Rediscovering the fullness of our spiritual heritage: the five-fold gifting of Eph.4:11
So it seems that, after talking with many of you, the Lord’s timing is right on for our re-visitation of this topic. I have LOVED what I have heard many of you articulating. Things are beginning to make sense in your Holy-Spirit hard-wiring: why you think, feel, act a particular way.
Just to help us navigate through this lifting fog, I’d like to keep two torches out in front of us for this week:
1.) remember that these giftings are for the CHURCH universal — not for us. When we as individuals are all doing in community what God created us to do, then the Church is equipped, grows stronger and the Kingdom expands into the nooks and crannies of the globe. If we make these giftings primarily about us, we will take a near-sighted, self-oriented approach that will rob us of our true value to bless nations. So let the journey of self-discovery lead you outward to the Church and the world — asking why and how the Lord placed us in all our places and spaces. How do people I see and have relationships with need for me to walk into the fullness of who God made me to be?
This may be obvious, but as organic interdependent communities (from the metaphor of a “body”), we NEED each other to grow. And so to hold back is to hold back not just ourselves but from the whole body. This is not shame-based thinking so much as it is recovering the interwovenness of being part of a family in an individualistic culture — switching from a community-exists-for-me mentality to an I-exist-for-community mentality. Anybody who has ever played part on a TEAM knows this mentality: where every person on the field or the court knows that if he/she doesn’t do his/her part, then the whole team fails to move ahead. Such it is if we take seriously Ephesians 4:11-16.
2.) remember to keep the lines dotted – not filled in. By that I mean that this stuff is so out-of-the-box from our traditional, Western evangelical understanding of spiritual giftings that we need to be creative and open-minded about how our unique expression of one thing will be different from another’s and different from what we may have historically conceived. Most of us would be BLOWN AWAY if God were to give us a video reel or snapshot of what we could be if we obediently followed the Spirit into our natural, God-given design. So let’s keep our imagination WIDE open.
To spell out further: two people may have the same “gift” of hospitality, but if one is an evangelist she will use it differently than a shepherd or a teacher would. Your living room couch or dining table could be the place where people get healed and loved back into the Kingdom (shepherd) or where people remember falling back in love with the Scriptures again (teacher) or the spiritual birthplace of people who come to Jesus (evangelist). It becomes a strategic place where powerful, natural-life ministry happens. You are doing more than providing a meal: you are discipling people (and the people groups they’re in contact with) who will in turn disciple people and their people networks– all in your unique God-given way.
Or two people who are both apostolic in gifting may express it differently — one may do so by penetrating new sectors with Kingdom presence/entry through social entrepreneurial ventures or non-profit groups that multiply and bring Jesus into those various global arenas, where another may be starting churches on facebook or at a local cafe. Even Peter and James had a more local expression of their apostolic calling than Paul did.
So while I listed examples of each five-fold gifting for clarity’s sake, don’t feel limited by them as if you need to be like them. Few can reproduce Bill Hybels or Mother Teresa. And you and I are not supposed to. We’re supposed to be US — better, JESUS IN US. And that will be WAY more powerful than trying to be John Wesley or John Wimber or John Piper. In fact, that is God’s way of disciple-making a planet: by being YOU in God’s natural design.
We’ll cover this stuff some more this weekend, but feel free to discuss during the week with friends and family. Oh, and I believe Minho made a recording of it too if you’re interested.
March 27th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
We talked about this during LTG this week and felt we should leave a comment to give some feedback.
We’re positive about the message. Sounds pretty right on. In fact, we think you could be bolder about it. We feel like you’ve been giving a lot of qualifiers and warnings, but what we’ve heard so far seems fairly non-controversial. In fact, we’re not totally sure what’s so out of the box about it.
Maybe it would be helpful if you clarified the difference between what you’re sharing and the traditional Western understanding. You mention that it’s different, and in the sermon you used a phrase like we’ve “never heard a sermon on this before,” and I think we’re not seeing what you mean by that – I talked with Jieun and my mom afterwards and we all felt that the message was actually a familiar one.
As a group, we’re pretty on board – it comes straight from Scripture and for that reason, like I said, it feels pretty non-controversial. Perhaps you could be bolder – instead of holding back in fear of shocking people, you could emphasize what’s different, what’s out of the box about the message, because our experience of it so far has been more that it’s easy to accept (even familiar) rather than difficult.
One other question that came up in our discussion was that we shared Marcia’s question about the prophetic gift. You listed some non-Christian examples of prophets, but the definition of prophet on the slide emphasized being connected to God. Using that definition, it wasn’t clear to us how a non-Christian analogue is even possible.
March 27th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
Thanks for sharing for your ltg, danny. These are some helpful and encouraging thoughts. I think bcc is all over the place on familiarity with these ideas; keep in mind that there are people in your group who have been operating in and introduced to the different categories for a while now. So I believe your group is further out in front in thinking about next steps. This is very encouraging, but your experience/journey is not universal.
