birth “babes in Christ” so that you have someone to nurture.  You need the aide of the teacher to “ground” these new believers in the Word of God, the Bible, the aide of the prophet to teach them to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit for themselves and how to make the Logos Word a Rhema, or Living, Word, and the aide of apostolic oversight to monitor their spiritual growth from birth through maturity.  Shepherding is only one part of the entire picture in equipping a saint in his spiritual journey!

Without added support, one can feel swamped, over extended, and eventually burnt out trying to be all things to all men. Often in the current pastor/laity model of most small churches, the burn out rate among clergy is staggering because the congregation expects their pastor to be strong in all five areas when he/she may be gifted in just one or two of them, and we expect him/her to do it alone because he is a professional.  We need to change our perspective of ministry from a solo effort to a team approach of five.  Ministry should be a “team effort”: the strengths of those around you should shore up your weaknesses and free you to minister in and through your strength.  Ministry should be a “family approach” where all are members of the family of God; as in most families, members count on one another in order to succeed. Ministry should be a “community”: a community is made up of many different, diverse components that aide each other for the good of the group.

The key word of “equipping the saints for the work of service” is the word “service”.  We have to learn not only how to serve, but also be served.  If we become too arrogant, to independent, rejecting help from our brethren, we will rob them of the joy of servicing us. The reciprocal serving back and forth is the key to the success of the five fold ministry as a team ministry. It is a give and take situation. One’s strength and passion, mixed with compassion, can be a very effective tool at aiding, abetting, and supporting another brother or sister in the lord with a different passion than our own.

In conclusion, we need to accept the fact that we cannot do it alone; the kingdom of God is too big for just me or you to do it all. We are a body in Christ, the Church, so there are many other parts, people, whose gifting, though drastically different from our own, are needed to maximize the ministry of the gospel. Divisions will diminish if divergent passions serve one another, draw from one another, aide one another, and equip one another. Truly, then will we see a powerful Church with effective ministry.

What Does “Equipping The Saints” Mean? – Part X

Equipping Through Community

Can you imaging your local church going from approximately 120 to 3,120 in one weekend. That is what happened to the church at Jerusalem because of Pentecost.  Churches today pray for “revival”, but if 3,000 were saved in one weekend, what would your church do with these new converts?  How would they nurture them, disciple them, effectively teach them the Word particularly if they did not have a religious background, and live out what they learn?  Initially everyone would gather because of the excitement of the newness of the movement, but eventually numbers would begin to dwindle. With the new income from 3,000 people coming into their coffers, today’s churches would react by hiring more staff and starting a new building program to house all the people. All looks glorious at the beginning, but as numbers dwindle, so does the financial support, and soon layoffs occur and the huge building becomes a fiscal albatross.

In the Old Testament, priests were created to commune with God. They were a select group, one-tenth of the population, exclusively from the tribe of Levi.  In the New Testament the priesthood was no longer a selective group but a collective group of anyone who had accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior.  The Old Testament elevates the priest, but nowhere in the New Testament does it talk about being a priest, only establishing a “royal priesthood”.  It is the collective group that is elevated.  It is the community of faith, the believers corporately in Jesus Christ, the Church. I contend that it is the Church’s job to prepare and equip these new believers corporately to do the corporate work of service. How did this community get established?

The book of Acts vividly points out in its early chapters that this new movement of believers in Jesus Christ met in homes.  They “continued to break bread together”, in other words, fellowshipped with each other. They just did not “hang out” with one another on Sundays, but daily ate meals together, fellowshipped with one another, talked with one another, shared their day, their lives, intricately becoming a part of each other.  They accepted their differences, but began to blend into a group, a community, a family, a body, the Body of Christ, the Church. 

They began to sacrificially give, not to build a “church” building to hold the growing numbers in their congregation, not to add new staff, for there was no staff with academic degrees to hire, not to build a Bible School or Theological Seminary to advance the academia of this new movement, but they laid their finances at the feet of Jesus, literally at the feet of the Apostles, who used it to feed the poor, take care of the needy, the widows, the homeless, and the hurting. Deacons arose “to serve tables”, or do the work of service to those in need.

By fellowshipping together, living together, participating in each other’s lives on a daily basis, “relationships” were born and established.  Christianity is all about “relationships”.  John 3:16 points us to our relationships with God the Father through his son, Jesus Christ, re-establishing a broken relationship caused by sin, yet sanctified through the Cross.  The vertical relationship with God and man has been restored. I John 3:16 points us to our relationship with each other through the principle of “laying down one’s life” for each other.  People who are willing to sacrificially do that, as Jesus had done during his life, will discover that it develops a very close community, a community that even persecution can not dissolve, a community built on intimate, committed relationships.

Soon passions of “service” arose from this new group: some wanting to go out and evangelize, telling those who have not heard about this gospel, this “good news”; some wanting to nurture those who were already in their midst, to help them grow toward maturity in their new faith in Jesus Christ; some who discovered that all this had been foreshadowed and written about in the Torah, the Old Testament, among the prophets and the writings of David and Solomon, and diligently began to search the scriptures to reveal the truth; some to make sure this new revealed scriptural truth did not become just academic nor legalistic, but continue to be pliable, active, living.  In spite of this diversity, they continued to fellowship in unity of faith and purpose. They learned to give to one another and take from one another, thus causing their relationships to deepen even further.

When persecution finally did hit Jerusalem, the Church had already prepared and equipped their believers to move on in their flight for safety to all different regions throughout the world, and the Church continued to grow, develop, mature, preparing and equipping another generation to “serve” their God and “serve” one another.  Soon the Church was no longer looked upon as a new Jewish sect, but a vibrant, living, organism to be reckoned with, challenging all the already existing religions and leaders of its day.

 As we have institutionalized the Church over the centuries we have lost the sense of community among believers, instead establishing divisions among us through clergy and laity and through denominational distinctions, labels and beliefs.  We claim to be one body, but are so fragmented, divided, and even hostile towards one another because of our divisions.  Large portions of our church budgets finance large institutions and magnificent edifices while minimal amounts go toward the poor, the widows, the homeless, and the hurting.  To reestablish the power of the first century Church back into our institutions, we will have to first again establish community and the willingness to “lay down our lives” for one another, breaking bread with one another, fellowshipping daily among one another.  We will have to establish community back into the Church.

Preparing And Equipping Toward Maturity

What Does “Equipping The Saints” Mean? – Part IX

It is basic to human nature to want to feel needed, to fulfill a purpose, to feel appreciated, to hear someone say, “What would we do without you?”  Unfortunately we often enable people in order to get the gratitude we think we deserve. What kind of parent would we be if our twenty-eight year old son still thanked us for doing their wash, feeding him, financially supporting him while he plays computer games all day, drive him everywhere, and are a part of every decisions he makes, but he shows his gratitude by saying, “What would I do without you?”  We would be considered a failure as a parent. The adult child is nowhere close to becoming independent because he has learned that you will enable him every step of the way.

Most church’s attempt at spiritually parenting is usually a disaster, for we enable those who come into our door. We greet them, pamper them, preach to them, pray for them, tell them what to do, when to financially give, when to stand, when to sit, when to be social, and when quietness is reverence.  We teach submission to authority to the point that authority tells one everything they should or should not do, never allowing them to figure it out themselves or let their conscious be their compass. When that authority or leadership leaves, everyone gasps, “What are we going to do without you?” while beginning to look for a replacement.

Enabling and equipping are opposites. When we equip people, we are preparing them to stand alone, no longer needing our assistance and care, and actually propelling them to accomplish feats beyond our capabilities. Enabling enslaves the person, keeping them in a position of control, continuing to draw them toward dependency. Jesus never enabled. He prepared and equipped his disciples to be able to stand alone once he left earth to return to his rightful place beside his Father in heaven. He built their faith on the Word of God while releasing the Holy Spirit to “teach them all things”.  In fact, he said that they would do “greater things” than he did during his earthly stay.

Apostle Paul would kick into the evangelistic mode when entering a new town or city. When new followers accepted Christ he kicked into the shepherding/pastoral mode and began to nurture them in the faith, using his teaching skills to make the written Word relevant while prophetically living it. He would see over what the Holy Spirit was doing amongst the whole group before leaving.  When he left, he left a fully sufficient, independent church of believers standing on their own faith. They did not have to have Paul around any more. They freed him to move on to his next evangelistic project. He had prepared them and equipped them.

Paul, and older brother in the faith, also prepared and equipped others younger in the faith in becoming apostles, future leaders. He and Barnabas journeyed together, but eventually Paul took young Mark under his care. Even though their relationship was rocky on his first missionary journey because of Mark’s immaturity, Paul eventually praises Mark, supports Mark, encourages Mark to continue in leadership, and the rest is history.  Preparing and equipping means walking beside a brother or sister in the Lord in their journey, not preaching at them or having them read numerous books on the topic.  As we have scene Paul used this principle and so did Jesus who walked with the 12 disciples.  It is not an academic exercise but a physical and spiritual one. It is the walking out, and working out, of one’s faith walk together. It is a daily walk, an intimate walk, a relational walk that prepares, builds, and equips others.

A key component after preparation and equipping is releasing.  Paul had to release each new church to stand on its own. He equipped them with the Word, the Holy Spirit, with spiritual gifts, with community, and the tools needed for leadership; now they had to stand alone.  All that preparation and equipping would be useless if he had not released them.

We as a Church need to rethink what preparing, equipping, and releasing means in our relationships of discipling and nurturing our brothers and sisters in their spiritual growth. As parents we celebrate when our sibling graduates from high school or college, gets married, and becomes a parent, all steps in growing up and becoming independent from our parental care.  The empty nest syndrome is the realization that our sibling has left the nest, our home, and established their own, gotten married or become independent, and may become parents themselves now supporting their own siblings. Most churches I know do not experience an empty nest syndrome as they have prepared and equipped their own laity, their own believers in Jesus, to become independent enough to go out and start their own church, their own ministry, their own acts of service producing growth. They do not reproduce others to replay themselves!

As we learn about the passions of our fellow believers in Jesus, we need to encourage them to grow in their passion, to develop relationships of equality with others who have different passions than their own, to learn to support one another by laying down their lives for one another, to prepare them by encouraging self reflection, developing a private discipline devotional time of Bible study and prayer, giving them an outlet to share what they have seen and heard during these times. We need to equip them with the Word, the Bible, teach them the literal Word of God, the Logos Word, and how to live it, the Rhema Word, and surround them with community, the Church. Then we may see a change, a transformation, from dead-beat Christians, enabled Christians to active, living, growing, nurturing, and supporting Christians. If we see those changes, we have prepared and equipped successfully.

Equipping The Saints Soccer Analogy

What Does “Equipping The Saints” Mean? – Part VIII

In Elizabethtown College Soccer History it has been eulogized as “The Game”!  The year before Elizabethtown College battled Hartwick College for the Division III NCAA National Soccer Championship to a nil-nil tie after six overtime periods. To prevent another tie when they met for a rematch for the National Division III title again, they started the game an hour early, just incase history would repeat itself.  It did! When regulation play ended, neither team had put the ball into the goal for the second straight year. In the fifth overtime period, during an offensive attack by Hartwick the Etown goalie was drawn out from his net and a Hartwick attacker fired a thunderous shot taking the breath out of every Etown fan. A sigh of relief was replaced by thunderous exaltation when big Dale Beiber, the son of an African missionary, placed his enormous thigh in front of the ball, knocking it down, and then kicking it down the field to safety.

After playing 90 minutes of regulation play, and 5 ten-minute overtime periods, every player, exhausted, was running on pure adrenaline. Each team was looking for the “break” that would tip the scale. That came when Sandy Kilo, the shortest player on the field, drew the Hartwick goalie out of his goal on a break away, and lobbed the ball gently over his head into the goal! Elizabethtown won 1-0! A front page pictorial of their victory lap on the Etownian, the official weekly Elizabethtown College paper, recorded history.

Why did Etown win? They were in phenomenal physical shape which provided the stamina needed and one-third of the student body weathered the 7 hour trip to create a “home game” atmosphere . Months earlier, before the student body arrived for the fall semester, the team had extensive two-time a day practices and drills. I recall one soccer player’s return from the late afternoon practice, where he took off his soccer spikes and collapsed on the hard stone porch, falling a sleep there in spite of the student traffic throughout the evening. Those exhaustive practices prepared the team for the stamina needed later.  I also was part of the masses who crammed into any vehicle heading towards New England for the game and the long, joyous, return home before the team bus arrived for a victory celebration like the College had never experienced before.

Elizabethtown had been better “equipped” for the game.  They had invested their time in physical conditioning, had worked hours upon hours on their soccer skills, had worked hard on developing a “team” concept, and had built a radical fan base that would travel anywhere to support them. They were prepared; they were equipped.

