Be Barnabas – What is a NAV?

I: Be Barnabas – Intro + Mint’s Story
II: Why Be Barnabas?
III: Who was Barnabas from the Bible?

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In the last couple of posts, we’ve heard from some guest contributors about who Barnabas was from the Bible and what he did to find and partner with Paul to catalyze multiplication in the 1^st Century. This gives us some foundational principles about who we should try to embody as we approach Being Barnabas in pursuing movements.

From here, we’ll start to walk through the different stages of finding and partnering with a National Apostolic Visionary (NAV). But before we start with what to do, we need to focus on who we’re looking for. We’ll start with breaking down the term, and then look at some characteristics of a NAV.

“National” (or “Near Culture”)

Firstly, the movement leader needs to be a near-culture or cultural insider. So we can use the word ‘national,’ but ‘near-culture’ also works – the NAV may come from another country that is in the same region and has a similar cultural background. We’ve touched on the importance of why the key leader should be a cultural insider in previous posts, but it boils down to the reality that the vast majority of movements are started and led by national or near culture leaders with the support and coaching of outsiders.

However, if we think about ‘why’ this might be the case, there are a few different reasons. Among the unreached, outsider workers, especially from the West, have very little credibility as messengers of the gospel. Language and culture are also significant barriers in our ability to communicate the gospel in a contextually appropriate way.

However, as the church has grown in the global South and globalization allows for increased international travel, Christian workers from the West can have an inherent credibility in training and providing resources to churches in the global South. Where we lack credibility in sharing the gospel in an unreached context, we are generally welcomed by the growing church to help train and influence – provided we can gain trust.

To me, this is highly encouraging! It means that God has selected believers from their own people groups to lead the advancement of the Kingdom, and it means that we as outsiders can have a role in partnering with, training, coaching, and empowering those national leaders.

“Apostolic”

The term ‘apostolic’ can bring about a lot of different opinions and even different emotions, depending on where you land theologically. However, movement practitioners largely agree that it is national leaders with the apostolic gifting that are most commonly the ones that catalyze movements. At the very least, you’re probably looking to partner with someone that has a strong ‘APE’ gifting (Apostolic / Prophetic / Evangelistic) in order to get a new disciple-making and church planting multiplication ministry started.

We plan to do a longer post in the future about the word ‘apostolic,’ but for the purposes of understanding what to look for in a NAV, we’ll point to 4 aspects of the apostolic gifting that we’re looking for in a NAV. These are compiled from a few different resources about the apostolic gifting, as well as trying to investigate from the Word. We’ll list a few of those resources at the bottom of the post.

Vision – firstly, they have received big vision from God. At the very least, it is vision that goes beyond growing their own church. When we met Mint and asked her what her vision is, she felt called to bring the gospel to Laos and wanted to see multiplication happen throughout northeast Thailand and Laos. Another NAV that we work with in southern Thailand said, “I want to see 1 million Muslims follow Jesus in my lifetime.” That seems to fit the bill!

Faith – They have the faith to believe that God will complete this vision and use them towards that big vision. This might feel redundant, but we’ve seen plenty of people be drawn to big vision or even create big ideas, but lack the faith to believe God wants to use them in this and therefore do not pursue the vision wholeheartedly. Those with the apostolic gift will have both the vision and the faith to pursue it.

Systems and Structures – Clinton describes the function of the apostolic as “a special leadership capacity to move with authority from God to create new ministry structures and to develop and appoint leadership in these structures.” In particular, we think that those with the apostolic gifting pioneer new ministries, specifically in the context of unreached church planting and disciple making. There may be pioneers who set up new structures within the local church or in an orphanage ministry, which is great, but we believe the apostolic gift is one that is primarily used among the unreached. It reflects Paul’s apostolic passion in Romans 15:20, to go where there is no foundation. In setting up new systems and structures, the apostolic leader may for a time act as a ‘jack of all trades,’ leading out in evangelism and teaching and shepherding – whatever is needed to establish this new pioneering ministry. As the ministry moves towards maturity, it’s better and healthier for the apostolic to then release the ongoing growth of the ministry to the other leadership giftings, especially the shepherds/teachers.

Leaders – Lastly, the apostolically gifted leader is able to recruit, develop, and release leaders. They understand that leaders are critical in starting and multiplying a new ministry, and will constantly have a lens of raising up new leaders to take over responsibilities that the NAV has started or to pioneer new areas under the NAV’s leadership. Young leaders will be attracted to the NAV’s life, ministry, vision, and character, and want to follow them.

These 4 aspects are what seem to come up consistently in various writings about the apostolic gift as well as our own personal experience. But a few others things might be indicators of an apostolic leader:

• Apostolic leaders most likely won’t keep to the status quo. The vision that God has given them will result in some discontentment if the group they’re with or the current role they have isn’t pursuing that vision wholeheartedly. As a result, these apostolic leaders could stick out as a little weird or be known as a ‘black sheep’ of sorts.
• Apostolic leaders are not afraid to fail forward and start new things. One CPM practitioner told us to look for ‘failed business entrepreneurs,’ as that could be an indicator of their willingness to fail forward and pioneer that needs to be directed towards a God-given vision and ministry.
• God has clearly been moving in their lives. Whether in the story of how they came to faith, or in the ways that the Lord has been refining them to step into ministry, there is a clear pattern of the Lord’s hand on their lives that can be an indicator of Him preparing them for a significant work ahead.

“Visionary”

Lastly, at the risk of being redundant, a NAV is a visionary leader. They have the big vision and the faith to pursue it like we mentioned in the apostolic section. They’re also surrendered to God and willing to do anything – to sacrifice, to fail, to pioneer – in order to pursue that vision. As with the ‘leaders’ section of the apostolic gifting, the visionary leader is able to influence others – sometimes large numbers of people – towards a vision of multiplication.

