5-Fold: Introduction

It is refreshing to have recently gone through the Forgotten God by Francis Chan DVD Study Resource in a group of ladies this summer.  In the first few chapters Chan asks us to think about what role the Holy Spirit has in our lives and how we see and experience His work.  What is He capable of?  Chan says that there are pretty much two options in the average Evangelical array of churches: pentecostal sorts of exuberancy, and then something close to almost cessationism where the Spirit doesn't have much expression at all besides an intellectual thought-experiment (as my friend Tim describes it) in reading the Bible alone.

Missio writers have called this way of being Christian "cognitive discipleship."  Chan asks, where is the power of God in the circumstances of our lives that the apostles experienced in the Book of Acts?  Where is Jesus building His church in a way that people know this is not what men are doing but only what God does?

It's nice to begin to talk about the supernatural without being forced to the extreme of the pentecostal example.

Through other missional resources I took a Spiritual gifts test and this is what I got:

Apostle 18, Evangelist 18, Pastor 20, Prophet 27, Teacher 11

Within the missional movement there is growing discussion over something called the "5-Fold Ministry," or it is sometimes called "APEST."  There are 5 Spiritual giftings mentioned in Ephesians 4:11.  They are: Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors (also called Shepherds) and Teachers (APEST).  This video helped me a little bit, though most of it went over my head.

I think the missional movement is so much in its infancy, I get new information of what is going on all the time.  Everybody is working out these things as we speak, and it's exciting.  There are three major missional organizations in the U.S.; Missio, 3DM, and Acts 29 (which includes Soma).  Missio is incorporating 5-fold training, 3DM leaders of course do that, and I just heard that Soma is now going that direction, too.

I was told there is hardly any academic study that has been done in a long time on the 5-fold ministries from Ephesians chapter 4.  Here is the context of the verse; Ephesians 4:7-16,

But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.  This is why it says: “When he ascended on high, he took many captives and gave gifts to his people.” (What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions?  He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.)  So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 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.  Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.  Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.  From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

Most people accept the last two gifts as active in the church today - Pastors and Teachers.  However there hasn't been total acceptance for the gift of evangelist, especially prophets and apostles.

Alan Hirsch has published the first academic piece just last February titled, The Permanent Revolution.  I haven't read it yet.  I know this sounds absolutely uneducated of me.  That's true.  The point is less for me to have all the answers but to create some discussion together.  I don't know what I ought to believe about the 5-fold, and I don't have to figure it out immediately.  

As with entering into the Free Grace movement, I didn't check my brain at the door.  I was so enriched by the theology, but I found a place where I could contribute my voice.  This led to something two friends and I started to write about called 3D Theology within the free grace perspective.  (Of course, my friends were entirely more capable of teaching than I could ever be.)  Trust me that as I go, I plan to put to use all God's enabling to discern things, and if something doesn't seem to be right, I'll admit it.  I will need to hear from others on this too in order to honor God's Word to the fullest.  Embark on the 5-fold journey with me?

JR Woodward is teaching Missio people right now about these five giftings.  As soon as I started to write down what he wrote on the whiteboard, I started to flip out.  I knew immediately which one I am and exclaimed, "that's me!"

It's because I can see myself in a certain gifting here, I am willing to give APEST a theological go.  I know people ought to start with scripture first to prove the truth, but when it comes to the relevance of the gifts today, we kinda have to look at our lives to a point and ask us to see what we can see.  I understand there is risk of deception here, I do.

If you would like to take the test I took with your own graph, you can take it online.  It is provided by 3DM here.

Why Should I Care About Acnowledging the Apostlic and Prophetic Gifts?

Well, because within each Body of believers there are what Mike Breen calls "settlers" and "pioneers."

Pioneers enjoy doing new things.  Instability does not scare them, and they are flexible to deal with whatever comes their way.  They are driven to break out from the routine and discover new challenges and go places others are not going.  To stay and develop a program that is established seems frustrating to them.  Pioneers are: Apostles, Prophets and Evangelists.

Settlers are interested in how to develop safety and stability.  They like to grow and develop what exists rather than scrap things for something new.  They like to see things finished well.  Settlers are: Shepherds and Teachers.

Think of the American old West.  Some people are natural pioneers who are driven to explore a new land.  Others crave developing the new towns that have been established by the pioneers.  Their passions are in conflict.  Both are necessary for the church to make successful disciples of the nations.

That the traditional Western church usually only recognizes the settler (developer) gifts of Teacher and Pastor means that when someone wants to call the church for a new territory, there isn't the language and legitimacy to back them and support their innovation in the church.  This lack of legitimacy for the pioneer giftings may be expressed in church splits and parachurch organizations.  The people writing about the 5-fold ministries make the case that the church needs the gifts of the pioneering end in order to fulfill the great commission and also they should be encouraged to stay put in the churches and train up other Christians to do the same things.

The Results of the Test

"He was never in time for his classes,
He was never on time for his dinner;
Then one day he wasn't in his time at all..."

Mike Breen makes the case in his book Building A Discipling Culture that we all have a base ministry, but are called at different seasons of our lives to develop Spiritual ability in the other 4 gifts.  He says you know that it's not your base gifting if, after awhile of practicing another gifting, the grace seems to run out, and all you can think about is going back to what you can't help but do.

I'm pretty certain that my base gifting, what I can't help but do, is prophetic.  That doesn't mean that I believe in Prophets like the Old Testament, sent by God to say "Thus says the LORD."  It's kind of like a reversal of my earthly self.  In real life, I'm late everywhere I go; and ironic that in the Spirit I keep time quite well.

I don't think of Spiritual offices or titles.  It's not the same as it was at the beginning of the church....  But at this point, I would say there are personality tendencies, or grooves, or ways that we operate in the Spirit.  These Spiritual tendencies I would say, for now, could be the 5-fold perspective from Ephesians.  Here is what JR Woodward summarizes about the 5:

APOSTLE  Awakener.   Focal Concern: Living out our calling.  Destination: Following Jesus and cultivating the growth of the kingdom.

PROPHET  Revealer.  Focal Concern: Walking with God.  Destination: Spirit transforming communities, standing with the poor and oppressed.

EVANGELIST  Teller.   Focal Concern: Incarnating the good news.  Destination: Becoming a people of welcome and redemptive agents.

PASTOR  Healer.  Focal Concern: Pursuing wholeness in the community.  Destination: Experiencing healing and pursuing wholeness and embodying reconciliation.

TEACHER  Giver.   Focal Concern: Inhabiting the sacred text.  Destination: Immersing ourselves in the Sacred Text and living faithfully in the story of God.

There are much more lengthy descriptions of each of these at the bottom hotlinks under the page of my results, here.  They describe their strengths and faults.  In the next 5 posts I'll share what I can gather at this time about the five gifts, in order of how my score went, highest to low.  I'm not interested in challenging church structures and hype pioneer gifts over the settler gifts.  I just want some information on why in the world I am driven like I am; why I keep acting broken in predicable manners.

If you want to take the test online for free, it's here.

Here is an article in Christianity Today on the 5-fold, Three Overlooked Leadership Roles.

If you need a theological approach to sell this to yourself, Alan Hirsch's book: The Permanent Revolution.