A gathering of students from every college campus in Omaha being invited into mission on campus.

Great things can happen when we don’t care who gets the credit!

I’m just gonna put it out there. I love to get the credit when things go well. A real part of me wants to see revival happen in Nebraska under a banner that says Eric Rafferty in big shiny letters.

But I’m not sure if there’s a bigger obstacle to planting movements that go beyond ourselves and our ministries than the need to get credit for it.

This summer I read Church 3.0 by Neil Cole and it messed me up in a lot of ways. In one section Cole describes a decentralized network of churches called Awakening Chapels that he started in Long Beach, CA.

After five years of planting Awakening Chapels, Cole and his team were able to trace the network through five generations of multiplication. They had planted churches that planted churches that planted churches that planted churches! A fourth generation church even sent planters to Thailand and India.

That kind of rapid multiplication is inspiring but what challenged me most is that Cole couldn’t count the movement beyond that. Once the network jumped to India they just lost track of it. Third generation churches weren’t called Awakening Chapels and many of the fourth generation churches knew nothing about Cole or his role in planting the movement that had birthed their church!

As I read this story a part of me wanted to track Cole down, shake him by the shoulders and ask,

“Don’t you care that you’re not getting the credit for this thing? Doesn’t it bother you that your church multiplication network is spreading throughout India and it probably doesn’t even know your name?”

• What if God could use you to win your whole city to Christ… but no one knew your name?
• What if someone else got all of the credit?
• Would you somehow feel cheated?

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What if Jesus had given a different “great commission”?

Imagine the scene. The eleven disciples are likely still reeling from the dizzying effects of the last few weeks: betrayal, murder, failure, suicide, disillusionment, doubt, and now appearances of hope. Perhaps because they have no where else to turn, they find their way to “Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go”, and there he is. They see him and do all they know how to do–they worship and doubt.

Unwilling to let them merely look on him from a distance, Jesus “came to them” and issues perhaps the most compelling command in history– “Go and make disciples of all nations…”– and though impossible to believe at the time, their actions set in motion a movement that will one day fulfill that command.

But what if Jesus had followed conventional wisdom and given a different command?

Consider what Jesus could have said. Instead of “go and make disciples of every nation”, could he not have said, “Go back to the 120 disciples in Jerusalem and focus on them…”

If I’m honest, that’s likely what I would have said–focusing attention on what was already and attempting to build on that.

But Jesus was (and is) an apostolic genius, and here we see that brilliance on full display. Rather than focusing his disciples on what was (the 120 disciples in Jerusalem), he unswervingly commands them make disciples of all nations, and in a moment reframes our starting place for apostolic mission–not what is, but what isn’t yet. Fundamentally, it’s a question of “what are we responsible for?”, and Jesus’ answer is a resounding “all of it!”

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Because the fundamental core of an apostle is “sentness” there will be times in the life of this person that God calls them onward. It is in the very fabric of apostolic leaders to push forward the “sent” nature of the church, and often times that is modeled by them personally.

Apostles are the first to leave, the first to break new territory, the first to go to new ground, the first to say,

“we have to take that land!”

They are obsessed with the “sentness” of God that Jesus models for us in John and charges us with in Acts.

Well, this very year as I have been leaning into my apostolic gifting more fully than ever, God called me onward to Los Angeles.

I won’t ever forget last February, when I was preaching at Greek Conference, how God spoke to me in the midst of 640 students,

“I want you to go to LA and make this happen with me.”

I didn’t have full understanding of His voice and calling in that moment, but I did know God was speaking to me at this conference with 43 schools, and 640 students represented. None were from LA.

LA has 17 campuses with Greek Systems, and Greek InterVarsity was doing nothing intentionally to reach them! It was at this Greek Conference, that God stirred in me big time the sent nature of Himself and He essentially said to me,

“I want you to go. Let’s go do this thing together!”

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[This is a series designed to bring you into the the unique A.P.E stories of each writer on this blog. We hope each one of you can find a little of your A.P.E story inside of one of us. Read the other stories]

You Know You Are An Apostle When…

“Dave, you are definitely an apostle.”  I had planted a church, my friend worked for a Christian magazine and it was over a lunchtime conversation that I heard this for the very first time.  Of course I knew about apostles in the Bible, but what did he mean, “Dave, you are definitely an apostle.”  He went on to explain, “An apostle is one of the gifts God gave to equip the church.” Then he looked at me like I was an idiot, “Ever read Ephesians 4?” Of course I had, but no one had ever used the term “apostle” to describe me.  So I asked, “Why do you think I’m an apostle?”  As he finished up lunch he explained,

“An apostle is someone who can see over the horizon to what is next for the church. Wherever an apostle goes they start new things and leave fresh expression of the church in their wake.”

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