Apostolic | Release the A.P.E.

The Nature and Role of an Apostle

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December 17, 2012

You can’t make footprints in the sands of time with your butt, and who wants to make butt prints in the sands of time?” – Unknown [A slogan for Apostles]

As we start to see a restoration of the five equippers in Ephesians 4 come to reality in the missional church, including the APE’s, and as we re-imagine how to approach leadership, certain questions arise. What does an Apostle do? What is their role? How are we to understand the nature of an Apostle?

To understand the role of an apostle it is first helpful to understand the nature of the missional church. Jurgen Moltmann gives us some help here, in that he enables us to recognize that the starting point for mission is not the church, but God himself. Mission is grounded in the very being of God. He says,

“It is not the church that has a mission of salvation to fulfill in the world; it is the mission of the Son and the Spirit through the Father that includes the church.”

In other words, there is mission because God is a missionary God.

You Know Your Scripture, But Can You Plant a Church?

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December 13, 2012

This is a guest post by Peyton Jones. Jones is the founding Coach of New Breed Church Planting UK/USA and is currently planting an urban church for Refuge HB in Long Beach, CA in addition to coaching multiple planting teams. Peyton is also the author of upcoming book Church Zero about A.P.E.S.T. ministries (Publisher: David C. Cook. Release date: April 1st, 2013). You can follow him on twitter here

When a young guy expresses that he wants to go into ministry, it’s usually assumed that he’s gunning for a pulpit ministry. He’s told that he’ll need to buckle down for a lengthy term at seminary and a hefty bill to pay the price. On the day he graduates, he somehow doesn’t feel any more qualified to minister to people than when he went in. He’s had his nose buried in texts, but like Spurgeon once said,

“He’s at home among the books, but at sea when it comes to men”.

Many seminary grads who once dreamed of “tearing it up” for Jesus come to the realization that at the end of their seminary term they have no idea how to do what Paul did in the book of Acts. They can alliterate points, protect Christian orthodoxy, yet they are unable to do the most important thing that Paul did…plant a church.

Paul was not a Pastor. Sure, he did pastoral things, but Paul was a front-line church planting missionary. The New Testament model of ministry is about EXPANDING outwards, wherein most of our churches today are about building upwards…getting a bigger widescreen; a better website; a larger parking lot; more comfortable sanctuary seats…and don’t forget multiple services!

So if Paul wasn’t a Pastor, what exactly was he? The Greek term apostolos means “sent one” or missionary. In other words, he was a man on the move. Like a gospel Navy Seal, Paul would infiltrate a culture, and with deadly efficiency, complete his objective, nail his target, and “whoosh!”, he was gone. On to the next one! The glass slipper of a mega church would never have fit the apostles travel worn soles. Paul would rather plant churches “where Christ has not been named” than to stay in on spot.

Taking students on a sex-traffic treasure hunt…

3 responses
December 12, 2012

What if success for your church or ministry was measured by the impact that you were having on the furthest corners of your city? What if instead of impact within your ministry, success was measured by how the world around you had changed?

One of our good friends has been on a roller-coaster journey with Jesus over the last year and her story is a powerful testimony of a vision for impact beyond a building.

Amy Becker leads a student ministry at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, and about a year ago she felt God beginning to invite her to have a bigger vision. Jeremiah 29 was a passage that held a lot of guidance for her.

Have a Cranky Leader? Use Aikido!

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December 10, 2012

This is a guest post by Kate Vosburg. She has been on IV staff for almost 15 years, on 6 different campuses. She loves serving alongside her husband, Dave, who is a professor on the campus where she serves. With him as a faculty, on the inside of campus, there have been some amazing opportunities to share the gospel. Kate is an evangelist who loves to be on the front-lines with her students, finding ways into unreached communities and sharing the Gospel. Dave and Kate have 3 kids (Nate 6, Isabella 4, Diego 4) who keep Kate on her toes and laughing at their creative, crazy antics. On a personal note, Kate was the very first InterVarsity Staff worker I (Beau) met with after becoming a Christian in college! I look up to her so much.

Ever felt like your ministry has been attacked—by someone on the inside? That cranky person who seems to just complain and complain about some situation? Maybe you realized the situation and didn’t know what to do about it? Maybe you were blind-sided by the person’s complaint?

How do you respond to cranky, complaining people?

Transfer: Lay a Foundation, Don’t Cast a Shadow

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December 6, 2012

[This is part of a series called “What is an Apostle?” Check the other post here]

“More than any other gift, the apostle delights most when disciples carry the work on to others, and in everything he or she does is designed with this in mind.” [i]

Apostles transfer power and authority to others so they can carry out the God-given mission that is inside of them.

Apostles are what Neil Cole calls “Foundation Layers” and they lay down the principles of mission and the DNA that others then carry out.

A.P.E. Leaders & The Need to Re-Calibrate

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December 5, 2012

This is a guest post by Greg Jao. He serves as a National Field Director for the Northeast US for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, and is the author of multiple books, including Your Mind’s Mission (an Urbana Onward book), and Following Jesus without Dishonoring Your Parents. A second-generation Chinese American, he helped develop The Daniel Project, a leadership acceleration program for Asian American InterVarsity staff.

In addition, Greg serves as the MC for the Urbana Student Missions Conference www.urbana.org , where 18,000 participants will gather on December 27-31, 2012 to consider again the call to God’s global mission. Since Urbana is around the corner, we asked Greg to share his thoughts on how Urbana can help foster A.P.E. leadership.

“Who among us would make the best cult leader?”

We had collapsed in a lounge after an exhausting day, and we were identifying friends who would be the best (or worst) at various activities. We ran several scenarios involving people in the room. Some of our answers came quickly (e.g., The worst contestant on the television show, “The Amazing Race?” The consensus candidate: a cross-cultural specialist. We imagined him constantly getting distracted talking to locals during international missions). Some answers took time (e.g., the best friend to have after the zombie apocalypse? Did we choose the Asian colleague with multiple refrigerators, the petite friend living in the rural north with a side of beef in her freezer, or the urban leader who knew how to survive in resource-poor cities?)

I’ve Hired an Apostolic Leader…Help!

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November 29, 2012

[This is part of a series on “How Do I Develop an Apostolic Leader?” You can read the other posts here.]

“Passionate involvement can make you happy, sometimes, and miserable other times. You want people to be involved and engaged. Involved people can be quiet, loud, or anything in-between—what they have in common is a restless, probing nature: “I want to get to the problem. There’s something I want to do.” If you had thermal glasses, you could see heat coming off them.” – Brad Bird, Director at Pixar

OK, so as a leader you’ve committed to developing and hiring apostolic evangelists and they are now operating at full steam in your organization. It creates an almost overwhelming level of energy and creativity is erupting everywhere. It’s exciting but at the same time it begins to feel chaotic to the point that you wonder if it is sustainable.

How do you prevent the whole thing from careening off the road and crashing?

Here are some guidelines to help you focus the energy in the same direction and keep the movement pressing forward.

The Laborers for the Harvest are in the Harvest!

2 responses
November 28, 2012

The harvest is plentiful!

When Jesus sent out 72 of his followers to proclaim the Kingdom of God in the towns and villages where he was about to go, he commissioned them with the worst motivational speech of all time.

I’m sending you out as lambs among wolves.

You will certainly be rejected.

And you can’t take any of your stuff.

As un-motivating as those promises may have felt, Jesus promised something else as he commissioned his “sent ones” that should fill each of us with hope even 2,000 years later:

The harvest is plentiful!

That is the spiritual reality. The harvest is plentiful.

He may have sent his 72 followers into rejection, complete dependence and suffering, but he also sent them into a plentiful harvest. The fields are ready and an abundant harvest awaits laborers who follow the Lord of the harvest into his harvest fields.

Jesus identifies the one limiting factor to this harvest being reaped: laborers.

Apostle as Sender

4 responses
November 27, 2012

[This is part of a series called “What is an Apostle?” Check the other post here]

“Again Jesus said, ‘Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.'” – John 20:21

Brad wrote a week ago about the sending language in John, and I got message from someone saying,

“Isn’t this the primary message of all of scripture, not just John?”

It is a great point and I would say Yes! But John is clearly focused on this and you see Jesus most clearly concerned with the sending nature of the Father, himself and even the Holy Spirit that is to come in this gospel.

But the commenter makes a great point and one that flows perfectly into this article about apostle as “Sender”.

YOU CAN START A MISSIONAL MOVEMENT!

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November 26, 2012

[This post is part of the Start Something New series. Read the other posts here!]

You have everything it takes to start a missional movement. Yes, you. I’m not referring to someone else. You!

My friend, Troy McMahon, is leading a network of reproducing churches while serving as the Lead Pastor of a large multi-site church in Kansas City. But it all started 15 years ago while Troy was still working for General Mills and he was my apprentice in leading a small group.

My friend, Doug Leddon, is the Executive Pastor of our largest campus with over 3,000 attendees. But four years ago Doug was working in the financial industry of Chicago and was my small group apprentice leader. I could give you a list of people who are impacting tens, hundreds and thousands of people in a variety of contexts and ministries who all got their start as an apprentice.