[This post is part of the A.P.E. Theology series. Read the rest of the posts here!]
It is time we “Release the APE” Within the church and for the world just like Christians did in the early church. If the church is going to be effective in mission and healthy in growth, we must empower all five vocations as stated in Ephesians 4, not just two. We need the Apostle, Prophet, and Evangelist as well as the Shepherd and Teacher. We need the APE too, not just the ST.
Because it has existed in a “Christianized” society, the western church has become fascinated with calling every position in the church “Pastor” or “Teacher” and we have greatly emphasized these gifts. It is confusing to me when today’s Western churches primarialy only uses the Sheperd/Pastor and teacher titles, when Jesus clearly gave us five vocations as stated in Ephesians 4. Almost every church I go to has many leaders and those leaders are all titled “pastor” and “teacher”. You would be hard pressed to find Western churches that are actually releasing apostolic, prophetic and evangelistic leaders in a healthy way. You tend to either get no mention of the APE vocations or some crazy version of it that Biblically is hard to follow.
We need more books like The Permanent Revolution, where Hirsch and Catchim lay down a theoretical and theological grounding for the five-fold, and Creating a Missional Culture, where JR Woodward shows how the five-fold can work itself out in the local church.
Please hear me clearly at this point: We need pastors and teachers in the mission of God. What I want to challenge is the way we have overemphasized two vocations (Shepherd, Teacher) while leaving behind the other three more generative vocations (Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist).