Apostolic Transitions, Restructuring And Strategies by Jonas Clark

[Nylah Williams]

Apostolic Transitions, Restructuring and Strategies

While we are renewing our minds, let us also renew our mission-mindedness with apostolic transitioning strategies. The apostolic reformation is posing many challenges to the Body of Christ. One of the most significant is the structural change that is necessary within the local church. Those structural changes tear down the one-man-only paradigm to build up every believer for the work of the ministry.

We know that five-fold ascension gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher are called to equip believers for the work of ministry and the building of the Body of Christ (Ephesians 4:12). But how many leaders are actually doing this Word? A relative few, it seems, on the grand scale.

Many local church leaders tell me they feel they are still doing most of the work of the ministry themselves. Others tell me their congregants just don’t want to do anything except get blessed, despite the set man’s best efforts to launch them into the harvest fields. Still others are down right confused over the whole issue and how to address the Apostle Paul’s instruction.

WHAT IS THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY?

It seems as though we are so used to “having church” that we have drifted far away from “being the Church.” If you ask 20 different people what the work of the ministry is I suspect that you would get 20 different answers. What is the work of the ministry? In understanding what the work of the ministry is it can be helpful to understand what the work of the ministry is not.

Let me say this, the work of the ministry is not listening to a preacher on Sunday morning. The set man’s responsibility is to do more than just preach. He is also called to train and activate disciples into ministry; that which God has called them to do within the structure of the local church. There comes a day when it’s no longer just about meeting the personal needs of a disciple. As believer’s mature in Christ it becomes about getting them equipped to help meet someone else's needs. Scripture is replete with our mandate, once referred to in yarns past as the Great Commission. Jesus said, “Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in that my house may be filled” (Luke 14:23). The word “compel” is the Greek word anagkazo. That’s where we get our English word nag, which means to be persistently annoying. I know there are large segments of the Body of Christ that are ready for Jesus to return today. But do you think that God’s house is full enough yet?

Once again, the responsibility of God’s leadership is not just to bless His people only but also to equip them for active works of ministry. The work of ministry is more than teaching a Sunday school class or vacuuming the carpet between services. It also involves teaching, training and organizing various ways to get people actively involved in ministry “outside” the local church, i.e. evangelism and discipleship. I can’t stress this enough. I don’t think most of us have any clue how to do this. We can draw a person into a church building so the pastor can lead him to the Lord but we have real trouble organizing effective outreaches.

Let me ask you this. How many times have you seen a large church on Christian television that grew to thousands seemingly overnight? Did you also hear the leader give his testimony of how God’s blessing caused it to grow so quickly? Maybe so. Yet I wonder if we did a poll how many of those people would tell us they transferred to that large church from some other congregation?