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AP OS TO LI C
CHURCH ARISING
God’s People Gathering and
Contendingfor the

By Chuck D. Pierce and Robert Heidler

oreword by C. Peter Wagner
Published by Glory of Zion International Ministries, Inc.
PO Box 1601
Denton TX 76202
www.gloryofzion.org

© 2015 by Chuck D. Pierce and Robert Heidler

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any
form or by any means — for example, electronic, photocopy,
recording — without the prior written permission of the publisher.
The only exception is brief quotations.

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken

from the New King James Version. Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by
Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Other versions used are:

AAMP — Scripture taken from THE AMPLIFIED BIBLE, Old
Testament copyright © 1965, 1987 by the Zondervan
Corporation. The Amplified New Testament copyright © 1958,
1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
NIV — Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International
Version ®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible
Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.
All rights reserved.

ISBN 13: 978-0-9791678-8-1

ISBN 10: 0-9791678-8-4

Cover Design: James Nesbit

Printed in Canada
CONTENTS
Foreword by C. Peter Wagner
PART ONE: Prophetic Introduction by Chuck D. Pierce

PART TWO: Preparing for God’s New Wine by Robert Heidler

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BLS Apostolic MOEN: ;.:-1ixncAinaccsamcametstentapiaalaetrasar
isons 71
9: The Marks of an Apostle (with Linda Heidler) ............0.0.. 81
10: Recognizing the Other Five-fold Gifts .....cccceseseseseseees 93
TR Rise’ OF the SANS sacccsvavcsensesiedespessncarvesseiivszens
Aenean 101

PART THREE: Apostolic Centers Arising by Robert Heidler

122” Makitig the Ttasitin o.oo. cxccarserrenstccani
contrssncslssaatenicenws 115
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16: Corinth: -Reachiag-the-Hatd-Core LOST ii ircsccsccstsssscssessesases 143
7*Romer Penetrating World Struictures......ciissss-rsssensdsencies Fee)
18: From the Island of Iona to the 21st Century..............0008 162

APPENDIX ONE: Testimonies of Transition ............00c00 173

APPENDIX TWO: Aligning with an Apostolic Center ....... 185

ENDINOT ES: .ritiitecccciénnssanecerapeeetert
eae eee ee ee 189
FOREWORD

A new divine season which some call The Second

Apostolic Age began, at least in the Western world, around 2001.
Leading up to this was the recognition and activation of the gift

activation of the gift and office-of-aposde_i

Consequently, the government of
church began to reflect the New Testament design for church
government for the first time in 1700 or 1800 years.
Not surprisingly this precipitated a number of notable
changes. I think I could argue quite convincingly that we are now
seeing the most radical change in the way of doing church since

implemented and described elsewhere. | However, as_ the

movement matures, new innovati ODs—eG
Ie entinue to surface
ipAig One
of these is the phenomenon of, While I have
learned of individual revelations and visions for apostolic centers
dating as far back as the early 1990s, my personal observation is
that two more recent events began to bring them to our collective
attention.
c=

The first was an extraordinary 4-hour revelatory

download to Prophet Chuck Pi in Liberty Park, New Jerse
on May 31, 2008. Among many other things, God showed
Chuck that throughout all 50 states of the U.S., God_would be
raising up a “Trium ” and those in the triumphant
reserve would begin to establish “Freedom Outposts.” Over
fime it became clear that “Freedom Outposts” was a synonym for
what others were calling “Apostolic Centers,” and it was agreed
that “Apostolic Centers” would become the recommended
definitive term.
———— ee

vil
 \
e second_was the National Consultation on Apostolic
Centers, aka “Apostolic _Ce rising!” held at lobal
Spheres
mE
Center in Corinth, Texas on June 11-12, 2014. Some
1200 leaders showed their interest by attending this gathering in
person, plus an equal number or more tuned in to the live
“webcast! The consensus of the consultation was that this should
not turn out to be a one-of-a-kind event, but that it should mark
the beginning of an ongoing alignment of leaders of apostolic
centers. The agreement was t ingdom of God would be
best served by apostolic centers being connected with each other,
tather than scattered. This was the birth of the Association of
Apostolic Centers (AAO), for which I was asked, at least initially,
to serve as Convening Apostle.
My first step was to name an Apostolic Council of twelve
recognized apostles with whom I had been Inpersonal contact.
We met together in December, 2014 for an intense discussion
regarding the nature and implementation of such an association.
These leaders continue to discuss the changing paradigm from
Church to Kingdom. The discussions include how the present
Church gathers and contends for the glory that is to prevail in the
earth realm in the latter days.
While we were all clear on the key differences between a
traditional local church and an apostolic center, we found it a bit
more difficult to delineate clearly between an apostolic church
and an apostolic center. Apostolic churches mostly limit their
ing¢dom work to their immediate sphere of influence, but
apostolic centers think and act regionally. Apostolic centers,
obviously led by apostles, grasp the big picture regarding both
iritual and natural forces shaping the terrain.
This book helps to define how God’s people gather
together in centers to war for His Kingdom plan based=upon the
—— a,

vili
 ¢

history of the Church to present day. This is a must read to

understand the future. Enter into His triumphant plan!

C. Peter Wagner, Vice-President

Global Spheres, Inc.
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 PART ONE:
PROPHETIC INTRODUCTION
by Chuck D. Pierce

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 Chapter 1

Let Go of the Old — The Greater is Here

When Robert Heidler and I began praying about this

book, we knew this was an important time to teach about change,
gathering, government, and movement. We live in a time when
governments are shifting and a new move of God is on the
horizon. In this prophetic season, we must understand the
principles of God's government and God's plan for the
administration of His House.
I do not know anyone who teaches this better than
Robert. Not only do Robert and I co-labor together at Glory of
Zion International Ministries in the Global Spheres Center, but

different, but we work as one. Before you get into the depths of
experiential teaching included in this book, let me give some
prophetic insights that will help you with the changes that you
most probably are processing.
The prophetic operates in{ four dimensions:) personall
corporately, territorial , and generationally. The Spirit of God is
now bringing changes to the church that will affect all of these
areas of life and society. Therefore, we need to know what the
“Spirit is saying to the Church.”
God is shifting His Church into a nev Administration.
The word ” can mean two things. One word isRLeos
SEIEand
SL
means “something that has never happened before.” A more
common word, however, is kaznos which means “something that
ee ee e sath:
is in the process of going to a new quality or forming in a new
 way.” Actually I think both of these new actions are occurring in
the Church.
Cotman as : ent is an authority

manifested in
in |
tke earth ee Nhere is also a government in the
Se
angelic realm.) These-gevernments are aligning to create a new
as
Een ae

This sduisd spiritual because this alignment zs

spiritual and powerful. Se a epemereeeS
Go d is renovating g the house

A Watchman’s Vision of the House Changing

Linda Heidler is a watchman. A Time to Watth is a great
book foryou to read in days ahead. Watchmen are called by God
to watch in the natural as well as the
spiritual,
and then report
Ghat TheyWetoTharOES peoplewillknow what todo.7
A
watchman knows if others need to be warned, or what kind of
action needs to be taken. A watchman is to be on the wall to see
danger coming, but a watchman also listens to the Lord and
reports what he or she hears the Spirit saying to the Church. One
~

of the watchman’s skills is the ability to interpr reams Gand

visions. Here is a vision Linda had that fully represents the time
in which we ate living, and the reason we have written this book:
We were in a Sunday morning church service. I began to
have a vision. In this vision I knew that the Lord was coming to
visit my house. I had cleaned everything cleaner than ever before. My
carpets were cleaned, my curtains were washed and ironed, and
everything was dusted and polished. I had fresh flowers on the table.
I could not think ofanything else to do to make my house ready for
the Lord to come. The house was perfect and in the best condition
ever,
All at once the Lord was standing in my hones. He had
not come to the door--He just appeared. I did not know what to say
 or to do. He looked around and then pointed to one wall of my
living room and said, “That whole wall has to go.” I was in
shock. That wall was the one between my living room and garage.
My washer and dryer were on the other side of that wall. I wanted to
protest, but as the Lord spoke the words, the wall shattered. Sheet
rock, two-by-fours, and wires protruded from the wall, and the room
was covered in dust.
Before I could recover from this, the Lord pointed to a room
off the back of my house. In reality I did not have a room like this,
but I did in the vision. This room had all kinds of awards, pictures,
trophies, medals, and so on. It also had family heirlooms. The Lord
pointed to that room and said, “That whole room has to go.”
Immediately I thought ofgetting all my treasures out, but the Lord
said, “And don’t try to get anything out either.” As I
looked, a huge crane appeared in my backyard and a wrecking ball
swung across and demolished the room.
My house was a wreck, I was in shock, and I didn’t know
what to do. This was not what I had anticipated, but it was very
clear that the Lord knew what needed to happen in my house. The
Lord had visited my house and was preparing itfor the future.

I love this vision because of the simplicity of the

interpretation that it entails. The Spirit is clearly_sayi
Church: “Even though you've got everything in order in this last season, get
ready for the changes I am bringing!”
CMe

Lots of Changes Ahead

This book will help you with abl i are
manifesting in the Church. In this book we discuss many of
The-changés
ahead. When Daniel had his vision of God’s people,
he described us like this: “Those who do wickedly against the covenant he
shall corrupt with flattery; but the people who know their God shall be

3
strong, and carry out great exploits. And those of the people who understand
shall instruct many, yet for many days they shall fall by sword and flame, by
captivity and plundering. Now when they fall, they shall be aided with a
little help; but many shall join with them by intrigue. And some of those of
understanding shall fall, to refine them, purify them, and make them white,
until the time of the end; because it is still for the appointed time.” (Daniel
11:32-35, NKJV)
We are now approaching this appointed time. In Matthew
16, when Father revealed who Yeshua was to Peter, a prophecy
came forth. Unlocked revelation releases prophecy. Jesus
released a prophecy for ages to ¢ 4
“Then Jesus answered him, ‘“Bkssed (happy, fortunate and to be
envied) are you, Simon Bar-Jonah. For flesh and blood [men] have not
revealed this to you, but My Father Who 1s in heaven. And I tellyou, you
are Peter [Greek, Petros — a large piece of rock], and on this rock [Greek,
petra — a huge rock like Gibraltar] I will build my church, and the gates of
Hades (the powers of the infernal region) shall not overpower it [or be strong
to its detriment or hold out against it]. I will give you the keys of the
kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind (declare to beimproper and
“unlanful) on earth must be what is already bound in heaven; and whatever
you loose (declare lawful) on earth must be what is already loosed in heaven.””
(Mt. 16:17-19, AMP)
This is a trtumphant people of God. rising up. These
people will do exploits; they will take resources and multiply or
change these resources into a form to be used today. These
people are an apostolic people. They are a modern people that
very much look like the people who crossed over Jordan, 476
yeats from the time God spoke them into existence when He
communicated to their father, Abraham. .
The gates of hell will not be able to withstand these people!
They are people that(will build a new prototype)for tuday, and
unlock a Kingdom mentality that hell cannot withstand. They

4
 will have centers for gatherings that will be known as Glory Fire
Freedom Outposts.

The Greater is Now Here

Yeshua taught many parables to help His disciples
understand the time in which they were living, the spiritual
changes coming, and the future. He still teaches us today. Not
only do we have His word to guide us, but we also have His
promises that a triumphant people would arise and do greater
than He.
omicraijohn 14:12 says, “...I say to you, he who beheves in Me, the
works that I do, he will do also; and GREATER WORKS than these he
will do, because I go to My Father.” (NKJV, emphasis added) Let’s
think about the context of this and why the Lord said this. The
disciples were completely bewildered and discouraged. Jesus had
told them that He would be leaving them. He had predicted His
own death, and told them that one of the twelve was a traitor. He
had shared that Peter would disown Him three times. He also let
them know they had to look forward to Satan creating and
working havoc against all of them.
However, he comforted them by telling them “let not
your heart be troubled... trust in God; trust also in Me.” Jesus
said nothing about the place He was going, but He did tell them
that He would come back for them. The Lord knew that they did
not fully understand Him and His mission, but assured them that
there was a future for them.
He also reassured them that the miracles they had seen
were God the Father working through Him. They thought in
their minds that all of this would end with His death, but instead
He shared something utterly shocking: “YOU WILL EVEN DO
GREATER THAN I!” In our modern-day language, we might
say He “blew their minds!”
 The apostles would not necessarily do more
INCREDIBLE miracles than Jesus, but their outreach and those
they touch through the ages would be greater. For example, Peter
led 3,000 to salvation in one day. Essentially Jesus was saying to
His disciples, “I am going, but leaving you the Spirit. Now you
will be empowered. And this is meant to continue, from age to
age. You will now ask unimaginable things that will bring glory
to Me!”
The Church today is meant to continue in this legacy.
There is an Apostolic Church arising that will o beyond
y demonstration that has been known in the earth. As you
"Tea S > enjoy learning about the people and places that
will overcome the world, as we compare the Early Church to the
Apostolic Church arising today.

NOK) Denommahional
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1S eS Vall a ae
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ous Chapter 2

rom Church to Kingdom

From generation to generation and season to season, the

Lord rebuilds His Church so His Kingdom can be _ better
manifested in the earth. Therefore, we must understand the
principle of the Kingdom of God. This book is about a
structure God is presently re-establishing in the Church called
Apostolic Centers. These apostolic centers reflect what the Lord
is doing in the earth today.

The Importance of Kingdom

In Matthew 9 and Matthew 11, Jesus shar he
earch addicene ache
as eat he was now in prison and the
government was changing. In Matthew 9 the leaders from John’s
wineskin come and question the new wineskin that Jesus is
forming. Jesus explains the new methodology of the wineskin,
and then in Chapter 11 relates what He is doing in response to
John’s questions. John had sent his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are
You the coming One or do we look for another?’ Jesus answered, ‘The
blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are
raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them. Blessed is he who is
not offended by Me.’” (Mt. 11:3, 5-6, NKJV) Jesus was saying, “Go
tell John that ’m doing everything he prophesied would be
done.” Then He added, “Blessed zs he who is not offended by Me.”
That should be a warning to us. Let me paraphrase what
Jesus was telling John: “If your disciples don’t get-offended by
the way I am doing things in this new administration, they can
move forwatd into the new. But they must choose not to get
offended.” The passage goes on to say, “As they departed, Jesus
began to say to the multitudes concerning John: What did you go out into the
wilderness to see... A prophet? Yes, I say to_you, and more than a prophet.
For this is he of whom it is written: Behold, I send My messenger before
Your face who will prepare Your way before You.’ Assuredly I say to_you,
among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the
Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”
(Mt. 11:7, 9-11, NKJV)
In other words, Jesus was saying that up until this
moment, there has not been a greater man than John, but we are
moving from a season of paving the way into forming a new
administration. As you move into the new administration, those
transitioning into Kingdom life are going to be greater than that
which was previously experienced and modeled by John. That
was a big shift! That was the shift from one season to another.
Jesus continued, “From the days ofJohn the Baptist until now
the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it byforce, for all
the prophets and the Law prophesied until John.” (Mt. 11:12-13, NKJV)
In other words, all the prophets prophesied up till now. The Law
was developed and ruled up till this point in history, but
something was about to shift. This explains what they were
looking at in the new administration. Everything they had
experienced until that time had been okay; in fact, it had been
good and necessary. However, now things were going to shift.
Jesus was saying that they needed to see and understand the shift.
Essentially, Jesus was telling John that He was fulfilling all of the
things that had been prophesied. If one is not offended, you can
see prophecy being fulfilled. Offense blinds us to what is
happeningin the Kingdom. *
a
 redeeming activity in e world. He oversees and
. wes . « 5 nat

réviews what Kingdom strategies of His are manifesting in the

seven-mountain structure of society. The Church-ig the assembly
Of those who belong to Christ Jesus. Sacussenpel it this
way: "Kingdom takes visible form_in_those who have assembled as the
Church." As we make this shift in our understanding, we will start
anifesting Kingdom. When we assemble together we should
have a much greater power than that which we exhibit alone. We
need to ask God to shift us into a greater holy array so that He
can come and meet us in a new way.
Kingdom people are sent out to do Kingdom work. As Kingdom
representatives advance, they will meet opposing forces.
Kingdom people know warfare. They do not back off from
warfare. They know that kingdoms are in conf They have to
learn how to@maneuver_in
not trying to protect themselves. They are purposing to go on a
mission every time they leave the door. We have been given
grace and faith to overcome the anti-
The Spirit of God is now d ing centers where a
Kingdom display and performance can occur. The Lord not only
€clares His Word, but He performs His Word and manifests His
glory. These centers are prototypes of what Heaven is displaying
for the earth to see.

Characteristics of Kingdom
Many times we talk about Kingdom if
understand Kingdom. We telate “kingdom” to worldly
structures, but that is not the highest level of Kingdom rule. If

. 9
you begin with the way God set up His Kingdom, then the world
will not be able to conform you to a lower expression of
kingdom.

Kingdom has a government. In the 19 e_ha ve of

God called the “Jesus Movement.” This was the last big move of
God we experienced inthe United States. God was doing big
things to bring people into His Kingdom, but there was no
government in place to secure the harvest. Many came into the
Kingdom during that time, but much of that harvest was lost.
Kingdom must have a government. inaKingdom season, we
must understand_government. Actually, we must understand
supernatural government. We are going to have to understand
Lord Sabaoth, the Lord of Hosts. We will need to understand
Jehovah Nissi and how He sends His government into war.
ae SE ee ee ee ee er, a ee

A Kin by a_king. The king has power and

authority. He can promote you or sit you on a shelf for a year.
We must not forget that he has sovereign rule. Kingdom has a
government in which the king rules. I submit to earthly rulers,
but I have to learn all authority structures. When we understand
authority structures, we can maneuver in them as a representative
of the Kingdom of God.

Kingdom has administration. (‘Kingdom administration is

different from the church administration to which we have been
accustomed We must understand the Church’s role~in the
Kingdom. A lot of people confuse the two and do not come into
all that God wants. Administration can be difficult to grasp, but
it is an issue we must understand. We can’t do like Istael did at
the end of the book of Judges, where everyone "did what was
right in their own eyes." You can’t do that and express Kingdom.

10
People who refuse to discover their places or positions in a new
season cannot operate in the ultimate Kingdom expression God
desires for them.

Every kingdom has a culture. We all come from various

‘cultures. Every people group has a culture. If we conform to the
culture around us and never learn Kingdom culture, we will fail.
Kingdom culture is higher than the world’s cultures. We have
lived at a lower level than what God wants to set for us, because
we have not expressed the culture of the Kingdom.

The Kingdom is good news. (Kingdom is an alignment with the

One who is giving us access from the Throne. He is the One
who died for us, overcame all powers and principalities, and is
mediating for us to display His authority in the earth. This is
Kingdom. We must understand that Kingdom is not just "out
there” somewhere. Kingdom has rule in the earth realm. If we
do not demonstrate God's rule in the earth realm, we are not
being the ambassadors God is calling us to be. We must respond
to Kingdom both individually and collectively. Kingdom requires
a corporate response. Each individual is important in the overall
makeup. This expression requires our gifts aligning and coming
into a specific order before certain demon forces can be
overcome. »)CO)

Kingdom is connected through generations. One of the cries of

ty heart is for the next generation to grasp the meaning of
Kingdom. I understand that young people are young people, and
young adults are young adults; in our culture they are trying to
establish their lives. But in focusing on their own lives and
interests, they can also miss Bapdots authority.

The King don |1S Nv

oa SUF oe )\ aay tt mee Ale
God's Heavenly Kingdom is not based on worldly patterns.

more people are saved than we realize, but not everyone enters
into Kingdom. A lot of people have a heart for God, but they
never express Kingdom in the earth. You have to understand
Kingdom or you become judgmental and critical as you see
people striving to work out their salvation.

Pg an CSR Bible
says that the Kingdom cannot be comprehended by the natural
mind. You cannot understand Kingdom by writing down all the
rules on a sheet of paper. You have to get Kingdom from a
supernatural dimension; Kingdom has to be revealed to you.
You need to ask the Lord to bring you into a higher level of
Kingdom understanding.

The Kingdom cannot be obtained by ambition. Remember

when the “Sons of Thunder” tried to do that? Even their mother
was ambitious. Having an ambitious mother who wants you to
be at the right hand of the Lord is not a good thing. I see this
with wives and husbands when they think their spouse is not
spiritual enough. This is spiritual ambition. You try to force them
into a place, rather than allowing God to pull them into a place.
Ambition is a mean demon. This is what Judas had; he was
ambitious for the Kingdom. But his ambition shifted him out of
the eternal structure that he had been offered, and brought him
into a role in the earth that was not good.

Kingdom should never be postponed. When God is ready, He

will move. This is a time of changing administration. We have to
ask the Lord to keep us abreast of the way He is moving.
Sometimes there is a culture shock when you move between

12
kingdoms, and this can get you in a mess. Some of God's people
try to operate in the world without first understanding the
kingdom into which they are going. If they overly shine their
lights from the Lord’s Kingdom into the kingdom to which they
are going, they will blind people and the world will not be able to
see. You have to learn how to represent Kingdom properly.

Kingdom has Provision. ‘Kingdom has supply structur

you have to understand. Supply structures wi on
greatest changes we see in this shift. We have garments and
mantles that dress us. We put on Christ daily. We represent Him
daily, no matter with whom we are working.

Kingdom has a territory. YQu must enter the Red Sea and cross

administration. When Glory of Zion made_o to_the

Sal at the more we progressed in the garden, the more we

wo splay His Kingdom in the Tabernacle. You must
u: el to prosper. David's kingdom came the
closest to reflecting the pattern of heaven. David's kingdom
operated around the Ark of the Covenant. God's presence was
eit tisalee obDat because God was
énthroned on the praises of Israel. You can’t move in God’s
Kingdom without worship! We must first develop the presence
of God in any Kingdom structure. If you put Church above
Kingdom, you will develop the "gathering" structure as your
ptiority rather than the "presence" structure. You will not be
driven by God’s presence. Instead you will end up program-
driven to meet the needs of the people. Eventually, the people
will still have to move into the presence of God to succeed.

. 35
Kingdom has an atmosphere. Beginni "s presence is
more difficult, because you cannot understand it from the world’s
Serspectirean nee violiad acasmina isleGlaseaieee ain
people's needs. You can go to church and it does not look a lot
different from the world -- you just gather and fellowship,
enjoying each other, and meeting people. But if you are
presence-driven, meeting needs is not a driving motivation.
Rather, you know that unless God’s presence is established, you
will not move forward. This is the whole key to understanding
the seven mountains of human society that many discuss. We
move from God’s Kingdom into the structures of the world.

Kingdom has prophets. God also ordains people who represent

Him in every aspect of His authority. When David established
SaaS ee who went up the water
tunnel, got into Jerusalem, and overthrew the Jebusites. David
had recorders and scribes. I have recorders and scribes who
record everything we do here, because I value God’s word. I
value the expression of God’s word. We record the significant
dreams people bring to us.

Kingdom has war units. We do not war with flesh and blood;
God’s Kingdom people war against demonic forces. This is the
difference between Kingdom and our traditional concept of
Church. You can “go to church” without ever going to war. In
fact, you can go out to eat with people and have great fellowship,
but never go to war with them. At Glory of Zion, we have war
units who will gather fot intercession at 3 AM if God calls us to
war during that watch. This is a military unit meeting with God,
to gain strategy to overcome the enemy.

14
 Kingdom has gatekeepers. Some gatekeepers can be challenging.
I have had gatekeepers check my nametag before letting me into
a conference. However, this is the fi keepers; the
question wha is coming in and out of the gate. Gatekeepers
fulfill what Yeshua prophesied in Matth tes of
hell.

Kingdom has treasurers. The greatest warfare is in the treasury.

We have many who serve as treasurers here. They have to
understand and be accountable for key information and
resources.

Kingdom has music and sound. There ate musicians and singers
and dancers in the Kingdom. I love it when we go into “free for
all” dance, but there are other times when the dance has to
represent an order. If you have expressive corporate dance, then
it must be interpreted just like tongues. If sound and dance are
not interpreted, then there is something lacking in Kingdom
demonstration.

Kingdom has people who serve, just as the priests and Levites

if it were not for the Levites. We have one of the most incredible
“Tevitical structures in the world. If it did not function so
efficiently, we could not do what we do here. Recently, one of
our retired widows dusted everything in the sanctuary. God
notices this and makes sure the Levites are cared for properly.
ou do not have to worry about being taken care of in Kingdom
tule. There are gifts of helps and hospitality that function in
Kingdom service.

15
 Kingdom has chief mint I'm so thankful for the chief
‘ministers God has established here. They have gone through
many things in their lives and have testimonies of overcoming.
They minister and help others minister.

Kingdom has power. Out of this new administration God is

forming,there is a new power and anointing that is being infused
from Heaven into those representing the Kingdom in earth. This
power produces demonstration and causes a manifestation of
glory!

The Five-Fold Gifts of God’s Kingdom Rule

€ many aspects and many levels of God's
administration, but the key to its operation is called the five-fold
ministry. When the Lord Jesus ascended into Heaven to be
enthroned at the Father's right hand, He released five gifts to us.
The purpose of these "ascension" gifts is to establish His
Kingdom and equip His Church. Ephesians 4 identifies these
five unique ministries as apostle, prophet, teacher, pastor, and
evangelist. These gifts need to be aligned properly. When they
are aligned and functioning as God intended, we will see David’s
Tabernacle restored. In the book of Revelation, we see that
David’s Tabernacle will be restored. This is who we are! We are
being restored! We are moving into a new administration in the
house, and a new Kingdom demonstration will come. We are
living in a time when we must establish our future. To do this, we
must understand God’s order.

Enter Into Your NEW

There comes a time when wineskins change. The Lord
has a day for a structure that has been in place to make a shift. I
elieve the Lord initiates change. I believe we choose what type
————

16
 change we wish to receive( At the end of 2008, I believe we
entered the “Year of a New Wineskin!”’ Just as we ee seen ae
United States of America shift to the

we are called to pray for all of those in authority, not just for
those that we prefer to win an election. We are a “peculiar
people,” not a political caucus. We are a people who can steer
the course of history with our prayers and acts of faith. Jesus had
to deal with the mindset of some of His key leaders who were
more interested in making Him king of a nation than in
recognizing Him as King of the Kingdom of God.
We must rely on Holy Spirit as we enter a new season.
Holy Spirit must become our rearguard as we advance. Unless

directing its covenant with God, evil overtakes the society, and

us to triumph as we go through great change. As we approach the

future, the real issue is always concerned with the change of heart
and unified expression of His people that will release an
anointing throughout the earth. The anointing breaks the yoke.
God always has a TRIUMPHANT RESERVE, from generation
to generation, that will come forth with new strength and power.
In the following chapter I will explain this triumphant people,
why the Church must shift, and how new apostolic centers must
arise, to accommodate the move of God that is manifesting.

ly
 Chapter 3

A Vision of the Triumphant Reserve Arising

I Will Have_A People Who Understand and
Know How to Redeem the Times!

Prophets areiasportaut foday._ Itprophets add nothing to the

Word of God and change nothing that has been written, then
why ate they needed? Prophetically, what is recorded in the
Word of God is all that is really necessary for the future
generations of all ages to come. However, prophets in each
generation must interpret how the revelation that has been given
makes what “hath been written” coherent, cohesive, authentic,
and appropriate for us today.
Not only do prophets gain wisdom concerning how to
maneuver through the world in which we live, but they also gain
revelation that helps us to understand the future. God does
nothing, without first telling the prophets. Today, prophets have
visions so they can teach, lead, exhort, chastise, warn, and
encourage God’s people to make right decisions. They motivate
God’s people to understand what He is doing today. Prophets
also help us interpret and understand the times in which we are
living. .

The Issachar School— Ded oecae Time

Several years ago, We-dexeloped-onr Issachar School. We
named the school after the tribe in Israel that knew how to meye
into the “new.” They were a tribe that undetstoo(4im d
I knew that part of the training the Bodyof Christ

18
TIMR W SRascon o> FEST(V arts

needed was to be able to “Ze// Ame” in the Spirit. The Issachar

School is one of the most unique schools in the Christian world.
The school has a “One New Man Mindset,” Jew and Gentile
becoming one, with teaching Sats a Sot perspective.
The Hebraic con
2 TE ee ee
passage jobfitpe As"therlife-cycle, The Hebrews saw man as
participating in two time semana (fst, the “age” of time@ywas
temporal. We have been placedi imteract with
the lays.of science around & i ime i
. 1 Corinthians 2:6-8 says, ‘Flownen we speak ie
among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers
of this age, who are coming to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God in a
mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory,
which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not
have crucified the Lord ofglory.” (NISJV)
God has stored up wisdom for a time_su is. We
can gain wisdom to which no enemy of hell has access. From a
Hebraic mindset, events that occurred throughout life created
smaller cycles of review in a bigger picture of life. When one
summed up all of these smaller, temporal cycles, the finite age
was determined. We are living in a time of “summing up.” We are
not just living from year to year. But when you look at the season
as a whole, you see the Lord doing something in our generation.
He is preparing us to move more quickly and advance in His
kingdom purpose in days ahead.

earth today. I have a heart for God’s children to know the times
jawhich we are living, and what we should do to ready ourselves
to advance in the earth. Issachar fully understood the long war
between the House of Saul and House of David. Issachar knew
how to intercede, or “bear the burden,” so the people could be

49
influenced to shift properb¥ Issachar knew how to open up wages
necessary for Kingdom advancement in the future. Issachar was
positioned between Judah, the war and praise tribe, and Zebulun,
the wealth tribe. Without understanding time, you cannot movg A
in victory, from wart to wart —

A Season of War 2
We are living in conflicting and conflicted times. Many
times the shifts we make are not our willful choices, but result
from the wars of the season. We would have loved to see
something go one way, but atmospheric shifts, conflicts of
opinions, conflicts of philosophies, and conflicts of emotions
caused things to go a different direction. James said that we war
because we have cravings and desires in us that cannot be
satisfied. Many times these desires hold us in wilderness places.
We ate meant to cross over into prosperity, but many times we
choose to have our way in a situation, instead of submitting to
the will of God.
We are now living in times of war. This war is so different
than the declared times of World War I and II]. However, there
seems to be world conflict and no one is immune from the
effects. Even in a war season, God’s army has different rules by
which it must play. We must understand time, timing, and God-
given missions that lead to triumph.
"Bach iyeaty T:attempnito seskuthe Lordatesgein-savelition
that causes us to better perceive what the voice of God would
sore Jeshea Mirough Hisspeople Aiicare His voice in the earth
im every generation and must remain His voice crying in the
wilderness. Our dectees open the way for the Lord toc int
our season, Once we decree a thing, we then watch to see God’
will manifest.
 This season of war is becoming very real to most of us
now and actually is historic, in a sense. We are now pressing in to
the next season. The new wineskin of the Church should now be
formed to express victory in the next season.