We, the Church, can learn from their experience.  We should be “equipping the saints for works of service.”  “Prepare ye the way!” is the cry heard throughout the Bible.  Preparation always precedes ministry. Jesus prepared his disciples for when he would leave the earth: he prepared them for apostleship; he prepared them to be the foundation of this new movement, the Church.  He not only prepared them, he equipped them with the Holy Spirit to “teach them all things”; he equipped them through the Word; he equipped them by teaching them the principle of laying down your life for your brethren (IJohn 3:16) so that they would establish community, a community that would survive even the most brutal persecution possible.  Preparing and equipping were essential principles needed in birthing and establishing the Church.  They are still needed today in the maintaining of the Body of Christ, the Church.

Any good building needs a foundation and needs the proper equipment to build that foundation. God knows what foundation the Church needed and equipped the Church with evangelists, shepherds, teachers, prophets, and apostles.  I personally believe that evangelists, shepherds, teachers, prophets, and apostles are still currently in most churches, but we need to equip them for service, then release them to do the calling they have been prepared and equipped for.  The more we prepare them, the higher we raise the bar for success, the more effective the Church will become.  Instead of dead-beat Christians who are enabled by a professional staff, we need to develop a new mindset of how to prepare them, equip them, and release them for works of service.

Life sometimes seems as exhaustive as a six overtime period soccer match, a tug of war, back and forth free-for-all that we can only win if we have been properly prepared and equipped. Like the terrific fan support, the Church needs to rally around each other as a community of faith, of believers, as priests unto the Holy Spirit, who are willing to “lay down our lives” for one another.  When that occurs, the Church will be ready to obtain that definitive score that will win the match, or “The Game” of “life”.

What Does “Equipping The Saints” Mean? – Part VI

The Church’s Role In Releasing The Saints For The Work Of Service

What is the Church’s role corporately in “preparing”, “equipping”, and “releasing” the saints for the work of service?

Preparing:  The Church needs to get away from its program and organizational way of thinking, developing programs and structures that then need to be filled by positions and bodies.  Instead they need to begin to look at each individual member’s spiritual DNA, that which makes them up spiritually.  What is their passion, their desire, their dream, their calling, their goal, their point of view?  What spiritually makes them tick? How do they best function?

If they have a strong evangelistic strain in their spiritual DNA, what can the Church corporately do to prepare them to “live” and “give” the message of spiritual “birth” and “rebirth” that will be the core of their being?  The Church will have to guide them in learning what it means to “lay down your life for your brethren” (IJohn 3:16) so that believer can “live out” as an example the principle of what Jesus did for those who do not know him: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) What safer place to learn this kingdom of God place, than in the midst of the Church?  That’s preparing an evangelist to be an evangelist. The pastor/shepherd can nurture the practical life experiences of this dying and resurrecting principle, the teacher grounding it in the Word, the Bible, while the prophet can bring spiritual life to the principle, and the apostle coordinate is activity in the Christian believer’s life through the working of the Holy Spirit.

The same can be true for those strong with the pastoral/shepherding spiritual DNA strain, or teaching, prophetic, and apostolic DNA strains. The other four spiritual strains can exemplify, support, and strengthen the spiritual genetic make up of a believers growth in Jesus Christ toward maturity.

Equipping: While being prepared, the Church also needs to “equip” the believer toward his diverse unique calling in Jesus Christ. Corporately, the church can offer facilities, finances, mutual support from other believers and their giftings, callings, and DNA make up, as well as materials needed to support the effort of the individual calling of a believer.  In the Church “no man is an island; no man can stand alone.”  God has developed a body with different parts, different functions, different purposes that all work toward the health, stability, and function of the entire body. He has developed a priesthood of believers, a corporate function of all involved for one general purpose. When a person is about to be release into maturity, he knows he will not be sent alone, but with the blessing, the support, and the full backing of other believers which will serve him and whom he will serve.  When this occurs, he is now equipped.

Releasing: Now that the Holy Spirit has prepared the believer, the body of Christ, the Church has surrounded the believer in equipping him, the mature Christian is now ready to be released.  Even though released on his own, he still is, and always will be part of a corporate body of believers, the Church, who will surround him/her when needed to help fulfill their destiny and calling in Jesus Christ.  If when in the heat of spiritual battle, if one falls, they will fall into the arms of another Christian believer, another priest in the priesthood, who can administrate immediately what is needed to bring back their healing, their preparation, their equipping, to stand again in the faith.

In Conclusion: That in summary is the calling, the purpose, the direction of the five fold ministry, to prepare the individual believer for his calling in the corporate Church, to equip the individual believer by and through the corporate Church, to be released to do “works of service” glorifying the corporate Church, the Bride of Christ, the Body of Jesus Christ today!

