The Importance of Apostolic Ministry

Although we firmly believe that all five ministries of Ephesians 4 are needed to engender, call forth, and sustain a Jesus movement, the apostolic function is the catalytic one needed for it to be a fully-fledged missional one. As far as we can tell, there has never been a highly transformative, exponential people movement in the history of the church that has not been catalyzed by apostolic ministry. There have been prophetic movements (Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement, and the 24–7 prayer movement come to mind), evangelistic movements (such as Billy Graham’s crusades and the church growth movement), shepherding movements (those associated with charismatic renewal in the 1970s, for example), and teaching movements (Calvinism and the New Reformed movements), but in themselves they have not, indeed cannot, produce the kind of multiplicative movement rightly categorized by the term apostolic movement. The apostolic creates the proper context for the other ministries to emerge and produce the fruit that they are intended to produce….

We have suggested that recruiting apostles is strategic to the renewal of the organization, and at the very least, it gives equal legitimacy and access to reverse the exile of distinctly missional forms of leadership. To exclude apostolic influences from any position (as the church has typically done up to this point) is to effectively lock out the distinctly missional leadership that churches so desperately need to recover. We need to level the playing field, give equal access, widen the gates, and expand our vision of what biblical ministry is. Consider the following deficits that emerge when apostolic ministry is left out of the equation:

Without apostolic multiplication, we stop at evangelistic addition. Salvation is seen as individualistic as we fail to see how God wants to start a gospel pay-it-forward movement through the life of every believer.

Without apostolic clarity, our identity and purpose become murky. We fail to think strategically about the underlying value systems and core ideologies that define a community.

Without apostolic modeling, we miss out on a culture of releasing and empowering. Instead, we contend with a culture of management and control.

Without apostolic parenting and releasing, multigenerational mentoring and leadership development are replaced by a dependence on the ministry of professionally training clergy.

Without apostolic accountability, we fail to ask the obvious questions of strategy and sustainability behind our best practices. Consider these examples: “Do we really need to have million-dollar budgets, seminary-educated leaders, and fifty to one hundred Christians to start a church?” “Do we need to have land and a building to be the church?” Because apostolic ecclesiology is more movemental in nature, it can go beyond thinking of the church in concrete ways.

Without apostolic imagination, we fail to ask questions of scalability. Instead of reproducibility and scalability, we opt for “go big” and “launch large,” forgetting that big movements grow out of small ones done well. The New Testament is our best and most basic example of this.

Without apostolic vision, we fail to ask the questions of reproducibility and transferability. We so complicate the message and training process that few know it and are able to pass it on to others.

Without apostolic passion, we fail to embrace our role in the big picture of kingdom mission. Rather we busy ourselves with the smaller vision and goals of our organizations instead of embracing our calling to actively participate in the global movement of the kingdom.

 ~ Adapted from The Permanent Revolution: Apostolic Imagination and Practice for the 21st Century Church by Alan Hirsch and Tim Catchim