From Prayer to Mobilizing an Army »

I was predo Vy known as a Global Prayer Leader in
the 1980°s, 1990's, and until 2007. I was so honored that the
[ord allowed me to mobilize prayer warriors all over the world. I
was blessed to have had a role in directing and participating in
many prayer missions. For the history of the prayer movement,
yeu can come to the Global Prayer Tower here at the Global
pheres Center in Corinth, Texas. We have artifacts from many
nations around the world. We have each state represented.
K utch Sheets and I actually visited each state in America before
the elections in 2004. From this tour, we developed a history
book (Releasing the Prophetic Destiny of a Nation) that you may read
to find God’s prophetic word over every state in America.
One key prayer mission was in the 1990’s, when we sent
teams to the 10/40 Window, an imaginary window that
represents the area of the world most unreached by the gospel.
This “window” of 69 nations spans from 10 to 40 degrees north
latitude across northern Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.
This part of the world included 90% of the poorest of the poor
and unreached by the Good News of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Peter and Doris Wagner led the United Prayer Track, in
which many ministries were mobilized to pray for these people to
come Or is prayer thrust culminated in a
ee nner over 200 nations represented. This
was probably the most diverse gathering in the history of the
Church. I remember praying for leaders from Iran to Bangladesh,
and beyond. Since this time, the Church has been birthed in most

2h
 of these nations. We continue to send teams to follow up and
minister. I was recently in northern India. In the 1990’s you could
count the leaders of that region on your fingers. In 2014, the
team I took to northern India ministered to over 1500 leaders
and many converts.
After the 10/40 Window thrust, we focused on sending
teams to the 40/70 Window. This is an area of the earth that
spans from Iceland in the west to Great Britain, through northern
and eastern Europe, and including all of Russia. Some of the
greatest financial wealth in the world is controlled from within
this window. Ne cut
a church history and had previously experienced the Spirit of
God inother generations, puthad developed acold hardness
Over the years, and their fire had waned. We sent teams to all 72
nations associated with this region of the world.
However, in September, 2007, when attending a meeting
of prophets and apostles from around the world, I was asked to
share what I would be doing in the future. When my time came,
to share, the Spirit of God instructed me that my season as a
prayer leader had ended, and I was to lay down that identity and
| treany-rrextassignment——was
await Him o-ring 1 to quit
‘Sraying? Of course notButmy identity had tochange. I had to
receive His directive from Heaven so that.I could pray more
effectively. Change can be difficult, but when we obey, we see
DCASPV
IVE)
the Lord in a new way. One thing I have learned is this: when
we wait on the Lord, He will renew our strength and give us our
call for the future.

us. Acts 17:24-27 says, “God, who made the world and everything in it,
“since
He isLord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples Made with
hands. Nor is He worshiped mith men's hands, as though~He needed
anything, since He gives to all hfe, breath, and all things. And He has made

me
Jrom one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and
has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,
so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him
and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us ...” (NKJV)
Time produces champions! I knew that the Lord was shifting the
times and seasons of His Kingdom purposes through His people
in the earth realm.

God Has a Triumphant Reserve

From September 2007 through the fall, winter and even
into the spring of 2008, I just continued to minister, as the Lord
led me. I love ministering to God’s people. We are a peculiar,
precious people in the earth. However, on May _31 8
something happened that has a y.
had ae
been asked by John and Sheryl Price, Peter and Trisha Roselle,
and the state leadership of New Jersey to come to Liberty Park
and “Open the Gates in 2008” for the glory of God to flood
across America. To help understand the history of America,
many of those who settled the East Coast, and much of the
United States, arrived on Ellis Island, recorded their arrival to be
part of this nation, and then caught a train that would take them
to Newark or New York City.
The leadership team rented the train station at pect:
State Park, and we were to use it for a worship gathering. Before
the regional meeting started, I could feel the Spirit of God
moving on me. When worship began, the Spirit of God fell on
me and I was caught up into a heavenly place. I began to receive
a vision from the Lord for the future.

I Saw A Triumphant People Arising

The Lord raised me and showed me hrnation of United
States of America. First, He revealed His remnant and where

23
they were positioned. Next, He showed me their strength, from
state to state to state in America. I said, “Lord, what are You
showing me?” It was like a magnet. A troop began to come
from every place in their state, gathering together to form what
looked like a glory fire river. I said, “Lord, who are these
people?” He said, “This is My Triumphant Reserve for the future!”
What the Lord sho n May 31, 200 is_4
Triumphant Reserve that would be called up for future Kingdom
purposes. He showed me that many would begin to move out of —
‘the
enemys
camp OF feligion. He also showed me that many _
would refuse to leave their religious structures. When He began
to gather His new reserve together, it was as if many were not
attracted by this new movement. They remained steadfast in the
old place of worship and religious rule that had become
comfortable in their lives. He showed me how others were
aligning around race and gender, as opposed to a mission call and
gifting. However, He showed me how this fiery river of God’s
people would become the movement of the future. This would
be the group that would destroy the works of the enemy in days
ahead.
Then He showed me HIGH PLACES. Each_state in

from idolatrous worship and wrong sacrifice. High places are

Theenemy andpositionea strategically throughout theTand._T savw

an atmosphere held captive by ruling hosts.

Next, the Lord showed me the ATMOSPHERE. In this
vision He showed me erent layers of the atmosphere, in
relationship to His presence, versus the demonic spiritual rule in
that particular area or region. (Some areas had already &cen taken
over, and darkness was actually ruling those areas.) The enemy

24
 had 10 ruling centers already developed within the United States.
These were positioned strategically throughout the land. They
were like communication centers that transmitted to lesser
substations, from state to state to state. Then He showed me the
communication systems between these centers. I saw how one
sacrifice empowered one dimension of an evil presence, and then
that presence would communicate to another center, as they
networked together their plan of control. (I could go into great
detail here, but I will wait for another time to do this. As a
matter of fact, I believe it would be unwise to share everything I
saw.)
The Lord then showed me the COVENANT ROOTS
that He has in this nation. He actually showed me the level of
nurturing that was still grafted to His covenant root that He had
developed from Abraham’s obedience. He showed me how this
nation had first been nurtured by this root, but now lifelines from
the root system had withered. Actually some of the lifelines in
parts of this nation had dried up, so the root systems of those
particular parts had changed, resulting in the formation of
different root structures. He showed me how some roots were
covered over by a mossy, evil slime that could be removed. He
showed me states that had never allowed a covenant root to go
down into their land. He showed me broken covenants that
would have to be mended, before roots could grow fruit for the
future.
He then showed me our CONFLICT BETWEEN THE
ROOT SYSTEMS. _ These conflicts in the next several years
“would determine what sort of fruit would be brought forth in this
nation. He showed me that the conflicts would multiply and
intensify. I actually saw “orchards of contention.” The
interesting portion of this vision is that different people groups in
each orchard created a different type of fruit, and this fruit had

ar)
 not been tasted in past seasons. The only thing I could relate to
this biblically was the church that came out of Antioch. The
Antioch church was an international church that came about for
kingdom advancement, for that season in history. f
Next, He showed_me how the COMMUNICATION
SYSTEM in the United States was linked with systems
internationally, and how a new form of global communications
eS se a communication
would control financial and legal structures. All of these
structures had a tuling voice that was set against the God of
Israel. Therefore, I knew that during these next seven years,
beginning in 2008, that Israel would experience much warfare.
This was interesting, since I sent my son, Daniel, and his wife,
Amber, to live there during this time.
However, He showed me His remnant buildings that the
LORD Himself was erecting, These looked like fiery, vibrant
castles strategically developed and placed in the earth. Not every
state had one of these fiery centers. I asked the Lord what these
were, and He said, “There are my FREEDOM OUTPOSTS tor the
future.” His Triumphant Reserve then connected with the centers.
When they did they went in one way and came out seven times
brighter and stronger.
I saw 23 states in America that had covenant roots. Many
states had Freedom Outposts. However, He then showed me
how other outposts needed to form, in some places. Where the
spiritual atmosphere was not yet conducive to freedom, He

new types of warfare that would have to be developed by this

triumphant people, to regain new portions of the land.
During this four-hour visitation, He actually showed me
how prayer strategies from the last season would not be effective
" in this season. Nazareth and Capernaum ate good examples of

26
 this in Jesus’ day. I thought of how the Lord t isci
“These will not come out except through prayer and fasting’. Of coutse,
now I believe that what He was _showi __was_the
APOSTOLIC CHURCH _ARISING _and APOSTOLIC
CENTERS FORMING, for a shift in a worship war in the earth
tealm. The vision continued showing me 153 nations that would
align with Israel and become sheep nations for the future.
He then showed me new calls being extended from
Heaven with angels bringing those calls into the earth. The
intercession and travail of today are opening the gates of Heaven
for these calls to come to the appropriate ones that will lead in
this hour. Next, He showed me His new leadership. This was
not a leadership of just the young generation, but reakgned
$e S
generations. It was as if David’s mighty army for this ho
being chosen in a +hree-fold generational alignment.__When they

overcome was released.

Don’t Let Your Past Stop You from Moving into the Future
God has deposited revelation ision within
will be called up for such a time as this. I believe many of those
who have been a mess in the past will be the Trivmphant Reserve
for the future. Most of the Triumphant Reserve, in days ahead,
will be those who have risen and fallen, and risen again and fallen
again. Now they will be labeled “wiwmphan?’ as they have risen,
yet again. Each one made choices to follow God, no matter what
the cost. Now the Lord could use them to stand steadfast and
Sea eens
represent His Kingdom plan in the earth. Many were coming off the
shelf and being used as we advanced with strength into the next harvest
season. Many were “second timers” who knew the power ofamazing grace.
To TRIUMPH is to obtain victory, or a state of being
victorious in conquest. Triumph carries a distinct emotion for

es
 God’s children. In triumph, one expresses joy or exaltation
because he has prospered, succeeded and flourished. An easy way
to understand triumph is the example of a card being played that
takes all others (like “trumping” and winning a hand or suit). ee
RESERVE is that which is kept for future use, or retained from
present use tobeused for another purpose. A reserve can also
Fassia ae ea that will
now be revealed.
The tribes of Israel were treated as armies (Ex. 6:24).
Each had a distinct order and assignment. Today, many of us are,
unsettled because we are not positioned correctly. However, Shick
a\¥ we ate properly aligned, we can find ourselves arrayed for victory.
ike the Maccabees of old, the Spirit of the Lord is raising up
group (tribes) whose oil and anointing will last. This group knows
how to wait and withstand the enemy. He will anoint this group
with fresh oil, as they use the resources they are given. They will
become a perpetual, advancing, overcoming troop.
Many of this reserve had once been out of His perfect
timing, But now have been developed for a time such as this.
These have overcome their stumbling blocks, and chosen to
advance beyond petty offenses. Each has come through natrow
places of transition. They are a righteous troop who stand and
release different types of prayers into the earth. They have
reformation in their hearts. They know how to be angry and sin
not. Their consciences are they have old.
They can go up and enter boldly into the Throne Room of Grace,
gain new vision, and pave the way for many to follow. Their
blood has been exchanged for His. They do not fear death. They
are energized by His Spirit. This group will leap from high place
to high place, and always remain in their abiding place. May the
_ Triumphant Reserve align and arise in this hour! Gow is calling

28
us forth and getting us in a holy array. He is preparing His troops
for a tremendous victory.
To triumph means to celebrate and rejoice with victory
and jubilation. Triumph indicates that an advantage has been
gained over the enemy. Triumph also conveys success has been
granted through a supernatural grace being released. Think of the
time when David triumphantly brought in the ark. The jubilation
was incredible. David danced! He lost himself in worship because
the Lord had returned the Ark of His Presence to the place of
victory.
In ancient times, when an official entered the city, he was
crowned with laurel or gold and was usually riding on a chariot
drawn by two white horses. He might be followed by the captives
from his victories. These could be defeated kings, princes, or
generals, with the chains of triumph around them. Psalm 149
says, “Praise the Lord! Sing to the Lord a new song, praise Him in the
assembly of His saints! Let Israel rejoice in Him, their Maker; let Zion's
children triumph and be joyful in their King! [Zech. 9:9; Mt. 21:5.] Let
them praise His name in chorus and choir and with the [single or group]
dance; let them sing praises to Him with the tambourine and lyre! For the
Lord takes pleasure in His people; He will beautify the humble mith
salvation and adorn the wretched nith victory. Let the saints be joyful in the
glory and beauty [which God confers upon them]; let them sing for joy upon
their beds. Let the high praises of God be in their throats and a two-edged
sword in their hands, [Heb. 4:12; Rev. 1:16.] To wreak vengeance upon the
nations and chastisement upon the peoples, to bind their kings with chains,
and their nobles with fetters of iron, to execute upon them the judgment
written. He [the Lord] is the honor of all His saints. Praise the Lord!
(Hallelujah!)” (AMP)
You can see why this passage was so important. The
power of worship and sound being released sets new order in the
earth. I am a worshipper. How we release sound in the earth

oo
binds the enemies with whom we ate in conflict. I am presently
writing an entire book called A Time to Triumph. I have gained
much revelation in each of the areas above over the last seven
years, and will expound on this in this new release. So be sure to
watch forA Time to Triumph in 2010. |
The following chapters in this book are not so much
about the Triumphant Reserve as the apostolic centers that are
now forming. Robert Heidler does a marvelous job of
communicating from the history of the original apostolic centers
of the Church to the “now” of their existence. I want to invite
you to visit our apostolic center. The Global Spheres Center
includes the Israel Prayer Garden, the Global Prayer Tower
(where prayer watches and vibrant worship occur throughout the
week), and a Tabernacle that is being transformed to receive a
new release of God’s glory. We are located at 7801 S. I-35E in
SN SS a ae ee ae
Corinth, Texas. ;
——————_,_

30
 PART LW O: |
PREPARING FOR GOD’S NEW WINE
* by Robert Hezdler

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 Chapter 4

The Change that Must Come

All over the world, something is happening to the church}

It's changing. Change isn't something churches usually get excited }.
about, but change is happening. God is changing His church, an
it's a change that must come.
I began writing this book during an election year in
America. As in most election years, a lot of attention was placed
on the need for change. Many people were dissatisfied with the
status quo and were calling for a governmental shift. In the midst
of an unusually contentious election, God gave me a surprising
word. God told me that the future of our nation is much more
dependent on what happens in His house than in any possible
shift in the White House. It's time for a shift in God's house.
Statistics show that the American church is in desperate
need of change. The church has lost the ability to win the lost
and disciple its converts. For all our beautiful facilities and high-
“tech equipment, the church is failing to accomplish its primary
mission. Consider these facts: (I'll focus on the American
church here, but much of the church worldwide would have
similar statistics, or worse.)

* Despite its godly heritage, America is now the one of the

world’s greatest mission fields. Gideon’s International
estimates that there are over 200 million unsaved people
in the United States. That means two out of every three
Americans doesn’t know Jesus. Of all the nations in the

33
world, only China and India have more unsaved than
America.'

The American Church is notoriously ineffective in_

‘teaching the lost. Campus Crusade for Christ reported
that it takes one thousand laymen and six full-time
pastors a full year to lead one person to Jesus. That's not
effective evangelism.”

Of those who do respond to our evangelistic efforts, less

than five percent are still in church a year later.> (If the
church in Acts had been that ineffective, they could have
seen 3000 saved on Pentecost, and been down to 150
members within a year!)

There are an estimated 18 million wachurched Christians in

America! hese are born-again Christians who don’t
Consider “attending church” to be worth the effort.*

The average church in America has less than 75 members

and is decreasing.”

Since 1991, the number of Americans who do nof attend

Amoefica has seen a net increase in church attendance in

decades. (A few churches are large and growing, but they
are always surrounded by other churches that are small
and dwindling.)’ The Church no longer has a major
impact on society.

34
 * 80% of American pastors (4 out of 5) are discouraged in
“their ministry and regularly struggle with depression.’

I don’t know about you, but I find these statistics

disturbing. They tell me that the Church in this country is NOT
WORKING! What's our problem? Why are out churches not
working?
~~ Te’s certainly not for lack of trying. Most pastors I know are
strongly committed to the Lord and sincerely desire to help
people. They work long hours and literally lay down their lives—
and often their families—to see the church succeed.
Some people still believe the myth that pastoring is a cushy
job that requires only working two hours a week. Speaking as
one who spent many years as a pastor, that couldn’t be farther
from the truth. When you take into account time spent on
sermon preparation, counseling, church administration, and a
host of other responsibilities, many pastors work 70 or 80 hours a
week. And that’s on top of being “on call” twenty-four hours a
day for anyone in need. (That’s one of the reasons so many
pastors
arebamed out) No WT Orttevin
If pastors are working so hard to make their churches
succeed, why are the churches failing?
I believe it’s because we have not been following God’s
plan. ;
For those who have grown up in church, it’s easy to assume
that the churches we’ve known are pretty much what God
intended the Church to be. We assume that the day after
Pentecost, Peter went out and rented a big building, put a steeple
on top, and erected a sign that read, “First Pentecostal Church of
Jerusalem: Services 10 AM Sundays and 7 PM Wednesdays.”

3D
 The truth, however, is that the Church today has very little
in common with the Church the apostles planted. Church as
we've known it, is zot what God intended.
For all its hard work and commitment, today’s Church is
trapped in a traditional structure passed down, generation after
generation, from the Dark Ages. This old structure may have
been marginally effective at one time, but it cannot bring forth
what God desires to do in His Church today. The good news is
that God zs changing His Church!

A Fresh Vision for the Church

Those in the prophetic movement have been predicting
change in the church for years. Christian speakers have used
words like "apostolic" and "new wineskin" and "five-fold
ministry" for thirty years, but very little change took place.
Then around the year 2000, something began to stir. It
broke out in isolated places all over the world. Over the last
decade a grassroots movement has begun to take shape and gain
momentum. It's a kind of spiritual awakening, but not like the
revivals of the past, and it promises to profoundly change our
whole concept of church.
Observers have described the current change in a variety of
ways. Cindy Jacobs said the Church has now entered the second
reformation. Chuck Pierce described it_as_a_ /eadership : On.
——— is

Peter Wagner said we are in the midst of a bigger change than the
rotestant Reformation. From his perspective as a trained
observer of the Church worldwide, Wagner concluded that
around the year 2001, the Church entered a second apostolic age.
The Church has begun ift| That’s momentous! It is
earth-shattering, and it will change everything. in”
To understand where God is taking us, it's helftul to gain
some perspective on where the Church has been.

36
Where We Have Come From
On my first day of class at Dallas Theological Seminary, my
Church history professor put a diagram on the overhead
projector that looked something like this:
ee ey

325

MEDIEVAL
CHURCH
EARLY RESTORED
CHURCH 4500 CHURCH

This diagram sums up the history of the Church, and it's

one of the most valuable things I learned in seminary. It shows

resurrection. The Early Church was filled with life, but in the
yeat 325 something happened that caused the Church to die. For
1,000 years the church was held in the power of death. Finally,
God began the process of restoration. For the last 500 years,
through wave after wave of revival, God has been preparing His
church for resurrection. When the Church began its third
illennium, we entered the most exciting time in all history. We
are about to see the resurrection of the
In my book, The Messianic Church Arising, II devoted a
chapter to the history of the church and how God brought us to

ttket0 give a brief summary of where the church has been.

aS eS Ea ee

The Early Church

The Early Church began in Acts 2. On the day of
Pentecost, the Holy Spirit fell on 120 people in the city of
Jerusalem. By the end of the day, God had added more than

af
3,000 to the Church. Within a year the Church tripled in size,
numbering more than 10,000.° Some estimate that by the time
Stephen was killed in Acts chapter six, the Church had grown to
20,000 members.
That kind of explosive growth took place wherever the
church was planted. In Acts 19, Paul and his companions went
to the city of Ephesus, a 0 50 0 and the fourth largest
City in the world at that time. Paul started a church in Ephesus
and
temained
there for two years teaching his converts. Acts _
19:10 tells us that during those two years, the entire city of
Ephesus was evangelized, and the surrounding province as well. __
e Ephesian Church grew so rapidly that the city’s
economy was affected. Ephesus was home to the Temple of
Diana, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. One of
the major industries in Ephesus was the manufacture of silver
images of the goddess. During Paul's two-year stay in Ephesus,
so many people turned from paganism to Jesus that the sales of
those idols plummeted. The idol-makers were furious! They
literally rioted in the streets to protest their loss of business!
How would you like to see that happen in your city? What
if the porno shop owners and drug dealers rioted in the streets
because so many people were getting saved that no one was
buying their goods anymore?
That's the POWER of the Early Church. The world had
never“known anything like it. Wherever the Church was planted,
it grew with incredible speed, and nothing could stand against it.
Nothing in the world could resist the power of the Early Church!

A Visit to the Early Church

We wonder, “What was the Early Churchlike?’” Most of us
have never imagined a church like the Early Chuzch. Early
Christians had a totally different concept of church.

38
 Most of the things we associate with church today didn't
exist in the first few centuries. The Early Church didn't have
church buildings, stained glass windows, hymnals, steeples,
pulpits, pews, or church bulletins. They didn't even have video
projectors! So, what was that church like?
To answer that, I'd like to take you back in time to visit a
typical church at the end of the first century. Everything I'll
show you is based on Scripture and the descriptions of early
Christian writers. I want to give you a taste of what it would have
been like to attend the kind of Church the apostles planted.
Imagine yourself walking down a street in ancient Rome.
The year is 95 A.D. More than 60 years have passed since
Pentecost. If you’ve grown up in a Christian family, Pentecost is
something your grandparents told you about. We are about to
drop in on a typical "church service" at that time. (WARNING:
Get ready for a serious case of culture shock. You won't see
much that looks familiar.)
The time is Saturday evening. By Jewish reckoning, the
first day of the week begins at sundown on Saturday.
The Early Church meets in a variety of venues. They use
the Temple courts in Jerusalem and the School of Tyranus in
Ephesus. They also hold large open-air gatherings. But
following Jewish practice, their primary place of worship is the
home.
You atrive at the door of a typical Roman house and are
watmly welcomed by the host. As you walk through the door,
you look across the entrance into the home's large open 1
courtyard. It is filled with people, and it looks like they are a:
having a party. Some are playing lyres, flutes and tambourines, 2
while others are singing, dancing and clapping their hands. You ¥
look around to make sure you've come to the right place, but as %
you listen to the words, you realize they are singing songs of =>

Mee
praise to Jesus. As we join in the worship, we are amazed at the
love and acceptance of the people.
This was how the Early Church praised God. It was a free
and joyful celebration with much singing and dancing. Their
gatherings often began with people getting in a circle and dancing
Jewish-style ring dances. Clement of Alexandria, in the year 250,
described Christian worship this way: “The daughters of God
lead in a ring dance. The righteous are the dancers; the music is a
song of the King of the Universe. The maidens strike the lyres;
the angels praise; the prophets speak; the sound of music issues
forth; they run and pursue the jubilant band. Those that are called
make haste, eagerly desiring to receive the Father’”
After more singing and dancing, food is brought out.
People find their seats and prepare for a meal. This meal is
described by Paul in I Corinthians, as well as in the book of Jude
and in the writings of Peter. It is called the “Love Feast” or the
“Agape.” To begin the meal the woman of the house lights
candles and says a prayer of thanksgiving. Then one of the
leaders takes a cup, says a blessing, and passes it around so each
one can drink from it. He then picks up a loaf of bread and
offers thanks. It is also passed from person to person. That was
the Lord’s Supper in its original context.
_-—“The meal is a joyful time, filled with sharing and
testimoniés. Part way through the meal, one of the leaders stands
and reads a letter he received from an apostle named Junia, Junia
was not one of the original twelve, but by this time there are
many apostles in the church.” You ate surprised to discover that
Junia isawoman, butthen youremember thatinRomans 16,
Paul describes a woman named Junia as “outstanding among the
apostles.’ : Ke
The leaders of the church had written to Junia to seek her
advice on several issues. In her letter Junia carefully addresses

40
each of their questions. It's clear that everyone present holds
Junia in high regard and all pay careful attention, as her letter is
read.
After the meal, worship continues until, at some point, a
change begins to take place. There is a subtle shift in the
atmosphere. The air seems to thicken and a tangible sense of
God’s presence pervades the courtyard. Paul describes this in I
Corinthians 5. He writes that when the church assembles, the
power of the Lord comes and is present with them.
As they sense God’s presence, some fall to the ground in
worship. Others lift up their hands to welcome Him. As the
presence of God rests in their midst, ministry begins to take
place. ~
The ministry of the Early Church is described in I
Corinthians 14. Paul writes, “When you come together everyone
has a hymn or a word of instruction, a revelation or a tongue or
an interpretation... You can all prophesy in turn so that everyone
may be instructed and encouraged.”
You're surprised to see that while the church has clear
leadership, almost everyone seems to be taking part in the
finistry_ Awoman gives aword ofknowledge forhealing, Aman.
raises his hand and says, “That’s me!” People gather around him
and pray. He is instantly healed. Yova
Someone else reads a passage of Scripture and a teacher
gives an explanation of the passage. A woman sings a beautiful
prophetic song. Many ate so touched by its anointing that they
begin to weep. Prophetic words are given. There are tongues
and interpretation. More songs of praise are sung.
A man introduces a family sitting near the back of the
room. You’ve noticed them sitting back there and sensed that
they looked uncomfortable. It’s clear that this is their first time
to attend. They’ve visited the church because their 12-year-old

At
 daughter has contracted an illness that has left her totally blind.
They've heard rumors of healing in the church, so they’ve
brought their daughter for prayer.
The elders gather around, anoint her with oil, and pray over
her. Suddenly the little girl begins to cry. With tears streaming
down her face she shouts, “I can see! I can see!” The mother
bends down and hugs her. Within a few minutes the entire family
is saved, giving their hearts to Jesus. That was evangelism in the
Early Church. :
Irenaeus, writing in the year 195, tells us that pope
words, tongues and miracles of healing were common in his day. \
He adds that people were frequently raised from the dead
through the prayers of the saints.'* (By the way, that's a great
"church growth" strategy. Raise a few dead people now and then.
Your church will grow!) Sed
Back at the house church, the meeting runs late into the
- night, but no one seems to notice. Finally, the meeting begins to
break up. The sense of the Spirit’s presence begins to lift, but
there are still several small groups huddled in prayer.
As people prepare to leave, there is a great deal of hugging
and kissing. You’re impressed that these people love each other.
They act like this is their family. And it is! What you have just
experienced is the weekly reunion of the family of God. How
would you like to be part of a church like that?
This is what it was like to "go to church" in the first
century. Every Saturday evening there would have been
hundreds “fThectiogs likeGinallcoattheipoERome aE is
how they “did church” in Jerusalem, Connth, Antioch and
Ephesus. It’s the kind of church the apostle Paul planted when
he went out on his missionary journeys, and it’s the kind of
church he came home to when he returned to Antioch:

42
 This is how the Church met for 300 years, and it spread
everywhere. It literally took over the Roman Empire. Some
estimate that by the year 300 as much as half the Empire had
converted to Christianity. That was the /e of the Early Church!
But then the Church died. By the year 500, the early church
had ceased to exist.