Now that we have more clarity on the different aspects of the term National Apostolic Visionary, we’ll look at some additional characteristics of a NAV that we’re looking to partner with in pursuing movements.

Flexible Methodology

A NAV that we want to partner with will have openness to try different methodologies of church planting and disciple-making. I don’t think that CPM practitioners can have a monopoly on the apostolic gifting (although we may prefer to!); there may be apostolic leaders that you meet that God has called to pursue a different type of ministry than CPM. And that’s OK! But it may not be the right timing for you to partner with them until they’re open to try a movement methodology. If they’re locked in and committed to a different type of ministry methodology, we will continue to keep the relationship open and even vision cast towards trying something new in hopes that they might be open at a later time, but we won’t partner with them until we know they’re willing to pursue a movement approach.

Surrendered to God

Lastly, we’re looking for a NAV that we partner with to be surrendered to God. Even if a national leader has what looks like apostolic gifts and a big vision, if they have major areas of their lives that are not submitted to God or still need to grow, then they may not be ready for us to jump in fully and partner with them in catalyzing movements. This can look like major distractions with their time, like other ministries, family issues, debt, or character issues. Ultimately, if these things are not addressed in submission to God, they will end up being barriers to the national leader moving forward in the work. Or possibly even worse, some of the work will get started under their leadership and then be wiped out when these issues come back to bite them. Even Paul, after his conversion on the road to Damascus, had a significant amount of time where his convictions, character, and skills needed to be honed before he and Barnabas are ultimately set aside by the Holy Spirit to begin the first journey.

Does Paul Fit the NAV Definition?

Speaking of Paul, the whole point of the Be Barnabas approach is to find a national “Paul,” an insider who God has chosen to catalyze and lead movements where the gospel has not yet gone. So does Paul fit the NAV definition we’ve listed above?

National – The intent of the term ‘national’ has to do with the NAV being a cultural insider, able to contextualize the gospel and whatever the movement needs with fewer limits than a cultural outsider. In this sense, and in a literal sense as Paul was a Roman citizen (Acts 16:37), Paul was uniquely situated to contextualize the gospel to Jews, Greeks, and to Romans. As Paul famously notes in 1 Corinthians 9:

To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.

1 Corinthians 9:20-23

Paul is clear about his legitimacy as a Jew (Phil. 3:5-6), who was from Tarsus which was well-known as a center of Greek learning and who writes his epistles in Greek, and he also leverages his Roman citizenship to appeal to authorities on his journeys in Acts 22:26-28. We see Paul contextualize his gospel message depending on the audience, reasoning with the Jews in the synagogue in Thessalonica from the Scriptures (Acts 17:1-4), or conversing with the philosophers in Athens and in the Areopagus (Acts 17:16-34) out of his cultural understanding of these varied contexts.

Apostolic – This is very obviously a yes. More than having the apostolic gifting, Scripture makes it clear that Paul is THE Apostle to the Gentiles, as Paul calls himself that in Romans 11:13. We see in Acts and in the epistles that Paul also more than fits the other criteria.

We’ll address vision and faith under the ‘Visionary’ section below. As for systems and structures, along with leaders, we can see in Acts and the epistles the gifting Paul has to set up the early church to thrive and multiply. He raises up local leaders as well as an apostolic band of leaders, sending letters and leaders to and from different key cities to address various issues in the churches, bring encouragement and vision to the believers, and manage the first Century movement in 6 distinct cities and regions through word of mouth and written letters!

Visionary – Paul’s vision and faith to be used to reach the Gentiles and those who have never heard is the clear example of the apostolic leader that we are looking for!

For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience—by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God—so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ; and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation.

Romans 15:18-20

Flexible Methodology – As we can see in the different strategies that Paul uses in Acts, Paul uses a variety of methodologies to reach different peoples in a pioneering context. Whether he went first to the synagogue to win near-culture Jews and God-fearing Jews to follow Christ, cast out demons and healed people through signs and wonders, or reasoned with philosophers, Paul was clearly not tied to a single method, but willing to do whatever it took to win some.

Surrendered to God – Lastly, we could pick a dozen verses to illustrate Paul’s surrender to God. But perhaps none exemplify it more than his words in Philippians 3. 

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Philippians 3:8–11

As DL Moody said, “The world has yet to see what God can do with a man fully consecrated to him.” I might propose that we have seen the result in the Apostle Paul. May we find and advocate for many more National Apostolic Visionary leaders like him!

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We realize that other CPM practitioners may or may not agree with these characteristics, or have ones that they’d like to add, and that’s great! Identifying and partnering with NAVs is definitely not an exact science, but these are the aspects that have consistently come to the top for us in reading the Word, learning from CPM literature, talking to CPM practitioners, and in our own personal experience. The term NAV, the related characteristics, and the following posts about how to filter for NAVs are simply meant to be a helpful tool for goers to begin looking for catalytic leaders that will multiply among the unreached.

In the next few posts, we’ll walk through the various stages of how a goer can begin to filter and find a NAV to partner with. We’ll introduce the NAV Scoreboard, which will help you evaluate these different aspects of a NAV in the process of filtering.

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Resources on the Apostolic Gifting:

Leadership Commentaries by Robert Clinton (has a variety of articles on the apostolic gift, process, ministry)
Loving the Church, Blessing the Nations by George Miley (Chapters 9-12)
A Vision of the Possible by Daniel Sinclair
The Permanent Revolution: Apostolic Imagination and Practice for the 21st Century by Alan Hirsch and Tim Catchim