Essential to the health of the church, apostles in the fivefold ministry outlined in Ephesians 4 have a specific contribution to the church by equipping the people of God to partner with the mission of God and bring all their God-given potential, gifts and talents into partnership with that mission. They are key in helping people discover their Divine design and developing, empowering, releasing, and deploying them. Bringing strategy and direction to people, apostles are often catalytic in helping others become ‘unlocked’ in service to God’s mission. In fact, author J.R. Woodward, in his book ‘Creating A Missional Culture’ refers to apostles in the fivefold ministry as ‘dream awakeners.’
Typically, apostles have the following traits:
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- They see potential in people before they even see it in themselves
- They recognise giftings and anointings in others
- There is an ability to recognise what needs to be done and why
- They feel passionately opinionated about how people can maximise their potential
- Being proactive and action-orientated, they get frustrated when things feel stagnant or slow
- They love helping people achieve dreams or goals
- Naturally adept strategic thinkers, either for organisations or for people
- Happy to bend the rules when appropriate
- Will share the truth to people or about a situation even if it hurts them
A church that lacks apostles or a apostolic culture will see:
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- many people stifled or untapped in their gifting
- people unable to maximise their potential
- a lack of urgency and buy-in to the kingdom-level mission of God
The heart of apostles in the fivefold ministry is that every person knows who they are, knows the mission of God, and brings their fullness into partnership with that mission. Apostles desire that people step into who they were created to be and can know and realise their potential in God, because that’s how the mission of God will succeed.
Apostles will therefore ask the following questions of a church culture they are part of:
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- How can we help people discover what God has put inside them?
- What opportunities can we create for people to step into the mission of God?
- Are there resources we can use to help people learn more about themselves?
- What resources, people, and finances do we need to align to achieve our goals?
- How do we get better at what we do?
I have developed a FiveFold Flow Assessment for you to discover which of the fivefold expressions you are strongest in. You can find out more HERE.
This post is part of a series looking at the fivefold ministry. You can see the other articles in this series here:
