Ephesians 4:11-13 reveals God’s “open secret” for elevating the Church in Her authority and testimony. It openly states that the functions of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastors and teachers will build a church that attains to the fullness of Christ – of authority and testimony beyond what we can conjure. But in that bold declaration also embeds a call to grace, forgiveness, and mercy — to maintain teamwork amidst the natural tensions that can arise from these functions’ differing priorities and temperaments. The authority and testimony of the “fullness of Christ” demands that we embrace grace, forgiveness, and mercy.
Too often, we see tensions flair between apostolic dreamers always driving expansion projects and pastors/teachers who may see greater priority with ministering to people’s needs. How about pitting a motivator evangelist who sees opportunity in every opportunity against the discerning and cautious voice a prophetic analyst? The orderly and disciplined teacher can easily take offense at a visionary apostle’s scattered ideas, or a charismatic evangelist’s “hand-waving” sales pitch. Even Paul and Barnabas, two of the church’s greatest contributors, had to separate in sharp disagreement from a clash of apostolic/prophetic versus pastoral personalities. God seems to have designed into these functions a condition favorable for spawning “offenses”. But why?
Overcoming the offenses from these “natural tensions” may be Jesus’ way to qualify us as stewards of His powerful authority and testimony. For this reason, MTC 2016 will seek the Holy Spirit’s heart on raising up standard bearers of His fruit. The fruit of the Spirit – an outflow of grace, forgiveness, and mercy – “immunes” us to the negative aspects of offenses. This “immunity” also frees us from the impossible task of trying to eliminate offenses around us, and break us from the non-ending cycle of demanding “fairness” and restitution from each other. That is powerful!
Standard bearers for the fruit of the Spirit play a crucial role in building the body – to help the functions of the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastors and teachers build “immunity” to offenses that arise from their natural tensions. The heart of MTC’s mandate is to raise up these standard bearers who bear the fruit in grace, forgiveness, and mercy – and ultimately see the church “attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. “
May the standard bearers of our generation rise to life with that prophetic breath of Ezekiel 37.