The population of Planet Earth is currently around 7.8 billion.
According to the Joshua Project (January, 2021), 42.5% of the world’s people groups are still unreached by the Gospel. Despite the fact that the Jesus Film is now available in the languages of 94% of the world’s population and the New Testament translated into 90% of them, there are still 2.18 billion people who have virtually no exposure at all to Christianity.
Set against these figures the statistic that well over 90% of the world’s cross-cultural Christian missionaries are working entirely amongst nominally Christian people groups, or the fact that less than one penny in every pound of all Christian giving goes towards pioneer church planting among unreached peoples, and we are left with one undeniable conclusion: the body of Christ at large is not apostolic.
Apostolic people are inherently outward-looking in vision, all-embracing in culture, inspired yet unconfined by the past, ‘regions beyond’ in mission; they are confident in identity, bigger than cliques and factions, bold in obedience, reckless in generosity.
I could go on and on listing the traits of authentically apostolic people but, true to the intent of this forum, let’s focus on where it all starts: leadership.
Apostolic traits are to be epitomised by leaders in the local church. Local churches prosper and flourish to the extent that certain features are modelled in those who pastor them. Let me suggest three default positions every apostolic pastor would do well to affirm during this season of recalibration.
First: Big Picture over Small Corner
Could it be that the sovereign hand of God is allowing this season to continue for just as long as it takes until we recalibrate our sense of place in the wider body of Christ and role in the Great Commission?
I will never forget the hilarious anecdote that, for me, best defines the meaning of ‘parochialism’. The story goes that, shortly after the sinking of The Titanic in 1911, one North of Scotland newspaper, The Press & Journal, carried this headline: ‘Aberdeen Man Lost at Sea.’
The things that we laugh at tend to be deeply rooted in our own foibles and absurdities. God forbid that we ever become blinded to His big picture!
One feature of the exploding ‘Christian Zoom world’ is that geographical proximity is no longer the same predominant factor over whom we share fellowship with. I should imagine that, were this lockdown to continue into years rather than months, our most significant relational networks would eventually be barely identifiable by clusters on a map.
Of course, none of us wants to see the end of physical community and thankfully our collective ‘house arrest’ is an interruption (–even if social distancing remains longer than we would like), but could it be that the sovereign hand of God is allowing this season to continue for just as long as it takes until we recalibrate our sense of place in the wider body of Christ and role in the Great Commission? Long enough for us to realign our thinking to something much greater than the church buildings that have become, in some ways, a more restrictive place of lockdown than what we have at present?
Second: Kingdom over ‘Fiefdom’
[Fiefdom; a territory or sphere of operation controlled by a particular person or group.]
What our needy world has too often heard, when ready for the Gospel, has been cocks crowing on top of farmyard heaps while, all across the horizon, vast swathes of corn blow unharvested in the wind.
Remove the foundational gifts of apostle and prophet from the body of Christ, then banish the evangelist, and you end up with a scattering of independent, exclusive bubbles (– there’s a good current word!). The ‘successful’ bubbles become insulated movements or denominations, each ruled by their own system of ‘internal accountability’ – now there’s an oxymoron if ever there were one.
Self-contained evangelical-Pentecostal churches call their autonomous heads ‘Pastor’, while others prefer ‘Minister’, ‘Priest’, ‘Vicar’ and so on, conferring all the embellishments necessary to maintain the institution, sometimes reinforcing the dividing walls by articulating what they do not believe at the expense of declaring what they do.
What our needy world has too often heard, when ready for the Gospel, has been cocks crowing on top of farmyard heaps while, all across the horizon, vast swathes of corn blow unharvested in the wind. Trans-local gifts of apostles, prophets and evangelists call the church out onto the fields, leading inspirationally from the front. Rejection of these gifts turns local churches into fiefdoms that eventually retreat into isolation, insularity and atrophy.
Apostolic pastors, on the other hand, feel no need to justify their position or secure their own future. They welcome outside input that highlights things they miss, encouraging them as local leaders to mobilise the body by recognising and releasing untapped gifts in the people they are called to lead out (– a feature of the “good pastor” in John 10:3).
Apostolic pastors are secure in their calling and are never intimidated by strong gifting in others; on the contrary, they live for the day when they are released into fresh fields by the emergence of new leaders around them, next generation ground-breakers who will do some things better and other things differently than they.
Apostolic pastors are free of ‘small man’ complex, of complaining about overwork while refusing to let go of the reins. Their identity is not defined by what they do for Christ but by Whose they are in Christ. They are joyfully liberated from preoccupation with their own failings, as they celebrate and unlock the potential in others.
Apostolic pastors call out next generation leaders, not to preserve the institution or to create for themselves a legacy, but simply to serve the One who said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.” (Matthew 9:37-38)
Third: Hub Over Terminus
As long as leaders see their local church as a hub and not a terminus, they will be resourced for every need at home and far beyond.
Almost exactly 27 years ago, my wife Barbara and I moved from Glasgow to the Highlands with four children to plant Skye Bible Church. The Isle of Skye may be perched near the north-western edge of the European continental plate, but to us it was never ever an end-of-the-road destination; it was always and only another centre for world mission, a base for regions beyond, just as any healthy local church is. I am utterly convinced that, had we travelled north with terminus mentality, thinking only of the place we were sent to, the plant would not have survived, much less prospered.
We set out with virtually nothing except a £900 love gift from our sending church and a car for which we couldn’t afford comprehensive insurance (– which we were soon to regret, but that became another blessing). No salary. No jobs waiting. Nothing even close to resembling a sufficient source of income.
Yet from Day 1, we knew that world mission had to be in the dna of any local church we led, no matter how young, small or remote. We would never give to missions based on the financial strength of our church – that would be a rather long wait! On the contrary, our church’s strength was to be built on giving outside of itself to the Great Commission. Jesus doesn’t leave the deck of that kind of ship.
I will never forget the day, early on in the life of our church plant, driving over the newly built Skye Bridge, when the words of the apostle Paul filled my mind: “… He throws caution to the winds, giving to the needy in reckless abandon.” (II Corinthians 9:9; The Living Bible) We had less than £8,000 in our church bank account and God instructed us to give it all away, every penny, as well as a special ‘heap offering’ on top, to world missions. The spirit of what God was saying was:
‘There’s a time to be cautious, but not when it comes to giving. You can never out-give Me. For as long as you take care of the trust for which I established you – the Great Commission – I will take care of you.’
Several weeks later, our tiny congregation of around 25 adults and children watched tears well up in the eyes of gathered missionaries in Portree, as we placed in their hands a love gift of £12,775, and entrusted our own future into the hands of God. He more than proved Himself faithful. In our 20 years on Skye, that blessed rural congregation gave well over £150k to overseas missions.
The Skye plant never lacked funds and over the years has been able to support its own full-time pastor, to release another church-planting congregation on the island, to know God’s provision for everything He has set before it; all this while located in a very sparsely populated area (– Singapore has a population of 5,700,000 in the same land area that Skye has for 10,000).
As long as leaders see their local church as a hub and not a terminus, they will be resourced for every need at home and far beyond. To quote the late, great missionary statesman, Oswald J Smith, “The light that shines furthest, shines brightest nearest home.”
Big picture, not small corner. Tick?
Kingdom, not fiefdom. Tick?
Hub, not terminus. Tick?
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