The Death of the Early Church

The death of the Early Church began with an event that at
first seemed like a Great blessing. It was the "conversion" of the
Roman emperor Constantine. The year was 312 A.D. and there
was Great tumott in the Empire. Two tivals, Constantine and
sen the imperial throne. As he
prepared for battle, Constantine was nervous. He’d heard that
Maxentius was a master of the occult arts, so Constantine decided
to pray for supernatural help. He prayed to his favorite god, the
Persian sun god Mithras. ;
As Constantine prayed to Mithras, he reportedly saw a
vision of a flaming cross in the sky next to the sun and heard the
words, “Conquer by this.” In response to this vision, Constantine
took the cross as his symbol, won the battle, and came to the
throne with the announcement that he was now a follower of
Christ. ’
The Christians could hardly believe it. The Church had
been through centuries of persecution. Almost everybody in the
Church had friends or relatives who had been imprisoned or
killed for their faith. Now the new emperor claimed to be a
follower of Jesus! It seemed like an answer to prayer.
Persecution ended immediately. Christianity changed from
being anillegal religion toafavored feligion. It became socially
acceptable and even popular to be a Christian. Constantine
offered extravagant gifts to prominent citizens who would

43
convert to his new religion, so thousands of the Roman elite
rushed to join the emperor's new church. Constantine made
Sunday an official Roman holiday. He built magnificent church
buildings all over the empire.
But Constantine not only legalized Christianity, he tried to
improve it. In return for his favor, Constantine demanded
control. He didn’t like the way Christians organized Tt
seemed too loose for his serena taae Roman mind, so he
rought the
church intoa
year
a re Constantine called and presided
rg over the
first “general counsel of the Church, the Council of Nicea. Its
purpose was to reorganize the Church and give it a new image.
At the Council of Nicea, Constantine _ literall nvented
Se ee Se
what the original apostles had known.
Let’s look at some of the things Constantine changed. One
of the biggest changes Constantine made was to outlaw house
churches. Constantine couldn't control what happened in the
Rouse churches, so he built magnificent “temples” for the church
all over the empire. Constantine not only outlawed house
churches, but also threatened severe punishment for those who
continued to meet in homes. :
Constantine’s church buildings were called _basilicas. ‘They
ere magnificent edifices patterned after the throne room of his
imperial palace. At the front of each basilica, he placed a throne.
(Remember, this is a governmental shift.) The throne was for the
bishop. It served as a reminder that the bishop was now a
frusted representative of the Emperor.
(Within
his basilicas Constantine instituted a new kind of
worship. Borrowing from the pattern of Rome’s pagan temples,
the church hired professional clergy to perform sated rituals
while the church members watched in silence. “Laymen” were no
i

44
 longer permitted to minister. Through most of the Dark Ages
the average churchgoer was not even permitted to sing in church.
Music was performed by professional choirs. But the worst of
the changes were yet to come.
Constantine was troubled that his empire was sharpl
divided DERVEER PAINT GRE CHARTERS GoTetiedtounify the”
SS SS
new feligion more comfortable for the pagans now crowding in,
he outlawed “Jewish” celebrations like Passover, and replaced

By the end of the century, paganism was outlawed. Pagan

temples became churches, Pagan shtines were changed to
istian shrines. Pagans were told that they now lived in a
Christian empire aiid
_sesponsibility
it was their to live as _

‘still pagans. They stil wanted to burn incense to their favorite

deities. The pagans responded to the official decrees by giving
Christian names to their pagan gods and continuing to worship as

If you were a pagan farmer and were told you could no

longer go to your temple and pray to the god of harvest, what do
you do? You'd go to the church building that used to be your
temple and pray to the patron saint of harvest. Your worship

mance Tne)SO eS cee betemt ofhatin plice

in
in the church now was paganism.
When paganism and idolatry were brought into the =o
e Holy Spirit departed.
__ By the year 500 A.D., the Church was overrun with
paganism. Many church leaders were _unbeli When the
secular government of Rome crumbled, the church stepped i

45
fill the gap. The church became a_great political and military
ee
By the Middle Ages, Christianity had become a different
religion. If you were a church member in the Mid
would not have been allowed to read the Bible. You would not
iknow that God loves youYou would have no understanding of
the power of God or spiritual gifts. You would probably not even
know how to get saved.
The thing that was called the church was not the Church.
The Church was dead! The Church the apostles had founded no
longer existed. For more than 1,000 years the Body of Christ was
under the power of dea

The Process of Resurrection

But God had not forgotten His Church. After 1,000 years
of bondage and death, God began the work of resurrection.
Beginning around 1500 A.D., through a whole series of great
moves of the Holy Spirit, God began to restore His Church. 7
——rAround the year 1500, God put His hand on a pudgy, beer-
Aiinidhsas kaanarines Hifaaesatehie canal cheer on ae
given arare gift, aBible, and he started to read it.‘As he read he
discovered that salvation comes by faith in Jesus, not by the

He began to teach his congregation

about salvation by faith.
(That was such a radical teaching that the Church tried to burn
im at the stake for it.) Luther also tr e Bible into the
language of the people so ordinary Christians could read it. That
was really revolutionary. The tesult was the Protestant

In Luther’s day an understanding of salvation and access to

the TiSla cots oneal glalnanata tat Desai
Stome, bere
eit
iia SV ee eS
46
 In the 1700’s God awakened the Church to the need for
holiness and sanctification. In the early 1900’s God_ began to

The 20" century saw a whole series of spiritual movements,

each restoring a different aspect of the Church's life. There was
the Pentecostal movement, the Healing movement, the
Charismatic movement, the Prophetic movement, the Apostolic
movement, and many more. In wave after wave of the Holy
Spirit, God was re-introducing His Church to spiritual gifts!
But all of this was just preparation! Through all of these
eo ee epee cecae ree
life. When the Church entered itsthird millennium, thetime for
ey
Jesus said, “Destroy this temple and I will raise it in three
days.”” We know He said this about His physical body, but the
Church is a/so His body and it is also His temple. entered
As we

day.
I believe we are living in the most exciting time in history.
God is restorin utch} He is bringing it back to His
original plan. God is re-forming the Church to become a new
ewineskin that can hold His new wine. The Third Day Church is
arising.

47
 Chapter 5

A Tale of Two Wineskins

“And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new mine
will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskin will be ruined.
No, new wine must be poured into new nineskins.” Luke 5: 37-38 (NIV)

In the previous chapter we learned that the church we've

known is ot what God intended church to be. When the Early
Church compromised with paganism, God's glory departed. His
power was lost, and we've still not fully recovered.
Our problem today is that many remnants of paganism
have been in the Church so long we've grown used to them.
Though much of the Church has rejected praying to "patron
saints" and some of the outward pagan trappings, the fact
remains that the way we "do church" still owes more to
Constantine than to the New Testament. No wonder "church" is
ot working!
God will not put His glory into apagan temple, To use
the picture Jesus used, He will not pour new wine into an old
wineskin.
The Church today is crying out for God’s new wine. We
pray, “Lord, we want Your power! Send us the new wine of
Your Spirit!” But God is asking, “Where is the wineskin to hold
it?’ God longs to pour out His new wine, but He needs a
wineskin that can contain it. He's given us the job of making that
Wwineskin.

48
What is a Wineskin?
A wineskin is a leather bottle for holding wine. A new
wineskin gives fermenting wine room to expand. But when a
wineskin gets old, it becomes hard and brittle, and is no longer
useful. That's why Jesus said, “No one pours new wine into old
wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skin, the wine
will run out, and the wineskin will be ruined.”
In most of the Church today, when we pray for revival,
we're pleading with God to pour new wine into our old wineskin.
There fave -been-tmesmr history when God has been —
gracious enough to do that. There have been incredible moves of
the Spirit even though the Church was an old wineskin. But the
results have often been tragic.
The best example is the Welsh Revival. One hundred
years ago revival swept through the nation of Wales. It was one
of the greatest revivals in history. The Spirit moved from county
to county and transformed the nation. People walking down the
street would be hit by the power of the Holy Spirit, fall to their
knees and get saved. Every part of society was affected.
Drunkenness disappeared. Crime became almost nonexistent.
There were cities in Wales where it was reported that there were
no unsaved people left in the city.
Those who study revival love to talk about the Welsh
revival, but none of them want to talk about the nation of Wales
today. One might imagine that a revival like the Welsh revival
would bring a permanent change in a nation--that for generations
to come, people would talk about the great revival that
transformed their country. But that has not happened.
The Welsh Revival was a great move of the Holy Spirit,
but the Welsh Church was an old wineskin. Its legalistic structure
quickly quenched the results of revival.
—n—nsnsn
sseee

49
 If you visit Wales today, 100 years after that great revival,
you'll find one of the least Christian countries in Europe. Some
estimate that only about 5% of the Welsh people are born-again.
New Age, witchcraft, and Islam are growing rapidly. Most Welsh
people have never heard of the great Welsh Revival. Those who
have heard of it think of it as a legalistic movement that
happened somewhere back in their history. The old wineskin
allowed the new wine to pour out and the wineskin was
destroyed.
God doesn't want that to happen again. God wants us to
prepare a wineskin that can hold His new wine. That’s why He
said, “New wine must be poured into new wineskins.” The glory
of God is the new wine, but only God's new wineskin can hold it.
The wineskin is the Church.

God’s Plan for a New Wineskin

~ God has given us everything we need to make a wineskin
that can hold His new wine. In Ephesians 4, He tells us how He
designed the Church to operate:

“When He ascended on high, He led captives in His train

and gave gifts to men... It was He who gave some to be
apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists and
some to be pastors and teachers to equip God’s people
for the work of ministry so that the Body of Christ may
be built up, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the
knowledge of the Son of God and become mature,
attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”
(Ephesians 4: 8-13 paraphrase)

When the resurrected Jesus ascended to the Fenet's right

hand, He was given all authority in Heaven and on earth. From

50
that position as the reigning King of the Universe, Jesus gave His
Church its God-ordained administration. This administration
was made up of five distinct gifts: apostles, prophets, evangelists,
pastors, and_teachers. Together, these make up the Church’s
"five-fold ministry." (NOTE: In recent years, some have taught
that there are only four gifts listed in this passage: apostles,
prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers. This is not accurate.
The Greek text of this passage clearly indicates that these are five
distinct gifts. Please see the endnotes for a further explanation."’)
According to Ephesians 4, these five gifts have a
common goal, “to equip God’s people for the work of ministry.”
That was God's plan for His Church, and it’s what He is calling

; God has been speaking to His Church about His new

ineskin for a long time. I remember hearing pastors talk about
five-fold ministry 30 years ago. The problem_is_that most
ristians have no idea what is meant by five-fold minis no
do they know how to set it in place. If we are going to become
the Church God intended, we need to understand five-fold
inistry.

Understanding Five-fold Ministry

According to Ephesians chapter four, Jesus gave us five
specific leadership gifts. Every Christian needs to receive
ministry from all five. We all need...

Evangelists. Evangelists get people saved. They

also release the operation of miracles, signs, and wonders in
the church.

Pastors. Pastors act as “shepherds” of God’s sheep,

providing comfort, care, and protection.

‘on
 Prophets. Prophets reveal God's heart and mind to
His people, providing vision and direction.

Teachers. Teachers provide understanding,

instruction, and training, enabling God’s people to grow and
fulfill their call.

Apostles. Apostles set the church in order so all the

other gifts can operate. They also establish individual
believers in their place of ministry.

These five gifts, also called the offices of the Church, make
up God’s administration for His church. ey are the new
wineskin! One of the highest responsibilities of any church is to
ensure that every member has access to all five.

GOD'S WINESKIN
"Five-Fold Ministry" of the church

EVANGELIST
PASTOR

. PROPHET
C
APOSTLE

Ry
@ TEACHER
How does five-fold ministry work? When I teach on the
new wineskin, I like to lead the class in a dramatic exercise to
show how five-fold ministry is supposed to operate. I ask for
five volunteers to play the part of the five-fold min sters. My
wife, Linda, always plays the part of the evangelist.

Be
 I begin by describing Coane) I say, "The
evangelist is gifted to 'birth babies“ € kingdom! There is
nothing an evangelist loves more than birthing babies! When a
new Christian is born, the evangelist gets very excited."
At this point, Linda takes a cute little baby-doll from
behind her back and holds it up. That doll is our Baby Christian!
Linda hugs the doll and bounces up and down with delight. She
is obviously thrilled to have a new baby in the Kingdom. Then I
say something like this... "The evangelist is excited to see a new
baby born into the kingdom. That excitement lasts about five
minutes. Then the evangelist is ready to move on and birth
another baby." So Linda casually tosses Baby Christian over her
shoulder and moves on. Everyone in the audience gasps!
We gasp, but that's often what happens in the Church!
The evangelist is gifted to birth babies, but it's not the evangelist's
gift to nurture and establish babies in the faith.
That's why a new Christian needs to come under the care
of a pastor. ‘Vhe pastor's gift is to provide nurture, comfort, and
#or. The evangelist needs to entrust our Baby Christian to
someone with a pastoral gift. (In our exercise the person playing
"pastor" runs over and picks up Baby Christian, hugs him, pats
him on the head, and makes sure he's okay.) A pastor is like the
nurse in the delivery room who takes a newborn baby, cleans it
up, makes sure it is healthy and fed and protected. We need
pastors. They are a vital element in the Body of Christ.
A pastor's heart is to provide comfort, care, and
protection. Our problem is that, in many churches, a pastor is all
you have! Christians have been saved for 30 years and the pastor
is still patting them on the head, comforting them and making
sure they are well fed. God has more for us than that.
That’s why we nee{ prophets. Inexerc
our ise
the pastor
hands Baby Christian to the prophet. The prophet looks at the
Ae tC ar La ree re!
Pe ss

pe
baby, points his finger at him and says, “It's good that you are
ssmimableandwell fed,butyouhavea call of God on your life!
You were created with a destiny! There are things God wants
you to do!” So the prophet gives Baby Christian vision for his
future. That's what prophets do. Where you have prophets,
people gain vision and are highly motivated to fulfill their
destinies.
But if a prophet is all you have, our Baby Christian may still
ail because he won't understand how to do what he's c to do.
So the prophet hands Baby Christian to ie The
teacher gets out his Bible and opens it up and_says, “Yes Baby

some gs. You need to understand how to walk with God,

and how to operate in the power of God, and how to experience
God’s blessing.” So the teacher begins to teach and train our
baby.
So the evangelist, pastor, prophet, and teacher each have
a cfucial part to play in building believers to maturity and
equipping them to minister.
The apostle has set that whole process in order and
makes sure all these gifts are functioning together. The apostle

SiagEMlante Bewue Le proving and-devRAeineeiieally hel

“Soule Siji"T EEE youareready tobelaunched out: into
ministry!” {?? (At this point in our exercise, the person playing the
apostle will take Baby Christian_and_toss him out into the
audience!) :
——But the exercise isn't over yet. What happens when you
are launched into ministry for the first times You usually crash
and burn! You sometime e€ away wounded!

SHO,
Heacher
the does
afiS -
 So the person playing the pastor rushes out to retrieve
Baby Christian and comfort him. When you crash and burn, you
need to have pastors to minister to you and encourage you.
Then the prophet takes Baby Christian aside and says,
“You messed up, but you still have a call of God on your life.
Don't give up!”
Next the teacher steps in and says, “You crashed and
burned because there are some things you did not understand.
Let me explain some things to you.”
Finally, the apostle says, “It’s time for you to try again”
and launches him into ministry again.
Do you see how these five gifts working together will
build up believers and equip them to minister? Before long Baby
Christian is no longer a baby! Under the care of the five-fold
ministry, our Baby Christian matures and is equipped to minister
with great effectiveness!

GOD'S WINESKIN
"Five-Fold Ministry" of the church

EVANGELIST
PASTOR

PROPHET

APOSTLE e

@ TEACHER
This is how God designed the Church to operate! It’s a
picture God wants to fix firmly in our minds. Five distinct gifts
with five distinct functions: Evangelists get people saved.

55
Pastors nurture the new converts. Prophets give them vision
and direction. Teachers provide instruction and training.
Apostles establish the Church and set it in order so every
Christian can be equipped to minister in God’s power.
Ephesians 4:12-16 tells us when all five of these gifts are
operating together, these things take place:

¢ The Body of Christ is built up.

¢ We all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the
Son of God.
* We become matute attaining to the measure of the
fullness of Christ.
¢ We are no longer infants, tossed back and forth by the
waves.
¢ We will in all things grow up into Him who is the head,
that is Christ.

This is what happened in the book of Acts. The New

Testament church did not slap a generic “pastor” label on all
leaders and give them all the same job description.
As you read about the Church in the book of Acts, you
discover that some of the leaders were called apostles. (Acts
14:14) Some were called prophets. (Acts 11:27) Some were
called teachers. (Acts 13:1) Some were called pastors. (Acts
20:28 calls them shepherds, which is a synonym of pastors.)
ome were called evangelists. (Acts 21:8)
All five of these gifts were functioning in the Early
Church. Each leader knew his gift, and no one was expected to
do everything. They knew they all had to work together. As a
result the saints were equipped to. minister, th} Church
flourished, and the world was changed!

56
 This is not what most Christians experience today. In
many churches today most members remain immature and never
learn to exercise their gifts. ey live as spiritual infants,
constantly needing care and attention, and constantly tossed back
and forth by every strange teaching that comes by. And the
result is a powerless, ineffective Church that cannot impact the
world.
I believe God’s message to the Church today is: When all
else fails... FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS!
God wants His new wineskin established. Where the
wineskin is completed, we experience the fullness of Jesus. The
fullness of Jesus JS the new wine. If we prepare the new
wineskin, God will pour His new wine.

bly
 Chapter 6

CouAwe nt
The Pastoral Model

We've just seen a picture of how God designed the

church to operate. Our problem is that most of us have never
seen a church operate that way. Most of the Church today is an
old wineskin. It doesn't have five-fold ministry. It only has
someone called “pastor.”
The churches we've attended usually looked like this:

PASTOR
II
CONGREGATION

First, there is a congregation made up of "laymen." The

dictionary defines the word /aymen as, “Those without knowledge
or training.” Layman is not a biblical word. God never intended
for the Church to be a group of people without knowledge or
training. He intended for the saints to be taught and equipped!
But most churches today are made up of laymen. eit
knowledge of God is limited to a few Bible stories and some
proof-texts. Laymen are expected to attend church, give money,
read their Bibles and live good moral lives. They are not taught to
heal, prophesy or minister.
en you have the pastor. The position of "pastor" in
most churches today has very little in common with the biblical
office of pastor. The job of modern-day pastors does not involve
working with other five-fold leaders to equip people to minister.
He IS “the minister.” Whatever ministry is done, it is his job to
( mea.
do it. He takes care of the “laymen.” The laymen are seen as
ae

58
"the flock" made up of helpless sheep. The pastor's job is to
feed, comfort, and protect them.
This is the church nearly every one of us has known. It’s
difficult for most Christians to imagine church operating any
other way. We assume it's the norm. And it /as been the norm
for the last 1500 years.
In the churches we know, the pastor runs the church. He
is the administrator. He performs the ministry of the church. He
visits the sick and prays for them. He counsels people with
marriage problems. He consoles the grieving, and preaches the
Sunday-morning sermon.
The pastor knows the mysteries of God. If you want to
know something about God, you ask your pastor. It is his job to
know those things. The pastor has the “inside track” to God. If
you need prayer, call your pastor and he will pray for you. He is
the "man of God" and God will answer his prayers.
The pastor carries out the rituals of the church. He serves
communion and performs baptisms, weddings, and funerals. At
fellowship suppers, it’s his job to bless the food. He evangelizes,
delivers, and counsels. He does it all. It’s his job.
In the church we've known, the pastor is the highest
office. When we visit a church, the first thing we want to know
is, “Who is the pastor?” This tells us who is in charge, who does
the ministry, and who we look to for our needs to be met.
The pastoral model is good in many ways. (Most of us got
saved in this kind of church.) But a pastoral church was never
God’s plan, Ihe pastoral church is an old wineskin that cannot
hold God’s new wine.
To experience resurrection power, the Church must
become a new wineskin! That’s why God has been calling His
Church to change. For the last 30 years, God has been speakin
about apostles, about five-fold ministry, and about equipping the

pee]
 saints for ministry. But very fe poThere
are only a handful of churches in America that are really
operating in five-fold ministry.
The question is, “Why hasn’t the Church shifted?” I
believe it's because it is hard to fit the Bible’s teaching into our
traditional structures.
In the pastoral church, one generic “pastor” is paid to do
the work of ministry. It’s his job description. It’s expected of
him. In the apostolic church, the five-fold ministers equip every
believer to minister.
If you begin with a traditional church structure and start
talking about equipping the saints to minister, the result is
confusion. It does not fit.
Pastors who try to train their people to minister are
sometimes accused of shirking their responsibilities. I’ve heard
_ of cases in which the head of the church board cornered the
pastor after the service and said, “We're paying you to do that!”
To get a new administration, we need a new mindset.
The pastoral church and the apostolic church are like two
different operating systems. Trying to get a pastoral church to
operate in five-fold ministry is like trying to run Apple software
on a Windows PC. They are not compatible!
Let's look at the contrast in these two operating systems.

1. The Goal of Ministry

The goal of the pastoral church is to meet needs. A true
pastor Wants to make sure his flock are cared for and comfotted.
There's a phrase I learned in seminary that sums up the pastoral
approach to church: “Preach to a broken heart and you will
never lack for an audience.” It's a good thing to meet needs.
There are times when all of us need a pastor to comfurt us. But

60
if that is the highest gift in the church, there's a problem. God
has more for His children than to be comfortable and well-fed.
The apostolic church, on the other hand, is vision
oriented. In an apostolic church your needs will be met, but an
apostolic church also wants to give you a sense of your personal
call. The goal is for every believer to be trained, equipped, and
moving forward toward his or her destiny in the Lord.

2. The Role of Church Members

The pastoral church assumes the church members are
laymen. They ate “amateur Christians.” Ministry is not their job.
It is okay for laymen to do some low level ministry, but if a
layman ministers too well, he’s encouraged to go to seminary and
become a pastor. ;
The apostolic church views all Christians as mister,

needs to be equipped to minister. If the members of the church

3. The Role of a Leader

In the pastoral church, the role of the pastor is to care for
the saints. He doesn't want to equip the saints to minister. He
wants the saints to come to /im for ministry. The result is that
people become dependent on him. Many Christians have been
taught to depend on their pastor for their spiritual life.
Several years ago a woman called me and said she wanted
to understand the “silver trumpets,” and asked if I had a tape
series on the subject. I'd never taught a series on the silver
trumpets, but since they're only mentioned in one chapter in the
Bible (Numbers 10), I suggested that she study it for herself. I
may as well have suggested that she climb Mount Everest! She
had no concept of how to study the Bible for herself.

61
 My heart was grieved for her. For less money than it
would have taken to buy a tape set, she could have bought the
Bible study tools she'd need to study the silver trumpets (or any
other topic). For less “me than it would have taken to listen to a
set of tapes, she could have studied the passage, received
revelation from God, and come away with the joy of knowing
that God had spoken to her. But she had no concept that she
could do that. All she knew to do was to call a pastor.
This is not to criticize her. This is just to illustrate the
church’s mindset. No one in any of the churches she'd attended,
had shown her how to study the Bible. No one had even
suggested that studying the Bible was a skill she could learn.
She'd been taught to be totally dependent on her pastor.
The apostolic church wants to equip every saint to
woinister. In an apostolic church the mark of asuccessful leader is
that he or she raises up a church full of saints who know God's

Worst nightmare is tohave followers who are dependent on him.

His greatest joy is to have followers who minister more
effectively than he.

62
 Chapter 7

Killing the Sacred Cow

In the last chapter we looked at two different wineskins.

There’s the Old Wineskin church, where one individual does the
ministry, and the New Wineskin church, where every believer is
equipped to minister. That’s a shift God has been calling the
Church to make for 30 years, yet very few churches have
changed. I’ve visited churches that firmly bedeve in the
importance of five-fold ministry, yet still operate in the old
wineskin model.
What makes it so difficult for churches to shift? The
«Probert youoak iiwithout
iho killing
lingaca
acowl — >
utch today has-a “sacred cow” that keeps us from
making the shift to the new wineskin. That sacred cow is an
assumption held by almost every Christian in America. That
assumption is that the pastor is the primary office in the church.
Let’s kill that “sacred cow.” To do this, I need to tell you
a secret. The church the apostles founded did not look like this:

PASTOR
II
CONGREGATION

The apostles never ¢magined a church made up of a pastor and a

congregation.
Several years ago I was doing a study on the offices of the
church, and decided to start with the pastor. At that time I had a
pocket-sized electronic Bible. I could type a word and within

63
seconds it would give me a list of all the places that word was
used in the Bible. That made it easy to see what the Bible said on
any given subject. Since I was going to study about pastors, I
wanted to begin by reading everything the Bible had to say about
pastors.
I got out my electronic Bible, entered the word “pastor”
and hit the return key. What appeared on the screen was a
message that said, “This text was not found.” My Bible's
electronic brain had read every verse in the Bible and did not find
the word “pastor” one time!
So I tried the plural. I typed in “pastors.” My electronic Bible
searched again, and finally displayed one verse, Ephesians 4:11,
“He gave some... as pastors.”
I was stunned. ‘That's the sum total of all Biblical
teaching about pastors: "There are some!" The startling fact is
that pastors are only mentioned once in the Bible.
Did you realize that no ch in the New Testament is
described as having a pastor? Paul wrote many letters to the
eet Aiea ee and the_
deacons and the people who had a church meeting in their house.

churches.
When Paul ranks the Church's ministries in I Cui
12, he says, “First apostles; second prophets; third teachers....”
He does not even include pastors in the list! Pastor was not the

In another study I searched the New Testament to see

hoW many times each of the offices is mentioned. I found that

on mes, a astors ate mentioned once. ~

a ea

64
 Now think about what the church in America has done?
fost churches today don't believe apostles even exist.
Clieve in prophets. ‘They'll let seachers teach a Sunday School
@lassas long as they use the quartefly ther denomination’

Once a year to preach a week of evangelistic messages. Then they

take the office of pastor--mentioned only once in the Bible--and
make it the primary office of the church, responsible to do all the
work of ministry!
Do you see why the church in America is in a mess?
Pastors are important. All of the gifts are important. But the
pastor was never intended to be the primary office.

The Plight of the American Pastor

In the chapter four we looked at some horrifying statistics
describing the church in America. But even more distressing are
the statistics describing the life of an American pastor! Over the
past 20 years, a number of studies have been done on the lives of
pastors. These studies span a wide variety of denominations and
church structures, but the results are all surprisingly similar:"*

* These studies report that 80% of American pastors

and 84% of their spouses regularly struggle with
depression.
* 80% feel they are unqualified for their position; they
don’t believe they have the ability and training
necessary to do what their job demands.
* 70% say they regularly consider leaving the ministry.
¢ 50% say that they would leave the ministry if they had
another option to support their family.

65
seconds it would give me a list of all the places that word was
used in the Bible. That made it easy to see what the Bible said on
any given subject. Since I was going to study about pastors, I
wanted to begin by reading everything the Bible had to say about
pastors.
I got out my electronic Bible, entered the word “pastor”
and hit the return key. What appeared on the screen was a
message that said, “This text was not found.” My Bible's
electronic brain had read every verse in the Bible and did not find
the word “pastor” one time!
So I tried the plural. I typed in “pastors.” My electronic Bible
searched again, and finally displayed one verse, Ephesians 4:11,
“He gave some... as pastors.” :
I was stunned. That's the sum total of all Biblical
teaching about pastors: "There are some!" The startling fact is
that pastors are only mentioned once in the Bible.
Did you realize that no_ch in the New Testament is
described as having a pastor? Paul wrote many letters to the ~
ee ee eS and the_
deacons and the people who had a church meeting in their house.

churches.
When Paul ranks the Church's ministries in I Corinthians
12, he says, “First apostles; second prophets; third teachers....”
He does not even include pastors in the list! Pastor was not the
predominant o in the New Testament Church.
In another study I searched the New Testament to see
how many times each of the offices is mentioned. I found that

times. Teachers ate mentioned 121 times. Evangelists are

.
Se ae

one es, a astors are mentioned once.

eed

64
 Now think about what the church in America has done?
fost churches today don't believe apostles even exist.
Clieve in prophets. They'll let teachers teach a Sunday School
@lassas Tong as they use the quarterly thei denomination”

once a year to preach a week of evangelistic messages. Then they

take the office of pastor--mentioned only once in the Bible--and
make it the primary office of the church, responsible to do all the
work of ministry!
Do you see why the church in America is in a mess?
Pastors are important. All of the gifts are important. But the
: + ——_—S
pastor was never intended to be the primary office.

The Plight of the American Pastor

In the chapter four we looked at some horrifying statistics
describing the church in America. But even more distressing are
the statistics describing the life of an American pastor! Over the
past 20 years, a number of studies have been done on the lives of
pastors. These studies span a wide variety of denominations and
church structures, but the results are all surprisingly similar:'*

¢ These studies report that 80% of American pastors

and 84% of their spouses regularly struggle with
depression.
* 80% feel they are unqualified for their position; they
don’t believe they have the ability and training
necessary to do what their job demands.
* 70% say they regularly consider leaving the ministry.
¢ 50% say that they would leave the ministry if they had
another option to support their family.

- G5
 shepherd’s crook and the key, and he ruled from his temple on
the Vatican Hill in Rome.
So under Constantine's patronage, the church underwent
a change in administration. By the Middle Ages, the church no
: longer had apostles, prophets, teachers, pastors, or evangelists.
’ Medieval churches were led by a priest they called “father.” The
High Priest was called the “Papa” or the “Pope.” He wore a ring
and a red hat called a “miter.” His symbols were the shepherds
2?

crook and the key and he ruled from his palace on the Vatican
Hill in Rome.
Several years ago Linda and I were in the city of Rome
with Chuck Pierce and we visited an ancient temple of Mithras.
This Mithraic temple had been discovered by workers doing
excavations wader an ancient Catholic church. The church had
literally been built on top of the Mithraic temple. To put it
another way, the pagan temple actually formed the foundation of
the church. I believe this is a prophetic picture of the church in
the Dark Ages. Mithraism was the foundation of the medieval
church.
Let me make it clear that I am not denigrating Catholics.

Aree ME MHRA ACCT ee of the church

have come farther than others, but the who church still needs to
be restored!
When the Protestant Reformation came, the reformers
knew that many things in the church were not biblical. They
rejected prayers to the saints and many of the pagan trappings.
They also rejected the idea of churches being led by a priest.
They knew that the New Testament taught that every believer is a
priest, and that Jesus is our High Priest.
The problem was that they didn't really unders’ ind how
the Church was supposed to operate. So to solve theproblem,

68
they looked in the Bible and found the word “pastor.” In an
attempt to be more biblical, they changed the leadet’s title from
“priest” to “pastor.” But the basic structure of the local church
was not changed. It was still an old administration.
—_-_—————————————___———_—_: 0—n—eeeeeeee""

From this; “PRIEST” To this: “PASTOR”

II II
CHURCH CHURCH

The Change in Church Structure

Brought by the Protestant Reformation

The pastoral model of church originated_in_ the pagan

religion of Mithraism. Mithraism was a "Mystery Religion." Ina
iyStery Teligion only the priest was allowed to know the sacred
fapesses to worship in a a ete ee ee
his is why the church has a hard time transitioning from
pastoral to five-fold. We still have the old mentality. The
pastoral model was never God’s plan, and it cannot accomplish
God’s purpose for His people.

he Key to Change
So how do we get five-fold ministry? The first step is to
get tid of our old wineskin mentality. When we walk into a
church wondering, “Who is the pastor here?” we're walking in an
j
walked into achurch, that was not what you asked!
When you go to a new chutch, your first questions should
be, “Who is the apostle here? Who is the prophet? Who is the
teacher?” God wants to bring us into a new way of thinking.

69
 God is restoring His temple. He is restoring the structure
of the Church. He is teaching us a new way of “doing church”
where apostles and prophets form the foundation (Eph. 2:20).
Teachers give us an understanding of the Word and train people
to fulfill their destiny. Evangelists draw the lost to Jesus, and
pastors ate available to heal, comfort and strengthen the flock.
This is God’s plan for the Church.
The Church was designed to be a temple to hold God’s
glory, but when the temple was defiled, His glory departed. The
time h me to restore the temple.
The King of the Universe, the ascended Lord Jesus, gave
us five-fold ministry as the administration of His church. A
different king, a pagan Roman emperor, changed that
administration and we lost what God had given us. The good
ws is that God is restoring what we have lost.

70
 Chapter 8

The Apostolic Model

“In the church God has appointed first ofall apostles, second prophets, third
teachers...” I Cor. 12:28 (NIV)

In Ephesians 4 Paul describes God's plan for the Church.