One other thing that your comments show me is that most of you have not experienced significant abuses in church life by self-proclaimed “apostles” or “prophets” who were not connected to a local community and who claimed an authority over people due to their self-proclaimed roles. I have seen my share of this and wish I could say it doesn’t happen, but it does – especially in more charismatic and pentecostal circles, which tend to have more dictatorial leadership anyhow. This [lack of emotional baggage on your end] is also positive.
One other thing that your comments show me is that your group has some level of comfort with mystery and the supernatural — another positive. Let’s face it: the church is less post-modern than the general public is. We’re still children of Modernity and the Enlightenment who believe that knowledge is power and who are instrumental and pragmatic in our world view. Just look at how important the sermon is in American church life. Or consider how the first thing we turn to for struggles with a topic is a Christian book on the matter. It’s in our heritage. And the irony is that many Christians are more uncomfortable with mystery and the supernatural than post-modern not-yet-Christians are. I believe the enemy uses this combined with the emotional baggage experiences of abuses; they make a potent combo. That’s how it was for me all through college and much of seminary. You will find entire websites devoted to calling out anyone who believes in prophecy or hearing outside of the Scriptures as heretics (even people like Mike Bickle, I.H.O.P., Bob Jones, John Wimber, etc.). History reminds us that good followers of Jesus were executed for this very reason (e.g., Ann Hutchinson, the Shakers) by other alleged Christians. So your group’s level of comfort with the supernatural is also encouraging, but I have learned not to take this for granted among Christians.
The implications are rather large actually, and I hope to spell them out more in easily digestible pieces without overwhelming and without seeming too deconstructionist. The bottom line is this: it is in Scripture (as you have observed), but it is not practiced. In fact, the way “church” is “done” today as well as church “leadership” is such a far cry from this that we are in disobedience of a pattern. Churches may “teach” Eph. 4:11 but they will only talk about the last two or three. And they will not adjust church infrastructure, leadership and budget to match the priorities and precedents of the five-fold gifting — opting instead over a cultural step-child of Eph.4:11. We have been captives of a two or three-fold leadership, been captive to a local church-based ministry paradigm, and captive to a corporate understanding of leadership. It is the difference between Matrix red pill and blue pill in my mind of church as we know it and church as God wants it. Love and wisdom dictate that we don’t move too quickly through this.
But if you’re ready for more and want to move forward, let’s pray and talk more off-line about it.
Some of this stuff we can teach in this sort of setting. Most of it, you will need to be shown by people who are walking in those giftings. And you will see the difference.
The answers are coming because we are asking the right questions now.
Very encouraged,
Mike
PS – last point, yes and no. it is a Spirit-given gifting, yes. but the line between secular and sacred is more dotted than we know. God speaks to and through people who don’t know him in the Scriptures: to kings, to donkeys, to Roman centurions, to sorcerer/diviner sorts (Balaam). I have learned to not put a period where there is room for mystery. I guess if you pushed me, I would chalk it up to general revelation or specific revelation given by God to people who don’t know him for the sake of all people but especially the church. There are people like this who are earmarked to deliver a timely word for others. That much is in common — whether it’s for a redemptive purpose is another. Where did their insight come from? God or a brilliant human brain? If you believe it’s from God, then you would call the Elie Wiesels and the Thomas Friedmans of the world, “prophetic voices.” If you don’t, then no harm done.
March 30th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
A couple practical questions from our LTG and myself:
1. How does the Ephesians 5-fold giftings fit in with other scripture and things we’ve been taught about spiritual gifts (gifts of hospitality, mercy, helps, administration etc)?
2. Should everyone have one or more of these 5 gifts (Eph 4) or is it possible to not fit into any of these categories?
3. If someone has no idea what their gifting might be, do you have any suggestions on how to figure that out?
March 30th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Great questions. I am in no way an authority on something that the church is just rediscovering everywhere. So I request multiple points of view to weigh in on this. What do you all think?
As for #1, I have not heard much on this topic. So it will be great to see what we come up with. I think it may help to look at all the gift lists of Rom. 12, I Peter 4 and I Cor.12-14. Note the slightly different purposes of the Eph.4:11 gifts vs. the others. Does that make a difference at all? How do these synthesize?
As for #2, my observations have been that we are at least one of these [often two]– presently seen or latent in us. How about everyone else?
As for #3, I would say, just follow what you like to do and seems natural or important to you. Watch also what kind of people you’re drawn to and what their gifting is.
The flip side of self-examination is to ask others who are close to you for input. Most of the time, they can call it out easier than we can for ourselves; that’s part of the beauty of being in community.
These are great questions that would be good to pull multiple opinions on. Maybe even this Sunday. I also think it would be good to have people pray for and lay hands on one other. Paul talks about gifts being imparted to Timothy in this way. This is confirming some things I was hoping to do soon. Thanks again, Steph, for being part of God’s means of narrowing things down for me.