How many individual Christians do you know who live with the haunting memory of wasted years, frozen dreams and a disquieted passion? It is like a plaque of despair throughout the body of Christ as gifted, called and visionary people struggle their whole lives with misplaced priorities and dashed dreams.
I believe that a major focus of apostolic ministry today, has to do with helping individuals discover and/or rediscover who they are and what these same individuals have been called to do. Then for these same apostolic leaders to become their biggest fans as they are cheered, watched, nurtured and energized to excel and enjoy their place in the SON!
In the same way that secure fathers create environs where their children flourish, apostolic fathers create an environment for gifting and calling, discovery, exploration and fulfillment. One generation calling out the leaders in the next generation, and so on and so on and so on.
But where does this freedom come from in a church world known for insecure and threatened leaders, who, in their own struggles or search for significance, often thwart others from doing much more than token sideline or armchair ministry?
For most of my thirty plus years of public ministry, I have operated in the only model I knew: that of the called, anointed, ordained, released, busy, many-gifted pastor on whose shoulders lay the full responsibility for everything that happened in a local parish. And particularly, what happened in the all-important Sunday meeting. All along I knew, deep in the core of my heart, that there was more to church life than worn-out, burnt-out leaders and a passive priesthood in the pew.
The rising apostolic church is not about more control, more hierarchy, or more systems of oppression. Just the opposite. It is about the cultivation of a permissional and missional atmosphere where everyone thrives, everyone grows, everyone dreams. The concept of the apostolic third day church is that everyone is on a mission. And surrounded by permission-giving leaders, they get to fulfill their mission. Leaders become permission-givers when they:
1) Become less direction and/or discipline driven and more dream sensitive.
2) Create an atmosphere of inquiry rather than one where questions are stifled.
3) Help others ‘color outside the lines’ rather than looking for ‘cookie cutter’ performances.
But again, permission giving that releases others, particularly the less trained and less tenured, seems hard for many church leaders who have struggled through their own ministry-proving systems.
It appears, ironically, that the early church leaders looked for those “full of the Holy Ghost, rather than those with the highest GPA from the most prestigious training center. And they depended on the art and model of equipping rather than the matriculation of education. As a result, we see discipleship in the New Testament seen more from a transformational model rather than an educational one.
One of the primary signs of these last days of the Lord pouring out His Spirit, is that dreams, visions and prophecy will be given to the old and young, men and women. This means everyone. These are the ways that the Lord has spoken to His people from the beginning, and we are assured that it will also be so in the last days. If we are going to function in this dynamic, it means a ‘signing up’ or an ‘enrolling’ of everyone on whom the Spirit falls.
This means allowing spirit-filled people to participate in significant ministry, and not just token crowd response. This also means addressing the ‘class system’ that so often exists in today’s church.
"There are not two classes of Christians, the adequate (the leaders, the few) and the inadequate (the people, the many). All are able to hear from God and discover His leading for themselves. The other path leads to dependence on man." Len Hjalmarson
When we read I Corinthians 11 - 14, and early church history, we don’t seem to find a pattern where a single person or even an elite or select few people taught, prophesied, or exhorted the entire time. The normal mode for ministry seems to be that all believers get into the act. Each person, no matter how new in the Lord they were, was expected to have something from God to give away to others.
It seems to be that the essence of spiritual gifts is, to get something from the hand of our Lord and give it to another. Now, whereas it turns out that these gifts seem to mainly target believers, even unbelievers, at times, experience some of the by- product of their use (I Corinthians 14:24, 25). Consider what an early church father had to say about meetings in his time (Around A.D. 160-230),
"In our Christian meetings we have plenty of songs, verses, sentences and proverbs. After hand-washing and bringing in the lights, each Christian is asked to stand forth and sing, as best he can, a hymn to God, either of his own composing, or one from the Holy Scriptures."
This snippet of history seems foreign, if not threatening, to say the least, when compared with our modern-day church life. While the Western Church form is pretty much the same today as it has been for 500+ years...mainly that the pastor talks and everyone else listens, New Testament writers keep preaching to us about the "one anothers." They keep pushing the relational aspects of our life in the Kingdom. This means what all of us do, especially when it comes time to“get together.
The thrust of Hebrews 10:24, 25 is not just that we meet often, (particularly as a last days mode of increase), but that when we do assemble together, there be a precise focus on the structure of that gathering, or what we are to do. We are told in these two verses to:
"Consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, and all the more, as you see the day drawing near."
I guess a simple question might be, when exactly and where exactly is all this "stimulating" to take place? While I’m looking at the back of someone’s neck while listening to someone else talk for forty-five minutes? Is it to happen during the ten or fifteen minutes before or after the service?
Or how about a Wednesday night prayer group, where once again, only a select few people pray? Is it a small home group where this stuff might be fostered? Exactly, where, how, and when am I supposed to give and receive this good work stimulation? Have we ever thought about creating such a time and a feeling even in the larger gatherings, or what we call the main service on Sundays?
It sounds like, at least from the passage in Hebrews, that this just might well be the meat-and-potatoes of what an assembling of the brethren is to consist of, whether that configuration is a small group of believers in a home or even a larger number in a building.
Creating a permissional/missional meeting, designed for mutual edification, designed to activate a fully-participating, completely-released body of believers where we all intentionally stimulate one another to love and good deeds, could be what God is calling the church to do and be in this hour.
In the final analysis, instead of the single-pastor system with time-pressured and program-driven worship, each person in the Body is called upon to bring something from the Lord that will cause others to mature in love and good works. And even if we are not ready to give up our thirty minutes of singing songs and forty-five minute sermon, let’s at least release a portion of our meetings to some kind of dialogue. How about some testimonies, or Q & A, or other forms of creative interaction where the priesthood and the prophethood (profit?) of believers actually functions.
This really is the time for the arising apostolic third day church. A virtual church where everyone is allowed to function fully and has complete permission to stimulate strategically!