[This post is part of the A.P.E. Theology series. Read the rest of the posts here!]

Here is an interview I got to do on a radio show in Seattle on August 4th, the second day of the blog! The show is called “Live From Seattle” and it is hosted by Doug Bursch. He started following us on twitter and asked me on to the show. I can tell Doug is a pretty cool dude and I can’t wait to meet him. He gets the APE.

Pretty cool huh?

This interview is 17min long and it helps you grab the intent of the blog and what we are trying to do with it.

He asks me questions like

• who is this blog for?
• How do you define Evangelistic?
• How do you define Prophetic?
• Do you have any pharisees on the blog? Yes, he asked me that!! But he was joking…listen to what I say!
• What is our big dream for the blog…what do we hope to see happen here?

Listen to the interview

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

Compelled By My Inner APE

When the Apostle Paul wrote,

“Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” –1 Cor. 1:26-27

He must have been thinking of me.  I’ve never been a stellar student, (I take months to read books), and have often felt outclassed by my intellectual friends.  When it comes to charisma, I am about as magnetic as a wet walnut.  I love watching people who can light up a party the minute they walk in the room—they are marvelous in action.  I’m the opposite of them.  I think I actually suck light out of the room when I enter.  I’m a social “black hole”.

That is, until I meet someone who shares my fixation with the profound life and current genius of “God’s own fool”, Jesus.  That’s when a connection starts to happen, and a creative but very practical set of gears start whirring in my head, and before I know it, I’m actually influencing someone with a stream of ideas for extending the gospel to more people.  After 20 years in college ministry, a few hundred Kingdom leaders have experienced my “serious foolishness” and I’m honored to have played some part in their adventures.

I didn’t know it, but these were signs of my inner APE.

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[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).

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[This post is part of the A.P.E. Theology series. Read the rest of the posts here!]

“Inside of every apple is an orchard” – Donald McGavran

This is the beginning of a blog dedicated to unleashing the potential inside of every believer to lead movements in Jesus name. We firmly believe that every person following Jesus has an important role to play in advancing the Kingdom of God.

In the same way a seed produces a tree and then eventually an orchard, we believe that the Holy Spirit filling and dwelling in a soul (seed) can produce a disciple of Christ (tree) and in affect a movement of Jesus followers (orchard) radically changing the world.

There are millions of seeds all around the world waiting to be activated and sent on God’s Mission!

We believe the key to these seeds flourishing is the release of the APE!

It is time we “Release the APE” inside the church and to world just like we 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, not just two. We need the Apostolic, Prophetic, Evangelistic as well as the Shepherd and Teacher. We need the APE, not just the ST.

Continue Reading