What Does “Equipping The Saints” Mean? – Part V

 Releasing Different Personalities

In a previous blog, I have written about the song “Little Boxes”, where they all came out the same.  The Church as an institution is great at producing little boxes.  Baptist create little Baptist boxes. Lutheran boxes are different from Baptist boxes but all look the same. There are Pentecostal boxes, Roman Catholic boxes, even nondenominational boxes.  I don’t think those labels will be on the boxes when God’s UPS truck takes us to heaven!

If you are a parent having “several siblings”, you quickly learn that none of them are the same even though they possess the same DNA from the same parents!  The “perfect” child who slept throughout the night since birth is followed by the “child from hell” who screams, cries, and demands a feeding, diaper job, and cradling every two hours, twenty-four hours a day!  That is enough to quit having children, but then you stretch your limits and end up having a third child because you don’t remember making love while you both were sleep deprived!  The third child is even different from his/her other siblings!  How can this be?

There are spiritual parallels. Even though we have the same spiritual DNA of our Father God, it is amazing that almost every Christian I have ever met is different!  We have different drives, different passions, different looks, different cultures, different styles of dress, accents, and personalities.  Even though we carry the same label, Christian, we act differently, think differently, are motivated differently, etc.  We have come to learn that even though we are a Church, a body of Christ, maintaining the same image, that of Jesus Christ, we are still all uniquely made, uniquely designed, uniquely wired, physically, spiritually, and emotionally.  It is amazing how God loves us individually, accepts us unconditionally, yet sees us corporately!

If we are “to equip the saints for service”, then what is that to look like? What are we shaping, molding, developing, transforming? When we are finished, what does a mature Christian look like?  The answer is as nebulous as a painted portrait of Jesus Christ.  We do not know what he actually “physically” looked like, but we do know “spiritually” and even “emotionally” what that looks like? Then why do we as a church so often look at the “physical” appearance of what a mature Christian looks like rather than developing the “spiritual” or “emotional” Christian which we are supposedly preparing and equipping?  I suppose, because of the diversity of the human experience we all come out differently.

So maybe we need to learn to accept our diversity.  Maybe we should first see what the DNA make up of a person is before we try to transform them into “little boxes”, cloned images of what we think a Christian should appear or be. One person’s DNA may hold the passion and drive for the lost as a predominate gene, while another may possess the drive to care for others, to shepherd as their predominate gene.  Another may find the combination of spiritual molecules to make them strong in teaching, or the prophetic, or even the apostolic.  Each Christian has a different drive, a different bent, a different spiritual personality that still exemplifies Jesus, but in diverse ways with diverse degrees of emphasis.  The key to “equipping the saints” is giving them, “equipping them”, with what they need to be successful on their spiritual journey.

As the Body of Christ, the evangelist needs the equipping of a pastor/shepherd to nurture their spiritual growth and the growth of those they “birth” into the kingdom as well as a teacher to anchor their work and drive in the Logos Word, the written Word, making it a prophetic Rhema Word, a living Word, while being guided by the apostolic over sight of what and how the Holy Spirit is doing in one’s life in edifying the Body of Christ.  The laying down of the lives of the pastor/shepherd, teacher, prophet, and apostle around the evangelist is the “equipping” of that person, giving them what they need to have a mature, balanced ministry in the kingdom of God, the body of Christ, the Church.

The “equipping of the saint for the work of service” can be diversely different for every believer in Christ that could be a logistical nightmare for the way we do church today, but is not difficult for the Holy Spirit who sees over the entire body of Christ, individually and corporately.

With the proper preparation needed, and the equipping of the five fold around them, believers in Christ can be “released” to allow their passion, their drive, their point of view, their motivation to arise, develop, and to flourish. This step is crucial in the development of every believer!

What does a “prepared” “equipped” believer in Jesus Christ, a mature Christian look like?  Because of the diversity of God’s DNA, it may look as varied as each grain of sand in the ocean!  That is why we need the Holy Spirit who is in each individual who professes Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord to arise and bring out the uniqueness of each individual to be combined with his corporate ability of unify and develop his Church into the image of Jesus Christ to be the agent, the teacher, the drive behind the development of believer in Jesus Christ individually and the Church as a whole corporately.  Only then will the diversity of the body of Christ be accepted, respected, and released!