I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

As disciples, disciple-makers, goers, and team leaders, abiding is central to who we are and what we do. Often as team leaders and movement practitioners, we feel such urgency to train and coach teammates or national partners in areas of ministry. There are so many paradigms, principles, and tools to learn! But I find myself falling into the pitfall that I so often coach others to be wary of – focusing my time, thoughts, and energy on helping my team do the ministry effectively much more than helping them to abide deeply.

For each time we gather as a team or with our national partners, how many hours are spent on ministry reports, training, and discussion versus talking about what we’re learning from Jesus, praying together, or looking to experience him together?

It’s a reminder I need frequently: I’m called to shepherd the flock, not just make them effective cogs in the ministry machine.

Jenn and I tried, perhaps not always very well, to balance our team meetings between ministry coordination, movement training, and prayer / abiding. We would set aside times just to focus on corporate prayer and worship, or set an hour aside to have listening prayer. Those times were rich and valuable as individuals and as a team.

But at times, just straight up praying together can be repetitive. We wanted to think of fresh ways to help our team, and ourselves, interact with God and experience him. Especially when we had team retreats and could get away from our normal rhythms for a few days, we wanted to create space to be with God in new and creative ways.

Red Moon Rising and 24 Hour Prayer

When I was a teenager in the youth group, our youth pastor Josh and his wife Char who had brought us to Thailand for the first time, gave me a book called Red Moon Rising. It was a book about the Moravians, who started a 24/7 prayer movement that lasted over a hundred years. From that, there was significant spiritual revival and passion for global missions; this small community of 300 people sent hundreds of missionaries around the world during that era of 24/7 prayer.

Compelled by the book, I coordinated a 24 hour prayer retreat with our youth group. Somehow, we got a bunch of teenagers to pray individually and corporately for 24 hours straight. We also thought of various activities that people could interact with in prayer apart from just sitting silently alone or praying corporately. We set up a prayer room with different interactive stations and scheduled prayer times for 24 hours. Stepping into that room, you could feel the tangible presence of the Holy Spirit residing there from all the earnest prayers of the people in our youth group.

It was one of the richest spiritual experiences I’d had in my early life, and the influence from our mentors, Josh and Char, on the importance of prayer has stuck with us to this day.

Prayer Stations

Fast forward a decade and we are now leading our team in Thailand. With our experience as teenagers in that 24 hour prayer retreat, we wanted to set up a space for our team to pray and abide in a fresh way at our team retreat.

So Jenn and I cobbled together a few materials, lit a few candles, and created a prayer room with interactive stations. 10 years later, I barely remember what we talked about in the ministry planning parts. But I remember these prayer stations. It was a rich time for us to corporately and individually meet with God and be refreshed.

This past year, we facilitated an Abide Retreat for our national church-planting partners. Our leadership team realized that we have been on the edge of multiplication breakthrough for a while now, and we needed to focus on prayer and abiding and desperately pleading to the Lord for Him to move, not just more training.

One part of our abide retreat was creating space for the church planting leaders to spend time with God individually. We translated the packet we use for our monthly Day of Prayer and Evaluation (DOPE) which simply is a guide for spending time with God for a whole day – worship, Word, prayer, intercession, listening, repentance, evaluation, and planning.

The next part involved setting up a prayer room with interactive stations – the same ones we did with our team at our team retreat 10 years before. We weren’t sure how some of it would convey across another culture, but tried our best to simplify the stations and prayed like crazy for the Holy Spirit to move.

Talking With Her Father

One of the church planters brought a new disciple named Eve to the retreat. It was her first time praying for an extended amount of time. Eve comes from a broken family – her dad left her family when she was very young. 

After the retreat, Jenn asked her how her experience was. Eve said, “I felt like I was safe, and that I could talk with God as my Father.” At that time, she said she had been feeling guilty about not spending enough time with God. But as she spent time with God in the prayer room, she felt loved and accepted. She realized that God our Father is not the same as her earthly father, and she wants to get to know Him more.

Prayer Stations Guide

Below is a guide for how you can facilitate these prayer stations for your team, your national partners, or really any groups of believers. We tried to have the participants engage several different senses – sight, touch, taste, sound – throughout the stations.

It includes some suggestions for how you can prepare the room to invite the presence of the Holy Spirit, as well as each station’s instructions to print out. There is a PDF version of the guide at the bottom of the post that includes some example pictures of the stations.

We hope these prayer stations will allow you as a leader to help shepherd your team further into the presence of our Savior Jesus, and be refreshed by experiencing him more deeply!

Prayer Stations Tool

The goal of these prayer stations is for people to interact with God in different methods of reflection and prayer, using different senses including touch, taste, and sound.

Instructions

• The prayer stations should be done individually, although multiple people can be in the room at the same time. Stagger the start time by 30 minutes so that each station is not too crowded.
• Inform the people going through the stations that the total time should take anywhere from 1-2 hours, but they are allowed to take it at their own pace and should spend time thoughtfully at each station.

Preparation

• Print 2 copies of each station’s instructions below.
• Prepare a medium-sized room with 5 distinct areas. You can set it up on the ground or with tables and chairs.
• Make sure the room can be mostly dark with some dim lighting. (A few strings of twinkle lights can help.)
• Set up a portable speaker with instrumental worship music in the background that can be going on throughout the time that the room is being used.
• Prepare for each station along with the print-out of instructions:
  • Station 1: a small box that people can put their phone in for the duration
  • Station 2: blank sheets of paper and pens
  • Station 3: a bowl of salt and a bowl of water big enough to put your hands into. Also a towel or paper towels to dry your hands after.
  • Station 4: a music player with headphones and the song you’ve prepared about the gospel; communion elements (bread or crackers + juice)
  •  Station 5: small pieces of paper, pens, and (if possible) golden bowls/plates to place the prayers in
• Set up the room with the 5 stations
• Pray for God’s presence to enter the room and that people would meet with Him and hear from Him!

STATION 1: PREPARING YOUR HEARTS

Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the “tent of meeting.” Anyone inquiring of the Lord would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp. As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance, while the Lord spoke with Moses. The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.

-Exodus 33:7, 9, 11

Like Moses, you are about to enter into a tent of meeting. Expect to meet with God and talk to him like a friend.

Before you move on, take 5-10 minutes to prepare your heart for this time. Ask God to remove any distractions, stressful feelings, or burdens so that you can focus on hearing from God. Ask him to speak specifically to you. 

Take off your shoes, put your phone on silent, and drop your phone into the basket.

“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”

– Exodus 3:5

STATION 2: BELIEVING GOD’S PROMISES

God has called us to a great mission to make disciples of all nations. But at times it can be very difficult. Disciple makers face many challenges and trials.

But God does not leave us to do this task by ourselves. He is with us. And He has given us many promises to remind us of His presence and help.

Here are 10 promises of God’s presence. Read the verses and reflect on the promises:

Genesis 28:13-17 – Promises for God’s presence and faithfulness

Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

Joshua 1:1-9 – Promises for victory and courage

[3] Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses. [9]Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

Isaiah 41:10-13 – Promises for strength and protection

[10] fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. [11] Behold, all who are incensed against you shall be put to shame and confounded; those who strive against you shall be as nothing and shall perish. [12] You shall seek those who contend with you, but you shall not find them; those who war against you shall be as nothing at all. [13] For I, the LORD your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not, I am the one who helps you.”

Jeremiah 29:10-14 – Promises for a good future and restoration

[11] For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. [12] Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. [13] You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. [14] I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes.

Psalm 23:4 – Promises for protection and comfort

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

2 Chronicles 7:14 – Promises for forgiveness and healing

If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

Deuteronomy 28:1-6 – Promises for blessing and provision

“And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God. Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.

John 15:5 – Promises for abiding and fruitfulness

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

1 Peter 1:3-7 – Promises for hope, salvation, sanctification

[3] Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, [4] to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, [5] who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. [6] In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, [7] so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 

Matthew 11:28-30 – Promises for rest and light burden

[28] Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. [29] Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. [30] For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Acts 18:9–10 – Promises for protection and new believers

[9] “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, [10] for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.” (ESV)

John 14:2-3 – Promises for salvation and future hope in heaven

In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

• Which promises impacted you? Write these down. Consider how God has been faithful to these promises to you this year. Give Him thanks for this!
  
• Which promises seem difficult to believe? Write these down. Ask God to clearly do as He has promised and for the faith to believe that He will do these things.
  
• Pray that He would use you to fulfill these promises in other people’s lives, to make disciples and multiply.

STATION 3: SURRENDERING FEARS – TRUSTING IN THE LORD

Jeremiah 17 compares two very different environments, the parched salt land and the tree planted by water.

Thus says the Lord:
“Cursed is the man who trusts in man
and makes flesh his strength,
whose heart turns away from the Lord.
  He is like a shrub in the desert,
and shall not see any good come.
He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,
in an uninhabited salt land.
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord.
  He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

These two environments illustrate two kinds of people – those that trust in themselves, and those that trust in the Lord.

Where in your life have you been trusting in yourself? Ask the Lord to reveal any self-reliance, any fears, any anxiety, any sin that your heart is clutching to instead of Him. With every part that your heart is “turned away from the LORD,” confess that to him and place a pinch of salt in your hand.

As you hold the salt, feel the weight, the coarseness, the parched nature of the grains.

Read the second part again:

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord.
  He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

Take the salt, and drop it into the water basin. Wash your hands of the salt, and feel the coolness of the water clean your hands.

Thank Him for the stream of living water that is given to us in Jesus. Pray and ask the Lord for perseverance and endurance in times of heat and drought. Praise Him for the promise to never ceasing to bear fruit!

STATION 4: THE NAME OF JESUS

Put on the headphones and listen to the song, What A Beautiful Name [link to the song in the local language].

As you listen to the lyrics, worship Jesus for what he has done on the Cross to purchase you and deliver you from the power of death!

Take the next few minutes to remind yourself of the gospel and to fix your eyes on Jesus. Remember your story and how he saved you.

What has Jesus done for you? What was the cost of purchasing your sin?

How has your life changed? What kind of power has Jesus given you?

What is your hope now placed in?

Read 1 Corinthians 11:23-26.

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Tear the bread, and dip it in the cup. As you take communion, revisit the last verse of the hymn. Remember the power of the new life that Christ has purchased for you! This is the God who is with you always, even to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20).

Death could not hold You, the veil tore before You
You silenced the boast, of sin and grave
The heavens are roaring, the praise of Your glory
For You are raised to life again
You have no rival, You have no equal
Now and forever, Our God reigns
Yours is the Kingdom, Yours is the glory
Yours is the Name, above all names
What a powerful Name it is
The Name of Jesus Christ, my King

STATION 5: HOPE IN AN ASSURED VICTORY

All of our work, perseverance, sanctification, and suffering is leading to a final moment in history where we will experience the fullness of freedom and victory – when Jesus returns. No more sin, no more sorrow; we will see him face to face.

Revelation 5 and Revelation 8 tell us that the prayers of the saints play a part in bringing about the return of Jesus, and that it’s connected to all nations being around the throne.

And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying,

“Worthy are you to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
 and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on the earth.”

And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.

Matthew 24 says that when the gospel is preached to the whole world, then the end will come – Jesus will return and make all things new. This is our ultimate hope – that what we do and what we pray for in our country would hasten the return of Jesus!

Matthew 24:14:

[14] And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

Write down big prayers for every tribe, tongue, and nation – whether it be for your region, for your country, or the rest of the world. Fill the bowls with your prayers to see God worshipped and Jesus return! Plead to God that Jesus would come quickly!

Almost nothing has a higher impact on team culture, health, and effectiveness as much as who you recruit to the team. A good team member will be a joy to the team and the leader, and be a strong contributor to the ministry. An unhealthy, underprepared, or poorly fit team member can cause conflict, distraction, and even result in a team fracturing or leaving the field.

But how do you determine who you should invite to the team?

Our first post on recruiting was about broadly networking and casting vision to invite a pool of potential recruits to the process of evaluation. The second post was about the filtering process of gathering information and discerning the team fit of potential teammates. In that process, we recommend that you host them on a vision trip to allow them to hear from the Lord on location as well as you and the team getting to know them in person.

After you’ve done all the work of networking, casting vision, evaluating, and hosting them on a vision trip, you need to discern whether to give them an invitation to join the team or not. In our experience of recruiting and evaluating 30+ units for our teams in Thailand, we’ve had very few obvious green-light people to invite, and only some very clear red-light rejections. Most potential recruits fall into some kind of a yellow-light area. 

In this post, we’ll provide a recruiting evaluation grid that helps you measure a potential new recruit’s health and role fit versus the impact on your team and your degree of investment as a leader.

Difficult Decisions

Before we launched to Thailand, we went through our first season of recruiting teammates (including the ones from the soup terrine story). At the time, I was leading a missional community with other people that had a similar vision of wanting to serve overseas. We also took a vision trip to Thailand together a couple years before we launched.

I always highly valued loyalty, and just assumed that those in our group that had the vision to go overseas would eventually serve on the same team together. We did life together, prayed together, did ministry together, dreamed about the future together.

About a year out from our projected launch date, it was time to quit our jobs and go through the formal process of applying to an organization, going through evaluations, and officially forming the team. I knew each person would have development areas, but it didn’t even cross my mind that someone would not be considered qualified to go.

As I debriefed the evaluation process for my teammates with my supervisor, he mentioned that there were some red flags that came up with one teammate. He recommended that we at least give them a yellow-light and have them go through a 6-12 month season of development before having them re-apply.

I was surprised and distressed. This news would be devastating for this person.

