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Five Fold Ministry
TitlesIna said this so accurately: "This is not a title, but a job description". But we have learned well from this worldly system and have applied these jobs as titles. Some churches learned so well from the earthly system that they even have "Pastors' Lounges", non-listed telephone numbers and reserved seats for VIP's. I once decided to investigate who was in charge of the church, who was second and so on - exactly what a person of the world would do. After I finished the analysis, I asked God what my title was. I did not expect to hear the answer He gave: "You are my servant". I must admit I was quite upset. I thought He would call me a teacher or something. That was when I decided to do whatever He wanted me to do, and not try and fit in any of the job descriptions above. It took quite a while before I saw the advantages of my title: Servant. He could now use me in any way He thought would be best for His kingdom. Sometimes He would use me as a teacher, sometimes as a musician, sometimes as a pastor, sometimes as a prophet and even an evangelist. But I am not any one of them. I am a servant - and proud to be one!
QualificationsThe five-fold ministers has to qualify for this position. Their qualifications are at least that of elders:
Here is an interesting point: Your children can disqualify you as a an active five-fold minister. You might be appointed by God, but your children could prevent you from being active in that role. The Bible clearly states that the children should not be unruly. The Elders will have Faith
The elders are supposed to have faith. The evidence that they have faith is that when they pray for somebody that is sick, they will pray for the sick and the sick shall be healed - physically and spiritually. There is no such thing that one of the ministers have more of a healing ministry than anybody else. The Bible says that the prayer of faith will cause the Lord to lift the sick up. Who will have the prayer of faith? The elders. How is this possible? Well, through the stripes of Jesus we have all been healed. Therefore it stands to reason that if you are ill, this is against the will of God. To get things back to the way God wants it, all we have to do is stand in the gap and pray. Our prayer will be answered and Jesus will heal the sick person.
Role of the Five Fold MinistryPerfecting the saints for their ministries
Members of the Five Fold Ministry should not have their own visions that their congregation should submit to. They do not have the luxury of choosing a vision for their church - it was given to them by God. Their vision is:
Nowhere are they given the permission to choose their own vision that their congregation are to submit to. The Five-Fold ministers have to submit to the visions of the Christians, assisting them in fulfilling that function. When will we know that the Five - fold Ministers have done their work? What does a perfect saint look like? Can we even become perfect? The perfect saint looks like this:
This is what the five-fold ministry should strive for - growing the body of Christ until they become perfect. Their ministry is not that they can have big churches, it is to get us ready for the work of the ministry
How to Treat the Five Fold Ministry
Here we see another requirement of an elder - they rule. If they rule well, they may be counted worthy of double honour. We need to ensure that they are adequately taken care of. We also need to protect them. We do not accept accusations from strangers or people who are always looking for something wrong in other people. When a Christian comes to us with something negative about an elder, we need to ensure that there are witnesses before we take the matter any further. They are worthy of our honour - like we honour our father and our mother. We need to take care of them and ensure they are well looked after.
What about the church with a "Ministry"?Churches may have different focuses, I.e. Healing ministry, evangelism, discipleship, music etc. There is nothing wrong with this. The problem comes when the five-fold ministers think like that. They are not allowed to have their own visions. Their vision has been given to them by God before the creation of the world, I.e. to train the church members for their individual ministries. There has been a huge misunderstanding in the body of Christ as to the role of the five fold ministry. This had an incredible effect on Christians all over the world in that they believe that the Pastor is their spiritual leader and everything they want to do has to be cleared with him or her first. In doing this Christians all over the world have become powerless and weak. This has been compounded by the scary stories that pastors told "their" flock on what happened to people who "missed God" because they did not "submit to the authorities placed over them". This was done by the pastors in an attempt to bring some order into their congregations, as they thought it would be an incredible disaster if everybody did what the Lord told them to do, or what they thought the Lord told them to do. These scaring tactics are designed by Satan in order to ensure that people do not follow the Holy Spirit, but are bound by bondages that seem to come from God.
