church2go

This is a sermon I preached last week and some people have requested a look at it on this site. I hope you like it. 

Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers.

There is some contention about the terminologies used here.  What is an apostle, what is a prophet, what is an evangelist and what is a pastor and teacher.

 11 It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12 to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. 

Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch explain them this way.

Apostolic function – usually conducted trans locally, pioneers of new missional works and oversees their development.

Prophetic function – discerns the spiritual realities in a given situation and communicates them in a timely and appropriate way to further the mission of God’s people,

Evangelistic Function – communicates the gospel in such a way that people respond in faith and discipleship.

Pastoral function – shepherds the people of God by leading, nurturing, protecting and caring for them.

Teaching function – communicates the revealed wisdom of God so that the people of God learn how to obey all that Christ has commanded them.

Agree with all that.  

I need to reiterate – these elements of ministry are interconnected. As we talk about last week,  one person may do more than one, but each will rely on the other.

Look at this diagram. It is again from Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch but doctored a bit by me.

Not only the titles but definitions, what they do and how they affect our church.

Now as I have said that all these are integrated together.

Let me show you a diagram I came across.

Notice here are some other placements for these titles. This comes from Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch’s book The Shape of things to come.

Newer terminologies.

Apostle – entrepreneur, pioneer, strategist, innovator, visionary.

Prophet – Questioner, disturber, agitator, I would also include – truth sayer, evaluator.

Evangelist – Recruiter, passionate, communicator of organizational message,

Pastor – Humanizer, carer, social cement / glue, I would add guide.

Teacher - Systematizer, philosopher, translator. I would add explainer.

But see the interaction. Crosses over. Each gift interacts with the others.

I would also suggest that you can see yourself within that. Some of you might like the idea of being agitator, or disturber. Be careful what you think you would like to be. Because that may not be your gifting – but your preference. According to one scholar who has looked at these particular definitions and the Myer Bridges personality type indicator, most of the people who take on roles of agitation, disturbance and questioning are usually not gifted in that. They are gifted in other areas but like to be agitorial and choose what they want rather than being called. (If you want you can talk to me about that in private.)

So there we go, a bit of further over view, but where do we fit. No were do I as an individual fit in there. Well let me say, I have some ideas. I look at you people in practice, how you do things and I also try to look beyond that. Not all have the gifts that we perceive we do. That is why I feel we need to do a Spiritual gifts workshop. What usually happens when we preach about it, we choose what we want, not evaluate what we have. So next term, in early November. We will – Three Sunday Afternoons on Spiritual Gifts. Maybe even repeat it on Tuesday Nights, so you get 2 chances at it.

But some more specifics.

A couple of ways that this has been looked at over the years.

Interpretation 1. (Church History)

Apostolic age (Jesus 12)

Prophetic Age (Early Church)

Evangelistic age (Early church to reformation)

Pastoral age (Reformation to about 1850)

Teaching age (1850 – the future)

The problem with that is what is next – well this hypothesis says the second coming.

Another problem is all of these things have been active in the churches life all the way through.

Interpretation 2. (Life of a congregation)

Apostolic – (start of church plant)

Prophetic – ( Early days of church life – connecting together)

Evangelistic – (Church growth)

Pastoral – (Development of church personal or those evangelized.)

Teaching – (Maintenance)

What about the future?

My interpretation.

A church needs all of them, all of the time but in varying portions. Refering again to a diagram from Frost and Hirsch.At different times of our churches history we need different gifts. But I would also add that we should be utilising those gifts all the time to allow us to cope with the change aspects within our culture.

Change diagram to go up at the questioning stage by going again through dream, belief, goals, structure mission, evaluation, questioning and repeat process.

Because it is about the building up of the church. We do not have to abide by diagrams and suggested sociological patterns, we can be different, we can change, we can be a church as Jesus designed. Here if we revisit this model of using these gifts we can readdress the later part of this diagram. And change it too…….

On Sunday I told a story about geese getting fat, because they did not exercise their wings which God had given them. We are in danger of spiritual fatness, if we don’t effectively exercise our gifts. Not only these ones mentioned here but also in other parts of Paul’s writings. Just like most of our population, we have an obesity problem, and it is partially to do with our lack of spiritual exercise.

You see we could just get fat, and I am an expert in fat.= I am type 2 diabetis and fight weight issues all the time, but if I exercise I can keep it in check. So we need to keep our spiritual life in check, not only prayer and bible reading but exercise also.  Burn off the fat, just as God designed, which  some of us are doing, but we need to focus on the building up of the body – building up of those around us, building up of each other, supporting each other in ministry, caring for one another – in other words – using the gifts we have.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 17th, 2007 at 8:31 pm and is filed under Sermons. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.