Sure, there were some instances of difficulty that we had encountered. And yes, I wasn’t totally sure if that person would be willing to follow my leadership. And yes, we kind of knew they had some family of origin challenges that were unresolved. But telling them not to join the team? They had oriented everything in their lives towards this. What would the team think? What would happen to our relationship with this person?

But thankfully, my supervisor in his wisdom projected out how those things would play out on the field. If those things were a 3 out of 10 in concern and intensity in the States, they would quickly become 9 out of 10s and have the potential to fracture our team.

After prayer, discussion, and discernment, we made the decision to give this person a yellow light. Someone suggested that one of the evaluators from the organization give the bad news. But my mentor, also in his wisdom, said that I needed to be the one to take the responsibility for this decision and deliver the news, out of respect to this person and for my own development.

In a very difficult 2+ hour conversation, we told this person that there were some concerns and that they would need to go through a 6-12 month development process before re-applying.

It did not go well.

Eventually, this person broke off all contact with our team and levied accusations against me to other mutual friends.

We tried to pursue some conflict resolution through a counselor but that still didn’t go well. Ultimately, their response confirmed that this was the right decision, even though it was one of the most challenging team and leadership situations I had gone through to that point.

Our first year on the field was filled with conflicts, culture-shock, and challenges to the max with the team we did lead overseas, and I’m not sure we would’ve survived if we had added this person and their challenges. Even though it was painful and burdensome at the time, I’m thankful for wise mentors that helped a new team leader make a hard decision that I otherwise would not have had the courage to make.

Over the next decade on the field of evaluating and inviting several units to our teams, we’ve learned some of the key lessons in deciding who to invite and who to say “no” or “not yet” to. The stakes for teams and ministry among the unreached are incredibly high, and team leaders need to be thorough, wise, discerning, and prayerful in their evaluation and selection of potential teammates.

Recruiting Evaluation Grid

Hopefully your sending organization or church is assisting with recruiting, assessing, and developing potential new candidates for your team. There is a minimum baseline in the first category of the recruit’s character, health, and spiritual maturity that most agencies will be able to assess and either move them to the next step, put them on a development plan to later re-apply, or tell the applicant they’re not ready. Those baselines will vary for each agency, but some standards include freedom from addictions, health in singleness or marriage, consistent pattern of growing relationship with Jesus, and basic levels of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health. 

What they aren’t taking into account, and you as a team leader must measure, is you and your team’s own readiness to receive that specific person in this season of your ministry and team. The final decision needs to be made by the team leader, not the sending entity, as the TL will be the one taking responsibility for that teammate. 

Keep in mind that you won’t know everything perfectly unless you’ve had significant life-on-life experience with them, so a lot of this is doing your best to assess well and solicit feedback from people that do know these candidates. Also, you’re evaluating the readiness of this teammate to join your team at this point in time. For example, a more challenging candidate might not be good to add to a newly forming team, but in 6-12 months, with more team stability and more personal development, they might be a great fit! 

Remember, your goal is to recruit teammates that will eventually thrive and be able to contribute well to your team and ministry. Every new person transitioning to the field will likely have their cross-cultural stressors and struggles, but if the teammate’s foundations and the team’s environment are solid, they will be able to overcome those difficulties and become strong team members.

We would assess the potential recruit in these 5 areas – character/health/maturity, calling to missions, gifting and role in ministry, impact on team, and leader investment in development. Evaluate the potential candidate on this scale from 1 to 10 to help you have more of an objective grid for whether or not you should approve this teammate at this time.

1. Character, Health, and Spiritual Maturity
   Main question: Is this teammate healthy and spiritually mature enough to thrive on the field?
   (1 – unhealthy and immature; 10 – strong health and maturity)
   1. Freedom from addictions
   2. Strong and growing personal walk with Lord
   3. Self starter and flexible
   4. Good interpersonal skills and communication 
   5. Emotional awareness and health
   6. Health in singleness / marriage / family
      
2. Calling to Missions
   Main question: Is this potential teammate’s calling rooted in solid foundations that can persevere through challenges?
   (1 – weak foundation of calling; 10 – strong foundation of calling)
   1. Scriptural basis
   2. Prayer
   3. Pattern of affirmation
   4. Community 
   5. Personal experiences 
      
3. Gifting and Role in Ministry
   Main question: Are this potential teammate’s gifts, skills, and experience able to contribute to the ministry?
   (1 – gifts and skills are underdeveloped OR don’t align with the primary ministry work; 10 – demonstrated competency in gifts and skills that would contribute well to the ministry)
   1. Awareness, development, and practice of spiritual gifts
   2. Skills and competencies
   3. Ability to do main ministry activities 
   4. General ministry experience
   5. Strong learner and self developer 
   6. Leadership experience and potential to be a leader
      
4. Impact on Team
   Main Question: would receiving this potential teammate generally strengthen or disrupt / burden the team overall
   (1 – would be disruptive/burdening to receive, significant adjustment to help transition; 10 – gifts and personality are strong benefits to team and has strong chemistry with team)
   1. Has gifts that can serve the team (hospitality, shepherding, worship/prayer, etc.)
   2. Generally easy to get along with v. draining/challenging personality
   3. Demographics that match what the team needs (ex: single girl needing another single gal to co-labor with)
   4. Good relational chemistry / team player
   5. Stage of Team Development (forming, storming, norming, performing) – consider how much storming there currently is and if that’s the right time to introduce a teammate 
      
5. Leader Investment in Their Development
   Main Question: What level of personal investment and development by the leader would it take to get them to a point of thriving and contribution to the team and ministry? 
   (1 – high investment of time and energy by leader; difficult to lead; 10 – lower investment by leader, generally easy / joyful to lead)
   1. Submission to your leadership
   2. Fit with your leadership style and giftings
   3. Amount of time and energy investment by leader to help them thrive and become a solid contributor based off your capacity
   4. if teammates can help carry the burden of investment vs. solely on the leaders

If you don’t know the answer to some of these categories, try to get feedback from the candidate, the agency, or those that know them well. Ask for them to be as brutally honest and direct as possible. Many times, references will want to give the best version of feedback since they want to help those they’re connected with. But it’s important for a TL to draw out the realities of a potential teammate since there is such a significant impact on them and on the team.

Making a Decision

After you’ve assigned a 1-10 score to each major category, figure out what the average score is across all 5 categories.

If you have an average of 8+, you should have a pretty solid candidate and situation to invite them to the team.

If you have an average of 4 or below, there likely needs to be some significant development for the candidate or on your own team before you can reconsider, likely after at least 6 months.

If any individual category is at a 2 or below, they are probably not at the standard to pass for that category and you shouldn’t invite them to the team.

The challenging situations are when you have someone in the 5-7 range. Discuss with other team stakeholders (teammates, mentors, supervisors), and weigh the pros/cons of inviting this person to the team. Understand that if you invite someone in the 5-7 range, it will likely take significant investment to help them thrive and begin to contribute to the ministry.

Regardless of how they grade out, it’s essential to bring the decision to the Lord in prayer. It’s always a step of faith to invite someone to your team, and you as a team leader are making a substantial commitment by inviting someone to your team, to love, serve, and shepherd them through the challenges on the field.

Some Cautions and Guidelines

This evaluation grid is trying to help quantify some important categories so that team leaders can make wise decision about inviting team members. But you can be very thorough in the evaluation process and still be surprised how someone reacts to the field. Some great candidates that we invited really struggled on the field when things didn’t go their way. Some riskier candidates ended up thriving and doing really well in field environments. But by doing the work of evaluating and praying, you can have eyes open for each teammate’s potential pitfalls and weaknesses.

A caution for newer team leaders: team leaders at the beginning of launching a team are at the highest urgency to add teammates. If you find yourself convincing yourself that they should be on the team, but you know in your heart that they aren’t a good fit, don’t invite them. The team is at its newest and most fragile at the beginning, and recruiting even one person that is unprepared and challenging can be very costly to the leader and the team.

Take risks for potential leaders. Younger, more immature leaders may rock the boat and be somewhat difficult to lead at the beginning. But if you’re able to win trust and develop them well, they can multiply your impact and be worth the investment.

Understand your own giftings and tendencies as a leader: If you are shepherd-gifted, you may have a higher tolerance / capacity to take the time of investing in someone to get them to the point of thriving and contributing. If you are more of an apostolic/evangelist-type leader, know that when you invite someone to the team you are committing to shepherding them. Also know that you might get impatient or frustrated if someone takes too much of your time and focus because your tendency will be to focus on the external ministry.

Knit to the Soul

We’ve gone through some of the biggest ups and downs of our adult lives with our teammates. We were together making awkward noises in language school, joyful team Christmases away from home, celebrating new churches planted, and experiencing the first new babies born on the field. They’ve been with us through crises, cancer, and burnout.

It’s hard to imagine facing the realities of the field with anyone else.

It’s the generous gift of the Lord to bring significant people around us for the calling and work He has prepared for us. They are simultaneously brothers and sisters, friends, co-workers, confidantes, and caretakers. It’s worth giving time and focus to find people who are the right fit.

And, the Lord already knows who He has chosen to be on our teams. We can have faith that if we are prayerful and discerning, He will bring the right people.

As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.

1 Samuel 18:1

Write the vision, make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it.

I was 20 years old at Urbana 2009. A vision cast from a person I didn’t know, have never talked to, and have never met again, changed the course of my life.

I had just gone to Thailand on a short-term trip that opened my eyes to the reality of the unreached. God had started to put on my heart the possibility of serving overseas. As a part of that process, I went to Urbana, Intervarsity’s triennial missions conference for students. A bunch of other friends from our Intervarsity chapter at UT Austin went, including several that ended up on our original team in Thailand.

Between the plenary sessions, there were opportunities to go to different workshops about different topics, whether business as mission, social justice, or different evangelism methods. One workshop that caught my eye was named “Costly Discipleship: Incarnation, Jesus, and The Way of the Cross.”

Most of the workshops had been helpful and informative, but mostly informal and casual. As we sat down, a man in his 30s walked up to the front. He said, “My name is John David Pitts. My wife and I were kicked out of Pakistan 6 weeks ago. We are going back in 4 weeks. In all likelihood we will be thrown into prison or killed.”

“Today, we are going to call you to come and die.”

I could feel the tension in the room rise as our attention was fixed on the speaker. For the next 45 minutes, John simply presented the hard sayings of Jesus and taught on them.

John 15:20 – “Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.”

Luke 14:26-27 – “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

Matthew 16:24-25 – “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

At the end, he concluded by saying, “Following Jesus requires radically high levels of commitment. His final command was to go and make disciples of all the nations.”

Instead of taking questions, he released us to go spend time with God. I went straight to the prayer room and for the next 2 hours surrendered my life to Jesus. I felt the Holy Spirit say, “If you believe the Gospel, you’ll go to the nations.”

I made my commitment to serve overseas long-term on December 30, 2009.

Vision casting is a powerful form of communication that is critical in our pursuit of the Great Commission. Ministry, missions, and movements are really, really difficult. If we don’t have vision to guide us, we won’t have a clear direction and can get distracted by the urgent and needy. If we aren’t reminded of that vision regularly, we can get discouraged or apathetic.

For missions team leaders, casting vision is needed to recruit people to your team, to motivate your team and partners towards the end goal, to encourage people to persevere, to excite people and give them courage for the work, to and many more opportunities. Vision is needed to help yourself to focus on abiding and endure through suffering. John David Pitts casted the vision towards me for radical commitment to following Jesus and making disciples among the unreached, and I’m still pursuing that vision today.

Our definition of a leader is a man or woman that receives vision from God to influence the people of God towards the purposes of God. The vision piece is critical for leaders, because it is what you use to influence those that you lead towards God’s purposes in their lives. If you don’t have a clear vision, then you’re probably not yet a leader.

What is Vision?

A vision is an end goal, an eventual reality that you want to achieve. It should be biblical, faith-driven, and derived from prayer and listening to the Lord.

There’s a lot of articles on vision and mission statements for businesses, organizations, and even churches. The challenge is that there’s often a lot of overlap between vision, mission, calling, and purpose.

For me, vision is why you (or your team or ministry) exist, and mission is what you do to accomplish that vision. Although I think it’s worth writing down a vision statement, I’m not going to focus too much on the specific details of vision statements but talk more about vision in general.

These are some questions you can consider to try and figure out what God’s vision is for your life:

• What has He called you to give your life to?
• Why / For what purpose does you or your team or ministry exist?
• What is the future picture of the world that you desire to make a reality?
• What makes you “pound the table” / keep you up at night? (something that you’re passionately moved by and want to impact)

After considering these questions, if it’s not already derived from Scripture, see what in the Bible aligns with this vision. Bring it to the Lord in prayer, and listen to the Holy Spirit to see what he says about it. 

We’d also encourage you to think big when it comes to vision! Don’t just think about what you can accomplish by yourself. Big vision forces us to hear from God and depend on God. Big vision should require faith, since “without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6). Big vision should be beyond our capabilities, beyond ourselves, perhaps even beyond our lifetime!

For our team in Thailand, our vision is “To see multiplying churches among all UPGs in Southeast Asia, through mobilizing the church to catalyze CPMs.”

For our Yield Coaching Ministry, our vision is “To advance the Great Commission by developing abiding leaders to catalyze movements among the unreached.”

These are things that are far bigger than ourselves, and things that I would gladly give my life, time, and effort for.

There’s a few examples in Scripture of vision. Obviously there are specific visions through dreams and images that God gives, and those would fall under the general umbrella of what we call ‘vision.’

For Jesus, there are a few strong candidates for what His vision would be. It could be bringing the Kingdom of God (Luke 4:18-19), coming to give eternal life through his sacrifice (John 3:16), or simply embodied in the Great Commission, that there would be disciples from all the nations (Matthew 28:18-20).

For Paul, as a minister to the Gentiles, his vision and ambition given by God was to “preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named” (Romans 15:20). He would largely fulfill this vision by pioneering the early church and state that “from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ” (Romans 15:19).

Lastly, the ultimate vision for all believers is the gathering of all the nations around the throne of Jesus in Revelation 7:9. This is an actual vision given to John of what will happen in the end times, and remains a clear and motivating vision for many of those called to serve in the nations.

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!

Revelation 7:9

Why is Vision Important?

Habakkuk 2:2 gives a compelling argument that writing down clear vision allows the people of God to run. Proverbs 29:18 gives the opposite side: “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (KJV).

Vision helps you and your team to determine your direction, your ultimate goal, and the purpose for which you exist. From there, every other strategy, objective, plan, and decision should be aligned with that vision. In order for your vision to be helpful, it should be clear, memorable, and inspirational.

If a vision is your ultimate goal, a strategy plan is the steps for how to get there. By creating a strategy plan that flows from your vision, you can make decisions on what to do, and more importantly, what not to do. One way that we’ve heard movement practitioners summarize it is, “Big Vision, Clear Path, Simple Steps.” The clear path is the strategy plan or ministry framework you use to guide you towards that vision. The team or movement leader’s job is to set the vision, give the clear path, and make sure your teammates know the next, simple steps for that day/month/year towards that path and vision.

As a leader, you should be considering the vision, embodying the vision, and communicating the vision constantly. But sometimes if all we give is vision without a clear path and simple steps, it can be initially motivating but people that we lead may not know what to do next. Eventually that motivation will fade if there’s no way to progress towards that goal. That’s why strategy and simple steps of obedience are important.

But without vision to guide your strategy and simple steps, you can simply go from one urgent thing or one opportunity to the next, and not know if you are making any progress towards the end goal God has called you towards. As Paul says about his focus on his apostolic work, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it” (1 Corinthians 9:24). If you are willing to sacrifice so much to make disciples and obey God, work and run in such a way to win the prize, to complete the vision!

Sometimes people are confused between determining and casting a vision that helps you focus on your end goal, and casting vision that just seems to be generally motivating for people. These are certainly related! Talking about your specific vision statement and giving focus to it (why we exist, how we can get there, etc.) is vision casting, and motivating people through encouragement and inspiration is also vision casting! You need to do both types of vision casting as a leader.

Once your team is clear about the end vision of why your team exists, you need to consistently help them focus on it and motivate them towards it. We’ve heard it said that vision is a leaky bucket, it needs to be constantly refilled or else it runs out!

Ways to Cast Vision

There are many, many ways to cast vision – these are a few methods that we come back to often. We use these after our end vision is established, and we need to cast vision to motivate and focus those that we lead towards that end vision. 

Our main recommendation is to pay attention when you are praying, reading Scripture, or watching someone casting vision and it moves your heart – use that as a vision cast! Think about what has been effective in motivating you, helping you focus on the vision, inspires you to keep going. Steal those vision casts and make them your own! This also requires that you as a leader should be proactive in receiving vision through prayer, Scripture, reading books, listening to stories, etc.

Here are a few different ways to cast vision:

Through Scripture

If vision is given by God, then God’s Word is the most surefire way to receive vision and deliver vision to others. Look for key passages that align with your team and ministry vision and are motivating towards it!

Vision Casting in Scripture: When God is casting vision or when biblical leaders cast vision in Scripture, many times those vision casts can be a great example to point to. Some examples might be God casting vision to Joshua to take the land of Canaan (Joshua 1), Nehemiah mobilizing the people to rebuild the walls (Nehemiah 2), and Paul’s exhortation to the Romans about his ambition to preach where Christ has not been named (Romans 15).

Promises of God: When you need to cast vision in terms of giving encouragement, the promises of God are a great way to help your team lift their eyes from their current situation and look to the future reality that God has promised He will bring to fruition! In the future we’ll have a post about the promises of God for movement practitioners. Think about what your team is feeling like they’re lacking or having difficulty believing will happen – find the promises of God in Scripture that directly answer those doubts! Read them, surrender your fears and doubts, and receive the faith and courage to believe the promises and persevere until they are fulfilled!

Through Listening Prayer

Prayer is another surefire way that you can receive vision from God to communicate to others. It requires asking and listening to the Lord about what He wants to tell the people you lead.

A Word You’ve Received: As you’re in prayer for your team and ministry, what is God telling you? What Scripture is He highlighting, what promises is He elevating? Listening in prayer and relaying it to your team is a powerful way to cast vision.

Listening Together: Sometimes, the Word I would receive from God was just to seek Him together. I wouldn’t come into a team meeting with a prepared message to share, but would set aside our normal meeting agenda to let the team simply sit and listen to the Lord. We’d then all share what we were hearing and look for the common theme the Holy Spirit was trying to convey to us! This is a great way to include your team in receiving vision directly from the Lord instead of always hearing it through you as the leader. A great example is in Acts 13 when the leaders at Antioch were worshipping, praying, fasting and heard the Holy Spirit set apart Barnabas and Saul, sparking new movements in the region.

Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.

Acts 13:1-3

Through Personal Convictions or Stories

Your Own Stories: The personal experiences that are cornerstones in your own journey towards the vision God has given you can also be motivating for others! Share stories of experiences you’ve had that opened your heart to pursuing this vision, that encouraged you that God was moving, that were examples of this vision starting to be a reality. Make sure you tell the story in a way that is encouraging for those that are listening, not just nostalgic for yourself!

Stories of God Working: Stories of miracles, answered prayers, changed lives, and salvations are great vision casts to get people excited about joining in what God is doing in your region or ministry. When you hear stories of God working in other places or in history that make you excited and you start to desire those things in your ministry, take note and share that with others! For example, I tried to hear as many stories of movements happening all around the world to build my own faith that it was possible here in Thailand, especially things that were sparking in the Buddhist world. If they worked for my heart, surely some of them would work for those I was leading! I would tell these stories and ask the question, “Why not us, and why not now?” And that would be the basis of our pleas to God in prayer!

Inspirational People Missions and Their Words:

Reading the biographical stories of great missions leaders throughout history has inspired countless people to follow in their footsteps. These faithful pioneers in our past have many lessons for us to learn. Recounting some of their stories and sharing their quotes are a great way to cast vision. Some of our favorites:

• Jim Elliot – “Canst thou bear this, my soul – short life? In me there dwells the Spirit of the Great Short-Lived, whose zeal for God’s house consumed Him. ‘Make me Thy Fuel, Flame of God.’”
• Hudson Taylor – “If I had a thousand lives, China should have them. No! Not China, but Christ. Can we do too much for Him? Can we do enough for such a precious Saviour?”
• Amy Carmichael – “We will have all eternity to celebrate our victories, but only a few short hours to win them.”

Through Needs and Opportunities

A vision, a future reality, isn’t needed if everything is perfect in your current reality. Your vision is trying to meet a need or answer an opportunity that exists in the world today. Illustrating that need or opportunity and how you want to respond to it can be a compelling way to draw people towards your vision.

Stories About the Need: During our first trip to Thailand, we were struck by the lack of access to the gospel across the country coupled with the spiritual darkness in Buddhism and Animism. Jenn and I met a shop owner who had never even heard the name of Jesus before. We heard testimonies of Thai believers who were miraculously delivered from demonic oppression. These stirred our hearts to want to make a difference, to proclaim Christ where there was no foundation. We relayed these stories to others to see if God would also stir their hearts to join us!

Unique Current Opportunities: As we said earlier, people want to join with what God is doing. Sharing about current opportunities can convey a sense of urgency that is compelling. During our early years in Thailand, a Thai pastor told us , “Thailand is based on 3 pillars – Religion, Country, and Monarchy. Right now all three are shaky and Thai people don’t know where to place their hope. There is a great opportunity for the gospel!”

Statistics and Maps: Sometimes, illustrating the vision through statistics or maps can be powerful forms of vision casting. I’ll always remember at Perspectives when one speaker told us that Americans spend more money on costumes for pets at Halloween than on bringing the gospel to the unreached. Juxtaposing such a trivial category against the core of the Great Commission was a sobering challenge to give sacrificially and in a focused way towards the unreached. Using maps can also be a memorable way to cast vision. The 10/40 Window is a striking combination of a map with a statistic: over 95% of the world’s unreached population lives within the 10/40 window. Simply by drawing a rectangle around that area, we can be reminded and convicted of the great need among the unreached.

Tips for Vision Casting

Directed Towards Your Audience: Always consider your audience when you’re vision casting, especially at that moment in time. Sometimes your best vision casting vignettes will fall flat if it’s not what your audience needs to hear. One illustration is to be a sniper, not a shotgun; you want to cast vision with your target audience in mind, not just throw out whatever cool stories you have. After you share, it’s good to take note of what worked and what didn’t.

Share Out of Your Passion: Good vision casting will affect and pull at your emotions. It may bring you to tears, invoke anger at injustice, feel inspired to do something. You’ve been affected by vision before, and when you cast vision, allow that passion and emotion to come out! Speak with conviction, with anger, with excitement, with joy! Jenn cries often and just says, “Don’t be afraid – I’m a crier.” But those tears highlight the significance of what she’s saying and display the passion she carries.

Cast Vision Often: Take every opportunity to cast vision! Like we said earlier, the vision bucket needs to constantly be refilled. We might take opportunities to cast vision during team meetings, 1-on-1 meetings, ministry trainings, in front of large groups, with supporters, or in recruiting conversations. 

Short and Simple: Vision casts don’t have to be and probably shouldn’t be very long. You aren’t trying to do complicated problem-solving that uses a lot of mind-power, but instead wake up the heart to be motivated to push forward. Sometimes vision casts might be the length of a seminar or longer talk, but most times 5-10 minutes will be plenty!

Practice and Get Feedback: If you’re not a natural communicator, that’s OK! Listen to the Holy Spirit, prepare what you want to say, and practice! Even the best vision casters practice! Try out your vision casts in front of a friend and get feedback.

Make It Your Own: Even if you are “stealing” a vision cast from someone else, don’t feel like you need to copy their style. Again, you don’t have to be a “charismatic” speaker in order to vision cast. Do it your way! If you’ve been impacted by vision, let that conviction and passion come out in a way that feels comfortable to you.

Listen to the Holy Spirit!: We mentioned this above, but it cannot be overstated that listening to the Spirit is the best way to make sure your vision cast impacts those that you are communicating to. He knows what your team needs!

It can feel intimidating to put yourself out there and try to inspire, influence, and encourage others towards great and challenging things the Lord has called you towards. But if He has given us this vision to communicate, we can be confident that He will be the one to give us words and to change the hearts of those we lead. This frees you to boldly cast vision, trusting the Holy Spirit to be the one who convicts hearts through your words.

There are so many transitions, unknowns, and moving parts when new teams launch to the field. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is a document that most missions teams have to provide clarity in the midst of those unknowns. We would define an MOU as a non-binding agreement created between two or more parties explaining how they will work together and interact with each other.

As common as MOUs are on missions teams, there’s surprisingly few examples or short articles out there to help with how to write one. But, “can you help me with how to write our team MOU?” is one of the most common questions we get from team leaders. Vision of the Possible by Daniel Sinclair is a really good book about missions teams in pioneer church planting, and has a short appendix on MOUs/VSPs that we’d recommend.

One of the agreements in our MOU was no dating in the first year. The two single guys on our initial team took that to heart… and both asked out another teammate on a date at 1 year plus 1 day. I guess they technically followed the agreement. I’m happy to report they both ended up marrying those teammates.

Why are MOUs important?

I quickly wanted to address why this document even matters and why it’s worth the time for team leaders to work through this.

1. Clear Expectations. As I mentioned above, clarity is kindness. New teammates especially are being introduced to a new country, culture, community, career all at the same time. What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to interact? What is success every day? These are questions that every new goer faces in their early season on the field. As much as is possible, an MOU can lay down some basic foundations of clarity and expectations for your team. 
   
   For a new TL, it can feel overwhelming and difficult to write down all of these expectations. Write down what you know, and put down a ‘TBD’ in the categories that you’re not sure about yet! But provide as much clarity as you can in this document for your teammates, and then you won’t have to answer it in person that many more times.
   
2. Sets Team Culture and Values. An MOU is also one way you can write down and reinforce your team culture and values. What you talk about and what you do on your team will influence your team culture and values more than a document, but it still acts as a cornerstone for your team.
   
   How often will your team interact? What values do you want to have as a team? What’s your expectation on learning language? Many of these things can be expressed in an MOU.
   
3. Guidelines for Challenging Situations. Team conflict is a guarantee on missions teams, and some of it will certainly come out in the early season of a team forming. A team MOU is a good tool for outlining solutions to potentially challenging situations.
   
   In our experience, topics that result in conflict tend to be things in the ‘personal’ realm – vacations, parenting, travel, money, decision-making that infringes on what people think to be their own personal boundaries, etc. Teammates will mostly be willing to discuss things like team rhythms and ministry approaches with openness, but those ‘personal’ topics will get teams and team leaders in hot water. It’s important to write down some basic expectations and guidelines for how those things will be approached before you get into conflict.
   
4. Brief Summary for Outsiders. An MOU can be a good document to share with people in your team’s ecosystem that aren’t teammates. Church support teams, sending agencies, potential new recruits, etc. It will give them an idea of who you are, what you’re there to do, and how you want to interact.

How to Write an MOU

Some tips: don’t worry about perfecting the language. It’s not a legal document. This was a huge roadblock for me in trying to ‘wordsmith’ the MOU into being really professional or airtight. That’s not the purpose – write in common language that your team can understand easily and discuss.

Think of your first draft as just that – a draft. It’s not something the TL writes and then the team just agrees and signs. You want the first draft to be something your team can discuss and then incorporate their feedback into the MOU. It’s an agreement you enter into with each other, not a contract between you and your team members.

Here’s our step-by-step guide for how to write an MOU for your team.

1. Consider the requirements from your sending agency or church. If they already have staff handbooks, you don’t (and shouldn’t) need to rewrite everything that is already in there as all your staff have to adhere to that handbook anyway. If there’s additional aspects that aren’t outlined in the staff handbook, then go ahead and include that in your team MOU.

2. Consider what categories you want included in your MOU. This isn’t exhaustive, but below we’ve outlined some potential MOU categories into “core” which we’d recommend most MOUs have, and “optional” which could be added on a team-by-team basis.

Core Categories

• Purpose of this Document
• Vision and Mission Statements
• Strategy Summary / Ministry Distinctives – short summary that should refer to a Vision and Strategy Paper (VSP) or Strategy Plan
• Team and Leadership Structure – potentially including decisions that the leader reserves the right to have the final say
• Process and Requirements to Join the Team – if your staff handbook already has this, only add the parts that are unique to your team
• Preparation and Language Learning – pre-field requirements, commitment to language learning, hours and timeframe, approach
• Decision Making Process – general description of how decisions are made, potentially can cover decisions that will be by vote, consensus, consultation, and command
• Conflict Resolution
• Vacations, Home Assignments (HMA), and Travel
• Communication and Reporting
• Crises and Emergencies – basic overview that should refer to a Crisis and Contingency Plan document
• Restrictions and Recommendations – including security considerations
• How Future Changes to this MOU Can Be Made

Optional Categories

• Core Team Values
• Philosophy of Ministry
• Accountability Groups
• Expectations of the First 2 Years
• Job Descriptions and Team Roles
• Partnerships with Local Churches and Believers
• Contextualization
• Statement of Faith / Theological Distinctives
• Family / Children / Parenting – becomes very important if there are children on the team, but not necessarily beforehand
• Team Life and Lifestyle – general guidelines about team life and lifestyle
• Dating and Relationships
• Team Funds – running a team will include expenses; it’s easier to pull a regular amount from each unit and be support raised before launching to the field than to figure out finances for every gathering
• Visas / Identity

3. Read other example MOUs. Contact the other TLs that you know, or ask your sending agency for examples if they can provide them. Add categories that you might be missing.

4. Write down quick points of what you know in each category. Feel free to just copy and paste whole sections from other MOUs if it says what you want. If you’re not sure, write down ‘TBD’ or the questions you need answered in that section.

5. Let your draft sit for a while and have some informal conversations with your team or other advisors on the topics you have not yet filled in or need questions answered.

6. Take your last pass through filling out the MOU with coherent language and incorporating the feedback you’ve heard.

7. Bring your MOU draft to your teammates during a team meeting and read through it, asking for their feedback. Again it may be good to explain the purpose of the MOU is for mutual agreement, not to be ironclad against all situations or to be wielded against one another as a ‘gotcha.’

8. Incorporate your teammates’ feedback as best you can. Bring it back to them for final review. Have everyone sign and date their agreement with the MOU. Our recommendation is for new teams to set a 1-year evaluation period for the MOU because there are so many things you don’t know yet and may need to change. You could possibly edit the MOU earlier than that if needed. With future teammates, it will most likely be that they are joining an established team and simply need to read it, ask any clarifying questions, and sign it. But with your initial team (if you have one), it’s good to solicit feedback in the MOU’s creation.

9. Update the MOU as needed. Our recommendation is when there are significant team transitions – from language to ministry season, when teammates start having children, moving cities, changing platforms, changing ministry approaches – it’s a good idea to take a brief look at the MOU and see if everything still aligns or if anything needs to be added. 

Attached is an example of our original team’s MOU with some of the specifics removed, just so you can have a place to start. We have other team MOU’s that we can share as well. If you want some other example MOUs, want some guidance on how to write your MOU, or just someone to review your current MOU, please reach out at contact@missionsleaders.com. We’d be happy to help you!

Remember, as a team leader, your role is to serve your team members and help them to thrive and stay on task. Bringing clarity to some major categories through an MOU is one way you can serve them. The goal isn’t to be directive or controlling – a pushback you may receive – but to provide guardrails for your team members so they can move forward through all the unknowns.

Most-Read Posts in 2025

1. Be Barnabas – What is a NAV?
   • See other posts from the Be Barnabas series
2. What is the “Apostolic” and Why is it Important?
   • See other posts from the Apostolic series
3. Spiritual Warfare
4. Two Types of Kingdom Fruitfulness
5. Team Conflict

Being Barnabas – the role of an outsider in partnering with cultural insiders towards movement continues to be a key missions principle that we believe can unlock many missionaries’ most effective role in the Great Commission. In particular, finding a National Apostolic Visionary (NAV) to partner with can result in exponential multiplication among the unreached.

In order to find these NAVs, we focused on better understanding around the Apostolic gift, the Five-Fold gifts from Ephesians 4:11, and how to practically discern, partner with, and equip these apostolic leaders.

Understanding the Two Types of Kingdom Fruitfulness – the fruit of the Spirit and the fruit of multiplication can help us pursue the good works God has prepared for us with healthy balance. Of course, we want to see multitudes of people worship Jesus among the unreached. And, we want to see their lives and our own lives changed to look more like Jesus every day. Both are necessary!

Team Conflict and Spiritual Warfare remain as two critical topics that most missionaries face on the field and need equipping around. Without healthy conflict resolution and team interaction, it can be really difficult to concentrate on the ministry God has called you to do. Similarly, when we’re feeling discouraged and overwhelmed by spiritual attack, that can take over from everything else. Coincidentally, spiritual warfare can many times take the form of team conflict. Clearing both of these issues through community and reliance on Jesus can help you and your team focus on what you and your team are there to do!

Our Favorite 2025 Posts

1. Listening Prayer Part 1 and Part 2
2. Men and Women Leading Together
3. The Five Essential Elements of an Apostolic Leader
4. Bonus: The Dare to Multiply Podcast
   • See all the Dare to Multiply Podcast episodes

Listening Prayer is an aspect of interacting with God that permeates our everyday lives. It is a critical component of not only effective ministry, but daily obedience. Our movement coaches helped start the Listening Prayer Movement, where their primary tool when faced with any obstacle or opportunity is to ask God what He wants for them. It has grown into one of the biggest movements in the world off of that one question.

Men and Women Leading Together is something near and dear to our hearts as it’s how we operate in ministry and life. We think that learning how men and women work and lead together can lead to healthier and more impactful leaders, units, and teams. We’re excited to have some future posts around this topic in 2026!

Obviously in finding a NAV, it’s important to understand what the Apostolic gift is first. But the Five Essential Elements of an Apostolic Leader isn’t just another ministry tool or framework to find leaders. These elements are actually a result of a life surrendered to God, set apart for great works that will impact the unreached for eternity! Perhaps other than the Be Barnabas approach itself, these essential elements might be the ‘secret sauce’ in actually seeing movements catalyzed.

Lastly, the Dare to Multiply Podcast has been an exciting and stretching endeavor for Jenn as she both shares and learns from other missions leaders and movement practitioners. We hope this resource will be a blessing to many multipliers!

On to 2026!

In early 2026, we’ll publicly launch the coaching ministry that we’ve been working on for the past couple of years. We’re excited to provide opportunities for missions leaders to not only learn from our blog but to get hands on coaching and cohort-based training on topics around partnering with national believers, forming and developing teams, deepening your abiding, and other topics essential for leaders.

Our prayer for ourselves and for all of you is that 2026 would be marked by a deeper abiding and a richer fruitfulness than we’ve ever experienced before, resulting in worshippers from every tribe, tongue, and nations to the glory of God.

Happy New Year! Lastly, a poem that encouraged us this year that we hope will bless you.

Furnace by Gerard Kelly

May God in whose furnace faith is forged
In whose being beauty breathes
From whose dawning darkness flees
Shine on you

May the Father whose love for you
Beats with a rhythm time itself can’t stop
Whose presence in your exile
Is the promise of home
Whose certainties are deeper
Than the cellars of your city
Whose breath is life
Breathe on you

May the son whose story
Is a mirror of your own
Who has journeyed into darkness
To find a key to your prison
Who has dived the deepest oceans
To find pearls for your wisdom
Who has looked into your heart
And found a beauty worth the battle
Who has written your name
On a white stone carved in secret
Hold you

May the Spirit
Who has waited millennia to fill you
Who shaped the word that moved the wind
Of the morning that conceived you
Who holds the earth on which you stand
As a midwife holds a newborn
Who fully knows you
Wholly own you

So may God
The faithful Father
God the scarred Son
God the sculpting Spirit
Journey with you

‘Be Barnabas’ is what we call the role of the outsider in finding, equipping, and empowering a national apostolic visionary who is a cultural insider to catalyze movements.

We’ve written a number of posts about this Be Barnabas concept to help people understand the biblical background, learn how to get started, and some posts that go into further depth about finding apostolic partners.

Vision + Biblical Background
I. Intro + Mint’s Story
II. Why Be Barnabas?
III. Who was Barnabas from the Bible?
IV. What is a NAV?

How to Get Started
V. How to Find a NAV
VI. How to Partner with a NAV
VII. Life Together

Spiritual Gifts + Missions
VIII. Spiritual Gifts and Missions
IX. Spiritual Gifts and the Missions Field
X. Spiritual Gifts and Missions Teams

Partnering with Apostolic Leaders
XI. What is the “Apostolic” and Why is it Important?
XII. The 5 Essential Elements of an Apostolic Leaders
XIII. Indicators of an Emerging Apostolic Leader
XIV. Partnering with and Developing an Apostolic Leader

If Being Barnabas to find a national partner to pursue movements with is something you desire to do, we facilitate ‘Be Barnabas’ cohorts for people to learn and collaborate with other practitioners from similar contexts and stages of ministry. Learn more and contact us at yieldleadership.org.

1. Spiritual Gifts and Missions
2. Spiritual Gifts and the Missions Field
3. Spiritual Gifts and Missions Teams
4. What is the ‘Apostolic’ and Why Is It Important?
5. The 5 Essential Elements of an Apostolic Leader
6. Indicators of an Emerging Apostolic Leader

In this series, we’ve discovered what the word “apostolic” means, given the 5 essential elements of an apostolic leader, and discussed potential indicators of an emerging apostolic leader.

In this final post, we’ll talk about how to partner with and develop these proven or emerging apostolic leaders.

We’ve previously given some very practical steps for how to network with believers, build relational trust, and filter for a potential NAV through a “NAV Process.” This includes introductory meetings, discerning if they fit the NAV profile, vision casting, participating in ministry together, and finally piloting a training with them and their group.

Hopefully by the end of this process, you have 1-3 good candidates to partner with. As you partner together, keep the 5 essential elements and the indicators in mind to help you discern if they’re truly apostolically gifted.

But what happens if it turns out that they aren’t apostolic? What then?

Then you’ve spent time either learning about what you’re really looking for and / or you’ve found a local partner who has the vision to pioneer and multiply but may need some help in certain areas to see breakthrough. Either way, it’s time well spent. We’d encourage you to shoot for an apostolic leader because it’s a gifting that God clearly uses to pioneer. If He grants it, great. But any and all gifts can be used for the Kingdom. Any believer can be given a vision for multiplication and may have a crucial role in it. 

You’ll still likely find other faithful, vision-driven local believers that want to pursue multiplication – you should absolutely work with them! It could be that one of them has latent apostolic giftings and needs more time for those things to emerge. And no matter what, these local believers will have much greater effectiveness as cultural insiders in making disciples than we will. They may eventually help you find an apostolic leader that leads to breakthrough by training other believers or through the harvest, like how Paul raised up Priscilla and Aquila as leaders in Corinth who eventually found and developed Apollos. We believe that it’s best if the apostolic gift is involved somewhere in the movement work – through the insider believer, the outsider partner, a movement coach, or through the harvest. He will lead you to these types of people in His timing! Until He does, keep praying, looking, and partnering with faithful disciple makers towards multiplication.

Partnering With an Apostolic Leader

Here are some things we would encourage you to do with an emerging or established apostolic leader that you want to partner with. Some may happen earlier or later in the process of ministry, but all are beneficial in pursuing multiplication, identifying emerging leaders, and developing and using the apostolic gift!

Pioneer Together. As apostolic leaders are called to pioneer among new peoples and places, the first step is to do pioneering work together! Whether entering and preparing new areas through prayer walking, sharing with the lost, or catalyzing others through training, apostolic leaders will thrive in a pioneering environment. You can follow a MAWL (Model-Assist-Watch-Launch) process if you’re working with a potential apostolic leader who has never engaged in pioneering before. You’ll quickly be able to gauge their faithfulness, capacity, and gifting in harvest and catalyzing activities like seeing a fish in water! During the early stages with an emerging leader, you may need to set the parameters and guide a little bit more, but the apostolic leader will intuitively and earnestly start to generate more of the initiation of pioneering activities. Encourage them to pick the target people or places to start harvesting, the groups to train, the tools to use, and help them to gradually refine the vision that the Lord has given them. The goal is to empower them to grow into their gifting, not for them to become cogs in our ministry machine – so empower them by letting them take the lead and make decisions!

Train in Multiplication Principles and Practices. Being in the pioneering environment will feel natural and exciting for the apostolic leader, but pioneering activity does not necessarily equate to multiplication activity. Train and coach the apostolic leader in multiplication principles and practices. It doesn’t need to be a formal classroom setting to train; simply sitting together in a tea or coffee shop and talking through these things with a potential apostolic leader is great! Walking through the apostle Paul’s journeys is probably the best tool in showing a combination of principle and practice. Telling stories of movement, reading case studies, and introducing apostolic leaders to movement sources can help broaden their vision from simply expanding the Kingdom to catalyzing a multiplication movement. It can also be really helpful to show a process of how multiplication can happen, whether the 4 Fields or T4T or DMM processes. We use this Multiplication Cycle that combines elements from different streams of movement to help our partners understand how to pursue multiplication. For the sake of simplicity, we generally lean towards biblical training and tools over movement-jargon types of curriculum, though both are needed and helpful.

The apostolic leader will differ from other types of leaders when engaging in a vision for multiplication – they’ll believe it can be done. It’s the faith gifted to an apostolic leader to believe that God can and will do this miraculous work in their field, where many others may feel resistance or hesitance that it can happen. As with the first point – try to empower the local leader to make decisions about what ways are best to apply these multiplication principles in their context. As the cultural insider who is a foundation and DNA setter, they will likely be far more effective in choosing multiplication practices for their context after some initial guidance.

Focus on Apostolic Functions. Clinton’s Leadership Commentary on 1st and 2 Timothy has a number of very helpful articles around the Apostolic Function and Gift. He highlights 7 functions in particular:

1. Start New Ministries
2. Appoint Leaders
3. Establish Works (help newly started works to develop and grow)
4. Intercede for Works, both new and old
5. Combat Heresy
6. Resource New and Old Ministries
7. Test New Ministries for Validity

The last 3 functions – combat heresy, resource ministries, test validity – are probably later stage functions as opposed to the first 4 focused on starting new ministries, appointing leaders, and doing the work of intercession.

As we said in the post about indicators, an apostolic leader is likely to be a jack of all trades, multi-gifted in order to help the new ministry or work get off the ground. In a given week they might end up training, evangelizing, interceding, teaching, preaching, healing, shepherding, administrating ministry, leading worship, cooking food for the group, taking care of a believer’s kid, driving between multiple locations, answering the phone, helping a business, problem solving a strategic problem, encouraging a hurting believer, and 100 other things. As a leader of an emerging or multiplying work, they’ll have full plates! Your job as a Barnabas is to help them to focus. Spinning too many plates is one of the big pitfalls we see for apostolics, as their competency and the breadth of their vision drive them to end up doing everything.

As with any believer with a spiritual gift, they’ll be most effective when they can spend the majority of their time serving out of their gift instead of other things. Of course there’s some percentage of our time where we have to do things that we’re not gifted at – but honoring the Lord by releasing responsibility to other leaders is the role of an apostolic leader. Help them focus on starting new things, clarifying vision, investing in leaders, and interceding for the works! That leads us to…

Collaborate with and Release Authority to PESTs and Other Gifts. Again, one of the main pitfalls for an apostolic leader is to get caught up with all the needs of a new work and try to overcontrol everything by doing everything themselves. A critical component of an apostolic leader is to identify, appoint/recruit, develop, and release new leaders! Not just other apostolic leaders, but other Prophets, Evangelists, Shepherds, Teachers especially. These other gifts are greatly needed to establish and deepen the new works that the apostolic leader has started. Our post on the “Apostolic” covers some of the different functions of APEST leaders in a movement.

Many times a headstrong apostolic leader can butt heads with other types of leaders, especially shepherd/teachers who are particularly drawn to shepherd needs and grow maturity through teaching, which can feel slow to an apostolic leader. But a mature apostolic will be able to see their own limitations and know that Scripture teaches that we are all one body in need of each other (1 Corinthians 12). The apostolic really, really, really needs the other members of the body. A good way to see a ministry start quickly and burn out just as quickly is to leave it under the control of a fast-moving apostolic that never appoints other types of leaders to focus on health and depth.

Withdraw, Reflect, Listen, and Plan. With the apostolic leaders’ high proficiency, numerous responsibilities, and big vision, it’s likely that they will work themselves to the bone and straight to burnout. You as the Barnabas can play an intensely important role simply by reminding them and creating opportunities for them to do as Jesus did – withdraw to be with God (Luke 5:16). Many times, we’ll ask our partners to come meet us somewhere away from their place of ministry so that no one can knock the door down looking for them. We tell them to shut off their phone, and give them the first half of our time simply to rest and pray and spend time with God alone. We might spend the second half debriefing, hearing reports, training, and planning for future ministry, but our role is primarily to make space for them to rest in the Lord. In the whirlwind of busy ministry, the apostolic leader desperately needs to find the quiet space to reflect, listen to the voice of God, and plan and prioritize where they need to invest their limited time. These times are critical for them to evaluate and refine the vision they’ve received from God. When we cease to do this, we are doing ministry out of man’s power instead of God’s – and we’re guaranteed to fail one way or another.

Pulling our apostolic partners out of their ministry schedule for just a couple days of quiet, rest, and listening can make all the difference in seeing breakthrough in multiplication. But more than the strategic and ministry pieces, the apostolic leader desperately needs to focus on their intimacy and relationship and abiding with God. He cares so much more about our being than our doing. Allow them time and encourage them to hear from God for themselves and what He wants for them, not just the ministry.

Be a Friend and Encourager. Lastly, as the apostolic leader jumps into an emerging and thriving ministry, the list of problems, crises, needs, difficult people, conflicts, and burdens increases exponentially. Any ministry, and certainly pioneering ministry, can be extremely isolating and lonely for leaders. Not many will understand what they’re going through.

They need to first and foremost surrender those things to the Lord and find their motivation and peace in him. And they need a friend. Someone to listen to their frustrations, to be thoughtful in loving them, to point them to Jesus, to encourage them to persevere.

There’s a reason why Barnabas was called the Encourager. What a role he had in encouraging, supporting, empowering Paul. Without Barnabas, we don’t get the book of Acts.

I think Paul could call Barnabas a lot of things – mentor, advocate, co-laborer. My guess is when I get to ask him, he’ll first call Barnabas his friend.

How to Develop an Apostolic Leader

All of the above things will be great for an apostolic leader’s development in learning through doing. But there’s other ways to help them understand more about the apostolic gift that God has given them and use it effectively.

Study the apostolic. There’s plenty to study in the New Testament about the apostolic gifting, function, and ministry – basically anything about who Paul is or what he does will be informative. The book of Acts reveals much about the pioneering aspect and his letters give more insight into his own development, perseverance, and heart in being an apostolic leader. If you’re able, we’d recommend diving into some of the resources we listed in the 5 essential elements post. The more you can understand what the original model of the apostolic gift looks like, the better we can imitate it. It can also be helpful to read books and biographies about other pioneering leaders.

Interact with other apostolic leaders. If you’re able to, interact with other apostolic leaders. It’s hard to describe this but an apostolic leader is probably more used to resistance, hesitance, rejection from others around them when they begin talking about big vision and multiplication. Others can feel intimidated by their intensity or just the scope of their work. But when they’re in a room with other apostolic leaders that they trust, there’s a freedom and an excitement in getting to talk to others who get you. Others who won’t frown at their big ideas but encourage them and share their own experiences and ideas. It can make them feel like they’re not crazy – at least when they’re in a room of people as crazy as they are!

A couple of disclaimers in this – just because someone is an apostolic leader doesn’t mean they don’t feel insecurity or deal with comparison. Naturally when apostolic leaders gather the focus will be on ministry. But it’s a smart idea to bring the focus on God. Highlighting shared experiences and sufferings will draw out vulnerability and increase trust before you start trucking ahead on ministry topics. Creating safety in the room before jumping in to discussing ministry can help the interaction. Secondly, although we’d encourage apostolics to interact with other apostolics, there can be some intense friction in working together. We’ve had mentors advise us that apostolic leaders can probably agree or work together at a high, 30,000 foot perspective (let’s generally share tools, or have a semi-frequent coaching meeting together, or strategically parse out people and places to focus), but can step on each others’ toes when working closely together. The apostolic leader probably wants some freedom to pursue their own ideas, and working with another highly opinionated, highly confident leader might cause some problems. This isn’t always the case but just something to be aware of.

Find apostolic mentors. This is similar to the previous point, but finding an older, more experienced apostolic leader to mentor you, especially in personal development, can be a gold mine. Hopefully this mentor has experienced and gone through many of the pitfalls and problems that an apostolic leader faces and you can learn from their wisdom. Again, the apostolic leader will want freedom to try new things on their own, but they also will value a mentor’s wisdom and shared understanding of their experiences.

Develop other leadership skills. Since the apostolic leader has so many functions in establishing a new work, it can be helpful for them to also develop leadership skills that will support their gifting. Clinton lists out several including strategy, planning, change agent, leadership styles, motivating, inspiring, mentoring, organizational skills, team building, identifying and developing leaders, and communication skills. Even though an apostolic leader may do these things intuitively, equipping them with skills and frameworks to boost their efficiency is a good idea. Or focusing on shoring up weaknesses that they may have like shepherding skills can be beneficial.

Develop intimacy with God. Whether as an apostolic yourself or in helping your apostolic partner – focus on developing intimacy with God. Learn to hear the voice of God for everyday direction and decision. Being surrendered to God is an essential element for an apostolic leader, so practice the process of surrendering and receiving from God. The pioneering ministry has an avalanche of challenges and trials that we’ve noted repeatedly. At times, Paul mentions feeling “so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself” (2 Cor. 1:8). If God grants fruitful multiplying ministry, the challenges will also multiply accordingly.

Without this critical foundation of intimacy with Christ, the apostolic leader is guaranteed to fail. The Enemy is prowling to take out those that will greatly expand the Kingdom through isolation, sin, discouragement, and spiritual warfare of many kinds. Guard yourselves in His armor and through intimacy with Him. Fight to not allow ministry to become your idol. Fight to have Philippians 2 humility in the midst of ministry fruit.

It’s an example for all believers but especially the apostolic leader that we see Paul’s own dependence on the Lord grow over the years of his ministry, from being the least of the apostles (1 Cor. 15:9), to the least of the saints (Eph. 3:8), to the foremost of all sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). He constantly prioritized his intimacy with God, withdrawing to be with God as we see our Savior did.

If God’s pattern throughout Scripture and history is to raise up apostolic leaders to pioneer the least reached people and places for His glory, then there are people He has prepared in your field.

I firmly believe there are in- or near-culture believers that He intends to use to finish the Great Commission. If you’re reading this, and you have the heart to find these modern-day “Pauls,”’ then I believe you can be a Barnabas to them. Ask the Holy Spirit, have a heart to serve, have eyes to see these people, and He will lead you to them. Remember, it only takes one.

I’ll finish this series with an exhortation to the apostolic leader reading this or the Barnabas who will empower a national apostolic leader. Sometimes we feel the temptation to cut corners or skip over inconvenient things or treat people unlovingly in pursuit of the big vision. And we use the defense – “those people don’t understand us” or “it’s worth it to see more multiplication” or something of the sort.

Apostolic gifting without apostolic character produces apostolic malfunction.

Steve U.

What’s really happening is that ministry success and numbers and fruit have become our idol. Being overly busy is a badge of pride instead of a warning indicator that we are allowing our doing to overcome our being with Jesus. Increased isolation or surrounding ourselves with only others who enable us is explained off as being a contrarian, a pioneer, a barrier breaker instead of the truth that we’re not willing to humble ourselves and submit to a group of brothers and sisters in Christ.

Scripture is abundantly clear – the ends of ministry don’t justify the means. Being an apostolic leader doesn’t give us license to trample people, to steal and extract sheep, to be disingenuous about ministry numbers, to ignore clear discipleship and maturity problems in pursuit of the more and the faster. Unfortunately, we’ve seen apostolic leaders pursuing movement do these types of things repeatedly. I won’t attempt to judge their hearts, but there often is not a humility to even admit to these things or correct them. The very thing we claim to be effective at in catalyzing movements, the apostolic gift, becomes a testimony against the ministry we are doing and against ourselves.

Matthew 7 has a haunting statement from Jesus, that “on that day, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not do… many mighty works in your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

My prayer for myself and to others reading this – 

May we keep our hearts tender before the Lord. 
May we always mirror the character and heart of Jesus to others in pursuing big vision for him. 
May we not twist the gift He has given to us for our own personal and selfish gain. 
May we not allow ministry to become an idol that keeps us from worshipping Jesus.

I’d recommend Andrew Murray’s books Humility and Absolute Surrender as regular reads to help us check our hearts. And about this specific topic of losing our way in pursuing movement, I highly recommend my friend David’s book, How to Pursue Great Works without Losing Your Soul.

Every believer, every gift can be used towards completing the Great Commission, but I believe that He means to use those with the apostolic gift as first in sequence to pioneer. My hope is that these few at the tip of the spear could be surrendered to Jesus and become who God has called them to be, leading to multiplying movements among the remaining unreached peoples and places of the world.

The world has yet to see what God can do through a man [or woman] who is totally yielded to Him.

Henry Varley

In our last two posts, we’ve defined what the “apostolic” is, and 5 essential elements of an apostolic leader. An apostolic leader needs to have all 5 elements of big vision, risking faith, foundation setting, leader developer, and surrender to God.

If you can find a clearly apostolically gifted, mature, national believer to partner with, that’s awesome! But, someone that gifted and experienced will likely already have many ministry responsibilities and it may take time to build trust with that leader in order to partner.

However, we are often looking for leaders with latent apostolic giftings that have not yet fully emerged. For one, I think apostolic leaders are relatively rare – there’s no research around this but talking to other CPM practitioners, generally the number is <10% of believers, if not <5%. Secondly, a fully mature apostolic leader is rarely available.

It may feel like trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack. But our encouragement is this: It only takes one.

All it takes is one national ‘Paul,’ with the vision, faith, giftings, and surrender to catalyze a movement that will change the trajectory of a nation.

In the early 2000s, the president of Campus Crusade in Thailand, Pastor Nok, used his significant influence to gather 80% of the pastors in Thailand in a Congress to ask the question, “What will it take to complete the Great Commission in Thailand?” From that, they formed the National Plan to see the gospel go to every district and village in Thailand. The churches that our team currently work with came through introductions from leaders within the National Plan.

I asked one ex-pat worker who knew Pastor Nok well, “What is his story? How did he come to faith?” He told me that Pastor Nok was the first Thai Cru staff ever, and that he was led to faith by one American Cru staff member named Chip, who only managed to win and disciple one Thai person to faith in 10 years in Thailand. That was Pastor Nok.

It only takes one.

But how do you find that one? How do you discern if they have the elements to be an apostolic, multiplying leader? What do you do with them to develop them and help their gifting and vision emerge?

Barnabas: Recognizing Hidden Apostolic Potential

Out of anyone in Scripture, Paul was perhaps the most unlikely candidate to be transformed and used by Jesus for his purposes. Often the apostolic leader may emerge from the most unexpected of places. Barnabas saw the latent giftings in Paul – that he had a miraculous transformation from a persecutor of Christians to a chosen instrument to bring the gospel to the Gentiles (Acts 9:15), that he immediately and boldly shared the gospel with the Jews in the synagogue (Acts 9:20), and that he needed an advocate before the disciples in Jerusalem that didn’t trust him (Acts 9:27). Eventually, Barnabas spends a year with Paul in Antioch discipling others (Acts 11:26), likely identifying and developing Paul’s strengths, before the Holy Spirit sets them aside for the first journey in Acts 13.

When everyone else saw Paul’s evil background, Barnabas saw his new transformation and calling.

When everyone else didn’t trust who Paul said he was, Barnabas advocated for his faithfulness.

When opportunities arose for new ministry, Barnabas went to recruit Paul, developing his giftings and maturity.

And when the Holy Spirit called them to be set apart to start a new work in new places, Barnabas was beside Paul as he stepped fully into his giftings as an apostle.

We need to be like Barnabas, to have the eyes to see the potential in latent apostolic leaders, and the ears to hear from the Holy Spirit how to help them fulfill their calling.

Indicators of an Emerging Apostolic Leader

When we are looking for these apostolic leaders, we are certainly checking for the 5 essential elements. We’ll ask them questions like, what is your vision? How did you come to faith? What does your ministry look like? What obstacles are you running into? And we’re listening for big vision, willingness to risk, methods that look like multiplication or at least are different from the norm, leaders that they’ve developed, and signs of surrender. But a latent apostolic leader may not have had the chance to step into pioneering ministry, and therefore may not yet exhibit some of these elements. Apart from directly evaluating these 5 elements, we’ve observed some other hints of someone having an underlying apostolic gifting.

They don’t need to have all of these indicators, and just having one doesn’t mean that they are certainly apostolic leaders. But if you see some of these, it may be worth building trust and listening to the Holy Spirit about helping these leaders emerge into their calling and gifting.

Black Sheep – Often, latent apostolic leaders can be seen as black sheep that don’t fit the mold of their church. Other words could be non-conformist, oddball, contrarian. They are still part of the flock, still a sheep, but different from the rest. Sometimes church leaders don’t know what to do with this person who rocks the boat and may have a lot of new ideas that others aren’t willing to do. Whenever someone in Thailand tells me that another believer is interesting / weird / eccentric / not like the others – my radar immediately pops up. The latent apostolic leader is dissatisfied with the status quo, and it can cause friction with people in the church because their drive and desire is to pioneer, though they may not have personally clarified that vision yet.

Failed Entrepreneurs / Not Afraid to Start Things / Flexible Methodology – “failed entrepreneurs” was often a phrase that we were coached to look for in identifying apostolic leaders. That desire to set foundations, without a clear vision of their calling, can result in starting a lot of new businesses, ministries, and start ups. This boldness and risk-taking demeanor could be indicators of an apostolic leader. When we meet new leaders, we also want to see if they’re willing to be flexible in their methods or if they’re strongly tied to some kind of program or curriculum. If they’re willing to try new things to pioneer, that’s a good sign. If they’re wanting to simply grow their own ministry flavor, we would probably move on.

Anointed / Fruitful – Even before Paul started on his missionary journeys, he was faithfully sharing and discipling in Damascus, Jerusalem, and Antioch. He boldly and powerfully proclaimed the gospel and made disciples. Many times, we can meet a person that is saying all the right things – that they’re excited about multiplication, that they have a vision to pioneer – but the fruit of their lives doesn’t reflect that at all. It could be that they’ve never been empowered or equipped, and then there is an opportunity to help them live out that vision. But often, there is a lot of exciting talk without the actual faithfulness and fruitfulness indicative of a leader that God desires to use. Given the choice between someone who says the right things versus someone who has the fruitfulness of disciples and a godly life, I am taking the latter every time.

Character Immaturities – I’d imagine Paul was pretty rough around the edges when he first came to faith. Although he was certainly humbled by his Damascus road experience, there was still much of his old life – the prideful, highly positioned, well-known persecutor of Christians – that needed to be transformed. Though some of the disciples in Acts 9 were afraid of Paul, Barnabas came and advocated for him, eventually recruiting him and developing him into the minister to the Gentiles that he was called to be.

Similarly, a developing apostolic leader probably has some character immaturities that might be signs of opportunity. Sinclair says “self confidence, overassertiveness, and independence” along with stubbornness and overcontrol could be some character issues that an immature apostolic might struggle with. Miley adds impatience and being overextended in their commitments. You can see in these developing leaders the innate vision, passion, and drive to accomplish great things for God, but without the humility, testedness, and surrender needed for them to succeed. 

An immature apostolic has probably had many people in their church exhort them in their impatience and roughness, probably almost condescendingly so – “you’re young so you don’t get how things work.” “It’s nice that you have big goals and new ideas but we have to be realistic.” Increasingly they can balk against authority because of their internal conviction and what the Spirit is stirring up. When someone validates the vision they’ve received as well as challenges them to grow in their leadership to meet that vision, we’ve seen apostolic leaders respond with eagerness. There is a great opportunity for a Barnabas-type leader to say, “I see the potential in you and love your vision. I’d love to walk alongside you to help you grow in your ministry and your walk with God to see those things happen.”

Jack of All Trades / Multi-Gifted – For a yet developing apostolic that has started some new ministry, you may see that they are at least competent, if not gifted, to do many different types of ministry – evangelism, leader development, teaching, shepherding, mercy, administration, etc. In the pioneering environment, it may be necessary for an apostolic leader to play a lot of roles to get things started and God empowers them to do so. But the opposite pitfall for a multi-gifted leader is to hold on to control because they are so competent at so many things. Which leads us to…

Releasing Authority – The apostolic leader is willing and quick to release authority. As new disciples grow in their maturity and gifts, the apostolic leader is quick to empower every disciple to step into their authority to make disciples and serve God. Over control by leaders is a major barrier to multiplication. Apostolic leaders understand that they will play an important role of spiritual parent to many leaders, but they are also active in helping disciples step out in faith to grow in their dependence on God. If a leader expresses too much hesitation in letting disciples take simple steps of obedience like sharing the gospel or leading a discovery Bible study without them, that could be a barrier.

In coaching movement practitioners, identifying a national partner with apostolic gifting is one of the most complex and difficult parts of the process and something we get the most questions about. How do I know if it’s worth investing in this person? Should I spend more time with person A or person B?

Going out to share the gospel takes boldness but it’s relatively simple and straightforward – people are interested to know more about Jesus or they aren’t. But getting to know believers, building relationship with them, navigating language and culture, discerning their words, their actions, their vision, and their character is an art, not a science. It takes a lot of prayer, getting to know people, trying new things, and failing forward repeatedly before you might find someone. Sometimes, we’ve partnered with people for 3, 4, 5 years before it becomes evident that they are missing an essential element of an apostolic leader. And that’s OK. We don’t think of that time as wasted, but as time invested in trying to find a pioneering leader and learning what that might look like in our culture and mistakes to avoid. It’s also never a waste of time investing in local believers to grow in their disciple-making.

Hopefully, knowing the 5 essential elements and some of the potential indicators of a latent apostolic leader will help you in the process. Some practitioners we know met their apostolic partner in their first ever training – hooray for them, really. We were relatively fortunate and found our partner after about 3 years of ministry, 5 years in country. Some people we know took 10 years and hundreds of trainings and relationships to find their partner. It’s up to the timing of the Lord.

But remember – it only takes one.

Reflection Questions

1. Do you have a personal bias toward or against any of these indicators? Why?
2. Consider the local believers that you know. Do any of them display these indicators or essential elements?
3. Do you know local believers that seem to “say the right things” but lack demonstrated faithfulness and fruitfulness? Why do you suppose that is? How should you continue to engage with this believer?
4. Where are some networks or communities that you could build relationships to get to know potential apostolic leaders?

In this post we will get more practical with the 5 essential elements of an apostolic leader and a compilation of potential characteristics and functions of apostolic leaders from 5 authors: Clinton, Hirsch, Miley, Cole, and Sinclair.

Previously, we gave a basic definition of an apostolically gifted leader as one who God has supernaturally gifted to pioneer new works in new areas. But what are those gifts? Why are apostolic leaders uniquely suited to pioneer? How do I know if the person I’m partnering with is an apostolic leader?

The 5 Essential Elements of an Apostolic Leader

In their books, these 5 authors provide various characteristics and functions of an apostolic leader that we’ve compiled at the bottom. From their writings and our personal experience, we believe there are 5 essential elements that every apostolic leader must have. (This is an expanded version of what we’ve outlined in our Be Barnabas post, What is a NAV? )

1. Big Vision – An apostolic leader has a God-given, God-sized vision that extends beyond their own church.

An apostolic leader has a God-given, God-sized vision that extends beyond their own church.

We gave a definition of a spiritual leader adapted from Clinton previously as one who receives vision from God to influence the people of God towards the purposes of God. So any spiritual leader needs to have God-given vision. 

But the apostolic leader is given vision that is big – big enough that to many, it will seem impossible. They are given a vision that is beyond their own church, called by God to start a new work in a new place. Many times it is for whole regions or people groups that are not yet reached with the gospel. The apostolic leader is driven by this vision, constantly thinking about what it will take to accomplish this vision in a future-focused, big-picture perspective.

It’s the demand of Caleb who was 85 when he said, “Give me this hill country of which the Lord promised me (Joshua 14:12),” the most difficult land with the strongest opposition.

It’s the ambition of Paul to “preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation (Romans 15:20)” after he had already sparked movements of the gospel from Jerusalem to Illyricum.

It’s the declaration of Hudson Taylor in pursuing the interior peoples of China when no one else would go, to say,

If I had a thousand lives, China should have them. No! Not China, but Christ. Can we do too much for Him? Can we do enough for such a precious Savior?

Hudson Taylor

It’s the passion of Samuel Zwemer, called the Apostle to Islam, who said,

The great Pioneer Missionaries all had ‘inverted homesickness’ – this passion to call that country their home which was most in need of the Gospel. In this passion all other passions died; before this vision all other visions faded; this call drowned all other voices. They were the pioneers of the Kingdom, the forelopers of God, eager to cross the border-marches and discover new lands or win new-empires.

Samuel Zwemer

2. Risking Faith – An apostolic leader has the faith to believe God can accomplish the vision, and the faith to take big risks for God.

This God-sized vision is accompanied by a God-given faith – faith to believe that God can accomplish the vision He has given, not just through the apostolic leader but beyond them. Clinton says that apostolic leaders generally have the gift of faith to go with their apostolic gift. This gift of faith doesn’t only believe God to accomplish the vision, but is a faith to risk doing big things for God in the most difficult circumstances. It would seem obvious that if a leader receives a big vision from God, that they would have the accompanying faith, but we have seen many situations where a leader has the big vision but lacks the faith. They are hesitant, cautious, afraid to take the steps necessary in pursuit of the vision that God has given. An apostolic leader must have this risk-taking faith in order to pursue a God-sized vision.

This faith allows apostolic leaders to fail forward, as the pioneering environment is a difficult and unknown situation and will require innovation, experimentation, creativity, and repeated failure. This faith strengthens apostolic leaders to be resilient against opposition and isolation. By trying big and new things for God, the apostolic leader will certainly face spiritual warfare and resistance to the gospel among the people they are trying to reach, but they should even expect opposition from believers and peers that don’t understand what they are doing. 

Many times the fruitfulness that comes from the risk and innovation of an apostolic leader can shine a light on other believers or ministry workers that can cause insecurity or comparison. Cole explains that “new approaches will always threaten the established and calcified systems left over from previous movements. It is quite common for apostles to be labeled as heretics by their peers and to be pushed out of the mainstream and into the margins.”

The apostolic leader has the faith to move forward in the face of opposition, whether from inside or outside. We have seen many apostolic leaders lose friendships, mentors, even family members who don’t understand what they are doing and why. Some of the authors mentioned an apostolic leader having thick skin, but I think that is an overly self-dependent description of their resilience in the face of opposition. It is the apostolic leader’s faith in God, to believe God for His promises, that gives them their safety against criticism, isolation, loneliness, and trial.

Unless there is the extreme element of risk in our exploits for God, there is no need for faith.

Hudson Taylor

Daily I expect to be murdered or betrayed or reduced to slavery if the occasion arises. Yet I fear nothing, because of the promises of heaven.

St. Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland

3. Set Foundations – An apostolic leader is able to set foundations through establishing the systems, structures, and DNA needed to start a new movement.

As we’ve mentioned, the apostolic leader is called to the pioneering environment, where there isn’t a successful playbook that they can follow. Paul said he does not want to build on someone else’s foundation because apostolic leaders are foundation setters. They create and cultivate the DNA, systems, and structures that are required for new movements to catalyze. Many faithful servants of God will have an apostolic passion, vision, and faith, but perhaps will lack the giftings and skills to see the breakthrough needed to multiply.

The process of what some people call the “Core Missionary Task” drawn from Acts is relatively clear – enter a new area, share the gospel, make disciples, plant churches, and develop leaders. Rinse and repeat to see multiplication. The difficult part of this is figuring out how to do each of these things. 

For example, Paul frequently entered a new place by going first to the synagogue to share with Jews or God-fearing Gentiles (Acts 13:5, 14; 14:1, 17:1, 10, 17; 18:4, 19; 19:8). With this approach, he was able to find people ready to hear the gospel and plant a house church that would be his center of operations for that city. Similarly, he created and adapted different methods of sharing the gospel, discipling, planting churches, and developing leaders for different places and different situations. The underlying principles and DNA of multiplication were the same, but he was gifted and in-tune with the Spirit’s direction to create the systems and structures that would multiply in each context.

When goers are sent to unreached places, the scope of the task can be overwhelming. Even if we can successfully adapt to living in a new culture and learning language, the challenge becomes learning how to create and contextualize effective methods for the process of multiplication. How should we enter new places and find spiritually interested people? What’s the most effective way to create interest and share the gospel? What methods of discipling would work among new believers in this context? What form should church take? What does a leader look like in this culture and how should we most effectively develop them? These questions are difficult enough without the complexities of trying to figure them out in a completely foreign culture!

The apostolic leader is gifted to generate new ideas, create contextualized applications of biblical principles, and are not afraid to fail in trying them. However, when the apostolic gift is missing, we find that movement practitioners can run into the same obstacles over and over again, unable to figure out a way to move forward.

This is why we believe that the outsider’s role is to find a National Apostolic Visionary leader to partner with. The National part because they understand the culture, and the Apostolic part because they will be gifted for the work. It’s best when the insider is the apostolic leader, but if the apostolic perspective is involved somewhere in the work – insider, outsider, coach, or from the harvest – there is an increased chance for multiplication.

Beyond just the initial foundations of gospel sharing and discipling, further foundations will need to be set by the apostolic leader including cultivating a multiplying DNA, establishing theological foundations, guarding against heresy and opposition, and ultimately cultivating networks and environments where other ministries can emerge.

4. Develop Leaders – An apostolic leader is able to recruit and develop leaders.

Another key function of an apostolic leader is the ability to raise up leaders – to identify, attract, recruit, develop, release, and send leaders out.

As a biased San Antonio Spurs fan, I believe Gregg Popovich is the greatest NBA coach. It’s evidenced not only by the championships and wins, but by his coaching tree – the number of players and coaches that have been produced under his mentorship. Pop is undoubtedly a great leader developer.

The Apostle Paul’s leadership tree is bigger and more impactful. In the New Testament we see him associated with Timothy, Silas, Titus, Priscilla, Aquila, Sopater, Aristarchus, Secundus, Gaius, Tychicus, Trophimus, Junia, Andronicus, Lydia, Jason, Titius Justus, Dionysus, Damaris, Crispus, and many more. Paul and Barnabas raised up local elders in every place that they started new work (Acts 14:23), as well as journeying with an apostolic band of co-laborers like Timothy, Titus, and Silas. He had a constant lens of identifying, attracting, and recruiting leaders.

I would say that Paul was a “machine” of leadership development, but that would only capture his output and not the posture in which he developed leaders. He says in 1 Thessalonians 2 how he was affectionately desirous for them and cared for them like a nursing mother (7), and how he exhorted, encouraged, and called them to walk in a manner worthy of God like a father with his children (11).

The apostolic leader has a unique ability to attract leaders. We’ve lost count how often people have said to our partner, Mint, “I want to be like you! Can you disciple me?” There’s a constant stream of people coming in and out of her home base in northeast Thailand, to be trained, developed, and modeled for, before being sent out as church planters to new provinces and coached toward further multiplication. Mint, almost aggressively, releases authority and sends out new leaders. She doesn’t keep them around to help her local ministry grow but empowers them to hear from the Lord to start new ministry. This last aspect is a critical indicator of whether someone is an apostolic leader – the push to release authority over leaders and disciples to multiply. Some great leaders may attract and develop leaders well, but ultimately keep them in-house to grow their own ministry. The apostolic leader’s vision will compel them to release and send out leaders. We pray that Mint’s leadership tree will surpass Pop’s and maybe even Paul’s!

5. Surrendered to God – An apostolic leader is surrendered to God, willing to give everything toward the vision, and prioritizes intimacy with God above all else.

From our experience, this 5th element is the most critical and can be the biggest barrier to an apostolic leader stepping into what God has for them.

The apostolic leader lives and labors out of surrender to God. In Romans 1:1, Paul describes himself first as a “servant of Christ Jesus”, and secondly “called to be an apostle.” It is out of his life belonging to Christ that his calling and ministry as an apostle flows.

Pioneering new works in new areas comes with unique challenges and complexities. But as we mentioned before, it also comes with unexpected opposition, isolation, failure, spiritual warfare, sin, and pride. Even the most driven personalities with big vision will find themselves battered and broken down in pursuit of the apostolic calling.

Paul describes being “so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself” (2 Corinthians 1:8). At some level, it’s true that all believers and all leaders will encounter suffering. But I think Paul’s example is that the apostolic leader is particularly tested through suffering. As we learned during our cancer journey, the thorn given to Paul in 2 Corinthians 12 is to bring Paul to a point of suffering and surrender and weakness. That weakness is given to humble Paul from his pride so that he can receive true resurrection power for the apostolic calling!

When faced with suffering, trial, and sin, the apostolic leader responds in surrender. They hunger for deeper intimacy with the Lord. They find their safety, strength, wisdom, and perseverance for the difficult work from Jesus. They seek His voice for the pathway to breakthrough. They understand that prayer and intercession is the work, and are unceasing in prayer for the churches as Paul was.

We’ve seen more than a few leaders with the first 4 elements fall to moral failure, burnout, pride, and isolation. To reframe Matthew 16 for movement practitioners – What will it profit us to gain ministry fruit but lose our own souls? Without surrender, it is impossible for leaders to fulfill the vision that God has given them.

One does not surrender a life in an instant. That which is lifelong can only be surrendered in a lifetime.

Elisabeth Elliot

In the next post, we’ll give some identifying indicators of an apostolic leader, and talk about how to partner with and develop an emerging apostolic leader.

Table of Apostolic Characteristics & Functions from 5 Authors

This is the compilation of the characteristics and functions of apostolic leaders from the authors we’ve referenced. A disclaimer that not everyone gave neat and tidy lists of characteristics and functions, and that these categories are a paraphrase of complex ideas from each author around the apostolic leader. Even if there isn’t an ‘x’ by a certain author for a certain category, they very well could mention that characteristic outside of their lists. If this is a topic you find important or interesting, I’d encourage you to read their books! I also put the lists / summaries of characteristics of each author at the bottom from which this table was created.

Lists and paraphrases of characteristics and functions of apostolic leaders

Robert Clinton – 1 and 2 Timothy: Apostolic Leadership + Unlocking Your Giftedness 

• A strong sense of call by God for establishing new works.
• An equally strong confirmation on the part of the leadership of the local church of which he/she is a part.
• A forceful personality which can trust God to do what is necessary in unusual situations in order to establish authority for God’s work.
• Usually will be a multi-gifted person having one or more other leadership gifts beyond apostleship.
• Ability to face new situations.
• A clear understanding of the nature of the church and its purpose.
• A personality which attracts people to follow.
• A person who can sense what God wants to do and is not afraid to try.
• A drive from within that cannot be satisfied apart from seeing people presently unreached being reached and included in a community of God’s people.
• Initiating new works of God, especially the planting of churches. (Paul & Barnabas, Acts 13; Paul Acts 16,18)
• Appointing Leaders – leadership selection (Paul & Barnabas do on fist missionary journey; Paul does on all his mission trips; Titus in Crete; Timothy in Ephesus)
• Laying foundations & overseeing these new works/churches – Leadership development; Teaching; Sending workers to solve problems, help develop leaders, teach and help followers mature. (Paul does this in Phillipi, Corinth, Ephesus, Rome & Crete)
• Serving as spiritual fathers and mothers. Paul sees himself as a father to his churches because he was the catalyst who brought them into existence by the Gospel. As their spiritual father, he retains the right to step in and intervene in communal affairs when he perceives they have deviated from the essential truths of the Gospel.
• Interceding for works, both new and old – carrying a burden for the works they initiate, resulting in intercession; release of spiritual power in situations (Paul does this for the churches he established.)
• Managing Crisis/Combating heresy – problem solving; correcting and stabilizing a deteriorating situation; Paul does this somewhat in Corinth and Crete and much in Ephesus.
• Resourcing new ministries and old ones – Resourcing apostolic ministries; mobilizing help to needy church situations (Paul & Barnabas in Acts 11; Paul in 1 Cor and 2 Cor)
• Contextualizing the Gospel to cross-cultural situations – applying truth to complex cultural situations 

George Miley – Loving the Church, Blessing the Nations

• They want to take on new initiatives.
• They have their own ideas of what they want to do.
• They easily influence people and gain a following.
• They do not fit the mold. They color “outside the lines.”
• They have a genuine hunger for a deeper relationship with God.
• They show impressive spiritual insight.
• They have noticeable areas of character immaturity.
• They are broad in their horizons and think beyond our church.
• They thrive on doing things that are challenging and risky.
• They claim loyalty to our church, yet seem critical and impatient.
• They tend to become overextended in their commitments. 
• Is like Jesus (Heb. 3:1). 
• Is a servant (Luke 22:24-27)
• Is tested (Matt. 4:1).
• Renounces his own life (Matt. 16:24-25).
• Walks in humility (Phil. 2:5,8)
• Is familiar with a sense of personal weakness (Luke 22:41-44).
• Carries spiritual authority with gracious restraint (Luke 23:34). Models the life of love (John 15:12-14). 

Alan Hirsch and Tim Catchim – The Permanent Revolution: Apostolic Imagination and Practice for the 21st Century

• Seeding the DNA of the gospel and the church by pioneering new ground
• Guarding the DNA of the Gospel and Ecclesia Through the Integration of apostolic theology
• Cultivating translocal, fully networked movements through vision, purpose, and the management of meaning
• Creating the environment in which the other ministries emerge

• An ability to invent the future while dealing with the past
• A willingness to break with traditional ideas and methods
• An ability to play multiple roles at the same time e.g. Paul as planter architect foundation layer ambassador partner
• High tolerance for risk
• A need to be different while supporters want the pioneer to be the same
• An understanding that many want the pioneer to fail
• Internal freedom to explore
• Sense of holy dissatisfaction
• Capacity for ideation
• Ability to take on risk
• Permission and the space to experiment
• Dogged resiliency

Daniel Sinclair – A Vision of the Possible: Pioneer Church Planting in Teams

• People readily catch their vision and feel led to join in.
• They have gifts of Bible teaching and leadership.
• They can be quirky and sometimes hard to get along with.
• They can have thick skins and hard heads. They tend (right or wrong) to not back down very easily—on anything!
• Areas of the flesh can include self-confidence, overassertiveness, and independence. When this is the case, you can see the Lord taking them through a process to grow in these areas toward greater fruit of the Spirit and total dependence on Christ.
• They want to have a good handle on everything in the ministry. This can seem like a tendency to overcontrol.
• They tend to become overextended in their commitments.
• Desire to pursue the impossible
• Desire to pioneer where others won’t or can’t go

Neil Cole – Primal Fire: Reigniting the Church with the Five Gifts of Jesus

• They are sent out to new people and new places.
• Apostles lay a foundation in a region or people group.
• Apostles are architects of multiplying methods – strategy / catalyze / systems.
• Apostles are custodians of DNA – guard against heresy.
• An Apostle is a planter of the gospel and of churches.
• An Apostle is a spiritual parent – model for others, relational authority.
• An Apostle is the scum of the earth – face a lot of opposition because they pursue new things.
• An Apostle’s authority is relational and results-oriented.
• An Apostle is at least competent in all the other roles – but can be tempted to be isolated and do it all themselves.

In the last few posts, we’ve given a broad overview on why spiritual gifts are important for the mission field and how they can apply to the field context and on missions teams. In this post, we’ll try to address the term ‘apostolic’ and the critical role this concept plays in catalyzing movements among the unreached.

In our experience learning about and pursuing movements, the word ‘apostolic’ is thrown around a lot. Apostolic leaders, apostolic giftings, apostolic ministry. Coming from a background that essentially never used this word, it felt like everyone else understood something that I didn’t. But the more we asked about this, the more it was clear that many people were unclear about what apostolic really meant. We heard things like ‘failed business entrepreneur,’ or ‘charismatic leader’ or things of that nature that still left us confused.

12 years ago, I was in a missions training program that had us go through a spiritual gifts survey that included the APEST giftings from Ephesians 4:11 – Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Shepherd, Teacher. It was the first I had heard about APEST giftings. I took the test, and the facilitator asked the group of about 30 people to split into groups according to your highest rated APEST gifting. The two biggest groups were the evangelist and the shepherd, with some teachers and a few prophets sprinkled in. I went to the apostle group since that was my highest grade, and only one other person was there – my group leader who eventually recruited me into full time ministry and helped to mentor me. Puzzled, I asked him, “What the heck does apostle mean?”

Understanding APEST and the Word “Apostolic” from the Bible

In order to discuss the word ‘apostolic,’ we first need to understand what some people call the five-fold model of APEST leadership from Ephesians 4:11.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ…

Ephesians 4:11

Alan Hirsch and Tim Catchim break down APEST and particularly the word apostolic for Western church contexts in their book, The Permanent Revolution. They argue that “the church’s capacity to embody and extend the mission and purposes of Jesus in the world depends largely on a… restructure of the ministry of the church as fivefold and to reembrace the revitalizing, intrinsically missional role of the apostolic person (emphasis added).” For them, the decline of the church in the West and the slowness of Kingdom expansion among the unreached is largely due to our misalignment with this fivefold ministry that was a defining marker of Paul’s ministry in the New Testament.

Originally, I intended to break down the word apostolic from Scripture as well as summarize several helpful resources around the term apostolic and the APEST framework. Thankfully, Mark G of Multiplying Disciples has already done so in a much more thorough manner than I could’ve done!

Please read his two posts first! The rest of this post will then expand on those ideas and give practical steps for how to identify and develop an apostolic leader towards catalyzing movements.

1. Apostles Meaning: Unlock Biblical Roles, Greek Origins, and Modern Mission

In ‘Apostles Meaning,’ Mark deep dives into the etymology and historical context of the word apostle and distinctions in usage of the word in the New Testament. He defines apostles as “representatives empowered with the authority of the sender and commissioned for specific purposes.” In the case of the New Testament apostles, they were sent out as representatives of Jesus on mission for expanding the early church. Mark explains that their core functions were to proclaim and evangelize, model Christian life, lay foundations for new ministry, and have a pioneer focus. Of note, Mark concludes and we agree, that “the role of the twelve apostles was unique and unrepeatable – no one today can claim their position as eyewitnesses of Jesus’s ministry and authoritative founders of the universal church. However, the New Testament pattern of missionary apostles – those sent to establish the church in new areas – continues today through pioneer missionary work. While many modern missionaries don’t use the title “apostle,” their function often parallels that of New Testament missionary apostles like Barnabas.”

2. Unlocking the Power of APEST: The Ultimate Guide

In ‘Unlocking the Power of APEST,’ Mark provides a summary of APEST drawing from important resources like Neil Cole’s ‘Primal Fire,’ and content from Alan Hirsch including ‘The Permanent Revolution.’ Specifically, Mark outlines how each of the APEST giftings apply to movements. He also provides the characteristics, functions, and examples for each of the fivefold giftings.

In addition to the Hirsh and Cole resources, we’d also recommend content from Robert Clinton (like his Leadership Commentary on 1 and 2 Timothy and related articles on leadership, including apostolic ministry, gifting, functions), George Miley’s Loving the Church, Blessing the Nations which has a number of chapters on apostolic leadership, and Daniel Sinclair’s A Vision of the Possible. I also have to credit Steve U’s resource Exploring the Apostolic Gift that put me on to many of these resources.

Definition of an Apostolic Leader

Mark G’s article gives Hirsch, Cole, and Breen’s definitions of an apostle:

I’ll add Clinton and Miley’s definitions as well:

Clinton: “The gift of apostleship refers to a special leadership capacity to move with authority from God to create new ministry structures (churches and parachurch groups) to meet needs and to develop and appoint leadership in these structures. Its central thrust is Creating New Ministry.”

Miley: “Apostolic leaders go first in sequence (1 Cor. 12:28). They are to blaze the trail, to pioneer, to initiate kingdom breakthroughs in new areas, and to lay foundations on which others can build.”

Simply put, apostolically gifted leaders are ones that God has supernaturally gifted to pioneer new works in new areas. In the next post, we’ll explore the characteristics of an apostolically gifted leader to understand how they are uniquely positioned to catalyze new Kingdom work.

Why is it Important to Understand the Term “Apostolic?”

Sinclair’s book captures how it can feel odd to talk about the term apostolic but also why it is critical to understand:

For years we have shied away from using the word apostle in relation to church planting work overseas. After all, people know that apostles were the “big shots” in the New Testament. To say, “God has called me to be an apostle,” sounds somewhere between gross arrogance and a delusional break from reality. This is an unfortunate confusion, because the ministry of apostles is at the very core of the Great Commission as well as the current work to bring the good news to those who have never heard. 

If this is true, then the calling, gifting, and nature of apostleship today is more vital to us than even concerns such as cultural anthropology, methodology, and missiology. What was true in the first century is just as true in the twenty-first century: without apostolic ministry the gospel does not break new ground. With regard to pioneer work, apostleship is everything. Indeed, it is why, in the Lord, the impossible is actually possible. 

Dan Sinclair, Vision of the Possible

Sinclair goes on to say that it can be more helpful to talk about the apostolic gifting, engaging apostolic ministry, or being on an apostolic team as opposed to using the title “Apostle” to avoid confusion in thinking someone is calling themselves one of Jesus’ 12 Apostles.

For those pursuing movement among the unreached, understanding the term apostolic is absolutely vital. We use principles from the book of Acts as our guidelines for movement, which is, after all, called the Acts of the Apostles. It is the work of God in multiplying the early church through the activities of those with the apostolic gift and calling!

As a disclaimer, I also understand why people can be nervous about exploring the word apostolic. For one, as mentioned above, the term is confusing and requires specificity when using it. This post and the related resources attempt to bring clarity to the confusion around the term. At the bottom we’ve added an “Apostolic Cheat Sheet” attempting to define various terms, including the difference between apostolic passion and apostolic gifting. The term apostle also means something different in more charismatic circles. But I think even more than confusion, embracing the importance of the apostolic gift means doing some reconciling with our own hearts.

When we talk about spiritual gifts, for the most part it can be an encouraging exercise because it means you have some kind of gift from the Holy Spirit to be used for ministry. But if we start to highlight that the apostolic gift is important for catalyzing movements, it can immediately shine a spotlight on ourselves – what if I’m not apostolically gifted? Can I still be a part of movement work? To me, the answer is emphatically YES. More on this later.

Secondly, and this is painful to admit, but some who claim to be apostolically gifted can have immaturities and pitfalls that can be a turn off to others. Clinton highlights that pride and isolation are some of the biggest issues for apostolics, because their nature is to be a barrier breaker and pioneer where few others would be willing to go. It’s almost in their nature to be a contrarian, to go against the grain of what the majority would imagine, to stand on the calling God has given them when no one else can see what they see. As a result, some can give off a stand-offish, defensive, prideful, and prickly demeanor. These are all legitimate critiques. I’ve also observed that the mature apostolic leader has been humbled through suffering, and that God can give a thorn in order to keep them humble, like He did with Paul (2 Corinthians 12).

Despite these issues, if we are pursuing movement among the unreached and we ignore how God uses apostolic leaders to pioneer, we are missing the pattern of the New Testament!

The Role of the Apostolic Gift in Movements

If we understand that spiritual gifts are used for the building up of the body, the church, then every gift is useful for movements because movements are meant to multiply the church!

But the role of the apostolic gift in movements is to start the new work.

In multiple places, Paul lists out apostles, then prophets, and then other gifts in sequence, including 1 Corinthians 12:28 (“And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers…), Ephesians 2:19-20 (“the house of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets…”), and of course Ephesians 4:11 (“And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers…”). Some might think these are listed in terms of value, but many commentators and the authors listed in this post think that these are gifts listed in sequence of ministry. If we look at the simple definitions provided by Mark G about the APEST functions in movements, it becomes a lot clearer!

Why is the apostolic gift important in starting new work? We talked about the context of the pioneering environment in our post about Spiritual Gifts and the Mission Field, and I defined the pioneering environment as “fields where the methods, systems, structures, institutions, and the sufficient number of disciple-makers to reach a people or place do not yet exist.” In these pioneering environments, there is no previous playbook that has seen success. Whoever goes to these places needs to innovate new ways to adapt the message of the gospel and the discipleship, church, and leadership structures that will be effective in that context. Inevitably, the process of innovating, adapting, and applying these methods will hit contextual, societal, or spiritual barriers. When you hit barriers, the apostolically gifted leaders are equipped to push through those barriers and further the work. We have seen repeatedly when that leadership gifting and perspective is missing, whether in national believers, our own team, or other leaders that we’ve coached, they run into the same obstacles over and over again and are unable to find a way forward. We’ll talk about how they apostolic leaders functionally do this in the next post.

Some of the authors we’ve listed say that they rarely see effective missions teams without an apostolically gifted leader involved. That may be true from their observation. From our study and experience, we would assert that the apostolic gift needs to be involved somewhere in the movement, whether from the insider leader which is best, from an outsider Barnabas, through a movement coach, or eventually emerging from the harvest. Without the apostolic gift, it becomes extremely challenging to push through barriers to multiplication.

However, those without the apostolic gift can absolutely have a role in movement ministry. How?

For outsiders, regardless of their gifting, our role in starting new work should be trying to find, empower, and support the national apostolic leader in pioneering movements.

If we look at the list of Paul’s companions throughout the New Testament, Paul, Barnabas, and a few others like Timothy and Silas are named as apostles. But many of the other names: Priscila, Aquila, Aristarchus, Onesimus, Gaius, Sopater, and several more, are not explicitly named as apostles or referenced as having apostolic gifting. In fact, in our team’s study of all of Paul’s companions, there’s really only one unifying descriptor for all of them: faithful.

If we can be like Barnabas, faithful to find and empower apostolically gifted national leaders, we can have a significant role in starting movements.

Finding an Apostolic Leader

After our initial language learning season, our team’s focus was to partner with local churches in order to find National Apostolic Visionary leaders that we could serve and empower to start movements. That meant first building trust with local churches, and secondly getting to pilot some multiplication focused trainings to see what kind of leaders we could identify.

For the first three years, we trained hundreds of Thai believers in biblical principles of multiplication and simple tools for evangelism, discipleship, and gathering as a house church. We modeled ministry by going out several times a week with these Thai believers to share on college campuses, in parks, in malls, and in markets. We traveled all over the city and to other provinces to train and form Thai disciple-making teams, with an eye out for an apostolic leader.

It was a fun, exhausting, challenging, stretching, chaotic several years of this pattern. There was a lot of faithful harvesting, some new believers, and a few new discovery bible groups that started, and we celebrated wildly with every step of faithfulness we saw from our Thai friends. But we still kept hitting repeated barriers with different groups. Many were focused on just growing their own church and couldn’t understand why we would want to release leaders to multiply – “just bring them to our church” was the standard reply. Some had difficulties with releasing authority to baptize or to lead a Bible study if they hadn’t been “formally trained” or ordained. And in many instances, people were willing to go into the harvest along with us, but lacked the leadership initiative to recruit others or keep the work going when we weren’t around. Even though we had so much joy engaging the harvest and seeing people faithfully make disciples, we weren’t seeing multiplication catalyzed like we were hoping. 

Finally, after 3 years of trying and failing, restarting with different groups, and running into barriers, the church planting pastor of the local church we had been working with said, “I think I’m understanding what you’re trying to do with CPM, and I think this will work better with our church planters in the rural areas. Could you go pilot with her?”

That’s when we met Mint. You can read more of her story in our first Be Barnabas post. It took several months of building trust with Mint and hearing her vision before we even piloted a training with her disciples, but from the beginning we could tell there was something different about her. For one, she had already taken the bold step of faith to be sent out alone to be a church planter after feeling called by God. She had endured several years of trials and challenges to start one burgeoning church. When we asked her what her vision was, she didn’t reply, “add people to my church” like most believers did. She said, “I want my church to multiply!” She had bold faith and she had vision to multiply. Good indicators!

After we started training, her team doubled the number of believers in 2 months! She had no problem releasing her disciples to baptize, and as we started to receive regular reports of baptisms, she was not even in the photos – her disciples ran baptisms without her there! After 7 months, she talked to each of the new households of believers and invited them to become house churches. Soon after she began to train in new areas, as well as send her best leaders to new provinces to start new church planting work. She continually recruited and developed and released leaders, and structured and restructured the teams to help them be faithful and fruitful according to their giftings.

She has some of the best intuitive understanding of movement and multiplication that I’ve seen. Many times we would come into coaching meetings and I would have a suggestion to deal with a barrier to multiplication that I wanted to make, but before I could even get there, she had already heard that from the Lord. When we ask, “how is your abiding? What are you learning from God?” to start our coaching meetings, it takes us about an hour for her to share all that she’s hearing and learning before we even get to the ministry coaching part. She is now overseeing a region of Thailand with multiple church planting teams sent out from her discipleship stream, and stepping into further roles to impact movement throughout the country.

Mint is a National Apostolic Visionary. She is able to do more in a year that I would be able to do in a lifetime. She has been uniquely gifted and called as an apostolically gifted leader to start new work among the unreached people and places in her country.

Quick Tool: Apostolic Cheat Sheet

Here’s a list of terms related to the word “apostolic” with various definitions from different authors. Hopefully this can help us differentiate and bring clarity to what we mean when we talk about the word “apostolic.”

Reflection Questions

• Do you agree or disagree with the definition and reasonings in this post? Why or why not?
• Do you experience internal tension or confusion when hearing the word “apostolic”? Why or why not?
• Who are potential people with apostolic gifting on your team, among local partners, or in your personal network that could help you in your ministry? What barriers are you facing in ministry that an apostolically gifted person could help with?
• Does your ministry strategy capitalize on using the apostolic gift and in finding nationals with this gift? If not, what changes can you make to highlight this?