From Vulnerability to Safety

One of my favourite and oft-quoted depictions of New Testament church life is from Alec Motyer, commenting on the opening verses of Philippians, who says: “The impression we receive of the New Testament is of local churches loosely federated under apostolic authority, with each church managing its own affairs under the leadership of overseers and deacons....” He continues describing the simple life-giving structures of the New Testament churches by saying, “When we add Paul the apostle and Timothy the apostle’s delegate, we have a remarkably full summary of the constitution of the New Testament church; the body of believers, the local church officers, the over-arching apostolic work of Paul, and the occasional ministry of a person like Timothy coming into the local situation from outside.” Brilliant.

The New Testament does not describe a denominational structure with local church affairs governed by centralised authority and operation. But neither does it portray local churches operating independently with only superficial interaction with other churches and little in the way of shared endeavour. Instead, it describes healthy and meaningful engagement and interaction, served by teams of translocal ministries; men and women whose ministry is recognised and invited beyond their local contexts and who together act to bring benefit and add value to the mission and ministry of the local churches they serve. It struck me recently that while we often comment that no local elders are ever identified by name in the New Testament, these travelling ministries often are individually identified by name. I don’t believe that this suggests that these men and women are somehow more important than in their ministry than local elders, but that what they represent really is very important.

In my previous blog post (Local Language, Local Ministry) the trajectory from Acts 2 to Ephesians 4 was traced, and it can be understood as a journey from individual vulnerability to collective safety. Mature and healthy apostolic teams help create a culture of deep relational care among leaders and churches, they help bring definition and clarity about shared values, they catalyse faith and the life of the Spirit among individuals and whole church families, they gather churches up into mission to regions beyond that they could not achieve on their own, and they galvanise the church to care for the poor. All of these bring strength and safety to the local church.

In the coming posts we will look at each of these aspects of a genuinely apostolic and prophetic environment and explore what this can mean for you and for your church.

Every Blessing

Maurice

Want to be Equipped & Inspired?

Come to the Pioneer Europe Conference