Examples of a Failed SystemThe ChurchA good example of this was when the African Christian Democratic Party was born in South Africa. They thought they would get the backing of all the Christians because, for the first time, people could vote for principles instead of for people who played on their fears and emotions by saying: "Do not vote for that party, they are part of Apartheid" or "Do not vote for that party, they will ruin our country and everything we built up". Incredibly, the pastors told their congregations that Christians should not be in politics! They preferred having people rule over them that submitted to the rules of this world than those submitting to the rules of the Kingdom. What this meant was that Pastors told the people that they would rather have a king than a man of God ruling over them and "their" flocks - just like Israel did when they preferred Saul over God's appointed prophets. Even worse, the people in the congregation were so immature, that they never even thought of questioning this instruction from their leaders. This does not mean that everybody should now vote for the ACDP. Every system, as with the church, are filled with people who only have their own interests at heart. But if the Christians got involved, they could have made this thing work. They could have gotten involved in the ACDP as well as the other parties and got the whole system sorted out. When the ACDP was started, everybody was talking about the "sleeping giant", I.e. the Christians who never voted or agreed in any matter concerning the governing of South Africa. Well, the giant did wake up, and it was found wanting. It had a split personality, was retarded and without a mind. This just proved once again that the five fold ministers have failed horribly at what they were doing. People took charge of different parts of the body of Christ without having the authority given to them by God, and then they tried to submit the Holy Spirit to themselves, which is what happens if you try and submit believers under yourself instead of under God. We will discuss each one of the five fold ministers in more detail here. Mini MeDue to the fact that Pastors are taking charge over congregations and trying to play the role of Prophet, Evangelist, Teacher and Apostle, Christians are changed to the image of the Pastor and not to the image of God. The Lord never intended for Christians to be brought up into the fullness of Christ by one person only. They should be built up by the five-fold ministry until they are mature enough to listen to the Holy Spirit themselves. Once they are mature enough, they should be allowed to listen to the Holy Spirit and do what the Holy Spirit is asking of them. Yes, it means that they might make mistakes, but the Lord is gracious enough to show them where they went wrong - that is why the Holy Spirit is there. But we do not trust the Holy Spirit and neither do we trust the members of our congregations, so now the people have to submit to the authority that was placed over them (that is now us), and now we can keep them nicely under control. All we are doing, is creating mini me's and we are not doing what the Lord is expecting from us. We should be mature enough ourselves to realise that we do not have it all and allow other people to speak into the lives of the Christians in our congregations as well. For some Pastors this will never work. So maybe the Lord will be so fed up with us missing it all the time that He will allow our congregations to be scattered all over the world so that He can train and guide them Himself. The worst part of all is that we will not even realize that it is God and blame it all on the people "who are only seeking their own pleasures instead of the will of God in their lives". The Five-Fold ministry has to get their act together. Already people are being sick and tired of submitting to a leadership that cannot understand that their job is to train the congregation for their own ministries. They are sick and tired of people who think the only full-time ministers are the Pastors and who do not realize that the full-time work is actually in the field among the unbelievers. The Lord is holding His Five-Fold Ministers responsible for the immaturity of the people who have been placed under their care. You might not think that this is serious, but the Lord said that if we lead them wrong, it would have been better for us if we had a rock placed around our necks and thrown into the sea - it would have been better if we were never born.
What should Five Fold Ministers do?
May the Lord guide you, lead you and bless you as you search for His perfect will in ensuring that the Christians may become perfect for their work in the ministry. We are sometimes frustrated that people are not going anywhere in the kingdom of God. Maybe it is not all their fault? Let us get rid of these mini me's and get the people to the place where God intended to get them to since the creation of this world - where each one of them will go up to the mountain to hear from God and not send us up there to go and hear for them. How often have we heard preachers say that members of the congregation had to "put their ministries on the shelf for a while until it is God's time for them to be released. In the mean time the members of the congregation is supposed to sit in the church and support the preacher in the vision "God gave him" for the church. But if we have a look at the Word of God, the Five-fold ministers may have only one vision for the local congregation - to bring every member in the local church to the place where they can fulfil their destiny, equipping them for the work of the saints. I always found it to be a very sensitive issue while teaching at a local church: to distinguish between a message from God your myself or a message for the Bible School. Preachers sometimes get all confused between their own ministries and that of the congregation. They may be called as Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors of Teachers. An evangelist will normally tell the congregation that the mission of the church is to evangelize the world and if you are not busy with that, you are not in the centre of God's will for your life. A teacher will tell you that the main focus of the church is to bring the body of Christ into the fullness of knowledge. You then have to put your music ministry on hold and fit in with the church's ministry "until God calls you" but does absolutely nothing special for you to ensure that you can go into that ministry as soon as possible. This does not mean that each member of the congregation is called to be the same. Every one of the members of the congregation has a ministry and it is the responsibility of the Five-fold ministry to equip them - not build a large church, evangelize the world, show the world love or any other vision that God has given them for their own, personal ministries. |
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