Jenn and I (Steven) fought nearly every day for our first year on the field.

At the end of our first term of 2.5 years, we did a debrief and noted that second only to learning union with Christ, both of us said our marriage, and our co-leadership of the ministry and team together, was the thing we were most grateful for. It was nothing short of a miracle that the Lord did to bring us to that point from how fragile, disunified, and hostile we were to each other.

To us, men and women leading together is a critical element in seeing missions teams and ministries thrive and be effective. We’ve seen many husband and wife units that were not on the same page strain in their marriage and leave the field. We’ve seen solo male team leaders struggle to lead without the gifts that women leaders bring. We’ve seen many gifted, passionate women goers be underused and underappreciated on teams where male leaders did not know how to empower them, who have eventually left the field. Many of those situations would have greatly benefitted from a woman leader’s voice along with a male leader to bring guidance and resolution.

As Jenn contends in her post on Women in Leadership, the Great Commission needs women leaders, and missions teams and ministries are not realizing their potential when they fail to empower women to operate in their gifts and leadership.

This is not to say that missions teams with male team leaders will necessarily fail to be healthy or effective. Good leaders will learn how to shepherd, direct, and develop their teammates regardless of gender. We’ll write a future post about tips for men leading women. However, we’ve found it most effective when there is a level of men and women leading together for multiple reasons.

This post will generally be about men and women leading together on missions teams, whether as a married couple or as non-married co-leaders. We’ll have some guidelines specifically about husbands and wives leading together in the future.

Our Story

Jenn gives a pretty thorough version of her experience of discovering her leadership identity in the midst of navigating life overseas and being in our first year of marriage in her Women in Leadership post.

We were 6 months married when we launched to the field – not recommended. From my (Steven) side, the feeling I most experienced during that first year was overwhelmed. I had heard from experienced goers how difficult the field could be on a marriage, and wanted desperately to establish healthy foundations between me and Jenn.

But at the same time, I was completely in over my head with our transition to the field, leading a team, and starting a new ministry. On top of the ‘normal’ field transitions like learning language and dealing with culture stress, I had innumerable team leader responsibilities piled on as well, including finding visas, opening ministry opportunities, detailing crisis plans, and approving 9 units’ ministry expenses.

The stress and burden of all of that hit me like a ton of bricks. 

I had always expected and desired Jenn to be a ministry partner with me, but I didn’t know what it could look like, didn’t know how to communicate that, and didn’t know what types of barriers and insecurities she was dealing with. It took us about a year of getting through culture-stress and learning to communicate as a newly married couple before we began understanding each other. 

Since we are both incredibly stubborn, we were missing the truth that God had given each of us exactly the thing we needed in each other. I needed someone to help carry the vision and responsibility of the team. And Jenn wanted to be empowered to use her giftings according to her calling. Jenn met the women on our team 1-on-1 and was in charge of their development and shepherding. I looked for more opportunities to invite her into areas of leadership according to her gifting and clear the way for her as a leader within our sending organization and our church.

10 years later, we couldn’t imagine working in a different way. We debrief nearly every ministry thing together, even if it’s something that we’re doing completely independently. We include each other in every ministry partnership, and we elevate and complement each other’s strengths. And perhaps from the example that we’ve set, it’s standard for men and women on the teams we’ve raised up to partner and lead together in ministry.

Along the way, as we’ve figured out what works for us and coached other ministry and team leaders, we think that men and women leading together leads to the healthiest and most effective outcomes.

Theological Considerations

Before we jump into reasons why we think men and women leading and working together is important, we want to quickly address the theological considerations around this topic. We aren’t trying to convince anybody towards or against a theological stance on women in leadership.

What we do want to encourage you to do is to study the Word about what it says regarding women in leadership, women in ministry, and men and women working together. From that, form a position that can be communicated clearly to your team. Jenn gives her view in her post on women in leadership, so I won’t state that here. But I will reiterate that once you have established your biblical view on women in ministry, explicitly empower women towards everything that they CAN do. Even though it may not be vocalized by the women on your team, it’s likely that some are wondering about where they can fit in, and being clear and empowering will be appreciated. Encourage discussion with your whole team about where men and women can collaborate and team together.

We find the Coworkers Bible Study and Developing Female Leaders by Kadi Cole as helpful supplementary resources.

Why Is This Important?

Ultimately, why is this topic of men and women leading together important? The bottom line for us is that missions teams that fail to empower both the women and men on their team towards their most effective role in ministry and leadership are missing out. They are missing out on seeing the fullness of the body of Christ at work. They are missing out on ministry opportunities that are available when both men and women are fully empowered.

Here are some of the key reasons why men and women leading together on missions teams is extremely valuable. The first three points are from Steven and the last two are from Jenn.

Increased Access in Ministry Opportunities

Over 50% of unreached people are women. Whether through direct disciple-making ministry or in partnering with local believers towards movement, having women in ministry leadership together with men will multiply your team’s ministry opportunities.

One of the major steps in pursuing movement is finding a National Apostolic Visionary to partner with towards multiplication. In many locations in the 1040 window, societies tend to be patriarchal, with men commonly in leadership positions. It’s good and strategic for movement practitioners to try to partner with local male Christian leaders. But because these local leaders are already very busy, there can be barriers with their availability. And given that there are usually few fruitful believers to work with, other expat workers may desire to partner with them as well.

However, there can be abundant opportunities found in partnering with local women believers who may be more available and perhaps even emerging leaders that are underdeveloped and open to pursuing different methodologies. Naturally, these local women believers will feel more comfortable interacting in ministry with outsider trainers and coaches who are also women.

We’ve learned from other movement practitioners that women oftentimes are the earliest adopters of movement approaches and can be quicker to enter into pioneering spaces and endure persecution. These local women are then naturally able to access non-believing women who can be in highly inaccessible or even oppressive situations in patriarchal cultures. If we are failing to empower and create opportunities for the women on our teams to enter into ministry, we are potentially cutting in half the pool of laborers and leaders that could be equipped to engage the harvest.

This is anecdotal to our teams in Thailand, but of the different partnerships with Thai networks that we have, the most fruitful ones are with Thai women leaders. And to no one’s surprise, it is the women on our team that run point with those leaders – planning strategy, training believers, coaching leaders, and walking side-by-side with them. If we didn’t have women leaders on our teams, just as empowered and committed to the vision as the male team members, we would be greatly missing out on seeing more people hear and receive the gospel in Thailand.

In contrast, one male leader that I coach in the Middle East acutely felt the cultural gender barriers that exist in his country. Although there were local women that voiced their interest in knowing more about Jesus, it would be culturally inappropriate for him to invite them to a male or even mixed-gender Bible study, and there were no known women Bible studies in his city that he could invite them to.

When there are both men and women leading together and empowering the team, teams can appropriately seize the opportunities to interact with both men and women in ministry settings.

Plurality of Leadership and Improved Decision-Making

We’ve mentioned before that the multiple roles of the team leader can feel impossible – shepherd, manager, administrator, strategy coordinator, developer to name a few. In our experience, having multiple leaders share the burden can be a huge benefit to your team and ministry.

It’s generally understood that single women greatly outnumber single men on the missions field, with some ratios cited as high as 7-to-1. It’s extremely likely that you have more women than men on your team. However you structure it, having at least one woman leader will maximize the benefits of leadership plurality. Women leaders will better represent the perspectives and needs of the women on your team and in your ministry, helping the leaders make better decisions.

Increased Collaboration and Empowerment

Our initial team had 6 men and 7 women. I grew up with most of the guys on our team. I knew their strengths and weaknesses and knew what roles would maximize their giftings. I didn’t know the women as well and healthy boundaries kept me from knowing them as well as the male teammates. After Jenn began investing in the women teammates and getting to know them, it was much easier to empower them to their best roles and set them up for strong collaboration with the men on our team. Having Jenn step into a role of leadership catalyzed greater empowerment of the women on our team and fostered stronger collaboration between the male and female teammates.

Just by seeing me and Jenn model leading and working together, our teammates felt permission to do the same. The women teammates saw Jenn in leadership and were more willing to step into leadership and ministry opportunities they might have assumed were for men. Our teamwork increased as everyone was more fully enabled to operate in their best roles.

A critical responsibility of a team leader is to empower their people to operate to the fullest extent of their giftings and strengths. When we can do this for both men and women, a team is able to harness and operate in the gifts of the full body of Christ. When leadership is able to model both men and women working and leading together, this creates a culture that releases team members to take risks, practice their giftings, and to learn from and help each other as well.

Shepherding Without Crossing Boundaries

The intensity of cross-cultural living and ministry can stress those we lead to the point where deep sin tendencies begin to emerge. In these situations, people naturally become discouraged, lose vision, or can even fall into moral failure. Before they reach this point, leaders need to step and help them identify and address sins they are struggling with, and to find freedom and healing. 

Everyone may have different thresholds and boundaries when it comes to cross-gender leadership, but generally we would consider it inappropriate for leaders to cross genders in addressing deep sin issues, or even some relational or marriage issues. Additionally, the pitfalls when it comes to cross-cultural, cross-gender shepherding are even more risky. We have heard many stories of male missionaries who have talked directly to a wife in a local family and ruined the relationship with that family for bypassing the husband, or vice versa with female goers. So regardless of what tradition you come from, it’s important that you know your personal, team, and host culture’s boundaries and communicate them clearly so no one is left in an awkward or potentially dangerous situation! 

In our first few years on the field, the women on our team wrestled with suicidal thoughts, eating disorders, depression, marriage issues, and frustration with role, just to name a few. Each of these issues are extremely personal and requires careful handling. Unfortunately, no matter how well intentioned Steven was, there were certain boundaries that he couldn’t cross when it came to shepherding. But simply by being a woman, I was able to more naturally empathize with the woman on the team. To them, I felt safe, which allowed me to foster trust in order to ask the hard questions and be received as a source of help. However, while I was often “in the trenches” with the women, Steven’s strengths and gifts were also needed. He coordinated with professionals to create shepherding / health plans, building a framework for accountability and holistic healing. He advocated for them to our org and created spaces where they felt permission to work on their own health without shame. Steven and I were able to work together in ways that felt appropriate for the people on our team, and by God’s grace, many of these women have found freedom and continue to persevere in the work!

Generally, women leaders are able to build deeper relationships with national women and with women on their teams, and speak into heart issues that a man might not be able to as easily. Being able to shepherd a team deeply is critical to keeping people persevering in the work as they find freedom from “everything that hinders, and the sin that so easily entangles” (Hebrews 12:1).

Emotional Intelligence and Rapport

Both men and women image Christ in different ways, which often expresses itself in different ways in leadership. Corporate research also understands this dynamic. Multiple Harvard Business Review studies have concluded that women leaders generally excel in collaborative spaces, rapport-building, emotional intelligence, and empathetic thinking for others. Women are also often turned to in times of crises, trusted to exhibit more self-control and navigate difficult relational dynamics. But in some ministry leadership rooms, women can be more excluded and under-leveraged.

At its core, ministry centers around people. We team with people, we work with national partners, we try to love and serve people in a way that allows them to receive the gospel. In all these things, emotional intelligence, empathy, and collaboration are a strength that women tend to bring to the table. How many opportunities are we losing when we don’t harness the strengths of women leaders? How much more unified could our teams be? There is so much to gain through harnessing the unique contributions of women leaders.

Worth the Cost

From Adam and Eve to Priscilla and Aquila to Paul and his coworkers of men and women, we see in the Bible that there is a precedent of men and women leading and ministering together. In seeking this type of leadership dynamic, challenges will emerge. It might feel slow at first as you figure out new structures, new ways of communication, new ways of teaming.

But it’s worth the cost.

Men and women leading together allows for teams to realize the full potential of the body of Christ in order to access anyone who God has prepared to hear the gospel or be trained to make disciples.

Discussion Questions

Here are some questions you can use to discuss and pray through how you might be able to empower the men and women on your teams toward greater co-leadership and collaboration with one another.

• What feelings arise when you think about men and women leading together? What excites you, and what tensions do you notice? Why?
• Looking at your current leadership context, are both men and women represented in leadership roles and decision-making spaces?
• What roles do men and women play on your team? How does cross-gender collaboration and teamwork currently function?
• How might empowering both men and women leaders expand your access to the people you are ministering to?
• Are team members and national partners positioned to thrive in their callings, strengths, and gifts? Why or why not?
• Is there someone you sense the Spirit is inviting you to intentionally elevate and develop as a leader?
• What specific changes could you make to strengthen collaboration and teamwork between men and women leaders on your team?

Feel free to also directly subscribe to the Dare to Multiply Podcast on whatever application you use for podcast listening!

In this episode, Jenn is introduced as a co-host for Dare to Multiply and gives practical advice around leading teams toward a multiplication vision.

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 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?

In our previous post, we covered a simple definition of spiritual gifts and some key points about gifts. In this post, we’ll explore why using spiritual gifts is critical on the missions field.

As we’ve mentioned in our spiritual warfare posts, our encounters with spiritual warfare during our first short-term trip to Thailand opened our eyes to spiritual realities. It also made us begin to seek out the Holy Spirit and learn about spiritual gifts. As we discerned our calling to go and sought out development and preparation before launching, this category of the Holy Spirit (listening prayer, spiritual gifts, spiritual warfare) was a blind spot for us. As we heard stories from movement practitioners on the field, they shared about healings, demons being cast out, Muslims having dreams of Jesus, and supernatural usage of spiritual gifts. We studied Acts and saw miraculous signs and wonders accompanying the proclamation of the gospel.

It made us ask the question – how come these supernatural acts seem so prevalent on the mission field but feel so rare in our home context? And, if these things are happening and are critical to the work, what can we do to learn about the gifts and access them?

Part of the answer has to do with our own cultural and theological perspectives about the spiritual world, what Paul Hiebert calls The Excluded Middle. Another reason is that we simply are more self-reliant on our ‘natural’ skills and giftings rather than the Spirit’s power when we are in our own comfortable culture. Laboring cross-culturally can humble you quickly and turn you towards looking for power beyond yourself.

The truth is that we need the Spirit’s power for supernatural impact just as much at home as we do on the mission field – it just isn’t as apparent to us. But the field has a unique way to draw out the reality of our need for the Spirit’s power.

The Missions Field is a Pioneering Environment.

Floyd McClung coined the term ‘apostolic passion,’ which he defines as “a deliberate, intentional choice to live for the worship of Jesus in the nations.” It’s drawn from Paul’s ‘ambition’ in Romans 15:

“And thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation, but as it is written, “Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.”

– Romans 15:20-21

I think many, if not most, cross-cultural workers have this apostolic passion. We not only desire to see Jesus worshipped among the nations, but have what McClung calls the apostolic abandonment and focus to give our lives and time and efforts towards making disciples among the unreached.

Those with apostolic passion will go to start new work among people and places where Jesus is not yet known. These missions fields are what I would call pioneering environments, where the methods, systems, structures, institutions, and the sufficient number of disciple-makers needed to reach a people or place do not yet exist. As such, pursuing disciple-making and church planting in a pioneering environment requires different approaches than in reached areas, including increased innovation, more flexible methodology, a higher rate of experimentation and failing forward, and more agile teams that can adjust quickly to change.

But above everything, pioneering environments require spiritual breakthrough.

The Pioneering Environment Requires Spiritual Breakthrough, Including Spiritual Gifts.

And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs.

– Mark 16:20

As much as I believe that strategic and innovative approaches can be helpful in starting movements, too often we see cross-cultural workers put their hope in their strategies and tools rather than in the Spirit’s power. These unreached communities have been resistant to the gospel for potentially hundreds of years, and there are too many cultural, religious, historical, and most of all spiritual barriers to the gospel in these pioneering environments for human ability to make a dent. Even the perfect persuasive evangelism tool has no power to change the heart of someone who lives in darkness. Seeing people among the unreached repent and believe the gospel requires the Spirit to move in power!

Paul tells us that our struggle is not against flesh and blood but spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Eph. 6:12), and that “the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds” (2 Cor. 10:4). Throughout the New Testament, we see signs, wonders, gifts, and power coincide with the proclamation of the gospel in the mission field, whether through Jesus himself (Matthew 9:35), in the disciples (Luke 10:19), or through the early believers in Acts (Acts 14:3).

These spiritual realities of warfare that faced the early church should inform how we approach the pioneering environments that we are in! For every hour of planning, how many do we give to prayer? For every resource we develop, how much do we focus on receiving and using the Spirit’s power and gifts? Do our approaches even allow for “divine power to destroy strongholds,” or are they weapons of the flesh and human wisdom? These are questions that I need to ask myself often!

If we can see the battle is spiritual, just as Elisha’s servant had his eyes opened (2 Kings 6:17), the good news is that the “weapons of our warfare” are already promised and given. I love that in every one of the Great Commission passages, power is promised to accompany the commission to make disciples and preach the gospel. One significant aspect of this power is through the spiritual gifts that each believer is given.

We should expect, depend on, and regularly use the gifts of the Spirit in the work of pioneering movements.

Our Thai partners greatly outpace us in this category. Their primary method of entering new communities is by praying for needs. We train and practice praying for people with a simple prayer, and then see if God moves and opens their hearts to hear more about Jesus. Often, people request prayer for physical ailments and illnesses.

Early on in our partnership with Mint, we went with her to visit one new believer’s house that was 40 minutes down a dirt road. After going through a new believer lesson with the new believer Sarah, she introduced us to her mom. Sarah told us that her mom hadn’t been able to stand or walk for several months, and a doctor told them that she would likely never walk again because of severe osteoporosis. Together with Mint, we gathered to pray for Sarah’s mom. Nothing happened. We said our goodbyes and Mint told Sarah that she would come back next week to go through more discipleship lessons.

A week later, Mint and her team went back to Sarah’s house. And they prayed again for Sarah’s mom.

And Sarah’s mom stood up and walked down the stairs for the first time in months.

The next week, she walked into the nearby creek to be baptized by her daughter.

As more and more disciple-makers were trained to engage the harvest, reports of healings, miracles, and salvations began coming in weekly. 

• One new believer was beaten by her husband so severely that her right eye swelled and she was blinded in that eye. She came to the local house church and had the believers pray for her. The next day, she woke up, and the swollenness was gone and she could see! 
• In another province, a new believer discovered he had the gift of healing and met a sick woman while selling bus tickets. After praying for her, she invited him to her nearby village where he healed an entire group of elderly ladies and started a new group! 
• Another new believer was in the hospital and prayed for a person in the bed next to them that had stopped breathing and was declared dead – and they came back to life! 
• At one training, we heard one leader yelling “Go out! Go out!” into the phone which is the same word in Thai as the go in “go and make disciples” from Matthew 28, so we thought he was training. But one new believer was working on a rubber farm and a coworker put on an amulet and became possessed by an evil spirit. She didn’t know how to cast it out so she called this leader to cast it out over the phone!

Over the past 7 years of partnering with this network of church planters, we’ve heard dozens, if not hundreds, of answered prayer stories like these, and probably have missed hundreds more. We start almost every meeting or training with the question – is there anything you would like to praise God for? And stories begin flowing out. One of my favorites is where one new believer prayed for rain on their farm, and the storm poured out rain just on their land and stopped exactly at the border between their farm and their neighbor’s!

These types of supernatural breakthroughs are common and normative in movements, like those in the book of Acts. When normal, faithful disciples (and almost all of the above stories are from new believers) are released to operate in power, God shows up! Are we expectant of these things? Are we asking the Spirit for them?

Though All Gifts Are Useful, Certain Gifts Are Particularly Helpful in the Pioneering Environment.

Certain spiritual gifts are particularly useful in pioneering ministry work, and others are more useful for building up the body in the context of a local church or mission team.

To give some examples:

• Healing and Miracles – We see this as a standard aspect of bringing the Kingdom of God to the world. Accompanied with the proclamation of the gospel are signs and wonders like healing and miracles. The several stories from the previous section are examples of what it can look like!
  
• Evangelism – Obviously, evangelism gifts are valuable to pioneering environments! All believers should share the gospel regularly regardless of gifting, and, those gifted in evangelism should use it frequently! People with an evangelistic gift just seem to very easily connect with people, and can have more effectiveness in sharing the gospel and winning people to Christ.
  
  Before we launched as a team to Thailand, we tried to live out disciple-making rhythms in preparation for overseas work. Out of our team of 12, one teammate who was evangelism gifted had led more people to Christ than the rest of our team combined! We will talk more about Ephesians 4 later, but evangelism-gifted leaders shouldn’t only exercise their gift in sharing the gospel, but need to use their gift to equip others to share.

• Teaching / Training – At first glance, it’d seem that teaching would be a gift more appropriate for within the local church. But for teams trying to start movements with a ‘Be Barnabas’ approach, catalyzing near culture believers to share the gospel means there’s a lot of training! It means that those with a teaching gift who are able to handle the Word simply and equip near or in-culture believers to share the gospel, make disciples, and multiply churches is extremely valuable! Also, teaching gifts can be crucial in developing simple, reproducible, biblical curriculum that can be used in new multiplying works.

• Helps – Another gift that seems like it would be more suited to within the local church is helps. But a Be Barnabas approach means that the National Apostolic Visionary (NAV) leader is the “Paul” that God has chosen to pioneer new ministry among their people, and our role as outsider is to serve and support that leader. If we want to Be Barnabas, it requires a humbling of ourselves to serve that leader, and those with the gift of helps will be particularly suited to caring for, supporting, and providing whatever is needed for that NAV leader to thrive and multiply.
  
  One of our teammates gifted in helps walked alongside a local believer who was going through burnout. That believer wasn’t implementing movement practice or actively making disciples, so Jenn and I questioned if that was really the best use of that teammate’s time. But after helping this Thai friend take a sabbatical, this local believer came back and said – I want to devote my time to multiplying disciples! – and has recently started a number of new groups! As people not gifted in helps, we saw that time investment as questionable, but to our teammate, she was drawn to serve through her gifting. That’s why it’s critical that all the gifts have an opportunity to participate in the Great Commission! Side note – this is why we love the Be Barnabas approach! The apostolic and evangelist will clearly have value in supporting the NAV’s ministry, but so do the teachers, shepherds, and helpers in a very different and much needed way!

We Should Have the Ability to Identify and Develop Spiritual Gifts In Our National Partners.

Lastly, it’s critical that we have studied, practiced, and developed our own gifts and gifts in others so that we can identify and develop spiritual giftings in our national partners. When we’re looking for a “Paul”-type national partner who can catalyze movements, part of that is looking for a specific type of gifting. It’s in the name – a National Apostolic Visionary leader. We break down some of that in our article about what a NAV is. We’ll also have a future post further exploring the word “apostolic” including the apostolic gifting.

Although we have a certain eye out for apostolic leaders, we should also partner with local believers that have other giftings. Anyone who is ready to be obedient to the Great Commission to share the gospel and make disciples is worth investing in! At the end of the day, the goal is to multiply healthy churches, and that requires all of the gifts, though different gifts might be emphasized at different phases of ministry. For example, apostolic and evangelistic gifts might be most helpful in pioneering in a new area to win people to faith. But as churches grow, gifts like pastor/shepherding and teaching will need to be emphasized. As issues needing correction come up in the church, giftings like exhortation and prophecy will need to be elevated.

Do we know what the Word says about each of these giftings? Are we able to identify them in emerging leaders? Do we know how to develop these giftings and encourage local partners to use them to advance the work of multiplying churches?

In our next post, we’ll explore how different spiritual gifts can help edify the body, either in the local church context or on missions teams. Below are some questions for reflection about spiritual gifts and the missions field.

Reflection Questions

• Are you expectant for the power of the Holy Spirit to work in you and in your ministry? Why or why not?
• Have you seen the Holy Spirit’s power working actively in your ministry? In what situations, experiences, or people have you seen this most clearly?
• Are you, your teammates, and your national partners regularly using spiritual gifts in ministry? Why or why not? Where do you, your teammates, or national partners need greater development in this topic?
• How could God specifically use your spiritual gifts to move your ministry forward?

This is one of the lessons that God has impressed on our hearts over the last decade of ministry on the field. Scripture tells us that apart from abiding in Christ we can do nothing, but our pride, our selves still default to being self-dependent in trying to achieve success in ministry. For some reason, we think that our intelligence, hard work, strategies, and skills can make a dent in winning entire people groups that have been resistant to the gospel for 2000 years. It’s ludicrous!

The nature of the work of disciple-making and church planting among the unreached is spiritual! Meaning, it is not a physical or mental problem – for people to turn from darkness into light, for the Enemy to be pushed back, for believers to obey the Great Commission – it requires the Holy Spirit to move! We cannot do a supernatural, spiritual work without supernatural, spiritual power. The good news is that we have been promised and given this power!

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

Acts 1:8

How much clearer can it be? Now the question is – will we by faith receive this power? Do we know how to receive this power?

In this series of posts, we’re going to address what we’ve learned about spiritual gifts and missions – on missions teams, in missions work, and an overview of the term ‘apostolic.’ It’s a critical topic that we feel many cross-cultural workers are under-experienced in, especially when  they come from theologically conservative backgrounds. But it’s one of the questions that comes up the most when cross-cultural workers come to the field because of the prevalence of the spiritual world in different cultures and the necessity for guidance and empowerment from the Holy Spirit in an impossibly difficult work.

Our posts on spiritual warfare address why cross-cultural workers can be generally unaware of spiritual realities. Spiritual realities for goers can cover a wide range of topics, including but not limited to spiritual gifts, spiritual warfare, and listening prayer.

What Are Spiritual Gifts?

Type in ‘spiritual gifts’ in google and you’ll be inundated with spiritual gifts inventories and articles breaking down each gift. It’s almost too much information! The blog posts we’re writing aren’t trying to be an exhaustive study around spiritual gifts but more so how spiritual gifts are applied in the missions field and on missions teams. However, we’ll give a quick definition and some key points so that we can be clear about what we mean for the sake of application.

“A spiritual gift is any ability that is empowered by the Holy Spirit and used in any ministry of the church.” – Wayne Grudem

Our best suggestion in understanding spiritual gifts is to study what the Word says about gifts as there are several key passages about them! I think we can get overly fixated on ‘what is my gift,’ which is important, but miss the general purpose and essence of why gifts are given. Here are some of the key passages concerning gifts, and at the bottom of the post we’ll give a few resources that have been helpful to us in understanding gifts.

• 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14.
• Romans 12:3-8
• 1 Peter 4:7-11
• Ephesians 4:11-16
• 1 Timothy 4:14-16
• 2 Timothy 1:6-7
• Exodus 31:1-11
• Acts 2:1-21
• Acts 6:1-7
• Hebrews 2:4
• Matthew 25:14-30

From our study of these passages and in practical usage, here’s what we would conclude about spiritual gifts:

1. Every believer is given at least one gift from the Holy Spirit, but you can have more than one.

Paul says explicitly in 1 Corinthians 12:7 that each person is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. This means that our question is not, “do we have a gift?” But, “what gift have I been given and how should I use it?”

A gift has been given explicitly by the Holy Spirit to you! We can and should desire other gifts (1 Cor. 13:31) but it’s also critical for us to be content with the gift we’ve been given because it means the Spirit has good works prepared for us to do with that gift! It means that He has a vital role for you in the body of Christ to play. Don’t ignore the gifts you have been given!

In terms of having more than one, even in Paul’s breakdown of tongues and prophesying in 1 Corinthians 14, he basically admits to having at least both of those gifts. Robert Clinton concludes that leaders in particular are given a cluster of giftings, where a core leadership gift is supported by other supplementary gifts (e.g. a faith gifting to accompany a missionary gifting, or an exhortation gifting to support a prophetic gift). One of our mentors, Char, also notes that gifts can potentially change according to the season of life or ministry assignment that you are in, and the Holy Spirit equips you for those new works appropriately.

2. We know we are operating in our giftings when we sense supernatural empowerment and see supernatural fruitfulness.

We learned this key point from Matt Carter’s sermon on 1 Corinthians 12. He shares his own story about how he identified that his spiritual gift was prophecy exercised through preaching. For him, most ministry activities were draining, but his first time preaching he felt empowered and energized. Not only that, people were impacted by his preaching and there were supernatural results.

We’ve seen these two aspects of supernatural empowerment and supernatural fruitfulness affirmed over and over again in our own discovery of our gifts and helping others to find their gifts. Some people describe the empowerment aspect almost like an ‘out-of-body’ experience, where the Spirit is the one speaking, moving, acting through them and they are simply being used by him.

For me, I started to discover that I had a teaching / training gift in college. Soon after I started following Jesus, I began to volunteer at our old church’s youth group. I had just learned about Inductive Bible Study and how the Word had so much to offer when we are willing to dig deep and learn. I would facilitate a Saturday night IBS with a bunch of high schoolers that would go for 2+ hours. If you’ve ever been in youth ministry, you’ll know that getting the attention of high schoolers is like herding cats. Their attention span, even before iPhones, usually lasted about 20 seconds.

But the Spirit impacted our time in such a way that we had all these easily distracted teenagers deeply studying the Word, with earnestness, curiosity, and passion. It would get to the point where their parents would be there to pick them up and they would shoo them away or ask for more time so they could get to the end of the Bible study for that day. For me, I would receive so much energy and excitement, and as a person who normally wasn’t great at public speaking, I would feel the Spirit give me not only the words but the passion and wisdom to say the right things in the right moment.

I started to say yes to more opportunities to teach and train, and ended up leading our campus ministry’s weekly large group gathering of 300 students during my senior year, which required giving some kind of teaching at least 2 out of every 4 weeks. I repeatedly saw a pattern of the Holy Spirit empowering me with the right words, energy, and authority during opportunities to speak, and by God’s grace, saw the supernatural fruit of people being impacted by the things the Spirit was speaking through me. That has continued even to our time on the field, even being empowered to teach and train in another language! My Thai language ability is 10 times worse when I’m in normal conversation compared to when I train, which is normally the opposite for most people. That is undoubtedly the Holy Spirit!

3. Spiritual gifts are not to be used for personal pride, but to serve others in a spirit of unity.

Repeatedly throughout these passages about gifts, there is an emphasis on humility, serving, and unity in one body. It’s like the writers know there is a potential for the Enemy and our pride to twist this wonderful gift from the Holy Spirit into opportunities for comparison and dissension. Any usage of a spiritual gift that results in pride, comparison, and dissension is a misuse of that gift, and achieves the very opposite of what the Spirit intended in giving it to you.

Any usage of a spiritual gift that results in pride, comparison, and dissension is a misuse of that gift, and achieves the very opposite of what the Spirit intended in giving it to you.

The point of this post is that the gifts given by the Spirit are wonderful and should be used with joy. But there’s a dangerous line when we start to be identified by our gifts instead of identifying with Christ. On his teaching about gifts, Paul emphasizes unity in the body of Christ and then inserts a teaching on love right in the middle with 1 Corinthians 13. We often use this at weddings because it sounds good, but it’s a teaching given in the context of unity in the body among diversity in the gifts. In some ways, it’s the litmus test of if we are using the gift correctly: patiently, kindly, not envying or boasting, not arrogant or rude, not insisting on its own way, not irritable or resentful.

When we say, I have a certain gift and therefore shouldn’t waste my time on menial serving tasks, we’ve missed the point.

When we say, our doctrine and beliefs about how we should use the gifts is different from that group so we can no longer fellowship or work together, we’ve missed the point.

Whenever we are elevating our gifts and our preference over the oneness we have in Jesus, over unity in the body, over love that serves others – we’ve missed the point.

If we are approaching the gifts appropriately, it should create immense humility in us. Firstly, because the gift is not your own – it’s literally given by the Holy Spirit! When you’re using your gifts, God is the one to be glorified, not us! And secondly, knowing that we have a gift but not all the gifts means that we need other members in the body. If the church is working correctly, all the different members of the body should be operating in their gifts together to make the body grow!

…from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Ephesians 4:16

4. The purpose of the gifts is for the edification of the church and expansion of the Kingdom.

Lastly, the second litmus test of our usage of the gifts is whether or not it’s being used for others. The gifts were not given to edify ourselves, but to “strive to excel in building up the church” (1 Cor. 14:12), for “the common good” (1 Cor. 12:7), for “building up the body of Christ” (Eph. 4:12), and “to be witnesses… to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

We are given so much by Jesus for our own growth and edification. We are given the free gift of salvation through Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross, we are given the Spirit to be comforter and helper, we are given the Word to guide our steps into daily obedience, we are given the community of believers to receive encouragement and love. But the gifts are not given for our own growth or desires. The gifts are given to be others-focused.

It can be exciting and make us feel special that we’ve been chosen specially to be given a gift! And we should joyfully receive it and be thankful to use it! But Paul gives a warning in 1 Corinthians 14 against using the gift to “build up” ourselves. He specifically calls out tongues, that it needs to be paired with interpretation so that it is beneficial for others around them. Not coincidentally, tongues remains one of the more controversial gifts in the current day.

Use your gift to serve others in the church or to bring others into the Kingdom!

Application

Now we have some clarity around spiritual gifts – you have at least one, it is accompanied with supernatural empowerment and fruitfulness, it is not for pride but for serving in unity, and gifts are meant to edify the church or expand the Kingdom. What next?

Gifts need to be identified, practiced, and developed.

Identify your Gifting

The first step in identifying is knowing what the gifts are. Study the passages in the list above! Certain resources can give you an idea of what a certain gift looks like – we recommend Robert Clinton’s resource “Understanding our Giftedness Set.” Inventories and surveys like this can help but only as a way to understand what you’ve experienced in ministry that you’ve already done.

Secondly, serve in a lot of different types of ministries! Whether at your local church, on a disciple-making team, or on a field missions team, volunteer and initiate to serve in multiple ways. As you try different things, be on the lookout for where you feel supernatural empowerment and see supernatural fruitfulness. Do ministry in team and community so that others can give you feedback about where they see your gift!

Lastly, identify by praying, asking, and listening to the Holy Spirit! If the Spirit is the one who has given you the gift, he can most surely tell you what gift you have and how to use it. Ask others to pray for you to receive gifts and help you discern! We see in the New Testament that the laying on of hands leads to imparting the Spirit and gifts (2 Tim. 1:6), and we’ve also had people pray over us to awaken certain gifts!

Practice your Gifting

Now that you know what your gift is – practice by using it! Paul encourages Timothy repeatedly to “fan into flame the gift of God” (2 Tim. 1:6), and to “not neglect the gift that you have” but to practice, immerse himself in it, and see progress in it (1 Tim. 4:14-15).

One disclaimer is that receiving a gift is not an excuse to disobey other parts of the Bible. Too often we hear “I don’t have an evangelism gifting’ as a reason to not share the gospel. This should go without saying but practicing your gifting can never supersede obedience to the Word and to the Spirit. That’s just our pride making an excuse.

Develop your Gifting

Develop your gifts through practice, but also by learning more specifically about them. Study the Word concerning specific gifts, and look for examples of people in Scripture with those giftings. Find and read books about these giftings. Find mentors that have those giftings and ask about their story and experience.

Often we see people begin with somewhat of an immature usage of their gifting, and over time as they gain experience and knowledge, they’re able to use their gifts more proficiently. For example a young prophet could see someone living in unbelief and desire to call them back towards the Lord but may be overly blunt and lack the wisdom for how to do it tactfully and graciously. A young apostolic might be sensing God call them towards a big vision and starting something new, but trample over everyone else on the way towards that new thing in a posture of judgment and criticism. More than developing the practical skill of your gift, the focus should be on the development of our Christ-like character and humility in using our gifts.

As a general guideline, we’ve heard that developing your gift can be a lifelong endeavor. In your 20s and 30s as you try lots of different ministries, you begin to identify your gifting. In your 30s and 40s you’ve learned what your gift is and begin to practice and use it more. And in your later life you become more proficient with your gift, and ideally, can align your ministry and leadership role primarily with your gifting and experience.

Conclusion

Now that we have a better idea of what spiritual gifts are, and how to identify, practice, and develop them, our next posts will address how these play out on the mission field and on missions teams. Below are some questions for personal reflection and some resources we’ve found to be helpful on the topic of spiritual gifts.

There’s plenty of reasons to learn and use your gifts. Beyond the fact that the Holy Spirit has specially given you one, and that Scripture repeatedly tells us not to be ignorant about our gifts or to neglect them, we’ve found that using our gifts results in our joy! There’s something amazing about being used uniquely by the Spirit, to experience that supernatural empowerment and to see supernatural fruitfulness. It is God being pleased to use us! It’s like trying out a bunch of different sports or extracurriculars as a kid and struggling and failing in them over and over again. And then, all of a sudden, you pick up the violin or dive into the pool or throw a football for the first time and it feels natural. Like you were born to do that thing. Don’t miss out on what He has uniquely created and designed you to do!

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Ephesians 2:10

Questions For Reflection

1. Do you have personal or theological barriers that keep you from studying or embracing spiritual gifts? 
2. Have you identified your gifting? If not yet, what steps can you take towards identifying your gift?
3. If you have identified your gifting, how can you grow and develop in the usage of your gifting? How can you create more opportunities to practice and work out of your gifting in your ministry? 
4. Have you observed any aspects of pride, comparison, or dissension emerge in the usage of your gifting? Why do you think that is? Are there certain situations, people, or contexts that trigger and bring out pride? If yes, then repent and surrender these things to God.  
5. How can you create a culture and space for your teammates to grow and develop in their giftings?

Additional Resources

• Unlocking Our Giftedness is Robert Clinton’s booklet on spiritual gifts detailing how leaders can develop in their giftedness and help develop others. Understanding Your Giftedness Set is a spiritual gifts assessment that goes with the booklet.

• Systematic Theology (chapter 52-53) by Wayne Grudem – an overview of spiritual gifts and addresses continuationism v. cessationism
• Get in the Fight! – Sermon on 1 Corinthians 12 by Matt Carter

Before we launched, Jenn and I were in pre-engagement counseling and we took a stress test as a way to gauge different stressors and how we responded to them. Our counselor came back and said, “Steven, you scored the lowest stress we’ve ever seen on this test. You have like no stress at all.”

I semi-pridefully, semi-jokingly responded, “I guess it’s just trusting in Jesus!”

My 23-year-old self had yet to be introduced to the pressure cooker of cross-cultural life, ministry, and leadership. Man, I want to go back and slap that 23-year-old version of myself.

When we’re in our home countries, we perhaps unconsciously and easily move towards the things that keep our stress low and keep our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health high. There’s an abundance of resources to help you thrive and the added bonus that they are all in your own language. Pastors, small groups, counseling centers, local churches, friend groups, classes, workout groups, sports teams, etc.

Moving overseas, most of these are wiped away overnight.

In the chaos of transition, language learning, pioneering ministry, and team conflict, we can take for granted that all the ways we are used to pursuing health and thriving in our lives are no longer there. Additionally, the stressors in our lives spike to levels we’ve never experienced before: change in culture, climate, job, community, proximity to family, access to hobbies and other supports.

The Holmes-Rahe stress inventory gives a score for different stressful events that might happen in your life, like changing your job, death of a family member, or changing residences. Score over 200, and you had a 50% chance to have a major health breakdown within 2 years. Over 300, and that percentage would shoot to 80%. Dr. Lois Dodds of Heartstream Resources did some analysis of first year missionaries’ stress levels according to the Holmes-Rahe stress inventory. They found that first term missionaries peaked at 900 and even veteran missionaries averaged about 600!

Yikes.

As we’ve repeatedly said before, much of what is posted on this blog are lessons from how NOT to do it. Jenn and I completely disregarded any thought of health and powered through new marriage, transitions, team leadership, language school, and pioneering ministry without a thought of how to manage our stress, much less be aware of how we were doing.

In month 6 on the field, we noted that I had been sick almost every month upon landing on the field when I barely got sick once a year in the States. At a team meeting in our second year, out of curiosity I asked the team to raise their hands if they had experienced the following “minor”  health issues: regular migraines/headaches, panic / anxiety attacks, eye twitching, vertigo, stomach issues (both directions), increase in colds/sickness, weight gain, difficulty sleeping, random muscle pains, and hives. As I went through the list, at least half to ⅔ of the team raised their hands. Except the stomach issues one. That one was 100%.

Even on our own team, we didn’t know that we were all experiencing these issues.

Before you launch to the field you hear of the extreme stories of missionaries thrown into jail or maybe even those that have seizures and find out they have brain cancer. But what’s often not mentioned is the ongoing, dangerously high levels of stress that we experience at a regular level.

There’s also an underlying, unmentioned belief among goers that the more you suffer, the holier you are. And it’s true that Romans 5 tells us that suffering produces perseverance, which produces character. But I think holiness and character are produced from how we respond to suffering, not just whether we have it. There’s nothing particularly holy about disregarding your own health or your family’s or team’s out of ignorance. How can goers persevere amidst all of this?

After 10 years of living on the field, our first answer is still abiding in Jesus through our union with Christ. Realizing when you’re anxious or stressed, surrendering control, and receiving what you need from the vine.

Secondly, setting rhythms and boundaries for health is critical for sustained thriving on the field.

At the end of 2022 as we were about to head back to Thailand after Jenn’s cancer treatment, our counselor asked us how we were going to pursue healthy rhythms after returning. I told her I wasn’t sure, and she asked, “When was a season in Thailand when you felt you were healthy?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a season in Thailand when I was healthy.”

She gave us the following tool to complete before returning: Red-Yellow-Green Health Markers.

Red-Yellow-Green Health Markers

Summary: With culture stress, ministry challenges, and life transitions, life on the field as a cross-cultural worker can quickly cause areas of physical, mental, emotional, relational, and spiritual health to suffer. This tool is meant to help workers self-evaluate what their markers of health are, and establish rhythms to help them maintain thriving.

Red: markers that indicate you are outside a window of tolerance, need to take a hard stop and make changes.

Yellow: markers that indicate you need to take caution, slow down, and go back to green. Warning signs to pay attention to.

Green: markers that indicate that you are healthy and thriving when these are in place.

Below is an example table of what indicators and rhythms you could add. These can span physical, mental, emotional, relational (e.g. marriage/singleness, team, ministry partners, friendships, spiritual community), and spiritual areas of life. You can take the template and fill in your own health markers. Feel free to add any categories that might have a significant impact on your health, including travel, schedule, personal development, or anything else that is helpful.

After each filling this out, Jenn and I have tried to adhere to these rhythms as best we can for the past 2 years. We had our counselor check in and help us honestly evaluate how we were doing for the first two quarters. For the most part, we’ve been in and out of the yellow-green areas, which has been way better than our first 8 years on the field. And when we have weeks where we dip into the red markers, we’re both much more aware of it and quick to enact some changes.

Our encouragement for those that are on the field is to take a day of prayer and evaluate your health indicators and rhythms. Share your markers with a supervisor, leader, or member care friend and ask them to check you on it monthly or quarterly.

We want to persevere until the vision that God has given is accomplished! Constantly redlining into burnout and unhealth is a sure way to leave the field or be forced out before that vision is realized. More than that, the promises of Jesus are for abundant life (John 10:10), for a light burden and easy yoke and rest for our souls (Matthew 11:28-30), for an overflowing cup and refreshment for our souls (Psalm 23). The lie of our flesh or pride is that goers must only suffer and not thrive. And while seasons of suffering are almost guaranteed for the goer, it is to release us into more thriving! May we be an example of overflowing, abiding fruitfulness that multiplies into those we lead and into new disciples among the nations.

________

The Weightiness of Listening Prayer

Like we said in the last post, learning to increase our awareness of God with us and becoming more confident in hearing the Holy Spirit is a process. But as we grow in these things, we can be so confident in Him speaking to us that we can make weighty decisions based on what He is saying.

Last week I was talking to a worker on the field, who shared that as they were praying, they heard God tell them, “I want you to actually go apply for a visa to a country that has already rejected you.” And they knew that if they got rejected again they wouldn’t be able to get back in for the next 10 years. And they said, “OK God.” 

It’s a big risk! It’s gonna be a problem if they get rejected. But they get the visa! And the immigration officers tell them that they need to write down a local person’s name that is their host in the country. But if they write a local believer’s name on the visa, they might compromise the whole movement.

So they pray, and the whole team prays and listens and they all come up with the same name. And they call that woman, this local believer, and they say, “hey we were told to apply for a visa and they asked us to write down a name. Can we use your name?”

And she says, “Let me go ask the Lord.” She goes and listens and she says, “Yes, you can use my name. God told me to say yes.”

That’s weighty. Because that woman could end up in jail. Because you know what? Paul ends up in jail too. But God spoke – to that team, to that woman, and it’s OK because it’s on Him. And it doesn’t mean that because He responded that it’s going to be safe the whole way through. But if God is speaking to you, it means He is speaking to be with you and He will be with you the whole way through.

Ways to Practice Listening

So we already talked about the different ways that God can speak. When we are praying and receive thoughts, words, Scripture, emotions, images, memories, songs, etc., pay attention because it could be God speaking! Here’s some different practices you can try to increase in your listening prayer.

1. Finding a Place to Meet with God

One thing I’ve noticed, especially with Westerners, is that if we do silent prayer then it’s really easy for us to get distracted. Like your phone could buzz, you’re thinking about other stuff, there’s so much coming in. The world is coming in, your thoughts are coming in, and we’re not even very self aware in general. It’s almost like we don’t even know which ones are our own thoughts and which aren’t.

Here are some ideas about how to focus a little bit. This is what I did with my friend from the Middle East – I said, “what I want you to do first is to ask God for Him to show you a place to meet with Him.” This is a mental place – it could be a physical place God has shown you before, or maybe He hasn’t shown you it before.

It’s going to be a mental place that represents that you are entering into that space in your mind and you’re meeting with Jesus. So take a few minutes to ask God to show you a place to meet with you.

Ask Him for a place to meet with you and just listen. As you go into that spot, we know that God wants to meet with you. And He loves us and wants us to be focused to meet with Him, so that we can be present and encounter Him in our own mind.

I want you to remember that place. Anytime you’re in prayer, go back to that place He’s shown you. Even if I’m meeting with someone and I’m praying for them, I’ll go to that place and meet with Jesus and ask him, “what do you want me to say to them or pray for them?”

One fun thing for me is that when I meet with Jesus, I have a greeting that I do. Not everyone has these things but sometimes it’s helpful to hear someone else’s. After I connect with Jesus and we greet each other, we do an Egyptian-style hug. I learned it when I was on a trip to Egypt. It’s really neat! It’s changed from what I used to do before, which was more like a bro hug. But now it’s a little more intimate.

Sometimes he actually just grabs my shoulders and just looks at me for a bit, which means a lot to me. Then I usually bow and I’m going to receive either of two things. He gives me a ball which is the Holy Spirit, or a sword. Which is the Spirit of God and the Word of God. And I turn towards whoever I’m praying for, and I don’t try to think about what’s going to happen. Just start praying. And that’s my interaction with God.

Other people don’t have all those things, that’s just how God decided to communicate with me to let me know He’s giving something for that other person.

If you were just now listening and asked God for a place, it’s OK if that’s not what God gave you. It could even be that He wants it to just be everywhere for you and you don’t need that. Having that place is a good idea and helpful for some people, but doesn’t mean that is necessarily something for you. He has a relationship with you – so walk in confidence and oneness and boldness that Jesus loves you.

2. Soaking and Waiting

A lot of times when we are praying, we are asking God for something or interceding for someone. So we’re bringing our requests to the Lord, and that’s good – He tells us to do that.

But if you’re new to listening prayer, it can be rare for you to just come to God with no agenda and just wait and see what He wants to say. Soaking is just a term for sitting and taking in God’s presence and waiting for Him to speak. We are soaking in God’s presence like a sponge soaks in water.

First, get rid of any other distractions – put your phone on silent, go to a quiet space for prayer. If God gave you a place for you to meet in your mind, go and meet him in that place.

For some people, it can be helpful to put on some acoustic or mellow worship music, or even these compilations of ambient worship music specifically made for soaking prayer. This instrumental version is one of my favorites.

Get into a comfortable position, and just wait. Try to clear your mind of distractions. Sometimes holding your hands open as a posture of surrender and receiving can be helpful. To begin, you can just try 10 minutes, or go as long as you like. If the Lord brings to mind a verse, a person, a word, an emotion, an image, a vision, or anything that you might think is from Him, try to remember it or just quickly jot it down into a notebook.

After you get that initial thing from the Lord, feel free to ask follow up questions. “God, what do you want me to know about this? Is there someone I should share this with? Is there Scripture that goes along with this?”

Soaking can be a good way for us to get used to entering into God’s presence. The more we do it and the more we’re used to noticing when God speaks, the quicker and more confident we’ll become as we grow.

For soaking, it’s best to go in with no agenda and just wait for God’s presence. But as you learn what it feels like when He is drawing near and speaking, you can ask questions and get answers from Him quicker as well. Questions can be as simple as, “God what do you want me to do in this situation?”

But also ask Him questions like, “God, how do you see me? God, what hurts your heart right now? What are you really proud of right now?”

In relationship, don’t just ask for things that you need! We want to know God more!

3. Folding Paper Activity

I think one of the best things that comes out of growing in listening prayer is hearing what the Lord wants to communicate for someone else when you’re praying for them.

One of the things we do is to have a group of 3-4 and take turns all praying for one person. When we do group prayer and pray for a person, it’s usually to encourage them. And it’s things that God wants to say to them about their situation now, who they are. And when you have 3 or 4 people doing that, it’s fun because you can be affirmed in your ability to listen when there is a similar theme with someone else because we all have the same Holy Spirit!

But if you’re not confident yet in listening to the Spirit and praying that over someone, one of the activities you can do to grow in listening for a person is the Folding Paper Activity. You start by writing a name on the top of a piece of paper and we fold it back so nobody can see it. Because sometimes when you know someone, you start projecting what you want to pray into them. But you fold it over so you can’t see the name, and you pass it out randomly. You don’t know the name on the paper you have but you start listening to God for about 5 minutes and write down whatever you get. Then fold it over so that your words are covered and everyone passes it to the person on their right and listen again.

After you’ve gone enough times that everyone in the group has prayed over one person’s paper (e.g. 6 times if you have a group of 6), unfold the top to see the name and hand the paper back to that person. After everyone has had a chance to read through the words, you can let people share with the group something that stood out to them, that encouraged them, or a theme that they noticed.

And yes, you will have listened for yourself on your own paper without knowing it. Sometimes that’s the most interesting one, because the Lord speaks something to you and you don’t know who it’s for, but it ends up being a word for you! We had one person say – “I feel like I heard this encouragement when I was praying and wrote it down, not knowing it was my piece of paper. I have a hard time believing these words for myself but when hearing it from God for someone else I believed it! So I should believe it for myself as well!”

It would get to a place in our group that when I was handed the piece of paper and couldn’t see the name, I would start listening and God would show me the same thing about that person and I would know who it is. He showed Ellie flying, or he showed Stephanie in a garden, or he would always say about Julian, ‘this is my friend.’

It’s really affirming to get that because I’m hearing God! It’s not that I’m the one giving them some Word but God is. Because I want to be like Philip when he gets close to the Ethiopian eunuch, recognizing God’s voice and having the boldness to say it. So you’re building that when you practice in a group and it’s a safe place to build that.

In general for an activity like this or as you’re learning how to listen for other people, it’s better to keep things more towards encouragement than towards exhorting or rebuking. If you have a strong sense that a word of exhortation is from the Lord, you might make a note of it and bring it up to a person privately, or to your leader and ask them to give their discernment about if and how to share it.

How Do I Know If It’s God Speaking?

On a trip to the Middle East, we were trying to meet new people on campus and talked about listening to God with a Muslim girl. She asked, “How do I know it’s from God?” That’s a great question – many times that can be our biggest fear when it comes to listening prayer. How do we know it’s from God? This is where discernment comes in. 

• Test the spirits: 1 John 4:1 tells us to “not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.” John goes on to give us a clear parameter in verses 2 and 3. “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.” In discerning listening prayer, John highlights that things that affirm the Lordship of Jesus are from the Spirit. Anything that disagrees with that is not from God.

• Consistent with Scripture: I’ll reemphasize that these posts are not trying to change anyone’s theology. But I think any theological background would agree that whatever we receive through listening prayer should be consistent with Scripture. If you hear anything that explicitly contradicts Scripture, that should be disregarded. Additionally, even if something you hear is consistent with Scripture, no word that we get from listening should be elevated on the same level as or above Scripture. Many times, if you hear something in listening prayer, we’d encourage people to find 2 or 3 verses that support that word or at least speak on that topic, and interpret the word they hear together with Scripture.

• Fruit of the Spirit: Another passage that comes to mind when discerning if the Spirit is speaking is Galatians 5. Paul outlines desires of the flesh that are against the Spirit, and fruits of the Spirit that are borne out of walking with the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:22). Does this word I’m hearing from the Spirit produce peace or dissension? Is it a gentle word or a harsh word? Is my motivation to share this out of love or out of being judgemental?

• Against Shame, Guilt, and Fear: In the opposite direction, if a word in listening prayer produces shame, guilt, or fear, we can be confident it’s not from the Lord. 2 Timothy 1:7 tells us that “God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self control.” Shame, guilt, and fear keep us in a cycle of being afraid of God or against God. God speaks through the Spirit to draw us nearer to him. That is not to say that the Holy Spirit won’t convict of sin (John 16:8), and there may be things that you hear in prayer that lead to genuine conviction of sin and a desire for repentance. But that is different from guilt, shame, and fear.

• Encouraging towards Others: As a general rule, if you’re newer to listening prayer, we’d again say a good guideline is to keep towards things that are encouraging and uplifting. 1 Corinthians 14:3 says, “the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.” If there’s words that you think might be for someone towards exhortation, write it down, pray about it and check it, run it by other community or leaders, and plan to share it carefully. With encouragement, it’s much easier and safer to go ahead and share it for someone else’s edification!

• Affirmed in Community: Paul in Ephesians 4:4 tells us that we have one Spirit – meaning that when we hear things in listening prayer, hopefully the Spirit is saying those same things to others as well! This is not to say that every time you do listening prayer in a group, everyone will agree. But if there is disagreement, or other people hear what you share and there isn’t peace, it’s worth figuring out what exactly is happening underneath. That’s why we encourage people to practice listening prayer in a safe space with trusted community. When we start to do listening prayer exclusively on our own, and tell other people that “God told me this” and won’t take feedback or disagreement from community, we run the risk of falling into pride.
• Glorifying God and Advancing His Kingdom: Lastly, words from God will bring glory to God and help to advance His Kingdom. So much of the book of Acts contains examples of the disciples hearing from the Lord in prayer and being filled with boldness to share the gospel even in the midst of persecution. The Lord will bring to mind people and places that you are meant to show love to and share the gospel with!

Conclusion

We (Steven and Jenn) want to thank Steve Dekkers so much for contributing his wisdom and insight in these posts on listening prayer! We hope these guidelines and activities will be helpful to you as you continue learning how to hear from the Spirit.

Lastly, we wanted to leave you all with one more exhortation and encouragement.

In 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul leaves some final thoughts with the church in Thessalonica, including to pray without ceasing. In verse 20, he gives a short but direct command: “Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good.”

Some might think, “I don’t need listening prayer since I have the Bible.” But so many of the examples in the Bible show a rich, two-way communication between God and His people. And Paul explicitly tells us to not quench the Spirit by throwing away anything that might come from prophecy or listening. It comes with the caution to test those prophecies and hold fast to what is good. But we are commanded to not quench what the Spirit is trying to tell us. Listening prayer is one of those ways that the Lord might be trying to speak with you, in order to increase the intimacy of your relationship with Him! Will you respond to Him?

And our encouragement is this – when you begin to familiarize yourself with His voice, your abiding and fruitfulness will surely increase! Steve has mentioned a few examples of why it’s so important to learn to hear God’s voice as workers on the field out of necessity. But listening prayer can also become one of your most powerful tools to see the gospel multiply among the unreached.

Some of our friends have helped to catalyze one of the biggest movements in the world with hundreds of thousands of churches planted, and their case study is called the Listening movement. One of their main tools when hitting roadblocks or setting goals is simply, with their partners, to stop, ask the Lord, and listen.

“Prayer is the work. Listening is an important part of prayer. There have been so many changes along the way and so many questions: What’s next? Should we work with this person? What should we train? Is this a dead end? We’ve had so many questions and we’ve learned to sit and wait for God’s answer. Usually he gives the expat team and our national partners the same answers, and we don’t even know it until our next biweekly meeting.”

– Listening Movement Leader

It’s a humbling reminder to us that the work belongs completely to the Lord. He knows our steps, and He is the one who has prepared good works for us to step into. How limited are we if we aren’t listening to what He wants for us, in every moment of every day? And if we would stop and humble ourselves to hear from Him, how much more fruitful and abiding could we become?

Prayer is first of all listening to God. It’s openness. God is always speaking; he’s always doing something. Prayer is to enter into that activity…Convert your thoughts into prayer. As we are involved in unceasing thinking, so we are called to unceasing prayer. The difference is not that prayer is thinking about other things, but that prayer is thinking in dialogue…a conversation with God.

– Henri Nouwen

In this final post, we’ll talk about what resurrection life and power are, and what happens when we receive it.

Receive Resurrection Life

As I was reflecting on what God was trying to teach us through this past season in surrender and suffering, the terms ‘resurrection life’ and ‘fullness of union life’ kept coming up in the things we were reading and reflecting on. That experience of the intensity of his love on that Grade 3 day, the joy of his presence, the security and protection in him that not even cancer in my wife could touch – I started to think: what if we could experience that fullness all the time?

Andrew Murray says:

‘I come to you with God’s message that you can have no conception of what your life would be in the power of the Holy Spirit. It is too high and too blessed and too wonderful, but I bring you the message that the Holy Spirit can come into your heart with His divine power, and He may sanctify you and enable you to do God’s blessed will, and fill your heart with joy and with strength.’

Andrew Murray, Absolute Surrender

Think of a time when you felt the nearest to Jesus in your abiding. What did that feel like? What came out of it? How were your thoughts and feelings and even your will changed?

What if you could have that 10 times, 100 times more intensely and have it in every area of your life and ministry and all the time? This is the description of Hudson Taylor late in his life, after living out this union with Christ for decades of ministry in China.

Dwelling in Christ, he drew upon His very being and resources, in the midst of and concerning the matters in question. And this he did by an attitude of faith as simple as it was continuous. Yet he was delightfully free and natural. I can find no words to describe it save the Scriptural expression “in God.” He was in God all the time and God in him. It was that true “abiding” of John fifteen.

Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret, emphasis added

What is meant by resurrection life? It is where believers live in the present reality of the resurrection; where the identity and benefits of restoration and redemption in Jesus are experienced by the believer. To me, it means that all the promises of Scripture are true, available, and fully experienced in my daily life and ministry, and not just nice ideas that will come in some distant and abstract future.

Wayne Grudem says, ‘Union with Christ is a phrase used to summarize several different relationships between believers and Christ, through which Christians receive every benefit of salvation.”

All throughout the writings from and about Hudson Taylor, you can see the marks of a person who lived as if Christ really purchased resurrection life for us. The New Testament is overflowing with verses about this type of life in Christ and the outcomes of it. Many times we can’t even imagine how these promises could exist in our own lives, or we are just completely unable to receive them until He brings us to the end of ourselves. Surrender the self to the point of death, in order to receive the fullness of these promises!

Below are just a fraction of the verses in the New Testament that talk about putting on Christ and Christ living through us as our new resurrection identity:

• Galatians 2:20 – I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
• Colossians 3:12-15 – Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.
• Romans 13:14 – But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
• 2 Corinthians 5:14, 17 – For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died… Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
• John 15:4 – Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.
• Philippians 3:8-9 – Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.

And for those that put on Christ in faith, who surrender their selves to the point of death and receive identification with Christ fully, the outcome of resurrection life is richer and more fruitful than we can even imagine:

• John 15:1-17 – Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing…If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you...As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love….These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
• John 16:33 – I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace.
• 2 Corinthians 9:8 – And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.
• Philippians 4:11-13 – Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
• Ephesians 3:19-21 – To know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

I wanted to put all these verses here for us to read and reflect on, in order to let Scripture explain resurrection life. Reading these verses brings these questions for us:

• Do we believe that Christ has purchased for us a new identity in him and that the promises related to this new identity are true?
• Do we experience these benefits of resurrection life on a daily basis without limit?

I know that I am not yet at the place where I’m experiencing his fullness at every moment of every day. When we recognize that we aren’t abiding, it’s an opportunity to surrender to Jesus in humility before we can receive these benefits.

But moments of this resurrection life are starting to emerge, more consistently and more powerfully than I’ve ever experienced before this past season of surrender.

I mentioned in the previous post that since the grieving retreat, there has been a lightness and freedom that has persisted since that time. Even through major crises and conflicts in the past season – a major shakeup on our team, the death of other goers with cancer, and painful conflicts – I have seen this freedom that comes with surrender guard my heart from anxiety and fear.

One of the starkest experiences of being literally compelled by Christ was in a difficult conflict. We were in a messy situation, and as with many messy situations, there was a misunderstanding and another worker accused me of doing something that I didn’t do, specifically attacking my character.

I remember sitting on the stairs in my apartment, about to take a phone call with this person, heart rate up and ready to defend myself since I “knew” myself to be right in this situation. I was ready to unleash all the ways this person had been difficult and divisive and let them know how they were wrong. In my heart, I knew that it was probably my pride and anger getting the best of me, but I felt justified to shoot back after being falsely accused.

As I picked up the phone, a strange thing happened. As I started talking to this person, the words and sentences that I was saying were not the ones I had planned to say. And the emotions I was feeling were not of defensiveness and anger, but of compassion, patience, and even love. It was so starkly different from what I was planning to say and what I had previously been thinking and feeling that it was almost like an out-of-body experience, watching someone that wasn’t me on the stairs having this phone call in the opposite way that I was intending to.

It was the first time that I think I’d ever felt what 2 Corinthians 5:14 describes – ‘for the love of Christ controls us, compels us.’ The Spirit decided to take matters into his own hands and change my words, thoughts, and even my emotions. Jenn was sitting in the next room and after the call, asked with surprise, “What happened?!” since what she heard me saying on the phone was so different from what I told her I was about to say.

And I told her, “I think the Holy Spirit just changed what I was going to say.” It wasn’t even that I sensed the Holy Spirit saying, “hey, you shouldn’t say this,” and that I made a decision to obey – he just straight up decided to intervene.

I was so filled with gratitude and so humbled, even surprised, that he was willing to do that. It was such a clear experience of the peace of Christ ruling, the love of Christ controlling, the Spirit of God living in and through me – the promises of resurrection life going from promise to reality in a situation that I could not handle in my flesh.

Through surrendering and receiving, through oneness with Christ, we receive not just the benefits of Jesus like love, joy, and peace, but the person and presence of Jesus himself! As he says in John 15, ‘abide in me, and I in you’ – so that his words, his thoughts, his will, and even his emotions will abide in us in the place of our own.

When we are surrendered to the point of death, then we can receive every benefit of resurrection life – including the presence of Jesus fully living in and through us.

Receive Resurrection Power

Lastly, in surrender he not only gives us the fullness of resurrection life, but the fullness of resurrection POWER for the sake of the Great Commission.

In 2 Corinthians 12, the thorn is so painful that Paul pleads with Jesus three times to take it away. But he doesn’t. Just like the Father did not take the cup from Jesus in the Garden when he pleaded three times. Instead, this is Jesus’ response:

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

2 Corinthians 12:9

‘My grace is sufficient for you.’ This would be enough, wouldn’t it? He will give us sufficient grace to deal with the suffering, with the thorn, with the trial.

But there’s a second part: ‘for my power is made perfect in weakness.’

I had always understood this verse as comfort for suffering. But the verse doesn’t make sense if it’s just about Jesus’ comfort in our suffering. Why is power made perfect in weakness? Why is power given in weakness and not comfort, or peace, or hope?

It’s because the purpose of the thorn and of the weakness is to cause surrender that results in receiving resurrection POWER in order to move forward in the ministry that God has given to us. Throughout the rest of 2nd Corinthians, Paul boasts in his weakness because it’s in the weakness of suffering that the power of Jesus is manifested for Paul to pursue the calling and ministry he’s been given. ‘For when I am weak, then I am strong.‘

We need to reframe our perspectives from trying to control situations around us through our self, to receiving His power that comes in our weakness. We are so tied to our control and self and our ideas that we don’t even know what living in power looks like.

In ministry and leadership in Thailand, I have experienced a constant lack of power. I feel lack in so many situations – wisdom for the right decision, courage to enter into hard conversations, physical energy to do ministry, focus to pray as I know I need to, or even power to change someone’s heart to obey Jesus.. All of this lack is because I am the one trying to control and achieve these things.

We cannot do the work of God without the power of God!

Do you need wisdom? Surrender and receive. You can actually receive the right answer from the Spirit and have the confidence that He has given it to you.

Are you lacking in patience and love for a difficult person? Surrender and receive. He can give you his own patience and love towards that person, giving you even his own emotions and thoughts and will towards them that overrides what you might feel or think!

Do you need strength to sustain you? Surrender and receive. His yoke is easy and his burden is light, and we can actually receive physical strengthening in our bodies and feel tiredness and burden melt away and be replaced with lightness and energy!

Do you lack power to fight sin and live in holiness? Surrender and receive. Receive a changed heart from Jesus that doesn’t even desire to sin, where temptation has no pull because of an intense satisfaction and fulfillment from being one with him.

In Acts 1:8, Jesus gave the disciples the task of reaching the whole world, but said WAIT – the Spirit of power will come. Surrender your control, and in weakness, receive his power!

The Spirit of power lives in you. He waits for your yielding, waits to pour out one hundred fold more power than you’ve ever experienced. The power that came at Pentecost that sparked the movement of the Global Church for 2000 years is waiting to be released from within you. If we will ever have a hope to complete this Great Commission, to see 3.3 billion unreached peoples have access to the gospel, we can have nothing less than this power of the resurrection that that Paul had, that Hudson Taylor had. It’s available. Surrender your control and receive his power.  

Suffering will come, whether big or small, for all of us. But for goers and missions leaders in particular on the front lines of opposition to the enemy – it will come for sure. We were at a gathering for returned goers in the States, and the first few people we met had experienced uncommon suffering: one person had a stroke right before they launched, another had a virus on the field that left them with facial paralysis, another had been kicked out of their country 2 weeks before, and way too many people in their 30s had cancer, cancer, and cancer.

For all believers, and particularly those on the mission field, we need to understand that there is a lesson in suffering – God is bringing you to a place of surrender. And in that place, your abiding and fruitfulness will multiply.

Those that are sure to encounter this suffering and need to access this abiding and power are the national believers that pursue multiplication among the unreached. One of our most fruitful Thai partners is Talia, but in the midst of her ministry beginning to multiply, she found out she had cancer. You can read more about Talia’s story, here.

God had similar lessons to teach Talia in the midst of her suffering. This past year, even though she’s been healed from cancer, Talia has still been given a thorn – struggling with thyroid issues and needing to take treatment that has basically kept her at home most of the year. Jenn and Talia were texting frequently, encouraging each other in the things that God was teaching them, and it has brought us so much closer to her and her family.

We asked Talia, ‘What has God been showing you through this season of sickness?’

She said, one night, God woke her up in the middle of the night and said – ‘write this one word down.’

ยอม

ยอม in Thai means – surrender. The one lesson that God wanted to teach her was surrender.

She said, “I have to trust the timing of God. I can’t control anything – my health, ministry, covid – I can only pray and trust that God is in control of everything. But I’ve experienced the presence of God constantly and in a new way. I feel him most closely during the most difficult and painful times with the medicine.

“I know that God wants me to use the testimony of my life to lead others to him. He will use my weakness and help me to obey him, to serve him with fullness.”

‘But I believe God is preparing us for fruitfulness to come. This season has shown us we need to be committed to movements 100%. And I am waiting for the timing of God for us to be together – Covid will be cleared, we will be healed, and we will celebrate the goodness of God together.”

Do you desire a deeper abiding? Do you desire to see resurrection life and power flow in and through you? The one word is surrender.

What could God do with a group of people who are absolutely surrendered to him, and who are receiving his resurrection life and power? Could a people filled with the Spirit of Resurrection Power complete the Great Commission in our lifetime?