It’s called five-fold ministry. The question is, “How do we get
th ???

As we said earlier, pastors have been preaching about five-

fold ministry for years, but most churches end up operating the
same way as always.
A few years ago my daughter and a friend were visiting in
another part of the country and were trying to find a church to
attend. They looked in the phone book and found a church that
advertised it had five-fold ministry, so they decided to visit.
When the pastor of the church got up to speak, he said
something like this, “We believe in five-fold ministry. Any kind
of ministry you need, we’ve got it. If you need healing, come
down to the altar. I will pray for you. If you need a prophetic
word, come down here and I will prophesy to you. If you need
deliverance, come to me and I will minister deliverance to you.”
I believe that pastor had a good heart and sincerely wanted
to meet people's needs, but it is clear that he had no idea the
meaning of five-fold ministry. But he's not alone!
The sad truth is that while a lot of churches say they want
five-fold ministry, when it comes to "doing church" they always
fall back into an old "pastoral" wineskin where one man does it
all!

71
 So how do you develop a church where five-fold ministry
can operate? The good news is that God has a plan.
God's plan for the church is found in I Corinthians 12:28,
and it gives a very clear order of priority. It tells us that God
appointed in His church, "frst apostles, second prophets, third
teachers, shen miracles, then gifts of healings, helps,
administrations, various kinds of tongues.” So according to this
verse, what’s the starting point? God says, “First, apostles!”
And that's where Jesus started. Acts 1:2 says, “Jesus
ascended into heaven after giving instructions to the apostles He
had chosen.” When Jesus wanted to start a Church, He began
with apostles. The book of Acts is the story of the first apostles
establishing the first church:
e Acts 2:42 - “They were devoting themselves to the
apostles teaching.”
e Acts 2:43 - “Miraculous signs were done by the
apostles.”
¢ Acts 4:2 - “The apostles were teaching the people.”
° Acts 4:33 - “The apostles were continuing to testify.”

It's important to note that apostles in the New Testament

were not limited to the twelve. The original twelve apostles
formed the prototype of this gift, but as the Church expanded,
ostles were added.
The New Testament identifies a number of additional
apostles. In Acts 1:26 Matthias is designated as an apostle to
replace Judas. In Acts 14:14 Paul and Barnabas are both
identified as apostles. Other New Testament apostles include
Apollos (I Cor. 4:6,9), Andronicus and ia (Romans 16:7),
James, the half-brother of Jesus (Gal. 1:19), Silvanus and Timothy
(I Thess.1:1 and 2:6), and Epaphroditus (Phil. 2:25). _ ~

ue
 This means the gift of apostle was not intended to die out
with the passing of the original twelve! God was continually
adding mew apostles. If you understand the function of the
apostle, you'll see that apostles are a/vays needed if the Church is
to operate as God intended.

What Apostles Do
The gift of "apostle" is a gift with a very specific function
that only apostles can perform. The function of the apostle is to
establish the church. This means the apostle has a gift from God
{0
administration
Create an within which other gifts can grow and
develop. Apostles are key elements of God's order for His
church, but God's order is not that which we’ve been
accustomed.
Where apostles are functioning, you will see five-fold
ministry coming into place. The saints will be equipped and the
Kingdom of God will move forward. (Note: Some churches call
themselves "apostolic" but are not. They give their pastor the title
of "apostle" but still function as an old wineskin.)
Most churches today are pastoral. They were started by a
pastor and are led by a pastor. A pastor nurtures and lovingly
cares for the sheep, but a pastor can't establish five-fold ministry.
It’s not his gift.
Prophets also can't establish five-fold ministry.
Teachers can seach about five-fold ministry all day, but a
teacher can't establish five-fold ministry.
Evangelists can't establish five-fold ministry either.
It takes a gift from God to establish five-fold ministry in
the Church. That gift is the gift of apostle.
If you want to understand why it’s important for a church
to have an apostolic foundation, notice what happens without it.

a8
 In traditional protestant churches you start with a pastor.
You have a pastoral foundation. ‘The result is that the saints are
comforted and cared for, but they are often not trained or given
vision.
In some Baptist and Pentecostal churches, the “pastor” is
really an evangelist. The church is built on an evangehstic
foundation. The gospel is preached week after week after week.
The same people get born again and again and again. But many of
them don’t grow in their faith.
In a Bible Church the focus is usually on a teacher. It has
a teaching foundation. The Bible is taught. Knowledge is gained, but
no power is imparted. People’s notebooks are crammed full of
information, but there is often little practical result.
In many Charismatic churches, the leader is a prophet.
They have a prophetic foundation. Vision is imparted and there is
high motivation, but people often have little understanding of
how to move forward and succeed.
We need pastors, teachers, evangelists and prophets, but
none of them have the ability to establish five-fold ministry in the
church. To make it all “work,” God gave us a very special gift;
the apostle.

Understanding Apostleship
The word apostle refers to a very specific anointing from
God. "Apostle" is not a title you give someone to honor them.
Sometimes when I am invited to speak at a conference, they will
introduce me as “Apostle Robert Heidler.” I realize they're trying
to honor me, but it’s not accurate.
I know what an apostle is and lam not one. I am a teacher.
I work very hard to be the best teacher I can. To try to honor me
by calling me an apostle is like introducing me as a brais surgeon,
=<

74
a congressman, or an astronaut. It sounds impressive, but it's not
what I am.
"Apostle"
——————
is not a title you give to someone to honor them.
———————————————————

It is an anointing given by God to establish His order. It’s an

anointing that carries with it a high level of authority.
A lot of people don’t understand apostolic authority. Some
call the gift of apostle the “kingly” gift. They picture someone in
royal robes seated on a throne. This is not accurate.
Apostles are not kings or queens sitting on thrones; they are
ambassadors. They are sent by God and authorized to do"Ceftain
Things pase on their gifting. As they represent the King,
apostles have the authority to say things like:

e “This goes there!”

e “This is out of order.”
¢ "Here is your next step."
* “You're going to be in a mess if you don’t deal with
this.”

I’ve seen Chuck Pierce go into a church, meet with its

leaders for a few hours, and then outline what they need to do to
move forward. He'll say things like:

¢ “This person is in the wrong place. He needs to be

ministering in this area.”
¢ “Tf you keep doing this, it will lead to trouble down the
toad.”
“Tf you change this, you will succeed.”

Incredibly, when churches pay attention to what he says, they

prosper. How does Chuck do that? It's a gift!

ad
 We have a woman named Anita Anderson in our church
who has an incredible artistic gift. She designs and arranges
prophetic displays at the front of the church. She chooses items
that reflect what God is saying prophetically at the moment, and
she knows how to arrange them so they look beautiful.
One time Anita made a display for the altar of the church,
and for some reason we had to move it temporarily. When we
began putting things back in place, it didn't look the same. All of
the items were there, but it didn't look beautiful anymore. We
didn't know how to position things to make it "work."
So we called Anita back in. She looked at it for a few
moments and started making changes. She shifted one object a
few inches to the left. She adjusted the angle of another item.
She shifted a few others to the right. Suddenly, it looked
beautiful again!
This is how apostles are with the Church. The apostle
knows how to set things in order so they work. When a church
submits itself to an apostle’s gift, it begins to prosper in incredible
ways.
But some Christians don’t like the idea of apostolic
authority. The mention of apostolic authority fills them with
fear and mistrust. Some have been wounded by authority figures
in the past and don’t want to submit to amy authority.
Some Christians mistakenly picture apostolic authority as a
hierarchy.
But apostolic authority 1shota hierarchy. When you
talk about apostolic authority, some people demand an
organizational chart in order to see where they are in the
hierarchy so they can pin down "who gets to control whom," and
where they stand in the pecking order. But that’s not God's
picture of apostolic authority.
How did we get such oe views of spiritual|arate
In the 4° century, Emperor Consta e church

76
after the pattern of Imperial Rome. It was a system based_on
control. His church buildings were Ream cebaalioaweigiittnes
_ patterned
after the imperial throne room.
Constantine gave church leaders thrones to sit_on. There
was a throne at the front of every basilica. Church offices
became positions of political power and a hierarchy was
established; the bigger your church, the bigger your throne.
Ambition was encouraged. Hach step gained more power and
influence until you made it to the top. When you got to the top,
you were the Pope, the ruler of a religious empire.
The Protestant Reformation really did not change much in
that regard. A typical Protestant church still looks a lot like a
throne room. The leaders often have chairs on the platform that
look like thrones. And there's a constant power struggle.
Everybody still wants to be Pope.
That is not how the church is suppose operate. In
eae acer.
lord it over them, and how their great men hold them in
subjection. But it is not to be this way among you. Whoever
wishes to be great among you shall be your servant, and whoever
wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. For even the
Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give
His life a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:42-45)
“We don't have a hierarchy at Glory of Zion. Chuck Pierce
is the apostle. He has an anointing given by God to set the
church in order. We all honor this. But in some situations the
SSS Se Be ee ee
anointing may be on Keith Pierce as prophet, and Chuck then
yields to him. At another time the anointing might be a
teacher, then Chuck yields to my gift. It's a government by
anointing, not by hierarchy.

TY
 If your picture of an apostle is of a kingly figure sitting on a
throne, you need to go back and read your Bible. The apostles
did not sit on thrones; they laid down their lives for the church.
In Acts 20:19-24 Paul described his apostleship as “serving
the Lord with tears and trials... teaching publicly and from house
to house... not considering my life important, that I may
complete the task Lord Jesus has given me!”
In II Tim 4:6 he says, “My life is being poured out like
drink offering!”
This is true spiritual authority. The authority of an apostle
is not confirmed by a throne upon which he sits, but by the fact :
that he pours out his life for God's people. 7

The Church as His Body

Romans 12:4-5 compares the operation of an apostolic
church to a complex physical body. “Just as we have many
members in one body, and all the members do not have the same
function, so we, who ate many, ate one body in Christ, and
individually members of one another.”
Paul points out that a physical body has many organs, many
members. They are all different, but they need to work together.
Your lungs and your brain are not in competition! Your eyes and
your ears do not argue about which is most important! Every part
is important, and theit common goal is the health of the body.
The Body of Christ has many members also. There are
apostles, prophets, teachers, pastors, healers, encouragers,
administrators, and many others. Each member has a different
God-given purpose, and when each member fulfills its function,
the whole Body operates in great power.
That was God's plan for His Church, and it was revolutionary.
God's plan was to bring together a diverse group of people, place

78
His Spirit in each of them, give them each a unique set of gifts,
then knit them together to function as a single Aving organism.
Their purpose was to be the BODY OF CHRIST on earth,
doing the same works Jesus did when He was walking around in
His physical body.
You were created to be part of that Body. When God
designed you, He gave you a unique personality and a unique set
of abilities. When He saved you, He gave you a unique set of
spiritual gifts. No one else can do what you can do.
Like the organs of the human body, we are all different, but
essential. The problem with the traditional church is that only a
few parts are allowed to operate. The pastor is a mouth that
speaks. The members are allowed to be hands that serve. The
missionaries are feet that go. But most people just ATTEND.
You were created to do more than attend church. Some of
you treading this book were created to heal the sick. You may have
never prayed for a sick person in your life. You have no idea
how to begin. But it's your call and destiny, and you'll never be
satisfied until you do it. When you finally lay hands on a sick
person and see them healed, it will be the most exciting thing
you've ever done!
Some of you were created to lead worship. Some were
created to comfort and encourage others. Some were created to
cast out demons or perform miracles. Some were created to
prophesy.
It doesn’t matter where you work, how much money you
make, or what you can buy. If you are not trained and released to
do what you were created to do, you will never find fulfillment in
life.
But where Christians are equipped to do the works of Jesus,
they experience a level of meaning and purpose they’ve. never
known. The result is that the Church truly begins to function as

7
the Body of Christ. It is no longer a congregation of untrained
laymen. It becomes the army of God doing the works of King
Jesus in the earth.
The apostle’s gift is to create an administration where all of
this can happen. Where apostles are honored, the five-fold
ministry is established, believers are equipped, and the Church
moves forward with incredible power to fulfill its destiny.
We are living in exciting times. God is re-forming His
church. He's in the midst of the greatest building project in
history, and we are His building materials. We are living stones,
being joined together in Jesus forming God's temple in the earth.
God is building a sanctuary designed to house His glory. God is
restoring the apostolic church!

Sunday A™\ 616

Asked Agron Vas ay
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 Chapter 9

The Marks of an Apostle

We've been looking at two very different ways of "doing

church." In the pastoral church, the members of the congregation
are viewed as /aymen. ‘They come to church to receive ministry
from the pastor.
In an apostolic church, the apostle raises up prophets,
teachers, pastors, and evangelists who equip the members to
minister wherever they go. The apostolic church was God’s
original plan, and it’s the new wineskin He’s calling the Church to
become. In the last decade I’ve encountered a number of
churches that have successfully made the transition to the new
wineskin. When that happens the church usually explodes.
Several years ago a group of pastors in Bangkok, Thailand
invited me to come and teach about five-fold ministry. These
were good men. They loved the Lord and sincerely desired to see
the church in their nation move forward. They brought me in to
teach them about the new wineskin several years in a row, but in
the end, most were reluctant to give up their old structures. They
could not imagine functioning without a traditional pastor and
committees to run the church.
Finally one man took the plunge. This pastor, a man
named Nimit, is a true apostle. He was so committed to seeing a
new wineskin form that he actually quit his church and founded a
new one, based on five-fold ministry. Within a year, that new
church exploded. It is now one of the largest churches in
Thailand. Every time we've ministered there, we've been amazed.
On a typical Sunday morning, more than a thousand people

_ Ol
 crowd into an impromptu auditorium that takes up an entire
floor of a downtown Bangkok office building. Their Sunday
service lasts ten hours, including breaks for meals. It's not
uncommon to see 50-100 people saved at every service.
A few yeats ago I ministered at a church called “Snowball
Church” in Brazil. The church was begun by a group of surfers
on the beaches near Sao Paulo. (They still use a surfboard for
their pulpit.) The "pastor" of the church is an apostle named
Rina. From the beginning, Rina's goal was to train every saint to
minister. So everyone who gets saved at Snowball Church is
"equipped to do the work of ministry." What a novel idea! The
result is that the church “snowballed.” It’s like a snowball rolling
downhill, gaining momentum and growing rapidly.
When I ministered in Snowball Church, they already had
thousands of people in their main church, but also had more than
200 branch churches throughout the country. Many of these
branch churches have hundreds of members. They also had
branches inanumber ofother nations. —
Apostle Rina shared with me over lunch that when a
member of Snowball C moves to a new location, it's
common for them to start a new church. One of their members
“had recently moved to Moscow, Russia to attend medical school.
Shortly after arriving in the city, that student started a church in
his apartment. Snowball Church soon had a branch church in
Russia with more than 60 people attending.
When five-fold ministry begins to operate, the results look
like the New Testament,church. So how do we get there? How
does a church transition from pastoral to apostolic?
The first step should be obvious. You have to find an
apostle. (If you don’t have an apostle, it’s hot an’ apostolic
church.) But recognizing an apostle isn’t always easy. Il Gor:
11:13 warns us that we must be very careful in identifying

82
apostles, because there are many false apostles. Not everyone
who claims to be an apostle is one.
If someone shows up at your church and tells you he's an
apostle, how do you know if he is legitimate? Will he carry an
Apostle Card in his wallet? Should you look for an “Apostle
Certificate” hanging on the wall of his office?
How do you spot a true apostle? The good news is that the
Bible tells us the qualifications.

The Marks of a True Apostle

Several years ago my wife, Linda, was asked to lead inter-
cession for first meeting of the International Coahtion of Apostles
(ICA). Peter Wagner had gathered people who were recognized
as apostles from all over the world, to meet together for this
historic event.
The meeting took place in the year 2000. At that time, no
one was sure how to define an apostle, but there were some
interesting ideas floating around. A few speakers taught that
having a large church was an indicator of an apostolic gift. It was
actually taught that having a church of 600 or more people meant
you were an apostle. I am not sure how they arrived at that
number.
Others taught that the mark of an apostle was traveling and
ministering internationally. After all apostles were sent out to
minister. Many people took an international ministry trip and
came back announcing that they were now apostles.
Still others taught that a mark of an apostle was to have a
network of churches under you.
These ideas were not based on Scripture, For the most
part, these speakers were looking at people they thought were
apostles and trying to describe what they do.

83
 So in preparation for leading intercession for the ICA
meeting, Linda decided to study what the Bible has to say about
apostles. She discovered that the Bible gives very clear teaching
on how to recognize one.
God does not want us to be in doubt. He does not want us
to have to wonder if someone is an apostle. If someone is gifted as
an apostle, God does not want him or her to hesitate to say they
are apostles. God made it clear.
As Linda studied the New Testament, she found ten
specific marks of a true apostle. Let's see what they are...

1. Apostles have an immediately recognizable relationship

with Jesus.
The first mark of an apostle is a very close relationship with
Jesus. An apostle's life shows that he or she has spent time with
Jesus and knows Him well.
In Acts 4:13 Peter and John were called before the
Sanhedrin. When Peter began to speak, we’re told that the
members of the council recoguized that he had been with Jesus.
There was something about Peter--about the way he talked and
what he said--that let them know Peter had spent much time with
the Lord.
This was Jesus’ fitst priority in choosing apostles. Mar
3:13-14 says that Jesus called the twelve that they might be with Him
and that He might send them out to minister. We often skip over
the "with him" and focus on the "sending." But Jesus’ first
ptiority was to find those who would be with Him. He wanted
these 12 to be "with Him" in a different way than He was with
others. He established a different kind of relationship with them.
Jesus only sends those that know Him well. Apostles are
ambassadors. Their lives ate not their own. They.understand
“that they belong toHim and represent Him as they go.

84
2. They operate in a supernatural realm.
A true apostle exercises supernatural power. Jesus sent the
apostles out to heal the sick, cast out demons, raise the dead, and
perform signs, wonders, and miracles.
Acts 2:43 says that the apostles worked great signs and
wonders. Part of the job of an apostle is to exercise authority
over the works of the kingdom of darkness. In II Cor. 12:12 Paul
defines one sign of a true apostle as the ability to perform
miracles.
This is one of the validations of a true apostle. If they
claim to be an apostle, but there is no dimension of the
miraculous in their ministry, they have not met one of the
qualifications.

3. Apostles are able to interpret what God is doing.

An apostle receives revelation about what God is doing in
the earth, and has authority to interpret new things.
In Acts 2, the Holy Spirit was poured out. Everyone began
speaking in tongues. No one had ever seen anything like this. It
surprised everybody.
Some of my Messianic Jewish friends have a saying, “If you
have five Jews, you have ten opinions.” This is what we see in
Acts 2. Jews had gathered from all over the world for the feast of
Pentecost. When the disciples began speaking in tongues,
nobody knew what was happening, but everybody had an
opinion. Some thought they were drunk. Others argued they
couldn't be drunk because it was too early in the day. :
There was total confusion until Peter stood up and said,
“This is what was prophesied by Joel...” When Peter said this it
had a ring of authority, it bore witness and they knew it was true.

ck)
The issue was settled, and there was no mote discussion about
this strange phenomenon.
We see this again in Acts 15. Here, there was a huge
controversy. Something unprecedented was happening. Gentiles
were getting saved and coming into the Church without first
converting to Judaism. No one had imagined this could happen.
Up until that time, if you wanted to know the God of
Israel, you converted to Judaism. But in Acts 10 the Holy Spirit
fell on Cornelius, a Gentile, and Peter baptized him. Paul and
Barnabas also began preaching to Gentiles and seeing them
saved.
This caused such confusion that they called a church
council in Jerusalem to figure out what they should do. Pharisees
who trusted in Jesus didn't think the Gentiles could really be
saved, unless they first became Jews. Others argued, “The Holy
Spirit fell on them. If God has accepted them, how can we
require more than God does?”
Everyone had their say and no one was convinced. Then
James stood up and said, “This is what was written by the
prophet...”” He then quoted Amos 9:11-12 where God promised
that He would rebuild David’s fallen tabernacle so the Gentiles
could seek the Lord.
James understood from the prophecy-of Amos that vies
God once again “tabernacled” with His people, the result would
be the release of God’s blessing to the Gentiles. Seeing that this
was taking place, his conclusion was, “If God is inviting them in,
we will not exclude them.” This settled the issue.
It is the same today. God has not stopped doing new
things. He continues to do things that surprise us and catch us
off guard. When new things happen, apostles have revelation of
what God is doing, and authority to settle the issue. “What they

86
say will ring true. It will agree with Scripture, and time will prove
it to be right. This is one of the marks of a true apostle.

4. Apostles are trustworthy with money.

A true apostle has integrity with finances and can be trusted
with money. In Acts 4 the people took their money and laid i
the apostles’ feet. This was a new way of giving. Up until that
time, you gave your offerings to the priest at the temple. In this
new administration, they gave their money to the apostles. They
did not ask the apostles for an accounting of the money. They
were confident that the apostles would be completely trustworthy
with it.
" We see further evidence of this in the life of Paul. In Acts
20 he reminds the Ephesian elders that during his ministry in
Ephesus, he not only worked to provide for himself, but also to
provide for those who were ministering with him. Again, in
Corinth, he worked to support himself. His goal was to be above
reproach when money was concerned. In Philippians 4, when
thanking the church in Philippi for sending a contribution, he
says, “I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I
find myself... I do not seek the gift, but the profit which
increases to your account.”
Mammon has no hold on true apostles. They will serve
God without thought of money. They will be faithful to God
and to those they serve, when money is concerned. If someone
claims to be an apostle, but you can't trust him or her with your
money, you should question whether or not he or she really is an
apostle.

87
5. They have authority to discipline and pronounce
judgment.
Apostles have the authority to exercise discipline and
pronounce judgment in the Church. The first place that we see
this is in Acts 5 with Ananias and Sapphira. Ananias and
Sapphira had lied to the Holy Spirit. Peter had a responsibility to
establish a standard in the Church that lying to Holy Spirit would
not be tolerated, so he pronounced the judgment of God on
them. If he had not done this, the church would have become
defiled, and the power of God would have been diminished.
We see this again in I Tim. 1:19-20 where Paul says that he
turned Hymenaeus and Alexander over to Satan, so that they will
learn not to blaspheme. In I Cor. 5:5 Paul turned someone else
over to Satan because of immorality, in the hope that the
discipline’s result would be repentance. In II Cor. 2 he instructs
the church to restore a repentant sinner to fellowship. One
wonders if perhaps it was the same.person he wrote about in I
Wom 3:
Discipline of this kind is a necessary function in the church.
It is Hot legalism. It isnot control. Itis not abuse. This kind of
discipline creates a secure environment for those in the church,
and maintains an atmosphere where the Holy Spirit is unhindered
by sin. It cannot be carried out by just anyone. This task is given
to apostles.

6. Apostles lay down their lives for the church.

One reason apostles are qualified to exercise discipline is
that they lay their own lives down for the church. In II Cor. 6:4-
10 Paul describes the lifestyle that validated his apostolic ministry.
He tells us that he lived his life, “... in much endurance, in
afflictions, in hardships, in distress, in beatings, in imptsonments,
in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in hunger....”

88
 een in Il Cor. 11 he relates what his life has been like as
an apostle. He says, “Three times I was beaten. Once I was
stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; I spent a night and a day
in the open sea. I have been in dangers from rivers; dangers
from robbers; dangers from my own countrymen; dangers from
Gentiles; dangers in the city; dangers in the wilderness; dangers
on the sea; dangers from false brethren. I have labored and toiled
and gone without sleep. I have been hungry and thirsty; cold and
naked.” (paraphrase)
In Gal. 6:17 he says that he bears the “brand marks” of
Jesus in his body. Many believe this means that at some point,
Paul had been physically branded because of his ministry.
Being an apostle is not easy. Most of the original apostles
died as martyrs. Being an apostle does not mean you sit on the
highest throne. Apostles always pay a high price to fulfill their
calls.
If you know true apostles, you will see this in their lives.
You will watch them take the risks necessary to move the church
forward. You can observe what it costs them in their bodies, i
————
their emotions, and in their lives, to fulfill the work God has
called them to do. Most of us have no comprehension of what 1
osts apostles to keep pressing the church forward. They don't
count their own lives or desires as important. This is how they
lay down their lives for the church.
If the first mark of an apostle is supernatural signs, the
second mark is scars. True apostles will have some battle scars.
"They will have wounds as a result of what it cost them to be an
apostle. This is why those who really know what it takes to be
an apostle are not quick to claim the title.

- 89
7. Apostles are "fathers and mothers" in the church.
Another reason apostles are qualified to discipline and pass
judgement is that they are fathers and mothers in the Body of
Christ. Apostleship is a relational ministry, motivated by love.
Apostles ate fathers and mothers, not masters and rulers.
In I Cor. 4:14-15 Paul writes that they have many teachers, but
not many fathers, and that he had become their father.
In I Thess. 2:5-8 Paul tells the Thessalonians that his goal
was not to assert apostolic authority over them, which he had a
right to do, but rather to tenderly care for them as a nursing
mother cares for her child. Apostles will do everything in their
power to see that those entrusted to their care fulfill God's call on
their lives. They intercede, guide, instruct, correct, and open
doors of ministry for them.
There has been some debate about whether women can be
apostles. At the first meeting of the International Coalition of
Apostles, one of the panels discussed whether women should be
recognized as apostles. There was one man on the panel who
argued that women could not be apostles. Unfortunately for him
two of the women on the panel were Naomi Dowdy and Cindy
Jacobs, both of whom ate clearly apostolic.
There is no prohibition in Scripture for women being
apostles. There were women in the early church, like Junia (Rom.
16:7), who were recognized as apostles. God’s pattern from the
beginning was for men and women to work together to carry out
His purposes. According to Gen. 1:27, it takes men and women
together to display the complete image of God. In order to get
the full benefit of the gift of apostle, there must be men and
women, fathers and mothers.

90
8. Apostles have a revelation of Israel and the One New
Man.
Another mark of apostles is that they have revelation of
Israel and the church as One New Man. Paul describes this in
Eph. 2-3. He begins by reminding his Gentile readers that at one
time they were strangers to the covenant. But now, in Christ,
those who had been far off were brought near.
In Christ, the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile ha
een broken down so God can make the two into One New
Man. He goes on in chapter 3 to say that this revelation had not
been known in other generations. He calls it a mystery that God
has revealed to the apostles and prophets; that the Gentiles are
fellow heirs with the Jews.
This was a mystery. No one ever saw it coming... believing
Gentiles would be brought into the covenant alongside believing
Jews. It was a mystery revealed to the apostles and prophets.
This means that if someone claims to be an apostle, he or
she should have some understanding of the significance of Israel
and how Israel and the Church are to relate to each other. If
there is no understanding of what it means for the Gentiles to be
grafted into Israel, there is something wrong.
Se ee
=
9. Apostles stand in intercession for the church.
Intercession for the church is another distinguishing mark
of apostles. In Col. 1:3-4 Paul says that he has not stopped
raying for them since he learned of their faith. II Cor. 11: 28-29
says that he daily felt the pressure of concern for all the churches.
In Gal. 4:19 he describes himself as being in “labor” to see Christ
formed in them.
Apostles do not just say, “Well, I hope things turn out for
you.” They do not pass the responsibility of intercession off to
someone else. They carry the weight and burden of what needs
ee

91
 to be accomplished, and they press through in intercession until
they see it happen.

10. Apostles are anointed to set the church in order.

The last mark of apostles is that they are anol od
to set direction and order_for When Paul wrote to
Timothy and Titus, he instructed them to set the church in order.
en Paul visited those cities, a church had begun, but there
were things that now needed to be taken to the next level. He
ais oa
sent Timothy and Titus to carry out his instructions, so_the_
sis vaag aioe at arabies a
sthéchutchinerdenauworksiim
elieqa sm anv en ope
God set a high standard for apostles. He wants to be clear
as to who was and who was not an apostle. He wants us to
honor those who are true apostles, but He does not want us to be
deceived by false apostles.
As you look at the marks of an apostle, you may wonder if
these people exist. I can assure you that they do. There are
some, of course, who just put the title in front of their names to
make themselves look good. They don’t know that for which
they are signing up. On the other hand, there are true apostles
who don’t even use the title.
If you don’t know a true apostle, ask God to put you in
relationship with one. When you find a true apostle, realize that
he or she is a gift from God. They are laying their lives down for
you.

o2
 Chapter 10

Recognizing the Other Five-fold Gifts

In the last chapter, we looked at the marks of a true apostle.

This is the starting point for the new wineskin.
Don’t be discouraged if you look around in your chutch on
a Sunday morning and don’t spot an apostle there. Most
churches will not have an apostle within the church. "Apostle"

with a number of churches. It’s important, however, that your

éhurch és in a relationship with an apostle and that you allow that
apostle to speak into your church.
In this chapter I want to show you how to recognize the
other five-fold gifts. You probably have at least some of these
gifts in your church right now. Perhaps your pastor has one of
these gifts. Maybe you do! Here’s what to look for:

The Marks of a Prophet

In Ephesians 4, Paul lists “prophet” as the second of the
five-fold gifts. Prophecy is the ability to communicate the mind
and heart of God in a specific situation. All Christians can
prophesy. God speaks to all of His children, and every Christian
can learn to hear Him. Jesus said, "My sheep hear my voice." If
you ate one of His sheep, you have the privilege of hearing His

But just hearing God's voice does not make you a prophet.
Some people get their first prophetic word and announce that
they must be a prophet. But having the “office” of prophet
involves more than just getting prophetic words.
a

93
 A New Testament prophet is someone who is gifted to
establish the revelatory gifts in the Church so these gifts function
as God intended. The prophet is there, not just to prophesy, but
to set prophecy in order. Where a true prophet is present, other
people will learn to prophesy.
The prophet sets a standard for accuracy., When a prophet
is in ie Foe yorwillnothavealotofflakyprophetic words
given.
When we first began to allow people to give prophetic
words in church, it was a mess. When immature people are
learning to prophesy, it is always messy for a while. There were a
lot of flaky prophecies given. A lot of people were saying, “The
Lord told me this,” but it wasn’t the Lord at all. The temptation
was to outlaw prophecy because it was so messy. But this is not
God’s solution.
Paul addresses this very problem in I Thess. 5. The church
in Thessalonica was having a “prophetic mess.” — Paul’s
instruction given in I Thess. 5:19-22 was, “Don’t despise
prophecy... but test everything.” Rather than rejecting
prophecy, he wanted them to learn a new level of discernment.
When a true prophet is present, prophecy is established to bring
about great benefit.
How do you recognize a prophet? First, he or she will
prophesy with great maturity and accuracy. When true prophets
speaks, God backs them up. What they say Aappens and there is
no way to argue about it.
Chuck Pierce ministers as a prophet, as well as an apostle.
In December of 2003, \Linda and I were with Chuck at a large
gathering in San Antonio, TX. At that time, Saddam Hussein had
been in hiding for nine months and no one knew his location. At
the gathering, Chuck stood up and gave this proph tic word,
“Within one week Saddam Hussein will be found, no matter what

94
hole he is hiding in.” Three days later Saddam Hussein was found
in his spider hole. When something like this happens, it is hard
to deny it being supernatural. We've seen Chuck give prophetic
words with this level of accuracy on many occasions. God backs
up His prophets.
Another mark of a prophet is that he or she opens the
heavens for others to hear. When prophets speak, they open a
portal and God's revelation pours through. If you get close
enough to a prophet, you'll hear God too. (I Sam. 10:9-12)
The primary prophet at Glory of Zion is Keith Pierce. I
ve it when Keith gets up to speak. A lot of times I get my best
messages when Keith is speaking. While Keith is speaking, you’ll
often see me taking notes frantically, but what I'm writing usually
has nothing to do with what Keith is saying. When Keith is
ministering, the heavens open and I hear what God is saying to
me!
One time I'd been working on a message about the shield
of faith from Ephesians 6. I had studied the subject all morning,
but didn’t see it coming together as a message.
That afternoon Keith was teaching a class and I went to
heart him. Keith's teaching had nothing to do with the shield of
faith, but as soon as Keith started to speak, the heavens opened
and I began to get revelation on the shield of faith. I was taking
notes as fast as I could. Keith's prophetic gift had opened up a
portal. The key revelation for my book “Restoring Your Shield
of Faith” was downloaded during that time.
Not only does a prophet open the heavens for others to
hear-but a prophet also releases power. There is power in a
= en God is declared into
the atmosphere, it has the power to change situations.
I remember the first _time Keith Pierce gave _a_ public
prophetic word. One Sunday morning, he stood up in church
a

95
and asked one of the ladies in the church to stand up. He began
to prophesy to her that she was going to have a son. Those who
knew the woman were horrified. This woman had recently
developed some female problems and was scheduled to have a
complete hysterectomy the next week. People lashed out at
Keith for what he said. But when the woman went to the doctor
that week, he examined her and said, “You no longer need a
hysterectomy... and by the way, you are pregnant!” Nine
months later she gave birth to a son. A prophetic word releases
power to change situations.
Another thing a prophet does is to “st prophecy and to
quench flaky words. When there is a true prophet in your midst,
your church becomes a safe place for other people to learn to
prophesy. Demons are not going to stir up flaky words where
there is a true prophet to bring correction. When the office of
the prophet is established in the church, flaky words hardly ever
happen.
A prophet will encourage and train others in the prophetic.
Prophets beget prophets. A true prophet is able to impart
prophetic gifts to others. Biblically, there were schools of the
prophets. The result of having a prophet is that revelatory gifts
are established in the church.

The Marks of a Teacher

Gift number three is the teacher. A teacher is not just
someone who imparts information. A teacher is not just
someone who uses an outline. A teacher's goal is not just to
communicate facts. The gift of teaching imparts understanding.
The book of Proverbs has a lot to say about the value of gaining
understanding. When we gain understanding, we can:walk in
wisdom and are enabled to prosper in every area. We ll need to
be taught.

96
 True teachers are motivated to help you learn the ways of
God and the heart of God. They do not want to just give you
information to fill up your notebook or satisfy your curiosity.
They want to give you revelation on how to walk with God and
enjoy God’s blessings.
A true teacher will not try to impress you with how much
he or she knows. Their goal is not to build themselves up. What
they say will not sound hard or complicated. What a tea
will usually sound very simple. The gift of a teacher takes

You can recognize a true teacher by two things. First, there

will be a hunger to know the truth--a love for God’s Word.
Second, there will be an ability to communicate so people can
understand.
When you hear a teacher, the lights go on. You say, “Now
I understand” and your life changes. Teachers are motivated
when they see peoples’ eyes light up because they finally
understand!

The Marks of a Pastor

The fourth gift is the pastor. Biblically, a pastor is not
someone who leads a church. A true pastor will be tremendously
frustrated if put into the position of running and administrating a
religious organization. A real pastor has very little in common
with our traditional, generic, one-man-doesit-all “minister” A
pastor issomeone with aheart tocare for God's scattered sheep._
A true pastor’s highest goal is to make sure every Christian

‘fue pastor isadesire to be with people. A teacher likes to ge

one with the Bible and study, but a pastor wants to spend time
With people. A pastor wants to visit with them, talk with them

OF
 and find out what i ing on in it lives. This is the heart of a
% pastor.
Many true pastors don’t like to preach on Sunday morning.
They would rather be out counseling and encouraging people
than sitting in an office preparing a message.
I was teaching about the gift of “pastor” at a large church in
Thailand a few years back. The wife of one of the church’s
assistant pastors was sitting beside Linda. When I got to this
point in the teaching, the woman leaned over to Linda and said,
“Oh! That’s my husband! He /oves people. He loves to go out
and visit in hospitals and visit them in their homes. He loves to
encoutage people and counsel people, but he hates to stand up
on Sunday morning and preach ! She then explained that in their
39>

church, all the pastors had to take a turn preaching on Sunday.

She said, “He dreads when it is his turn to preach, and everybody
else in the church dreads it too. He is not a good preacher, but he
loves people.”
This is often a true pastor’s heart. A pastor wants to devote
his or her life to see God's people safe, established, and growing.
Most churches have several real pastors and we need to honor
them. True pastors are a gift from God and are much needed in
the church.

The Marks of an Evangelist

The final five-fold gift is the evangelist. Evangelists h
the anointing to "bitth babies" into the Kingdom, and they do it
SS ee gelist toseenew babies
ee born.
eaeeren e a trip, the person sitting next to them on the

The cab driver to the Lord. When they get to the hotel, they lead
the bellman to the Lord, and the next morning in the hotel

98
restaurant, they'll introduce their server to Jesus. Everywhere
they go they lead people to the Lord.
It feels so natural for an evangelist to do this that they often
don’t realize it's a gift. Sometimes evangelists condemn other
people for not doing the same thing they do. They don't realize
that it's a gift.
How do you recognize an evangelist? Very easily.
Evangelists are constantly birthing babies. So if you have a true
Evangelist inyour church, the row of seats next to him will fill up
with new Christians. One of the ways an evangelist operates is
through miracles. A true evangelist releases miracles into the
body.

The Importance of Discerning a True Gift

God warns us to be careful in recognizing these gifts. Each
of these five gifts has a satanic counterfeit, so don't accept
someone_lightly into the five-fold ministry. There are false
prophets. There are false teachers. There are false apostles.
There are false pastors, and there are false evangelists. Don’t
accept someone just on their own claim. If someone comes
claiming to be an apostle or a prophet, don’t be quick to believe
them. Wait until you see fruit.
Sometimes a stranger will come to our church and identify
himself as a prophet and expect to be able to mini e
know that person, we don't let him. The Bible instructs us to

De a eicicon daniataative a year.

When he came he told us he was an evangelist. He wanted us to
give him money to go to South America, rent a stadium, and hold
a big evangelistic crusade. Though he’d never held a crusade
before, he was confident that he would see thousands of people
saved if we would just finance his outreach. There was only one

99
problem. We never saw him lead one person to Jesus. In my
opinion, he was not an evangelist; he just wanted to have a big
meeting.
Those who have the real gift will not be promotin
themselves, or seeking recognition. They will be quietly servin
“and
Mgt producing
Se fruit

Does Everyone have a Five-fold Gift?

When I teach about five-fold ministry, a frequent question
is, "Does every Christian have one of the five-fold gifts?" Th
answer is, "No." Each of us has at least one spiritual
only a few have one of the five-fold gifts.
“A we saw in Chapter 10, the Bible compares the members
of the Body of Christ to the organs of a human body. The
human body has many organs, each with its own function, and
every organ is important. But certain organs, like the brain and
heart, are called w/a/ organs. The other organs cannot live
without these.
In the same way God has placed many gifts in the Body of
Christ. All the gifts are ortant, but the five-fold gifts are like
vital organs. ‘Their purpose is to create an environment where
the other gifts are able to thiive. ere five-fold ministry is
established, the whole body is built up, and all the members ate
equipped to fulfill their destiny.

Do We Need to have All Five?

This is another question I frequently hear. Do we need to
wait until we see all five of these gifts in the church to be able to
transition into the new wineskin? The good news is, “NO!” In
Part Three of this book, I will show you how a church can
transition into five-fold ministry even if you don’t have all five of
these gifts in your church. i

100
 Chapter 11

The Rise of the Saints

The goal of five-fold ministry is not to put new titles on the

door of the church office. It’s not to have a different distribution
of labor among the leaders. The goal is to enable the Church to
rise up in New Testament power.
Our clearest picture of what five-fold ministry produces is
found in the book of Acts. Acts 2:41-43 describes the birth of the
church this way, “Those who gladly received his word were
baptized; and that day about 3,000 souls were added to their
number. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching...
and many wonders and signs were taking place through the
apostles.”
Now fast-forward to Acts chapter 8: “On that day great
persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all

Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they
went... With shrieks evil spirits came out of many, and many
paralytics and cripples were healed.”
~ Let's take a closer look at what was happening in these
passages. In Acts 2, Peter gave one message and 3,000 people
were saved. The church went from 120 to 3120 in a day! This
was tapid growth, even for the Early Church. Luke describes the
life of the early church this way, “Those who had been added to
the church were continually devoting themselves to the apostles
teaching...”
As 21* century Christians, we usually filter this account
through our own church experience. We tend to picture it this

(101
 way: The 3,000 baby Christians are the congregation. ‘The apostles
ate the pastors. The apostles taught and ministered while the
3,000 came and listened. This is a picture to which we can relate.
If this is how the early church operated, we can imagine
what might have taken place next. The apostles would have
taught the people to tithe, and started a building fund. They
would have instructed their flock to attend church regularly, live
good lives, and have happy marriages. The apostles would have
continued to preach and teach, to minister and heal.
The 3,000 would have become good church members.
They would have invited their friends to church so the apostles
could minister to them also. From time to time they would send
out a missionary. They would have constructed a building to
hold 3,000+ people, and as the church grew, they would have
gone to two services. We would say, “That is a very healthy
church.” The apostles were good ministers and had a large
congregation.
This is why we are surprised when we come to Acts chapter
8. It says, “On that day great persecution broke out against the
church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered
throughout Judea and Samaria.” The rapid growth of the
Jerusalem church had aroused persecution from the local
religious leaders, and the Christians fled the city.
It's important to notice two things in this verse. First...
Who was scattered? Everybody was scattered! All the church
memberslf This is the original 3000,\plus all those who had been
saved singe Pentecost. The members of the "congregation" fled
Jerusaleyh and relocated to towns and villages throughout the

INow notice... Who stayedin Jerusalem? The apostles stayed in

Alem. i spiritual leaders! \"
Al| had came for pele 5 WW

sate tee and wert loack how

 We read this and think, “Oh my! That church is in trouble!
The members of the church have run for their lives, and the
apostles didn’t go with them. All those poor sheep are out there
without a shepherd. They have no one to minister to them!”
Can you imagine this happening in a typical church today?
We assume that without a pastor to care for them, those poor
sheep will be lost. They will drift away from the Lord. If the
Early Church operated like the church of today, this would have
been a major disaster.
ut something happened in Acts chapter 8 that we would
not anticipate. Notice what happened to these poor scattered
cae ee
wherever they went.” (Acts 8:4, NIV) Those “poor sheep” went
out and preached!
The passage goes on, “With shrieks evil spirits came out of
many and many paralytics and cripples were healed.” (Acts 8:7)
Those “poor, scattered sheep” performed miracles!
By Acts 9 it says, “The church throughout Judea, Galilee
co ae REDE eeenee eee Caen, PAT TR
grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord.” (Acts 9:31)
Those “poor, scattered sheep” went out and started strong,
healthy churches wherever they went!
Can you imagine this happening in the church today? The
“scattered sheep,” cut off from the care of their spiritual leaders,
went out and preached the gospel, performed signs, wonders, and
miracles, and planted strong, healthy churches all over the land.
The “sheep” went out and ministered while the shepherds stayed
home.
In a situation that would have destroyed any church today,
the early church thrived. How did they do it?

103
Understanding the Apostolic Model
The Early Church had a different picture of “church” than
we have today. As we’ve seen in earlier chapters, most of us
assume that a church should have a congregation and a pastor.
The congregation is made up of “laymen” with no training or
knowledge. The pastor is there to take cate of them. This is the
“pastoral” model of the church.
The Early Church had a different model. Its found in
Ephesians 4:11-16. The Early Church did not have a generic
pastor. It had five distinct leadership gifts: apostles, prophets,
teachers, evangelists, and pastors.
Their ministry also had a different purpose. Ephesians 4 tells
us that the five leadership gifts shared a common purpose... "Zo
equip God’s people for the work ofministry.” The Early Church did not
view its members as sheep to be fed and cared for forever. They
viewed the members as saints called by God to minister. The
job of the leaders was to equip them.

Can Your Pastor Make a Touchdown?

Most of the church today has not understood God's plan.
If we picture the church as a sports team, we think of the senior
pastor as the star player. We are the fans. We come and sit in
the stands and cheer him on. We hope he scores a goal this
week. At the end of the service, if the pastor gives an invitation
and someone is saved or healed, we think we’ve won the game.
But this is not God’s plan for the church.
In God’s plan the church leaders are trainers and coaches.
If you are watching the Superbowl and the coach of your team
runs out onto the field, grabs the ball, and runs it down the field
for a touchdown, would you cheer? No/ That score pwyguid not
count. It is not the coach’s job to score. ~

104
 The same is true in church. The job of the church leaders
is not to score the goals. Their job is to equip and train the
saints. God wants average, everyday Christians to be the star
players. Church members are to be a mighty army doing the
works of God in the earth. If this is not happening, the church
leaders are failing.
Let me say this as clearly as I can: If you are a pastor, the
easure of your success in God’s eyes is not your ability to draw
a big crowd on Sunday mornings. It is not your ability to preach
inspiring sermons, or run an efficient church. It is not even your
ability to heal the sick and cast out demons. The measure of your
success is your ability to raise up a generation of saints who can
minister better than you.
This is a new vision of church for many of us, but it is
God's plan. The Church is His body in the earth; a visible
expression of His presence and His kingdom power. As
individuals find their place in ministry, the Church be ins to
operate in power doing the works of King Jesus in the earth.
So the book of Acts shows us the mentality of the Early
Church. In the early chapters of Acts when the apostles taught
the 3000 new Christians, they were not teaching them how to be
good church members. They were teaching them to do the
works of Jesus. They were teaching them to heal the sick, cast
Out demons, perform miracles, give prophetic words, and win the
ost. This is how God desioned the Church to operate.
o become an apostolic church, Wwe need to get a new
picture of what church is supposed to be. But we also need to get
a new vision of our call as Christians. We need to see ourselves
differently. If you know Jesus you are not called to sit in church
every Sunday morning and be_a good church member until you
die and go to heaven. (Fonae
ald 6winier~Y job of the

105
Church is to build you to maturity and equip you to minister
effectively.

Me? A Minister?
Every Christian is called to be a minister. What does this
mean? We've always assumed that we are the congregation and
the pastor is the minister. Some of us picture a minister as
someone who wears "religious-looking" clothing, stands behind a
pulpit, and preaches sermons.
So what does it mean for every Christian to minister? Do
we all need to wear religious-looking clothing? Do we all need to
get pulpits and learn to preach sermons? Of course not!
“Ministry is doing the works of God. Ministry is “doing the
stuff’ Jesus did. It's bringing salvation, healing, deliverance, and
encouragement to the people around us.
Jesus described “ministry” by quoting Isaiah 61:1-3. "The
Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has
sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for
the captives, and release from darkness the prisoners, to proclaim
the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our
God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who
grieve in Zion, to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of
ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of
ptaise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of
righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his
endor." (NIV)
You can sum this up this way: Ministry is finding those who
ate oppressed by the enemy and bringing them into the blessings—
of God. If they are lost, you bring them salvation. If they are in
bondage, you bring them deliverance. If they are weak, you bring
them strength. If they are hopeless, you’ release visior and faith.
If they are in lack, you show them how to walk in God’s

106
abundance. If they are sick, you bring them healing. God has
called _you to do all of these things!
od wants a// of us to minister. That's what they did in the
eatly church. Notice how the New Testament describes the
members of the early church:

Acts 8:4 — they all went out and preached

Mark 16: 17-18 — all can heal and deliver

John 14:12 — all can do miracles

I Cor. 14 — all can prophesy

Heb. 5:12 — all should be teaching

If you are a Christian, God has called you to minister!

How Jesus Equipped the Saints

Jesus made it a priority to teach his followers to do the
things He did. Think about Jesus’ ministry ealing
was important to Jesus. He healed wherever He went. He healed
in the marketplace. He healed in the synagogue. He healed on
the Sabbath. He healed Gentiles. When large crowds came He
healed them all. Jesus saw healing as an important part of His
work in the earth.
Jesus not only pci tenga also commanded His
followers to heal. In Luke 9 He-serf€ out the 12 and commanded
them to heal the sick. In Luke 10 He sent out the 70 and again
commanded them td otice that this was a command. If
they had gone out and seen thousands of people saved, but had
not healed the sick, they would have been disobedient. Jesus

107
 Heg|
not view healing as His work alone. He repeatedly commanded
His disciples to heal the sick. >
Jesus promised the power to heal to all who followed Him.
Mark 16: 17-18 says, “These signs will accompany those who
pelieve. They will place their hands on sick people and they will j
et well.”
Look at your hands. Did you know God wants to heal
people through your hands? God wants you to lay those hands
on the sick so they can get well. In John 14:12 He promises,
“Those who believe in Me will do the works (miracles) I have
done :
~Cos bse) commanded Hi He
promised that all who follow Him would have power to heal.
Then He commissioned the apostles to seach His Church to heal.
The last instruction Jesus gave His Church before
ascending into heaven is often called the Great Commission.
(Matthew 28:18-20) | Most Christians consider the Great
Commission to be of supreme importance, but only a few have
taken the time to understand what it says.
In the Great Commission, Jesus commanded His followers
to “make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name
of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” He then adds,

Living Bible translates that last phrase this way, “Teach these new
disciples to obey all the commands I have given you.”
So the Great Commission is not just a command to
evangelize the world. Itincludes the instruction toteach our new _
converts. Specifically,we are to teach our converts to do the ~
same things Jesus commanded the original disciples to do.
Jesus gave his followers many commands, but one of His
most frequent commands, given every time He sen’ jthem out
° . reed ™~
asi the ick So if the Great Commission tells us to

108
 Hea |
instruct our converts to do the same things Jesus commanded
His disciples to do, we aren’t obeying the Great Commission
unless we are teaching our followers to heal the sick! 1
This is what we see in the book of Acts. At first just the
apostles healed. They modeled healing ministry for the church.
Acts 2:43 says, “Many wonders and miraculous signs were done
by the apostles.”” But the apostles weren't content to be the only
ones healing, so they prayed for healings to increase in the
church. Acts 4:30 says, “Lord, stretch out Your hand to heal and
perform miraculous signs and wonders.”
The apostles spent a lot of time teaching the people. (Acts
4:2) What were they teaching? I believe part of their curriculum
was "Healing the Sick 101!"
How do I know this? Because as you_read through the
book of Acts, you discover that the church members /arned to
heal the sick. Acts 6 records that Stephen did great wonders and
miraculous signs. Acts 8 says that Philip, who had served in the
Jerusalem church by waiting on tables, went out and performed
miraculous signs, “With shrieks evil spirits came out on many,
and many paralytics and cfipples were healed” s—CS™S
~The result was ahealing church. |Corinthians 12 describes
what happened when the Early Church met together. It says,
“To one is given a word of knowledge... to another faith.;. to
another gifts of healings... to another working of miracles.” For
the first Christians, this was the normal experience of church life.
When they come together each week, they expected to see
healings and miracles.
Jesus wants a// of us to do what He did. Followers of Jesus
were called Christians because they were a bunch of people who
walked around doing the same things as Jesus. This is what we
ate supposed to do also, and we fulfill our call when we do it.

109
 Fulfilling Your Destiny
Five-fold ministry not only empowers the church, but
brings ultimate fulfillment to each individual Christian.
When God created you, He designed you to be a minist
The Bible tells us that before you were born, God designed a
perfect plan for your life. Jeremiah 29:11 says, "I know the plans
I have for you... plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans
to foe you hope and a future."
Romans 12:2 assures us that God’s plan for you is "good,
pleasing, and perfect." It's not something you will dread. It will
not make you miserable. It's the thing that will bring you
preme joy and satisfaction in life.
Part of that plan involves finding your place of ministry in
His Body. In Ephesians 2:10 the apostle Paul tells us that you
were "created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God
prepared in advance for us to do."
——God designed you to accomplish certain "good works’
ing your time on earth. He then prepared you in advance,
building into your personality everything you need to be
“successful. He gave you a unique personality, unique abilities
*imda unique setof spiritual gifts. He planted adesire inyou that
can only be satisfied by fulfilling that call. God wants you to
ow that you are not an accident. You are here for a purpose.
ou've been sent here on a mission.
As I said earlier, some of you reading this book were
created to heal the sick. Some of you were created to teach.
Some of you were created to prophesy. It doesn't matter where —
you work, or how ‘much money you make, if you are not doing |
what you were created to do, you will always have a gnawing
hunger down inside, a feeling that something is ees, *
This is why I love to teach ministry training I love
to take a group of people and show them how tof sense

110
Spirit, how to respond to His presence, and how to receive a
prophetic word. When people begin to move in a supernatural
realm and exercise their spiritual gifts, they get excited. Many say
it's most exciting thing they have ever done.
When teachin eople to ray for the sick, I like to watch
eople lay hands on the sick to pray for healing for the first time.
I love to see the look on their faces as they feel the anointing of
God flowing and see a person healed. It’s one of the most

When you pray for someone and see them healed, it

changes_you. Suddenly, the whole issue of faith is not just
intellectual. You realize that Christianity is REAL at a level you
liad never imagined. You begin looking for an opportunity to
pray for someone else. As a result, the church is transformed.
n the pastoral church pne man ministers. Very few are
trained and equipped: Occasionally someone is sent off to Bible
School to prepare for “The Ministry.” The world is not reached,
and the church barely sustains itself.
ERED ee ae and equipped. A/
discover their call and purpose. A//do the work of ministry, and
the Church becomes a mighty army in the earth. The territory is
transformed. This is where the new wineskin church is heading.
God’s new wineskin begins as an apostolic movement, it
develops the five-fold ministry, but it ultimately results in the
“saints movement” where every believer is doing the works of
Jesus. God is calling His Church to a new administration. He is
forming a new wineskin. It’s time for the Church to arise.

111
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 Chapter 12

Making the Transition

I’ve taught seminars on the New Wineskin Church in a

number of countries. One of my first international seminars was
with a group of pastors in Bangkok, Thailand. These leaders
were frustrated that their nation was not being reached, and
convinced that the church must change. One of them had been
given the DVDs of my teaching, and they asked me to come and
help them.
I was invited to teach a three-day seminar on the New
Wineskin Church, and with each day their enthusiasm increased.
Originally scheduled as a meeting with 20 pastors, I was surprised
that over 100 showed up on the first day. After the first session
one of the spiritual fathers of the nation stood up and
announced, “That this is what our country needs.”
The pastors got on their phones and began calling their
friends. Pastors flew in from all over Thailand. By the third day
the 300 seat auditorium was packed, with 100 more in an
overflow room. Enthusiasm was running high.
At the end of the seminar, the pastors asked if I could lead
a question and answer session. The first question was, "How do
we start?"
This is often the first question I hear when I teach this.
When people hear this teaching, the Holy Spirit bears witness to
its truth. They see the biblical pattern and readily admit that the
church today must change. The question is how do we make the
transition? How do we move from a pastoral church to an
apostolic church: | Can yo UY e:

115
 NOWRDY ~~ God ¢ y}

Pos I knew that for these Thai pastors, it would not be an easy
ansition. Most Thai churches are small with fewer than 50

How does a struggling pastor bring that kind of church into

five-fold ministry?
Here are the four steps I shared with these pastors:

1. The first step is 3 o

independent and isolated, ou cannot make the transition There”
ate many good apostolic networks. Find one. Take time to get

|CG
tO
oe the apostle. Build a relationship.

2. The second step is to make sure your church

members have a biblical picture of what a Christian is
supposed to be. We are not called to be pew warmers. We're
called to be the army of God in the earth. Communicate that
vision to your church.

3. Begin to equip the saints for ministry. Make training

available. Offer classes and schools; host conferences. A good
way to start is to offer training on topics like, “How to Pray for
the Sick,” and see who responds. Out of this training time, meet
with those who are submitted, mature, and effective, and form a
UT
APO
AW“ministry team.” Have times when the ministry team serves at

SSSCUREWhen
the altar on Sunday.
aOP
SS
Soe you call the ministry team to the altar to minister, it
:
3 begins to shake the old paradigm. You are modeling “ministry
y the saints.” |
It takes time for people to adjust to a new wineskin
mentality. The old wineskin mentality says, “Ministry team
members are just amateurs. I want prayer from the 'Man of
God.”’ But that is not God's plan, nor is it valid. Anointed, well-

7 116
trained ministry team members often minister much more
effectively than an overworked pastor!

4. As you go through this process, give people a new

view of their pastor. To operate in five-fold ministry, a church
must begin to give their “pastor” the freedom to be who God
called him or her to be. There is a crameieee involved in this.
Don't rush it. As astors to do what they
are called to do, God will begin to bring in other five-fold gifts.
These are four key steps for a church Helto ‘Sowr
a new wineskin:
mits HyeHoN45
Spurr
They need to be apostolically aligned.
¢ They need to impart the picture of every Christian as a
minister.
¢ They need to begin training the saints and giving them
opportunities to minister.
¢ They need to discover their pastor's gift, and give him
increasing freedom to be who God called him to be.

I’ve taught these four steps in man ave

found them helpful. But I knew this would still be a difficult
transition for the Thai pastors.
“—Of the pastors who attended the training sessions, I only
know of one who fully made the transition. As I’ve already
shared, his church exploded! It is now one of the largest
churches in the nation.
But why was it so hard for other churches to Wiese the
ansition? The primary problem for most_c
difficulty finding the five-fold_ministers, As I said earlier,
most Thai churches are small and struggling. Most have

117
 fewer than 50 members, and many of those members are recent
converts from Buddhism. They rejoice_in_ knowing Jesus, but
they are untaught and untrained. They don’t know how to use
spiritual gifts. Many of the pastors have little training themselves.

course this is the same issue confronting the majority of

churches in America. The biggest question for churches trying to
transition to five-fold ministry is, “Where do we find five-fold
ministers?”

Some larger churches may look at their staff and see one or
two individuals that operate in five-fold gifting. But for smaller
churches with a single pastor, the task of transitioning to five-fold
ministry seems daunting. The “pastor” may indeed be a prophet
or teacher or even an apostle. But many churches lack the
resources to hire more staff members, and don’t know where to
look to find the ministries they are lacking. Too often these
| churches take a “maybe someday” approach. They see the value
of five-fold ministry, but don’t believe it is presently possible.

churches in the New Testament faced the same problems we

face. Churches in the New Testament were house churches. The
average size of a house church would have been well under 50
people, so few churches would have had even one of the five-
fold gifts within the church. Most of the church members were
recent converts from paganism. ey also were untrained in

So how were the churches in the Book of Acts able to

operate in five-fold ministry? The Lord directed me to study
through the book of Acts, and in the midst of that study, I made
a discovery. I found that in the early church, the key to the
~

118
 yYVU FS VOUAWNY ay) Nees NAS is

An apostolic center is a beachhead for the gospel in a

territory. It’s a regional resource center established to
Ovide everything necessary for churches in the region to
Ww and multiply.
_—_—_——

Why were apostolic centers important?

The New Testament had no megachurches, It didn’t even
have what we’d call “moderately sized” churches. It was made up
of hundred s of small house chu
across a region. Individually each church had few resources. But
ese churches could operate in great power because they were
not isolated nor alone. The churches in each region were “linked
in” to a central hub that gave them access to five-fold ministry.
As I studied through the book of Acts, I found tha
henever the church expanded into a new area or culture, a new
apostolic center was establi These apostolic centers were all
ifferent, but they each met a number of needs:
Did the Evarge\srca\\ The 4
¢ They were, first and forémost, teaching and trainin
centers, Each apostolic center was begun by a visiting O
apostolic team devoting a year or more to the S
intensive teaching and training of disciples. A

* They were also sending centers. From an apostolic

center, ministry teams were sent out to plant new iJ

esi?
Evangelism, ExalAe
Nav Soo Sh \.. ® \.3C\
 churches in a region, strengthen existing churches,
and penetrate new territories with the gospel.

worship gatherings be held three times a year at the

practice, well into the fourth century. Christians in

SSI Hose churches would cometogether at
an apostolic center for massive celebrations as
hundreds or even thousands gathered for praise and
ea
teat
AS
EO
ed
A
ae
VI
ministry.

apostolic ministry teams, apostolic centers acted as

rE
;
a {tata ties ape
5

s 9 result of being connected to an apostolic center,

churchés in the first century were never weak and isolated. They
were apostolically linked. Even a small house church had access
to the ministry of apostles, prophets, teachers, pastors and
evangelists. The result was that the churches flourished.
Through apostolic centers every Christian_in the region
could be trained to minister in the Holy Spirit’s power (Joh
14:12), ~ Saints were equipped and spiritual gifts were released.
igns and wonders took place, and the territory was transformed!
I believe this is part of what God is doing in our day. God
is raising up apostolic centers all over the world. Even:before I
understood inconcept f apostolic centers, I saw (vod raising
(People eo NOY Le OME ANA RN
Vv’\\laues-e JQ TO A Awe
lL “Oee a ga as Ou
- Nn Va
up the Global $ in Corinth fulfill
this function:

¢ I knew God had_c is_to be a teaching and

training center for(the church worldwide. Everything
we do ebcast free-of-charge, so anyone with a
high-speed internet connection may freely receive.
ne oe EET

° We're called to be a gathering place for feasts!

conferences, and worship celebrations.

¢ We’re called to be a resource center for churches,

house churches and other ministries—a place where
any believer can receive the benefits of five-fold
ministry.

° We're called
to he 4 sending center to send_apostolic
and prophetic teams to the nations.

And the Global Spheres Center i in this. I’m

seeing God raising up centers with a similar vision, all over the
world.
To understand how an_apostolic center is designed to
a SERIO RR RSE . . .

operate, let’s se nters de d_in the New

Testament.

121
 Chapter 13

The Apostolic Center in Jerusalem

We’ve seen that God’s pattern for the Church is five-fold

ministry. Our problem is that most churches, whether small
house churches or traditional congregations, don’t have all five of
these ministers within the church. Outside of a denominational
structure, most churches tend to be isolated and independent.
What’s the solution? tion is to join an
apostolic network. This puts the church in a relationship with an
apostle. But sometimes just joining an apostolic network doesn’t
solve the problem. I’ve found that in many churches, an apostle
is simply viewed as a guest speaker who comes in once a year.
In the last chapter we looked at God’s solution. In the
New Testament, churches could operate in five-fold ministry
because they were linked to an apostolic center. :
Where did that concept come from? T’m convinced that
the church inherited the concept of the apostolic center from the
ews. Jerusalem had always been an “apostolic center” for Israel.
I think a little background on how the first century Jews
worshipped will give us some valuable insights into why the New
Testament church functioned as it did. The structure of biblical
Judaism looked like this:

1. For the Jews, the basic unit of “religious life” was

the home. Throughout most of the Bible, the Jews had no
“church” to attend because there was no central gathering place
for weekly corporate worship. The tabernacle and temple were
~

122
not places for weekly worship services, and until the Babylonian
captivity, the synagogue did not exist.
For over 1000 years, Judaism functioned as a home-based
religion. It surprises some to learn that to the Hebrew mindset,
the home is s#// the primary place of worship. One contempora
Jewish writer describes it this way:
ny

udaism survived persecution i ation

was home centered.

Although so many synagogues were destroyed over
the course of centuries, Judaism survived because every
Jew was expected to be knowledgeable about
his ancestors. Therefore Judaism could always survive in
the home. The home _was_a little sanctuary, a miqdash
meyat, to be set aside for the worship of God, the study of
His Word, anda place ofhospitality.” it
Evev Shabbat
For the ancient Ma the most important worshi
Turg
Be
of the week was the welcoming of the Sabbath, a celebration that
; A observant Jewish household. _-
aay Friday evening, the father and mother led their family in
the Sabbath (shabbat) celebration. In biblical times this was a
“worship service” for the extended family, which often included
children, grand-children, servants, close friends, neighbors, and
even strangers passing through the village!
The meal would begin with the mother lighting the Sabbath
candles and blessing God for the gift of Sabbath. The family
would sing songs of praise and pray blessings over each other. At
the start of the meal, the father would lift a glass of wine and pray
a traditional prayer thanking God for his gracious provision. He

123
would then hold up aloaf of bread and pray a similar blessing.
He would break the loaf and pass it around for all to partake.
The Sabbath meal was a joyful time, centered on the Lord.
As they ate, the members of the family would talk about the
things of God, recite and discuss Scripture, pray, and sing praises
to the Lord. Dowgiewicz writes, “Conversation is enjoyed long
after the Sabbath candles have burned down. There is time to
share, to listen, to plan and to laugh.”
The Jewish Sabbath celebration provided a pattern for the
development of early Christian house churches. On Friday
evening each Jewish family gathered in their home for a meal to
celebrate God’s creation-and welcome His provision of rest. On
the following evening the Messianic spiritual family (the house
church) gathered in a home for a meal to celebrate God's
redemption and welcome His Holy Spirit.

2. The hub: Jerusalem. For the Jews the household

worship celebrations were vitally important, but it was also crucial
that the individual families not be isolated and alone. The famil

connection to a central hub, the Temple in Jerusalem.

Jerusalem was where the Presence of God was hosted on
earth. Tt was also a place of teaching and training, and a place of
gathering. Three times a year every Jew was to come to
Jerusalem: to celebrate the feasts. The Jews went home from
Jerusalem knowing they were not alone, but part of something
much greater. They were members of God’s covenant
community in the earth.

existence,
SS
a new element was addedae
to Jewish religious life: the

124
synagogue. The word synagogue simply means assembly, or
gathering place: Then the Babylonians destroyed the city of —

Synagogue gave the home-based worshippers a local training and

resource center. Children were taught to read and study Torah in
synagogue schools. Adults were trained and encouraged.
Ministry took place and needs were met.
Most importantly, the synagogue was where Jews could
gather to hear the Scriptures read. While almost all Jews were
térate, very few owned a personal copy of the Bibl
came together each week at the synagogue and listened as Torah
was read.
When the Babylonian captivity ended and the Jerusalem
temple was rebuilt, the synagogue continued to fulfill a vital
function. By that time, Jews had spread throughout the known
world. For many the Temple was too distant to effectively serve
as a resource center. So the synagogue acted as a “regional
temple” providing ministry and teaching for the Jews in the local
community.
This is the pattern of Jewish religious life we find at the
start of the New Testament. This is the religious structure Jesus
and the apostles had all experienced growing up.
When Jesus and the first apostles were growing up, the
home was their primary place of worship. Mary and Joseph
would have led Jesus, along with his brothers and sisters, in a
Shabbat celebration every Friday night. Simon Peter and his
brother Andrew would have had the same experience, as would
the other disciples in their families.
Supporting these home-based groups, the local synagogue
was a center for training and teaching. Jesus grew up attending
the little synagogue in Nazareth and would have learned to read
nO

125
and study the Scriptures there. Later, as a recognized rabbi, Jesus
was often invited to teach in the synagogue.
Finally, the temple in Jerusalem functioned as the central
hub. The temple was a big part of Jesus’ life. Shortly after he
was born, Mary and Joseph took Him to the temple and
dedicated him to God, as instructed in Lev. 12:1-8. When Jesus
was twelve years old, he stayed behind in the Temple after the
Passover celebration, to discuss Torah with the learned men.
(Luke 2:42-49) Many times in the gospels, we see Jesus visiting
the temple. The temple was always special to Jesus. He called it
“My Father’s house.”
It surprises many to learn that the Earl tch_
continued this same pattern. For its_first_three centuries,
Christianity was a home-based religion. Churches were house

pattern of the Jewish Shabbat celebration.

This is one of the secrets of the early church’s rapid spread.
New house churches were easy to start. Jews who received Jesus
already knew how to hold a “church service” in their homes.
‘They’d been having worship services in their homes all their lives.
So when persecution broke out in Jerusalem (Acts 8), those _

SS ee ee
why Paul could go to a city like Thessalonica, minister in the
synagogue, lead a few people to Jesus, start a church, then leave--
all in about three weeks!
But these new Christians meeting in house churches also
eeded a place of teaching and training. In Jerusalem, the
apostles taught them in the.temple courts. In Ephesus, while the
Believers worshipped in homes, Paul also taught the disciples
daily in a rented facility. In some places the early Christians
actually established Messianic synagogues. The apostle James,

126
writing to early Messianic believers, wrote, “Suppose a man
comes into your synagogue...” (James 2:2, CJB) Most English
ibles translate this as “your meeting’ or “your assembly,” but the
actual Greek word is synagogue.
So the first Christians worshipped in their homes and met
in other venues for teaching. But the central hub of the Church
was Jerusalem.

Asia Minor

MEDITERRANEAN SEA
Jerusalem

The Apostolic Center at JERUSALEM

Jerusalem’s function for the Early Church was very similar

to its function for the Jews.
It was a place for teaching and training. (Acts 2)
It was a place for sending. Believers going out from
Jerusalem evangelized all Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. From
Jerusalem, Barnabas was sent to Antioch to help establish the
Church there.
It was a place of gathering. Christians continued the Jewish
practice of returning to Jerusalem, to celebrate the biblical feasts.

back to Jerusalem in time for the Feast of Pentecost. (Acts 20:16)

127
 Jerusalem was a place of conference. In Acts 15 when a
major issue needed to be settled, the church leaders met together
in Jerusalem to sort it out.
It was a place of giving. In Acts 4:35 the saints brought
their offerings and laid them at the apostles’ feet. In the epistles,
we see vatious churches taking up offerings for the church in
Jerusalem.
Jerusalem was a resource center--a place all the scattered
churches could access a high level of ministry. People traveled to
Jerusalem to receive teaching, but the Jerusalem church also sent
out five-fold ministers to the churches. When the Antioch
church was being established, the Jerusalem church sent apostles
and prophets to help build a foundation for five-fold ministry
there.
The importance of Jerusalem as an apostolic center is
hown by the response of the apostles in Acts chapter 8. When
the church was scattered because of persecution, the apostles
chose to remain in Jerusalem, at the risk of losing their lives.
They knew if the Church was to continue to thrive, they had to
aintain Jerusalem as an apostolic center.
So the Jerusalem church became the Church’s first
apostolic center. It raised up a company of Christians who did
the works of Jesus in the earth, and the result was harvest. This
set the pattern for the expansion of the Church world-wide.
Because of their connection to Jerusalem, house churches could
thrive throughout Judea, Samaria and Galilee!

128
 Chapter 14

Antioch: The Second Apostolic Center

The early church experienced a level of harvest none of

us can even imagine. As we learned in an earlier chapter,
Pentecost initiated three centuries of sustained multi-generational
revival.
How did they do it? Part of the answer is that they had
an administration that allowed the five-fold ministry of the Church
to function. The apostles established Jerusalem as a teaching and
training center. They began to equip the saints to do the works of
Jesus. By Acts chapter 8, ordinary Christians were going all over
the country-side healing the sick, casting out demons, performing
miracles, proclaiming the gospel, and planting new churches.
But Jerusalem was just the beginning. The church in
Jerusalem was not the ultimate pattern for the Church. The real
prototype for the expanding church was Antioch.
Antioch was a large city located 300 hundred miles north
of Jerusalem. What happened there forever changed the
Church’s identity. I like to describe it this way, “Jerusalem was
the womb of the early church, but Antioch was its cradk.”
It’s interesting to trace the expansion of the church from
Jerusalem to Antioch. The Church was born in Jerusalem, and
from Acts 2 through 7, pretty much remained there. It was a
time of much teaching and training. They were building a
foundation.

129
 Asia Minor

3
Jerusalem

The Apostolic Center at ANTIOCH

In Acts chapter 8, rising persecution drove most of the

Church’s members out of Jerusalem into Judea and Samaria.
Those who were scattered did the works of Jesus wherever they
went. By Acts 9, strong healthy churches were thriving
throughout Judea, Samaria and Galilee.
In Acts chapter 11, however, something new happened.
The Church made a major shift, and that shift took place at
Antioch. What was special about Antioch? In New Testament
times, Antioch was called the Queen ofthe East. With more than a
half-million inhabitants, it was the third largest city in the world.
Only Rome and Alexandria were bigger.
Antioch was a gteat cosmopolitan, multicultural city. It
was located in Syria, but had been built by the Greeks and
enlarged by the Romans. It also had a large Jewish population.
It was a crossroads city. People converged on Antioch
from all over the world. Roman roads led west from Antioch to
the Roman province of Asia. To the east, the Silk Road led to
China. To the south roads led down to Jerusalem and on to
Egypt.

130
 Tied to the sea by the Orontes River, Antioch was the
great maritime trade center of the eastern Mediterranean. It was
a beautiful and prosperous city with temples and aqueducts,
ornate baths and basilicas.
When the first disciples entered the city of Antioch,
something incredible happened. Acts 11 tells us that those who
had been scattered by the persecution in connection with Stephen
traveled as far as Antioch telling the message only to Jews. That
had been the norm. Everybody in the church at that time was a
Messianic Jew. They all assumed if somebody wanted to know
the Messiah of Israel, they’d become a Jew first, so they only
preached to Jews.
But then we read, “Some of them, however, went to
Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good
news of about the Lord Jesus. And the Lord’s hand was with
them and a great number of people believed and turned to the
Lord.”
That was earth shaking! In Antioch, for the first time in
history, Messianic Jews from Jerusalem openly told Gentiles
about the Messiah, and the Gentiles got saved. As a matter of
fact, lots of Gentiles got saved. “Great numbers” of Gentiles
were saved.
This had been God’s goal all along. Even in the Old
Testament we’re told that God’s ultimate intention was for
Gentiles to be saved and come to know the God of Israel.
Psalms 22 says, “All the ends of the earth will turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations will worship.”
God’s goal has always been to draw together men and
women from every tribe and tongue and language. He wants
evety expression of humanity to join in a great symphony of
ptaise to God.

131
 God wants believing Jews and believing Gentiles to come
together as “One New Man” in Messiah (Eph. 4), and walk
together in Abraham’s covenant blessing.
But that could not happen in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was
important as the birthplace of the Church, but it lacked a key
ingredient of God’s plan. Jerusalem had very few Gentiles. You
can’t have One New Man if all you have is Jews.
So God brought the Church to the great cosmopolitan
city of Antioch, the melting pot of every race, tongue, and ethnic
group, and there He established a new apostolic center. It’s
interesting to see how it happened.
Acts 11 tells us that when Jerusalem heard that Gentiles
were being saved in Antioch, they sent Barnabas to check it out.
What a lot of people forget is that Barnabas was an apostle (Acts
14:14 tells us that both Paul and Barnabas were apostles). He
wasn’t one of the original twelve, but he was part of a second
generation of apostles. Barnabas went up to Antioch. As an
apostle he began to set the church in order.
In Acts 2, we saw the first apostles establish the first
apostolic center in Jerusalem. In Acts 11, we see a new
generation of apostles establish the next apostolic center in
Antioch.
The first thing the apostles did in Jerusalem was to teach
and train the people. Acts 2:42 says, “The people devoted
themselves to the apostles’ teaching.” The church in Jerusalem
was a training center where the saints were equipped.
The same thing happened in Antioch. Acts 11:25 says,
“Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul,” (also known as —
Paul.) Barnabas knew that Paul was a teacher, and that the young
converts at Antioch needed teaching. When he found. Paul he
brought him to Antioch and for a whole year, in wilt Barnabas
and Paul taught great numbers of people.

132
 So Antioch became a training center also. When Paul and
Barnabas were teaching the people for that year, what were they
teaching them? They were not teaching them how to figure out
what year the rapture would come. They were not teaching them
the five points of Calvinism. At least part of their instruction
involved equipping the saints in Antioch to minister. They were
training them to do the works of Jesus.
There’s an interesting phrase in Acts chapter 11. It says,
“For an entire year Paul and Barnabas taught great numbers of
people” and then it adds, “And the disciples were first called
Christians in Antioch.” Stop and think about what this implies.
Why would the pagan Greeks in Antioch begin calling the
disciples Christians?
At that time “Christian” was not the name of a religion.
No one had ever heard of the Christian religion. The word
“Christian” was made by taking the word “Christ” and adding the
suffix “ian” which means “little.” So “Christian” literally means
“Little Christ.” ff
As you read the book of Acts, you find that the apostles
presented Christ to the Gentiles as one who “went about doing
good and healing all who are oppressed by the devil.” (Acts 10)
So when Gentiles heard the name Christ, this is what came to
mind.
When Barnabas and Paul equipped the saints in Antioch
to do the works of Jesus, they began to heal the sick, drive out
demons and win the lost. So the Gentiles said, “You are a// doing
the same things Christ did. You are “little Christs!”’ And the
name stuck!
This is God’s goal for every Christian. God wants yeti to
lay hands on the sick and see them recover. He wants you to find
people who are in bondage to the enemy and set them free. He
wants you to become a “little Christ!”

133
 The apostolic center in Antioch was a training center
where believers were equipped to be “little Christs” wherever
they went. But there was more going on in Antioch than
teaching. Acts 11 says, “During this time some prophets came
down from Jerusalem to Antioch.” Why is this significant?
The church at Antioch, up until this point, had only
teachers. They were not yet strong in the prophetic, so the
apostles in Jerusalem sent prophezs to minister in Antioch.
Apostolic centers are not independent. They are inter-
dependent. What one lacks another provides. This is how five-
fold ministry is designed to operate. God wants His church to
share His resources. A church with a teacher is supposed to be a
resource center for a church that does not have a teacher. A
church with a prophet is supposed to be a resource center for
churches with no prophets. God’s plan is for His church to
cross-pollinate.
This is one reason we have conferences several times a
year at the Global Spheres Center. Chuck is always asking, “What
gifts do I need to bring in to complete God’s expression here?”’
He then brings in five-fold ministers from other places, so the
church here experiences anointings and gifts to which we’re not
normally exposed. This is also why we webcast everything we
do. Whatever gifts God has established here, we want to share
with the Body of Christ everywhere.
The result of the prophets from Jerusalem coming to
Antioch is shown in Acts 13:1. We read, “In the church at
Antioch there were prophets and teachers.” Five-fold ministry is
developing. Antioch began with a full year of teaching. Then —
Jerusalem sent prophets, and the prophetic started to stir. By
Acts 13:1 there are apostles, prophets and teachers in the Antioch
church. *
idk

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 Acts 13:2 tells us, “While they were worshipping the Lord
and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for Me Barnabas and
Saul for the work for which I have called them.’ After they had
fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them
off.” So Paul was sent off on his first missionary journey. And
Antioch became a sending center, a home base from which to reach
the nations. In the years to come, apostolic teams would go in
and out from Antioch all over the Roman Empite.
This is how the apostolic center at Antioch was
established. We’re seeing God doing that same thing today in
many places. Thousands of churches, house churches, and
ministries have aligned themselves with us the Global Spheres
Center. We don’t try to control them. We just want to bless
them. Any resources God has given us, we want to make
available to them. They attend conferences and worship
celebrations when they can. They take courses over the web.
Almost every week we send teams out to minister.
This pattern is being repeated in many churches and
ministry centers all over the world. God is doing a new thing.
Apostolic centers are being restored to the Church.

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 Chapter 15

Ephesus: A Light in the Darkness

God is changing the Church. He is breaking off old

traditional mindsets. He’s calling us back to His original plan.
We live in a day when religion and ritual and “doing what we’ve
always done” is not going to cut it. God wants the Church to rise
up with power, so territories can be transformed.
In the last few chapters, we’ve caught a glimpse of how the
Early Church operated through apostolic centers in Jerusalem
and Antioch, to impact their territories. The next apostolic
center we want to look at was in Ephesus. We find the story of
Ephesus in Acts 19.
With a population approaching 500,000 people, Ephesus
was the fourth largest city in the world. Located in the Roman
province of Asia Minor, in what is now western Turkey, Ephesus
was also a great commercial center.
The city’s main claim to fame, however, was the Temple of
Diana, or Artemis--one of the seven wonders of the ancient
world. Diana’s massive temple was three times the size of the
Parthenon in Athens. People came from all over the Empire just
to see it.
Ephesus was not only a hub for pagan religion, but it was
also known as the center for magic and the occult in the Roman
Empire. When I say magic I’m not talking about sleight of hand.
I’m talking about witches and warlocks, sorcery and casting
spells. Spiritually Ephesus was a dark place. In the Roman
world, books of spells, incantations, and magical formulas were
called “Ephesian writings.” This was the city’s reputati yn.

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 In the ancient world, if you wanted a spell cast on someone,
or you wanted to be delivered from evil spirits, you would go to

Asia Minor

Jerusalem

The Apostolic Center at EPHESUS

Ephesus, in hopes that its magicians would have the power to
help you.
Ephesus would have been an intimidating place for a
church planter. It was a huge city, a proud and prosperous city,
and it was overrun with the occult and pagan religion.
Yet in the dark city of Ephesus, God chose to establish a
light that would illumine the entire region. In fact, Ephesus
became one of the most important apostolic centers in the
Church.
As was mentioned in Chapter Four, the growth of the
church at Ephesus was explosive. In Acts 19 Paul and his
friends came to Ephesus, ministered in the synagogue for three
months, started a church, and remained there for two years
teaching the converts. During that two-year period, the entire
city of Ephesus was evangelized. Close to a half-million people
heard the gospel! Not only that, but “all of the cities and the

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surrounding province” were reached. Revelation 1-3 lists the
seven churches in the province of Asia Minor. Those churches
wete probably planted by apostolic teams from Ephesus, during
that two-year period.
The Ephesian church grew so rapidly during this time that
the economy of the city was disrupted. One of the major
industries in Ephesus was the manufacturing of images of the
goddess Diana. By the end of Paul’s two-year ministry in the city,
so many people were turning to Jesus that nobody was buying
idols. The idol makers literally rioted in the streets to protest
their loss of business.
By the time Paul set Timothy in place as the church’s
apostolic leader around AD 62, the Ephesian church may have
had 100,000 members. (No wonder Timothy felt intimidated!)
Some estimate that at its height, half the population of the city
was saved and in the church.
About fifty years after Paul’s visit to Ephesus, the Roman
writer Pliny wrote a letter to Emperor Trajan complaining about
the situation in the Ephesus region. He wrote: “Temples to
heathen gods are almost totally forsaken and Christians are
everywhere a multitude!" The church at Ephesus literally
transformed the territory. That dark, occult region was changed.
Let’s see how this took place. As we look at Acts 19, there
are several things we need to notice. First, we see that Paul began
in the synagogue. Acts 19:8 says, “He entered the synagogue and
continued speaking out boldly for three months, reasoning and
persuading them about the Kingdom of God.”
Why did Paul start in the synagogue? He went to the
synagogue because that was God’s order. God said the gospel is
“to the Jews first.” I think Paul also started with the synagogue
because it was very practical to start there. Paul knew’ hat in the
a

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synagogue, he would find people who already had some
knowledge of the true God.
The pagan Greeks had no idea what God was like. They did
not know there was a holy, righteous, all-powerful God who
created the universe. Greek gods were more like human beings
with superpowers, and many of them were morally depraved. If
one went up to a Greek pagan and started talking about God, his
first question would be, “Which one?”
But God had spent two thousand years teaching the Jews
what He was like. They were prepared to receive the good news.
When John the Baptist saw Jesus coming, he didn’t have to spend
two hours explaining who the Messiah was and what His sacrifice
would mean. He just said, “Behold the Lamb of God.” The
crowd knew what he meant.
Because of this, Paul went first to the synagogue. For three
months he talked with them and many responded. The church in
Ephesus was established.
Next, Paul started a training center. In Jerusalem the
Apostles had begun with a season of intensive teaching and
training. We saw the same thing in Antioch. “For a whole year
Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers
of people.” (Acts 11:26) In Acts 19, we see that pattern again.
For a period of two years, Paul taught the disciples daily at the
school of Tyranus. (Acts 19:9-10)
As the saints were equipped, the power of God was
manifested. Average, ordinary, Christians began doing the works
of Jesus. Acts 19:11 says, “God was performing extraordinary
miracles.” In some churches today, any miracle at all would be
extraordinary, but Ephesus was experiencing so many miracles
they had to make a distinction between ordinary miracles and
extraordinary miracles.

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 Then an event took place that shook the city. The
magicians of Ephesus heard that people were finding deliverance
from demonic oppression through the church, and decided to
check it out. They observed that Christians used the name of
Jesus to heal and deliver, so some of the famous Ephesian
magicians tried to use Jesus’ name as an incantation to drive out a
demon: “In the name of Jesus whom Paul preached, I command
you to come out!” The evil spirit, speaking through the
demonized man replied, “I recognize Jesus, and I know who Paul
is, but who ate you?” ‘Then the man leaped on them and
overpowered them. They fled from the house naked and
wounded. We’re told that word of this incident quickly spread
through the city.
Acts 19:17 tells us, “Great fear came upon them all.” The
result was that, “Many who practiced magic brought their books
and began burning them in the sight of everybody.” (Acts 19:19)
What was happening? The Ephesian magicians saw that
the Christians in Ephesus had something more powerful than
anything they possessed, so they repented and turned from their
magic. As a result, “The word of the Lord was growing mightily
and prevailing.”
I like to describe it this way: In the city of Ephesus, the gospel
“went viral.”
“Going viral” is a phrase used in internet marketing.
When people get excited about a product today, they share with
their friends through social media. Those friends then share it
with ¢her friends, who shate it with heir friends. When this takes
place, huge numbers of people can be affected in a very short
time.
Evangelism in America usually looks like this: Start with
an evangelist. He or she draws the biggest cfowd they can, and
preaches the best message they can, and some respond. This is

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good. Some people get saved. But evangelism in Ephesus went
far beyond this. Ephesus experienced viral evangelism.
As every member of the church was equipped to heal and
cast out demons and the city took notice. People who were
healed or delivered got so excited they told their friends. Those
friends experienced the same thing, and told ‘heir friends. The
excitement spread.
This is how a small group of disciples evangelized a half-
million people in two years. The good news went from person to
person, and from friend to friend, to reach the city of Ephesus
and every city in the region.
This is what happened in America during the Jesus
Movement. In the days of the Jesus Movement, an entire
generation was hopeless, living in fear, and held in bondage to
addiction. Then the Jesus Movement began, and people started
telling their friends, “Turn to Jesus! Get filled with the Holy
Spirit and get an instant cure for addiction.” The word spread
from person to person and a great harvest came in. (Some
estimate that the total harvest from the Jesus movement
worldwide was over two million people.)
As a major hub for the occult, people in Ephesus had
been held in terrible bondage. Horoscopes and witchcraft might
seem interesting at first. The occult may grab your attention for
its novelty, but when you go far enough into it, you end up in
bondage. In Ephesus the word spread that Christians had the
power to bring freedom.
Many times Christians today look at people in the occult
as enemies. We see them as evil and dark, and this is true of
some of them. But we need to remember what happened in
Ephesus. The magicians and sorcerers in Ephesus were in deep
darkness. They were known all over the world for their occult
powers. But when they saw the power of the Holy Spirit

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demonstrated by common ordinary Christians, they burned their
books of witchcraft and spells.
Their response revealed their true motivation. Their goal
was not to do evil. They just wanted to experience spiritual
power and the occult was the only place they knew to find it.
When they saw that the Church had a power greater than the
devil’s, they were quick to shift.
Many people today get into the occult for the same
reason. Many who are sorcerers, witches, and warlocks today
actually attended church at one point in their lives. But when
they didn’t see any power in the church, they turned to the occult.
I believe that for many of them, when they see a Christianity with
more power than the occult, they'll be quick to repent. As New
Wineskin churches are established, don’t be surprised to see
people coming in out of the occult.

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 Chapter 16

Corinth: Reaching the Hard-Core Lost

The Lord is stirring something in the harvest fields. He is

planting a hunger in people’s hearts for a reality beyond what
they have seen. He is preparing the way for a great harvest to
come in. He wants to prepare us to receive that harvest.
We’ve seen that the Early Church moved in a revival
dynamic that reached the known world in one generation. One
key to their success was the establishment of regional centers that
enabled new churches to be planted quickly, and grow rapidly.
In this chapter we want to look at the apostolic center at
Corinth. Each of the biblical apostolic centers had its own focus.
The distinction of the center in Corinth was that it broke through
to reach the “hard-core unsaved.”

Who are the hard-core unsaved?

In America today most people who get saved are
individuals who grew up in the church. They already share a
Christian world view. They’ve read at least some of the Bible.
They’ve been taught a standard of morality. They are familiar
with “church culture.” They just never experienced a personal
relationship with Jesus.
I rejoice when anyone gets saved. People in church need
to get saved as much as people in the world. But if we only reach
that kind of people, we will not transform our nation.
There’s a big segment of society the church today is not
reaching at all. They’re what I call the “hard-core unsaved.”
These are people who have never been inside a church. They’re

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ignorant of the Bible. They have no moral standard, and they
often ridicule anything connected with church. They are usually
enthusiastic sinners, reveling in immorality, and viewing
drunkenness and drug use as great forms of entertainment. And
they make up a large, rapidly increasing segment of our society.
To see what it means to reach this segment of society, there’s no
better place to look than the church at Corinth.

Asia Minor
oa Ephesus

Jerusalem

The Apostolic Center at CORINTH

Corinth was one of the most important cities in the

ancient world. Founded in the 10th Century BC, it was the
richest port and the largest city in ancient Greece. Corinth was
partially destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC, but was rebuilt by
Julius Caesar in 44 BC as a place to settle freed slaves from Italy,
Syria, Egypt, Greece, and Judea. The city thrived.
When Paul arrived in AD 51, the Corinth he saw was only
about 100 years old, yet it was already five times as large as
Athens, and was the capital of the province.

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 I believe there are several reasons why God chose to
establish an apostolic center in Corinth. First, Corinth was a
crossroads city. If you look at a map of Greece, Greece is divided
into two parts, northern Greece and southern Greece. The two
are connected by a narrow isthmus of land less than four miles
wide. This is where Corinth is located. All north-south trade in
Greece had to go through Corinth.
Early sailors, plying the east-west trade routes across the
northern Mediterranean, had a problem. This problem was
Greece. Greece is a 300-mile long peninsula extending halfway
across the Mediterranean. LEast-west shipping had to take a long
and treacherous detour around the southern tip of Greece.
But in 600 BC, a man named Periander built a marble
tramway across the Corinthian isthmus so ships and cargo could
be wheeled over land by oxcart. This shortcut cut two hundred
miles off the east-west route. (This shortcut is so significant that
in modern times a canal was cut across the isthmus, following the
same route.)
Periandet’s tramway was so profitable that the city of
Corinth was able to eliminate all taxes. No wonder people
wanted to move to Corinth! Corinth ended up with two major
seaports: one on the eastern side of the isthmus, and one on the
west.
So Corinth was truly a crossroads city. All north-south
traffic in Greece went through Corinth; all east-west traffic in the
northern Mediterranean went through Corinth. As a result,
Corinth became one of the wealthiest cities in the ancient world.
The Greek writer Horace said, “Not everyone can afford to go to
Corinth.”
Corinth was an expensive place to go, yet Corinth was a
gathering place for the world. It was the home of the Isthmian
games, second only to the Olympics. These games were held

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every two years, and were a cross between the Super Bowl and
the World Cup. People from all over the world came to Corinth
to see the games.
Corinth was a place with worldwide influence in many
areas. One of the city’s contributions to architecture was the
Corinthian column. If you go to Washington, DC and look at
the facade of the US Supreme Court building, you will see a row
of Corinthian columns. If you go to the White House, you again
see Corinthian columns. If you look at the Capitol building, you
see more Corinthian columns. Our whole government meets in
buildings built with a design received from the ancient city of
Corinth.
Corinth was a thoroughly pagan city. The Temple of
Apollo was there, along with a temple to Octavia and a sanctuary
to the god of healing. At the outskirts of the city stood a huge
temple to the god Poseidon. The most significant temple in
Corinth, however, was the massive temple of Aphrodite perched
on the hill above the city. A thousand sacred prostitutes operated
out of Aphrodite’s temple. This played a large part in the city’s
reputation. Corinth was the Las Vegas of the ancient world. It
was “sin city.”
The reputation of the city for licentiousness even made it
into the Greek language. The Greek word for “fornication’’ is
Corinthiazomai which means “to act like a Corinthian.”
Throughout the Roman Empire calling a girl a “Corinthian girl”
meant that she was a prostitute. If someone was diagnosed with
“Corinthian sickness,” it meant the patient had venereal disease.
Immorality was an accepted and celebrated part of their
culture. In the temples of Corinth, drunken orgies and visits to
prostitutes were considered to be acts of worship. So.Corinth
was not just a pagan city. It was a place of der ‘avity and
debauchery. It was a center for the hard-core lost.

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 In that wealthy, immoral, gathering place of the world,
God chose to institute an apostolic center. Let’s see how it was
established.
The apostolic center in Corinth was founded on Paul’s
second missionary journey. Paul set out from Antioch and was
ministering across Asia Minor, but when he arrived at the port of
Troas, God spoke to him in a dream. The Spirit of God told him
to leave Asia and cross over to Macedonia. So Paul boarded a
boat heading west.
It was a momentous journey. On this short sail from
Troas to Macedonia, Paul crossed the dividing line between Asia
and Europe. The gospel came to Europe at the Macedonian city
of Philippi. In Macedonia, Paul planted churches in three cities:
Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea.
It’s interesting to see how Paul planted churches. A lot of
people think it’s a hard and complicated thing to plant a church.
Paul had a different philosophy.
I sometimes hear people say, “I don’t have a church in
my area I can attend.” My answer is, “Start one!” That’s what
Paul did. Paul would come to town, win a few converts, and start
a church. The whole process sometimes took as little as three
weeks. Then he would go on to the next town.
How do you plant a church in three weeks? It helped
that Paul could start in the synagogue. The “core group” in the
churches Paul planted was usually Jewish. They were people who
already knew the Bible. They knew about the true God. They just
needed to meet Jesus and they were ready to go.
As we said earlier, adult Jews already knew how to
conduct worship services in their homes. They did it every Friday
night at Shabbat. Paul’s new converts took that format, repeated
it on Saturday night, and called it “church.”

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 Most homes in the ancient world were built around an
open courtyard of least 20 square feet which would easily hold 20
or 30 people, so they didn’t have a problem finding facilities.
When one house filled, the church multiplied to two houses. As
believers wete equipped to minister in the power of the Spirit,
they experienced rapid growth. So it was not a complicated thing
to start a church.
Paul planted churches this way in Philippi, Thessalonica
and Berea. Then he moved south through Greece until he got to
Corinth. In Corinth, Paul did something different.
In Corinth Paul did more than just plant a church. He
began in the synagogue. He told them about Jesus and many
responded. Even the leader of the synagogue was saved. And a
new church was formed. But in Corinth Paul did not just set up
the church and move on. In Corinth, he established a training
center, and for a year and a half he taught and trained the new
believers.
What was Paul doing? He was establishing an apostolic
center in Corinth. The apostolic center at Corinth was very
significant. Corinth was a city noted for wealth and immorality.
Think how different it would have been to plant a church
in Corinth, rather than in Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, the new
converts were all Jews who had studied the Bible since they were
children. They already believed in the God of Israel and wanted
to please Him.
Even in Antioch, when Gentiles were first added to the
church, they were primarily Gentiles who were hungry for God
and already attending the synagogue.
When Paul brought the gospel to Corinth, however, he
was confronted by the “hard-core unsaved.” In Corinth, he
found a city of committed, enthusiastic sinners, jus® like 21st
Century Americans! Corinth was a place the true power of the

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gospel could be revealed. In Corinth God would rescue a totally
pagan people out of the world. They had been cut off from God
and beset by the devil. They were entrapped in every kind of sin,
perversion, and false philosophy, but out of that group God
would raise up a holy people for His own possession.
It was not an easy process. A lot of people are shocked
when they first read about the church in Corinth. When you read
the book of I Corinthians, you think, “Oh my! What was going
on there?” The book of I Corinthians reads like a grocery list of
the church’s sins. Some people in the Corinthian church were
guilty of drunkenness. But they weren’t getting drunk down at
the local pub. They were getting drunk im church at the Lord’s
Supper. Some of them were engaged in gross immorality. Many
were divisive. Many were out of order. Some were into false
doctrine.
Some people read I Corinthians and think, “What a
horrible church! We don’t want to be like the church in
Corinth.” But this is not how it was. We picture Corinth like a
backslidden Baptist church where everybody’s fallen into sin, but
this is not what was happening in Corinth. To understand
Corinth I think it’s helpful to again look at the Jesus Movement
during its early days.
In the Jesus movement, many people were getting saved
out of drugs and immorality and gross sin. They came to know
Jesus and were excited. They rejoiced in their salvation, but they
didn’t change overnight. Many of them had problems.
I once heard a testimony given by a member of a
Christian rock group. An entite rock band was invited to a Bible
study in the late 60’s and they all got saved. The person giving
the testimony said, “We were so excited to know Jesus that we all
went out and got stoned to celebrate
[22

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 Now this was certainly sin, but they were not backslidden.
They were just babies. They loved Jesus, but hadn’t grown yet.
When God starts bringing people like this into the
church, don’t be surprised that they are not “church broke” yet.
A lot of the “Jesus people” had gotten saved out of totally pagan
backgrounds. They were hard-core unsaved!
John Wimber once shared that when the Jesus people
started coming to his church, a lot of the church members got
angry. They didn’t like it. They said, “These Jesus people don’t
dress like Christians! They don’t smell like Christians! They
don’t even park like Christians!”
This is what was happening in Corinth. The Corinthian
Christians had come out of the world, but the world had not yet
come out of them. They didn’t know it was a sin to get drunk.
They didn’t know God doesn’t like immorality. Those things had
been part of their worship at the pagan temples of Corinth. These
new Christians needed to learn some things.
But as Paul taught them, they grew. Corinth eventually
became a very healthy church. Just a year after writing I
Corinthians, Paul writes Il Corinthians rejoicing in the news that
the Corinthians had repented of their sins (II Cor. 2:6-15). He
speaks of his confidence in them (2:16) and how others would
praise God when they heard of God’s surpassing grace among
them (9:13-14).
So Corinth became a testimony to the power of God’s
grace. It was a place where those who were messed up by the
world could come and let God put their lives back together. It
was a place where people could be saved out of hard-core sin,
built to maturity, and equipped to minister in the power of the
Spirit. .
God used the church at Corinth to teach us m iny things.
Because the Corinthians had so much to learn, the books of I and

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If Corinthians are filled with some of the most important
teaching in the New Testament.
In those books, God teaches what it means to live as a
Christian. Paul begins I Corinthians by reminding them, “You
are saints. You ate holy ones.” They needed to know they had
been made holy the moment they got saved. Their problem was
that they didn’t know who they were yet. They needed to grow
to maturity in Jesus so they could begin to /ve like saints.
God gave us many treasures through Paul’s Corinthian
letters. He showed us how to set spiritual gifts in order. He gave
key instructions on tongues and prophecy. He defined the
foundation of apostles and prophets and teachers. He gave us
the signs of a true apostle. He showed the pattern for discipline
and restoration. He taught about giving and about unity, warfare
and demolishing strongholds, how to relate to the world and still
be holy, and about the centrality of love.
We learn more about God’s plan for the Early Church in
I Corinthians than in any other book of the Bible. I Corinthians
10 through 14 is almost like walking down a street in ancient
Corinth and visiting a first century house church. We join with
the Corinthians as they eat together and as they celebrate the
Lord’s Supper. We see their problems, but we see good things
too. Paul writes that when the Church assembled, the power of
the Lord came and was present with them.
In I Corinthians 12 through 14 we watch the Holy Spirit
moving among them. The Spirit releases His gifts, and ministry
takes place. It’s a joyful celebration. Someone leads in a song of
ptaise. Someone else reads a psalm. Another brings a teaching.
There ate prophetic words and tongues. As they pray for each
other, miracles and healings take place. Five-fold ministry has
equipped every believer to minister. It’s the clearest picture we

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have of how the early church functioned. God chose the church
at Corinth to be our window into New Testament Christianity.
Of all of the apostolic centers we could study, the one in
Corinth is probably the most significant for me personally
because Corinth is where God planted our church.
Glory of Zion had been located in Denton, Texas since
the church was founded back in the 1970’s. But in 2004 Cindy
Jacobs gave us a prophetic word that we were to move the
chutch to the nearby town of Corinth, Texas. Her word was very
specific. She described the building we would get, where it
would be located, the opposition we would face, and how God
would work supernaturally to allow us to buy it. Then she
described the revival that would take place, and the hard-core
unsaved who would be transformed. Over the course of several
years, we saw her word clearly confirmed. So in 2011 Glory of
Zion moved to the Global Spheres Center located right on
Interstate 35E in Corinth, Texas. We are now the Corinthian
church. God has again established an apostolic center in Corinth!
We are living in exciting times. Harvest is coming.
Those prophetic words that Cindy gave have already begun to be
fulfilled. This is God’s heart and God’s purpose. It is a time for
each one of us to draw near to Him. Let Him re-baptize you in
the Holy Spirit and prepare you for the harvest ahead.

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 Chapter 17

Rome: Penetrating World Structures

God’s new administration is producing a new order in

His Church. The church had tried following man’s ideas, but
man’s ways haven’t produced results. God is now restoring us to
His plan. Following God’s plan the Early Church moved in a
continuous revival that reached the known world in one
generation.
A key element in the success of the Early Church was the
establishment of apostolic centers. As I studied these centers, I
was impressed by how strategically the Holy Spirit moved in
establishing them. Apostolic centers were not randomly placed.
God planted them where they would have the greatest impact to
penetrate world structures.
The first apostolic center was founded in Jerusalem.
None of the apostles were from Jerusalem. They were all
Galileans. It would have been easier for them to start the church
in Capernaum. But Jerusalem was a strategic location. If the
church was going to reach Jews, it had to start in Jerusalem.
The next apostolic center was in Antioch. Antioch was
also strategic. Multicultural Antioch was the ideal place for the
church to become the “One New Man.”
We then looked at the center in Ephesus. Ephesus was a
hub for occult activity in the Roman Empire. If the gospel was
to confront the occult structures over the Roman world, Ephesus
was the place to do it. In Ephesus the powers of darkness were
overcome and the whole territory changed.

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 Then we saw the apostolic center in Corinth. Corinth
was the Vegas of its day, a hub of sin and depravity. It was a
strategic place to reveal God’s power to transform the hard-core
unsaved.
In each region, apostolic centers were established where
they could have the greatest influence on the territory. This is
why Paul’s next goal was to visit Rome. No place in the Empire
was mote strategic than the city of Rome. It was the
governmental hub of the Empire and the center of the civilized
world. In order to reach the world, the gospel had to impact
Rome.

Asia Minor

Ephesus

Jerusalem

The Apostolic Center at ROME

Rome was the most important city in the ancient world.

It was more than just the capital of the Roman Empire. It was
the capital of the civilized world. As the Roman Empire
expanded into new territories, the Romans didn’t bring
oppression; they brought civilization. Most people. who were

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conquered by Rome saw their standard of living dramatically
improve.
One example of this is the Roman system of aqueducts.
Aqueducts brought the world running water, indoor plumbing,
and a sewer system that was not surpassed until modern times.
Two hundred and sixty miles of aqueducts supplied fresh water
to the city of Rome. But the Romans did not just build
aqueducts for themselves; they built them everywhere the Empire
spread. Aqueduct systems were built in more than three hundred
cities around the Empire. Some of them are still in use.
There were also Roman roads. The Romans built a
system of paved roads extending into every part of the Empire.
For the first time in history, you could travel to any part of the
known world with relative ease.
The city of Rome itself was the greatest city the world
had ever known. It is estimated that the population of Rome in
Paul’s day was over a million people. Considering that the total
world population at that time was only about 200 million, we see
that one out of every 200 people on the planet lived in the city of
Rome.
How did the gospel penetrate this huge, cosmopolitan
city? The truth is that we don’t know. The New Testament never
tells us when the church in Rome was founded. It never tells us
who started the church.
Acts 2:10 tells us that on the day of Pentecost, visitors
from Rome were present in Jerusalem. Some of them may have
been among the 3000 who were saved that day.
After being discipled in Jerusalem for a season, they
would have returned to Rome and started a church. Following
the pattern they learned in Jerusalem, they probably met together
in a home, ate together, praised God together, prayed for each
other, and exercised their spiritual gifts.

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 As they ministered in the power of the Spirit, that lonely
little house church multiplied. It went from one house church to
two house churches. From two it went to four and then to eight.
Apostles and prophets and teachers came in and began to
equip the saints to minister. Soon there were house churches
springing up all over the city of Rome. By the time Paul arrived,
there were probably hundreds of them.
So when we read about Paul going to Rome, we need to
remember that Paul did not s/art the church at Rome. There was
already a large population of Christians in the city when he
arrived.
Paul was not even the first apostle in Rome. When he
wrote the book of Romans several years earlier, he sent greetings
to two apostles in Rome, Andronicus and Junia (Rom. 16:7) So
the Roman church was already an apostolic center. They had
apostles. They were already equipping the saints to minister. In
Romans 1:8 Paul tells the Romans, “Your faith is being
proclaimed throughout the whole world!” This is being an
apostolic center.
If the church in Rome was already planted and already
had apostles, why did Paul need to go to Rome? In Romans 1,
Paul tells the Romans, “I long to see you so that I may impart
some spiritual gift to you that you may be strengthened.” The
Roman church already had at least two apostles. Andronicus was
a man; Junia was a woman. They may have been married. In
Roman 16 Paul describes them. He says they were his kinsman.
They were Messianic Jews. They had grown up with a rich
heritage in the Word.
Paul says that Andronicus and Junia had both been in the
Lord longer than he. They knew Jesus before Paul was even
saved. They may have been part of the original thre )thousand

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added to the church on the Day of Pentecost. Paul calls them
“fellow prisoners.” They had both suffered for the gospel.
Finally, he tells us that Andronicus and Junia were both
outstanding among the apostles. They were well-known apostles in
Paul’s day. They may have been the founders of the church at
Rome.
But as good as Andronicus and Junia were, Paul knew
that Andronicus and Junia could not give the Roman church
everything it needed. No one minister has everything a church
needs to be healthy. No one person can give you what you need,
to achieve your destiny in the Lord.
Paul knew that the people at Rome needed his gifts also.
Paul told the Corinthian church that he planted, Apollos watered,
and God caused the growth. In Rome just the opposite
happened. Someone else had planted, but Paul wanted to come
and water what was there.
He wanted to add his distinctive gifts to the mix, to help
bring them to the next level. This is how apostolic centers work.
Apostolic centers are places where the church can cross-pollinate.
At an apostolic center, ministers from other locations can share
their teaching, their resources, and their impartation.
One of the big problems we’ve had in the modern
church is that many pastors seem to want to build their own
kingdom, instead of God’s. They get possessive of their sheep.
Their attitude is, “I’m the pastor, and you need to get your
ministry from me. If you go to somebody else for ministry,
you're being disloyal.”
This is not how it works. Paul writes to correct that error
in I Cor. 3:4-23. In Corinth, some of the Christians were dividing
up, based on which apostle they liked best. One said, “I am of
Paul.” One said, “I am of Apollos.” Someone else said, “I am of
Peter.” And the super-religious said, “I’m more spiritual than all

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of you! I am of Christ!” Paul rebuked them all. He told them,
“All of the apostles belong to you. You need them all.”
At Glory of Zion, Chuck Pierce is our apostle, but we
also receive ministry from Barbara Wentroble, Peter Wagner,
Cindy Jacobs, and many, many others. When we are scheduling
a conference, Chuck asks God, “What gifts do we need to bring
into the mix tight now?” Several times a year he brings in
representatives from many different streams, so that we get the
full input God wants for our lives. This is how an apostolic
center is intended to work.
So Paul came to Rome and added his gift. He taught the
church and trained the saints in ministry. But Paul did more in
Rome than just teach and minister. God used Paul to penetrate a
whole new strata of society. In Rome, Paul penetrated the capital
of the world.
God’s ways ate amazing. Sometimes God does
something in your life and you think, “Oh, God, why did you let
that happen?” Then as time goes by, you see/
God arranged for Paul to have a unique entrance into the
city of Rome. In Romans 1:9-11 Paul assures the Roman church
that he’d been trying to get to Rome. It was the desire of his
heart to minister among them and he’d asked God repeatedly to
make a way, but God hadn’t yet opened up the door.
Finally, God provided a way. Paul had been arrested in
Jerusalem and the Jewish religious leaders wanted him killed. To
escape their plot, Paul exercised his right as a Roman citizen and
demanded a trial before Caesar. So Paul was sent to Rome as a
prisoner, awaiting trial before Caesar. He won a “free, all-expense-
paid trip to Rome,” courtesy of the Roman government.
He was taken to Rome as a prisoner, but he was not put
in jail. He was allowed to rent his own house while h¢ waited for
his court date. He was in that house for at least two years. While

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he was there, he was free to minister and teach and “have
church” in his home. The only stipulation was that, since he was
a prisoner, he had to be kept under guard continually. And it
wasn’t just any guard. Since he was awaiting a heating before
Caesar, the guards assigned to him were members of the elite
Praetorian Guard, the same soldiers that guarded the imperial
palace.
I want you to picture this: Paul was living in his own
house in Rome. All the Jewish leaders came and talked with them
about the Messiah. Some of them received Jesus.
Then for two years he used that house as a training
center. He preached. He taught. He performed miracles. He
healed the sick. And all the while members of the elite Praetorian
Guard were assigned to watch him and listen to everything he
said.
For two years the guards rotated through Paul’s house.
They listened to the discussions. They heard the teachings. They
saw the miracles. They’d go back to the barracks at night and tell
the other guards what they’d seen saying, “You wouldn’t believe
what happened today!” The result was that the whole Praetorian
Guard was evangelized. Through Paul, the gospel penetrated
even into the imperial palace in Rome.
And so the church in Rome continued to grow. We
know from history that the Early Church grew with incredible
speed, but in most cities we can only guess at its size. But in
Rome we have a way to measure the harvest.
The city of Rome has an estimated six hundred miles of
catacombs burrowed under the city. From the first century to the
third, these tunnels were the city’s cemeteries. Millions of people
were buried in catacomb tombs during those years.
It’s easy to identify which of the tombs were Christian
tombs because the Christians tended to decorate their tombs with

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Christian symbols and pictures of biblical events. By studying the
catacombs, archeologists are able to get a fairly accurate picture
of the size of the church at any given time. Their studies reveal
that by the end of the first century, the church in Rome
numbered about two hundred thousand people. That’s a fifth of
the population of the city!
Try to envision that kind of growth. The church in Rome
would have begun near the middle of the century with a single
house church of probably about 20 people. As the saints were
equipped to minister, that little church multiplied to two, and
then to four, and then to eight. Through fifty years of sometimes
sevete persecution, the multiplication continued until by the end
of the century, the church numbered 200,000. Assuming that an
average house church numbered about 20 people, by the end of
the first century there would have been more than ‘en thousand
house churches scattered across the city of Rome!
That’s church growth! The Romans had no way to stop
the growth of the church. As the church operated in five-fold
ministry under the power of the Holy Spirit, the Aarvest came in.
From the apostolic center in Rome, teams went out to
every part of the world. You’ve heard the saying, “All roads lead
to Rome.” This also means that from Rome you can go anywhere.
So teams went out and planted churches in every
location. Tertullian, in the year 200, wrote to the pagans, “We
have filled every place belonging to you: Your cities, islands,
castles, towns, assemblies, your very camp, your tribes, your
companies, your palace, your senate, your forum. We leave you
your temples only. We can count your armies, but our numbers
in a single province will be greater.” That’s called harvest.
The church historian Philip Schaff writes, “It may be
fairly asserted that by the end of the third century th) name of
Christ was known, revered and persecuted in every province, and

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in every city in the Empire. In all probability at the close of the
third century the church numbered ten million souls.” Some
estimate that by the end of the third century, half of the
population of the Empire had converted to Christianity.
Why are we not seeing that kind of growth in the
American church today? We have the same Holy Spirit as the
early church. Our problem is that the church today has not been
following God’s directions.
The good news is that God is bringing restoration. Peter
Wagner says we have entered the 2nd Apostolic Age. In the last
decade, recognized apostles have been restored to the church in
every region. Now we are seeing the emergence of apostolic
centers, or freedom outposts.
The Global Spheres Center is this. But God wants to
raise up centers like the Global Spheres Center in every nation.
These apostolic centers will enable the church to once again grow
and spread with incredible speed. I believe God is calling many
churches to begin functioning as apostolic centers for their
region.
God is preparing us to receive the great end-time harvest.
God is changing His church. He is changing our structure and
out administration. He is doing it for one purpose: that the
harvest may come in.
So ask God for the harvest! Ask Him to see the kind of
harvest today that they saw in Jerusalem, and in Ephesus, and in
Corinth, and in Rome. Ask Him for the church to rise up with
fresh vision and power, and with a God-given strategy to
penetrate the structures of the world. ,
God is restoring the church as His new wineskin, and He
WILL pour the new wine.

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 Chapter 18

From the Island of Iona to the 21° Century

A major key to the growth of the Early Church was the

establishment of apostolic centers. Every time the Church
penetrated into a new area or ethnic group, it established a
beachhead for the gospel. It was a teaching and a training center
that gave every Christian access to five-fold ministry.
When people are trained and equipped, the miraculous
becomes common. Origen, in the Third Century, described the
Church in his day this way, “Even recently converted pagans can
heal. Greeks and barbarians who come to believe in Jesus
sometimes perform amazing cures by invoking the name of
Jesus.”
Irenaeus, in 195, wrote that prophetic words, tongues,
miracles of healing were common in the Church. Then he added
that the Church frequently saw people raised from the dead,
through the prayers of the saints. The result was a massive
harvest. By the 4th Century the Church had spread all over the
Roman Empire and beyond.
But then, the Church died. In Chapter Four, we saw that
the Emperor Constantine seduced the church to compromise and
merge with the pagan Roman culture. As paganism entered the
Church, God’s Holy Spirit left and the Church died.
In the centuries after Constantine, a shroud of death
spread across the church. By the 6th century the Early Church
only survived where the Roman armies could not enforce
Constantine’s edicts. The last remnant of the early church was
the Celtic Church in Scotland and Ireland. vy
al

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 The Celtic Church was the last surviving outpost of early
Christianity. In Celtic lands, apostles like Patrick and Columba
continued for centuries to heal the sick, raise the dead, and equip
the saints to minister. In this chapter, we will look at the last of
the early apostolic centers. The last major apostolic center was
located on a little Scottish isle called Iona. If we can understand
what God did on that little island, it will give us a better picture
of what God wants to do today.
To understand Iona, it’s helpful to know a little
background on Celtic Christianity. The key person in the Celtic
Church was Patrick of Ireland. When most people think of
Patrick, they assume they know two things about him: He was
Catholic, and he was Irish. Actually, he was neither. Patrick was
born in Roman Britain about 389, and although raised in a
Christian family, Patrick was a prodigal who did not follow Jesus.
At age 16, he was captured by Irish raiders and sold into slavery
in Ireland.
Sitting on an Irish hillside tending his master’s sheep, the
young slave Patrick remembered what he had been taught as a
child and turned to God. He said, “Constantly I used to pray in
the daytime. Love for God and His fear increased more and
more. My faith grew and my spirit was stirred up. In a single day I
said as many as a hundred prayers, and at night nearly as many.
Before the dawn I used to wake up to prayer.’”””
Finally God spoke prophetically to Patrick and told him
to return home. He ran away, found passage on a ship, and
returned home to Britain where for several years he devoted
himself to the study of the Bible. Finally, God spoke to him
again and told him to return to Ireland and win the land for Jesus.
What Patrick did in Ireland changed the world. In 30 years of
ministry, he converted the whole land from paganism to
Christianity and overturned the religion of the Druids.

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 Like earlier apostles, Patrick operated in miracles. One
historian wrote of Patrick, “The blind and the lame, the deaf and
the dumb, the palsy, the lunatic, the leprous, the epileptic, all who
labored under any disease, did he in the name of the Holy Trinity
restore unto entite health, and in these good deeds he was daily
practiced.” The report goes on to say, “33 dead men did this
great reviver raise from the dead.’”’
I love this account: “When Patrick came to Dublin, it
happened that in the region nearby the young son of the King lay
dead in his chamber. The sorrow over his death was
compounded when it was learned that his sister who had gone to
bathe in the neighboring river had drowned mid-stream. Her
body was finally found resting on the riverbed, and it was laid out
beside that of her brother. Tombs were prepared for both
according to the pagan custom. And at this sorrowful time, the
rumors spread that Patrick, who in the name of the Unknown
God had raised many that were dead, had arrived in the village.
The King Alphimus promised that he, his nobles, and the whole
city would be baptized into the new faith if his two children were
restored, Patrick seeing the opportunity for a great gain of souls
raised them both to life.’””"* (This is a good evangelistic technique!)
An old Irish code of law describes Patrick’s ministry at
Tara this way, “When they saw Laeghaire and his Druids
overcome by the great signs and miracles wrought in the presence
of the men of Erin, they bowed down in obedience to God and
Patrick.”
Patrick wrote, “The Lord has given unto me, though
humble, the power of working miracles among a barbarous
people.”””
At the end of his life he wrote, “Wherefore those in
Ireland who never had the knowledge of God but unti;now only
worshipped idols and abominations, from them has been lately

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prepared a people of the Lord and they are called children of
God”
What we need to see is that Patrick is not a mythical
figure. He did not drink green beer. He did not chase snakes out
of Ireland. He was not a Catholic saint. He was a man who
walked in apostolic Christianity, operated in the power of God,
and saw a nation transformed. History confirms that a totally
pagan nation was completely changed in his lifetime.
We wonder, “Where did Patrick’s Christianity come
from?” We know he was not a Catholic because he lived two
hundred years before the first Roman Catholic missionaries came
to the British Isles. Two hundred years after Patrick’s death, a
Catholic historian wrote a bogus history that said Patrick went to
Rome and the Pope sent him to Ireland. Even Catholic
historians admit that never happened.”
Another reason we know Patrick was not a Roman
Catholic is because the church he planted was not a Catholic
church. The Celtic Church did not believe what Catholics
believed. They did not believe in purgatory. They did not submit
to the Pope. They honored Mary but did not pray to her. Priests
and monks in the Celtic Church married and had families. They
baptized believers by immersion. They observed Passover and
Sabbath. They placed a strong emphasis on equipping the saints
to do the work of ministry.
Many who study Patrick’s life ask, “Where did Patrick get
this kind of Christianity?” Some have suggested that Patrick’s
Christianity is more closely aligned with the Eastern Church than
the Roman Church--that Patrick was somehow connected to the
church in Egypt or Syria or Greece.
The Celtic Church also had a strong Messianic Jewish
influence. The Celtic Believers celebrated the resurrection of
Jesus at the time of the Jewish Passover, instead of Roman

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Easter. They worshipped on the first day of the week, but
observed Sabbath by resting on the seventh day. They even used
a Hebrew timeframe. They began their days in the evening. We
wonder, “How did that kind of Christianity come to Ireland?”
Years ago I was studying Patrick’s life and came across an
interesting account. Julia Bolton Holloway, at that time director
of Medieval Studies at the University of Colorado, wrote this,
“The earliest Irish legends of Saint Patrick speak of his family
having fled from Jerusalem at its sack by the Emperors Titus and
Vespasian in 70 AD and came to Britain. They add that it’s
fitting that the Apostle to the Irish be likewise Jewish as were all
the apostles.”
I read this and was dumbfounded. Here is an expert in
Medieval Studies saying that Patrick of Ireland was Jewish! For
several years I read every biography of Patrick I could find, but
never discovered any further mention of a Jewish connection.
Then a few years ago I found it.
One of the oldest records of Patrick is in the Book of
Leinster written about 1160 AD, but compiled from much older
sources. The original was written in Gaelic, and is on display in
Trinity College, Dublin. On page 353, the Book of Leinster says
this, “Patrick was truly of the sons of Israel. When the children
of Israel were scattered by Titus and Vespasian in bondage
throughout the four corners of the earth, then did Patrick’s stock
come to Britain. Because Patrick’s stock was of the sons of
Israel, God gave him lordship of pena and faith in Ireland and
expulsion of demons.”
So according to the Book of Leinster, the Celtic Church
was an outpost of first century apostolic Christianity planted in
70 AD by Messianic Jews from Jerusalem. As such it gives us the
clearest picture of the early apostolic chutch except forthe New
Testament itself. ba

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 If Patrick is an example of early apostolic Christianity,
how did Patrick minister? The answer is that he equipped the
saints! He trained the Gentile Irish to minister in the power of
God. He raised up Irish apostles. Other Celtic apostles include
Brigid, who was a woman, Brendon, Colomba, Comegall, and
many others. They operated in the power of the Early Church,
trained disciples, and evangelized Europe.
The Celts had an interesting strategy for outreach. They
built apostolic centers! Catholic historians call them monasteries,
but they weren’t what we usually think of when we hear that
word. In a Celtic monastery, for example, the monks and priests
were allowed to get married and have children.
In the Catholic Church, monasteries were places of
seclusion to escape the world. Celtic “monasteries,” on the other
hand, were designed to penetrate the world. The Celts moved into
a pagan territory and established a Celtic monastery as a
beachhead.
Celtic “monasteries” were apostolic training centers. They
taught the Bible, ministered in power, and sent out teams to
transform the territory.
One of the teams sent out from Ireland was led by an
apostle named Columba. Columba was a Christian, born of
noble parents, in Donegal, Ireland. In 563, Columba left Ireland
with 12 followers (an apostolic team.) They sailed to Scotland
and established an apostolic center on the small rocky island of
Iona. At the apostolic center on Iona, new converts were taught
to read and study the Bible, and minister in supernatural power.
They practiced intense intercession, they observed Sabbath and
Passover, and they maintained continual 24/7 praise.
Columba was much like Patrick in his mission work and
his contests with the Druids. He is reported to have changed
water into wine, stilled a storm, purified wells, brought down rain,

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changed winds, driven out demons, and raised the dead to life.
Iona served as a base for the evangelization of the pagan Scots
and Picks. Through a ministry of preaching, demon expulsion,
and miracles, Columba and his followers won all of Northern
Scotland to the Lord in a very short time.
From Iona apostolic centers were founded all over
Scotland and England. They established one center on the Island
of Lindisfarne just off the northeast coast of England. It is still
called “Holy Island” today. From there they traveled south to
Whitby and established an apostolic center designed to reach all
of England.
How did the Celtic Church die? The death of the Celtic
Church took place at Whitby in England. At the Council of
Whitby in 664, the Celtic Church submitted to political pressure
to come under the authority of the paganized Roman Church.
The key issue at Whitby was whether the Church should observe
Roman Easter or Christian Passover.
Whitby was a third generation apostolic center. It had
great potential. Its apostolic leader was a godly woman name
Hilda. It was also the home of the prophetic minstrel, Caedmon.
But as the Celtic Church was entering England from the north,
the first Roman Catholic missionaries were coming in from the
east. The problem was that the King’s wife had become a
Catholic.
The King brought together representatives from the
Celtic Church and the Catholic Church to meet with him at the
Council of Whitby. The Catholic Church sent skilled debaters
who argued that the whole church worldwide had given up
Passover in favor of Easter. They asked, “Who do these Celts
think they are to oppose the whole Body of Christ on earth!”
The King was swayed by their arguments and ordered» the Celtic
nN

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Church to give up Passover and become part of the Catholic
Church. When they did this the Celtic Church died.
Some of the Celtic leaders refused to give in. A few
retreated back to Ireland. Some went back to Iona and continued
the apostolic center there for another 50 years. In the year 717
King Nechtan drove the Celtic leaders out of Iona and turned it
into a Catholic monastery.
But most of the Celtic Church submitted to the king.
They gave up Passover. They gave up Shabbat. They gave up
five-fold ministry and their biblical heritage. The result was that
the Spirit of God departed.
If you want to know exactly where and when the early
church died, it died in the year 664 in Whitby, England. The site
of Whitby today is occupied by the ruins of a 12th century
Catholic monastery.
Whitby should have been a place filled with life, but if
you go there today, you find it inundated by darkness. Whitby is
one of the darkest places in England. It’s so dark that it served as
inspiration for Bram Stoker’s book, Dracula. Part of Stoker’s
book actually takes place in Whitby.
Whitby was designed to be an apostolic center where the
power of God could radiate throughout the land. Instead it has
become a center for evil. Whitby today is a major hub for Goth
culture, the celebration of vampires, witchcraft, Satanism, and
death.
In 2007 I led an international team on a prayer journey to
Ireland and Scotland. We visited major Celtic Church sites in
Ireland, on Iona, and on Lindisfarne. We prayed on the lonely
hill where Patrick turned his heart to the Lord. We celebrated
Shabbat on Iona. We traced the path of the Celtic Church all the
way to Whitby. Then we met at the ruins of Whitby Abby and
repented for the church’s willingness to compromise.

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 Since the major issue at Whitby had been Passover, we
had scheduled our journey to arrive in Whitby in time for the
feast. So in Whitby, England, where the Celtic Church gave up
their covenant heritage, we met in a hotel’s private dining room
and celebrated the Feast of Passover. In the place where the
eatly church died, we sounded Shofars and declared the
restoration of our covenant roots and of the power the church
had lost.
God wants us to remember that for hundreds of years the
Celtic Church equipped the saints to minister, winning the lost
through signs, wonders, and miracles. It was the last place on
earth to operate in the power of the early church. God wants to
restore all of this to us.
We enjoyed our Passover celebration at Whitby, then
boarded a chartered bus that took us down to London for our
flight home. I sat by myself on the bus and got out my
notebook. I wanted to write down some of the things God had
taught us on the trip.
At the top of the first page I wrote, “What was the secret
of Patrick’s power?” Without even pausing to think I wrote,
“Number one, Patrick had a passion for the lost.” God stopped
me and said, “No, he didn’t!” I was shocked! God said, “Patrick
did not have a passion for the lost; Patrick had a passion for the
Kingdom.”
I asked, “What’s the difference?” And God began to
speak to me about a passion for the Kingdom. He said:

° <A passion for the lost can lead to getting notches on

your Bible. You may get some “decisions,” but there
is often little change, but a passion for the Kingdom
is an apostolic vision to transforma tertitory. ~

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 A passion for the lost is pastoral and often driven by
guilt, but passion for the Kingdom is apostolic and is
driven by vision.

A passion for the lost sends people to isolated places

to lay down their lives with little fruit, but a passion
for the Kingdom sends out apostolic teams, with the
authority to change nations.
A passion for the lost holds meetings and invites
people to attend, but a passion for the Kingdom
builds communities where the power and glory of
God is manifested in the earth.

A passion for the lost wins converts and then goes to

the next city to win more, but a passion for the
Kingdom builds apostolic centers to equip the
converts, so they can be sent out to take new cities.

A passion for the lost is good but it often does not

produce lasting fruit, but a passion for the Kingdom
is God’s strategy and results in many lost being saved.

We live in a day of restoration. In the early years of the

20th century, God restored the gifts of tongues and healing. In
later decades, He restored prophecy and apostleship.
Peter Wagner teaches that we are now in the church’s
Second Apostolic Age. Over the past decade we’ve seen God at
work to raise up apostolic centers all over the world.
The apostolic centers that once existed in Jerusalem,
Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, Rome, and Iona are all gone. The
good news is that we now have one in Corinth, Texas!

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 And the Global Spheres Center is not alone. Apostolic
centers are being raised up in many regions and many nations.
Apostolic centers have returned.
It’s time to prepare for harvest!

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 APPENDIX ONE

Testimonies of Transition

Apostolic Shift - A Testimony

by Robert Heidler

How is it possible for a church to change to a whole new

paradigm? Id like to close with a personal testimony.
Our church began in the mid-1970's. It grew out of a Bible
study I began while a student at Dallas Theological Seminary. By
1983 our church numbered about 100 people.
In 1983, through a long series of events (outlined in my
book Experienang the Spirit), the Holy Spirit invaded our church.
Up until that time we called ourselves a Bible Church. We placed
a strong emphasis on teaching the Word, but did not believe the
Holy Spirit still operated in supernatural ways.
But in 1983 the Holy Spirit showed up. He began with
Linda and me. Literally overnight, and without our asking, we
were baptized in the Holy Spirit. We began to speak in tongues.
Needless to say this "shook up" our little church.
Within a few years people were raising their hands in
worship, praying for the sick (and seeing them healed), and giving
prophetic words. It wasn't an easy transition. Many people left
the church, but God brought in others to replace them, and it
was exciting to see what God was doing in those that remained.
Near the beginning of the transition, someone told me that
it takes five years for a church to make a major change of
direction. At the time I didn’t believe it. Looking back, it really
did take five years, and at times I felt we were changing very fast.

173
 Part way through this transition we met Chuck Pierce.
Chuck moved to Denton in 1986 to be the executive director of a
mission organization. He and his wife, Pam, began attending our
little church.
We got to know Chuck very well, and gained a rising
appreciation for his ministry. By the mid 1990's God was
establishing Chuck in an apostolic ministry. He was serving as an
apostle to a number of churches around the country.
At this time, our church had a traditional, old wineskin
structure, but we also had a tremendous hunger for God and
wanted to be rightly aligned. So in 1996 we asked Chuck Pierce
to be our apostle.
He refused. He said, "You don't know what you are asking.
You already have your own ways of doing things, and that would
be a difficult transition."
We were not deterred. Six months later the elders
discussed it and decided to ask Chuck again. Again he refused.
This happened several times.
Finally, the elders were talking one night about our desire to
have the church established on an apostolic foundation, and one
of the elders made a suggestion. This elder, a man named John
Taylor, said, "Why don't we all just resign and tell Chuck the
church is his!"
Amazingly, we all /ked that idea! By this time we
understood the issues involved. We had been working to train
the saints for ministry for several years. But we knew we could
not fulfill God's purpose without an apostle.
So we went to Chuck and told him we were all resigning,
and that the church was his. (I don't recommend every church
follow this example, but we new Chuck well and trusted him
implicitly.)
hay

174
 Chuck was right. It was a hard transition. The process of
change stirred up demons we never knew we had. Chuck was
not heavy-handed. He never tried to control us, but he KNEW
how things should be.
Let me give just one example. When Chuck finally agreed
to be our apostle, we were in the final stages of setting up cell
groups. We had been preparing to start these groups for several
months. We had chosen leaders and held training classes for
them. We had announced that the groups would begin in
January.
Chuck's first apostolic instruction to us was to cancel the
cell groups.
I said, "Chuck, we can't do that! We've been training these
leaders for months. We've announced it already. People are
excited about these groups."
Chuck said we could start the groups if we wanted, but if
we did, there would be problems. He told me that two of the
families we had chosen as leaders would leave the church, and by
April the cell groups would be in such a mess we would have to
shut them down.
I was sure Chuck was wrong, so we moved forward with
our plans.
We knew we were in trouble when one of the families we
had chosen to lead a group announced they were leaving the
church... before the cell groups even started. A little while later
the other family left. By April the cell groups were filled with
such strife and contention we had to shut them down.
This is how apostles operate. It’s a gift. They KNOW.
After a few examples like this, we began to trust Chuck's ability
to hear from God for our church. For several years Chuck
mentored our leaders and helped set the ministry of the church in
otder. Then in 2001 he began to shift us into five-fold ministry.

shes
 At the time our church was in a hard place. We had just
moved into a new building with a big monthly rent payment, but
we had also just gone through a nasty church split and lost about
one-third of our members. We were a church of 200 in a
building that could hold 500, and we were struggling in every
way.
But Chuck gathered the staff and said, "From now on
you're not going to apologize for who you are. You are going to
do what God has called you to do."
For me this was wonderful news, but also a little
frightening. I was a teacher. I had learned to function in the
traditional pastor role, but I hated it. I didn't do a very good job
as pastor, and trying to fulfill pastoral responsibilities took up so
much of my time that I didn't have adequate time to prepare for
teaching.
Chuck said, "Robert, you are a teacher. Stop trying to be a
pastor. Be what you are!"
My first thought was, "If I stop trying to be a pastor, who
will pastor these people?" Chuck's answer was, "If you do what
you are called to do, God will raise up pastors."
So we made the shift.
I was free to be a teacher. I was free to take the time to
develop my gift. And the church loved it. And God began to
raise up wonderful pastors in the church. We now have some of
the most wonderful /rve pastors I've ever known.
Over the course of several years, as each of the five-fold
gifts were established, the church exploded. That struggling
church of 200 members.is now an international ministry.
We've recently purchased the Global Spheres Center, a
216,000 square foot facility sitting on 29 acres of
— = estate
on Interstate 35E in Corinth, Texas.
a

176
 Our usual Sunday attendance is over 1200, but our
membership goes far beyond that. Several years ago, God told
Chuck to "gather My scattered sheep." Chuck saw that there
were many Christians who didn't go to church because they could
not find a good church in their area. So Chuck began to
broadcast everything we do on the internet.
Amazingly, thousands of people from all over the world
have joined our church. They attend our services online every
week. They invite their friends. They sing along as we praise.
They even tithe. Chuck has established several pastors
specifically devoted to our online members. They do counseling
and prayer by email and phone.
These people often gather together locally in Houses of
Zion (house churches) for fellowship, but they know they are
part of us. When I visit other countries, I often have people
come up to me and say, "I go to your church!"
We now also have thousands of house churches, as well as
thousands of traditional churches associated with us. We hold
regional conferences every month, and people fly in from all over
the United States to attend. We have at least three major
gatherings each year at the times of the biblical feasts, and people
attend from all over the world.
And we are equipping the saints to minister. We now serve
as a resource center for many other churches and ministries. Our
training school classes, offered free of charge on the internet, are
attended by more than 5000 people. Anyone in any church
aligned with us has full access to the five-fold ministry.
God has truly done an amazing thing, but none of us on
staff can take the credit. Not one of us on staff would have been
very successful in the role of a traditional pastor. Every one of us
has an area of strength, but are weak in other areas. But Chuck

Lyf
has fitted us together apostolically, so that each of us is free to do
what we ate called to do, and the church has prospered greatly.
I believe this is a prototype of what God wants to do in His
church. God is doing a new thing... but it really is a very old
thing. He's teaching the church to function the way HE
originally designed it, and (what a surprise) it WORKS.
At Glory of Zion, our sincere desire is to see more and
more of the church successfully make this transition. If you are
willing to shift, we are here to help. Any teaching, any ministry
we have, we make available to you. The Apostolic Church is
rising!

178
 Apostolic Shift - A Testimony
by Linda Heidler

For many people one of the major obstacles in the shift to

an apostolic church is the issue of authority. Our culture doesn't
have a good understanding of authority. Many have been
wounded by authority figures in the past, and are therefore
suspicious of authority. This makes the idea of apostolic
authority a little frightening. I know it was for me.
To help you understand the struggles I had in our shift, I'd
like to share a little of how this ministry began.
The apostolic center that is now Glory of Zion began as a
home Bible study in 1974. My husband, Robert, was in seminary
at the time, and needed to do a ministry project for one of his
classes. A co-worker of mine had recently gotten saved, but was
having a hard time finding a church, so Robert volunteered to
teach a Bible study in her home as his ministry project.
The first meeting of the Bible study was attended by four
people: Robert, myself, my co-worker, and her neighbor. Soon
the neighbor’s husband got saved and started attending also.
Then my co-worker’s boyfriend got saved and started coming.
Gradually other friends, neighbors, and co-workers joined with us
until we had about 30 people in attendance.
In 1976 several members of the group commented that
they now considered the Bible study to be their church. This
surprised us. We had not intended to start a church. We decided,
however, that if people were viewing the Bible study as their
church, we should look in the Word to see how God wanted a
church to function. Robert taught a seven-week series on the
church, and at the end of the study we concluded that, while we
had not intended to start a church, God had started one anyway.

179
 From our study of the Bible, we saw that a church was
supposed to be set in order by an apostle, but coming from an
evangelical background, we didn’t believe apostles still existed.
Since we had no apostle to appoint elders in the church, we
simply asked the members of the group to write down the names
of those they thought met the qualifications of an elder. Based
on the responses we “recognized” several men as our elders.
At that time there was a strong mistrust of authority
throughout the culture. The 1960s had been a time of
disillusionment with the government because of the Vietnam
War. It was also a time of rebellion against the status quo. With
this as our background, we structured the church in such a way
that no one person would ever have authority. Our bylaws said
that all decisions had to be made by unanimous agreement of the
elders. (Until all the elders came into agreement, no decision
could be made. This led to some LONG elders' meetings!)
Women had an interesting place in all of this. From our
evangelical training, we believed that a woman could not be an
elder. Based on a misunderstanding of I Cor. 14, we also taught
that women could not speak or lead in a meeting if a man was
present. If a woman had an insight from Scripture, she could tell
her husband who could then share it publicly, or she could share
it at a “women’s meeting.” (How EAR we've come! Hallelujah!)
With that kind of suppression, women learned to be very
manipulative. If an elder’s wife wanted something done, it would
most likely get done. The whole set-up was fertile ground for an
"Ahab — Jezebel" structure to form. Women had no authority so
they found ways to exercise control.
This was the foundation of the “Bible Church” that grew
from our home Bible study. We incorporated as a churchin 1976
and continued to function on this foundation for 20 years. A
measure of change began in 1984 when the Holy Spifit invaded

180
our lives, and the church began a transition into the gifts and
ministries of the Holy Spirit, but the original by-laws remained in
place.
In the fall of 1996 we began transitioning to an Apostolic,
rather than Elder-led church. Robert described that process in
his testimony. It was a very difficult transition for me.
As Robert shared, one of the first issues we faced as we
shifted to an apostolic foundation was the issue of home cell
groups. We had been working for several months to start a cell
group ministry. Most of the church seemed excited about it, but
one of the first things Chuck said when he agreed to be our
apostle was that we needed to cancel the home cell groups.
I was greatly upset. I thought canceling the cell groups
would make the leadership look foolish and indecisive. It would
also offend the ones who had gone through the training to be cell
group leaders. To me it seemed that Chuck did not care about
the church the way I did, otherwise he would see that these new
groups were necessary to build relationships and train the body to
minister.
Chuck said we could go ahead with the groups, but warned
us what would happen if we did. He said two of the couples we
had personally trained to be group leaders would leave the
church. These people were close friends. They were committed
to the church. I didn't think Chuck knew what he was talking
about.
Almost immediately, the first couple Chuck named left the
church! The cell groups had not even started yet, and one of the
leadership couples left! Two months later the second couple left.
By the end of three months, the remaining groups were in such a
mess we had to discontinue all home cell groups.
I was shocked. I didn't understand how Chuck could have
foreseen this. This was my first lesson as to how the gift of

181
apostle works. Apostles see from different perspectives and can
set things in order to avoid messes.
I realized that Chuck had been trying to keep the church
out of a mess by cancelling the home groups, but I still did not
trust him to care about the church the way I did. I felt I knew
what would be good for the church better than he did.
The root of my problem was a fear of authority. Due to
abuse by authority in my childhood, I had developed a deep fear
and mistrust of ALL authority. Fear always leads you to try to
control your circumstances. Until we shifted into the apostolic, I
had no official position in the church, but still had great control
ovet the decisions that were made. When we came under
apostolic authority, all of that ended. My ability to control ended,
and my fear was full-blown.
Over the next few years, there were many such conflicts. I
always felt that I knew more than Chuck. I would do what
seemed right to me, and it always ended up in a mess. Finally,
Chuck gave me an ultimatum. He said I had two weeks to decide
if Iwanted to work for him or not. I knew he meant it.
During this time I went to the Lord and asked what was
wrong. The Lord gave me a vision of the side of a mountain that
had been cut away. I could see all the strata of rock that had
been laid down over many years. Then the Lord showed me a
mountain with a huge section of strata missing. He said, “This is
what you look like. You have several layers missing in your
understanding of authority, but I can teach you what you’ve
missed and fill in the gap.”
This made perfect sense to me. I could see how this
applied to my life. I would do okay with authority to a certain
point, and then it seemed that I would “go over the edge.” I
would hit the place where the strata was missing, unable to make
it across. I asked the Lord to do whatever He needed. ~

182
 Once I submitted to the Lord, I was able to trust that He
was watching over the church and would work through Chuck.
While this was the beginning of change, it was still a process. At
various times the Lord would draw my attention to something
Chuck did, and would add another missing layer to my apostolic
strata. During this time the Lord also brought deliverance and
healing from my past abuse, so that I did not project a fear of
abuse into my present circumstances. I was able to let go of my
need to control and receive the blessing of a true apostle.
Many church leaders today are in my previous same place.
The need to control rules them. For some, it is because of past
abuse. For others, the need to control is rooted in personal pride
or ambition. Important keys for the successful transition into an
apostolic church are relinquishing control and trusting the
apostolic gift to set God’s order for the church.

183
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 APPENDIX TWO

Aligning with an Apostolic Center

by Robert Heidler

In this book [Pve shared a lot about Glory of Zion

International Ministries and the Global Spheres Apostolic Center
here in Corinth, Texas. I’m truly amazed at what God has done
here, but the Global Spheres Center is just one example of
something God is doing all over the world.
Every apostolic center is different. Each one has its own
focus and call. I can’t speak for any other apostolic centers, but if
you are interested in aligning with an apostolic center, Pd like to
share how that process works here.
At Glory of Zion we believe that aligning with an apostolic
center involves building a relationship. We don’t demand that
you give us money to be aligned. We don’t demand that you file
monthly reports. We don’t try to control you or make you
change what you are doing.
We do want to get to know you, and give you opportunity
to freely receive the resources God has given us. Our goal is to
see God’s Kingdom move forward in the earth. As we do this,
we’ve found that God is abundantly faithful to meet our needs.
If you choose to be aligned with the Global Spheres Center,
here’s what the process looks like:

STEP ONE: Go to our website (www.gloryofzion.org) and

click the “Contact Us” link to type in an email with your request,
of write us at [email protected].

185
 STEP TWO: There are several ways to connect depending
upon your needs and your type of ministry. Individuals and
couples can connect as “Zion Aligned.” House churches can
connect as a “House of Zion.’ Churches of more than 50
members can connect as a “Church of Zion.” Officially
incorporated ministries (with a 5013C) can connect as a “Ministry
of Zion.” Businesses who wish to be apostolically connected can
sign on as a “Business of Zion.” Connecting will put you in
contact with someone on our Glory of Zion staff who has special
expertise in your area of ministry.

STEP THREE: When you request to be aligned, you will

receive a brief questionnaire designed to give us some
information about you. When you return your completed
questionnaire, you are officially aligned. Where the relationship
goes from there is up to you. Some choose to develop a very
close relationship with us. Others don’t. Here are a few of the
ways you can develop a closer relationship:

You are encouraged to contact us. When you

complete your questionnaire, you will be connected
with a minister on our staff. These are experienced
ministers who are available to pray with you. You are
free to ask them questions or seek counsel. Some
people choose to send a monthly email so their staff
contacts here are kept up-to-date concerning their
situations and can pray more specifically. This is
welcomed, but not required.

You can be commissioned. If you are the leader of

a house church, church, business, or ministri) you
have the option of being officially commissioned.

186
Your staff contact can give you more information on
this. Chuck does commissioning services at most of
our conferences.

You can visit our website to keep up with what

God is saying to us prophetically.

You can sign up to receive regular emails to stay

informed as to what this ministry is doing.

You can join us on the web. All of our intercession

meetings, teachings, schools, worship services, and
conferences can be accessed by webcast. These may
be viewed live, and most are also available on replay
for the benefit of those in different time zones.
These are all free of charge.

Your group can join in with our gatherings by

webcast. Many churches and house churches use a
projection or large-screen TV to allow their whole
group to participate.

You can purchase books, CDs, and DVDs on our

website. This is a great way to increase vision and
grow in faith.

You can attend our conferences. We hold a

monthly Firstfruits Harvest Celebration near the
beginning of each Hebrew month. We also hold at
least three major international conferences each year.
We encourage you to join us in person for these times
of worship and revelation, whenever possible. We’ve

187
found there is great benefit to “being here” even if it’s
only once or twice a year. It allows us to meet you
face to face.

You can request a team to come and minister in

your church or region. Glory of Zion frequently
sends out teams to minister in various locations.

You are encouraged to give into the ministry here

based upon the value of what you have freely
received. We find that those who do this are greatly
blessed.

188
 ENDNOTES

' Leonard Sweet, professor at Drew University, writes, “Only two

countries have more nonbelievers than the US: India and China. The
US is the third largest mission field in the world.”
http://www.joelcomiskeygroup.com/articles/churchLeaders/stateof
NorthAmericanChurch.htm [accessed 5-31-13]. The 200 million
unsaved statistic is from,
http://www.gideons.org/AboutUs/~/media/PDFs/ General/309-
11.ashx [accessed 5-31-13]

*http://www.preachitteachit.org/uploads/tx_wecsermons/Spititual_Gi
fts Part_ThreeRB.pdf [accessed 5-31-13]

3 http://www.frontlinemin.org/decisionism.asp [accessed 5-31-13]

+ George Barna reports that of the estimated 100 million Americans

who have not attended any church activity in the last six months,
“one out of every five (18%) can be considered to be “born again” —
not based on self-description, but upon saying they have ‘made a
personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their
life today’ and that when they die they believe they will have eternal
life with God only because they have confessed their sins and
accepted Jesus Christ as their savior.” 18% of 100 million is 18
million. http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/12-
faithspirituality /362-millions-of-unchurched-adults-are-christians-
hurt-by-churches-but-can-be-healed-of-the-pain [accessed 5-30-13]

5http://hirr.hartsem.edu/research/fastfacts /fast_facts.html [accessed 5-

30-13]

6 Various sources, including

http://www.joelcomiskeygroup.com/articles/churchLeaders /stateof
NorthAmericanChurch.htm [accessed 5-31-13],

189
 http://vocabmalone.blogspot.com /2008/01/decline-of-church-in-
america.html [accessed 5-31-13],
http://media.sermonaudio.com/articles/ib-12151114838-1.PDF
[accessed 5-30-13], and http://halmoran.com/blog/?p=13 [accessed
12-8-10]

Thttp:// www.tonwoodworth.org/consulting-clergycounseling.aspx
[accessed 5-31-13]

8 Acts 4:4 says the church numbered more than five thousand makes.
Counting adult males was a common way of numbering a community
in those days. If the church numbered five thousand males, its total
population was probably we// over ten thousand.

9 Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Heathen, Chapter XI,

Christian Classics Ethereal Library,
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf02.vi.ii.xii.html [accessed 4-3-
2006]

10 Many don’t realize that the New Testament lists a number of apostles
in addition to the 12. In Acts 1:26 Matthias was designated as an
apostle to replace Judas. Acts 14:14 lists both Paul and Barnabas as
apostles. In Phil 2:25 Epaphroditus is called an apostle (apostolos) of
the church. Romans 16:7 lists Andronicus and Junia as apostles. Gal
1:19 identifies James, the half-brother of Jesus, as an apostle. I Cor.
4:6&9 identifies Apollos as an apostle. Comparing I Thess. 1:1 and
2:6, we see that Paul considered Sylvanus and Timothy to be apostles
also.

1! Some modern translations, not willing to acknowledge the possibility

of a woman apostle, change this name to a man’s name, Junius, but
the earliest writers all identify Junia as a woman. For example,
Chrysostom (4th century) comments on Romans 16:7, “How:great
the wisdom of this woman must have been that she was eyn deemed
worthy of the title of apostle!”

190
 For further reading, see Junia: The First Woman Apostle, by Eldon Jay
Epp, http://www.amazon.com/Junia-First-Woman-Apostle-
ebook/dp/BO00SB9FO8/ref= tmm_kin_title_OPie=UTF8&qid=136
9942996&sr=1-2
Junia, A Woman Apostle By Dianne D. McDonnell
http:/ /www.churchofgoddfw.com/ monthly/junia.shtml
and Junia is Not Alone by Scot McKnight
http://www.amazon.com/Junia-Is-Not-Alone-
ebook/dp/BO06H4PFZ8/ref=sr_1_1 ?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=136
9942842&sr=1-1&keywords=junia

'2 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Popular Edition, Grand Rapids:

Baker Book House, 1973, p 186-187.

‘5 Five-fold or 4-fold gifts? Some writers have questioned the

existence of five distinct gifts in Ephesians 4:11. The Message Bible, for
example, lists only four gifts: apostles, prophets, evangelists, and
pastor-teachers.
To defend the idea of lumping pastors and teachers together into
one “pastor-teacher” gift, these writers refer to something called the
Granville Sharp rule. Granville Sharp is a rule of Greek grammar
learned by every first-year Greek student. Stated simply, Granville
Sharp says this:
When you find the Greek construction “article — noun — ‘kai’
(the Greek word for ‘and’)— noun,” both nouns are referring to the
same thing. This rule is often very helpful for interpreting the Bible.
For example, if find a passage that talks about Jesus as “the Lord
and Savior” Granville Sharp tells us that the words Lord and Savior
are both describing the same person.
Based on the Granville Sharp rule, some writers have argued that
“pastors and teachers” here must refer to the same gift, a single gift
of “pastor-teacher.”
This shows that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing! The
attempt to join the gifts of pastor and teacher into one “pastor-
teacher” gift ignores an important exception to the Granville Sharp

191
 rule. Any good Greek grammar book will tell you that the Granville
Sharp rule on/y applies when both of the nouns are singu/ar.
When the nouns are plural, there are many examples where the
two nouns in this construction are definitely not referring to the same
thing. For example,
In Mt 3:7 and Acts 23:7, “Pharisees and Sadducees” obviously
refers to two distinct groups.
In Acts 17:18 — “Stoics and Epicureans” again are two distinct
groups.
Perhaps most importantly, in Eph. 2:20 and 3:5, we find this
same construction for “apostles and prophets,” yet apostles and
prophets are clearly two distinct gifts.
So to invoke the Granville Sharp rule to try to combine pastors
and teachers into one “pastor-teacher” gift is totally without
justification.
Jeremy M. Schopper, in his excellent paper on this subject,
concludes, “The miss-application of the Granville Sharp Rule to
Ephesians 4:11 has unnecessarily blurred the distinctive natures of
the offices of pastor and teacher... pastor and teacher should not be
counted as one office.” (Those wishing a more detailed study of this
can download his paper here:
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/26443284/Exposition-of-Eph-41 1-
and-the-Granville-Sharp-Rule)

14 Sources for Pastoral statistics:

http://www.intothyword.org/apps/articles/ default.asprarticleid=365
62 [accessed 12-8-2010]
http://www.tonwoodworth.org/ sacpraisi clergycounseling.aspx
[accessed 5-31-13]
http://www.pastorburnout.com/pastor-burnout-statistics.html
[accessed 5-31-13]
http://anunhurtiedlife.org/2009/06/03/ algo A /
[accessed 5-31-13]
http://mrclm.blogspot.com/2006/06/ deaths itnisersege
burnout.html [accessed 5-31-13]

192
'S Pliny to Trajan, (Epp. X.97)

‘e From the Confession of Saint Patrick, as quoted in Who Was the Real
St Patrick? by Deacon Keith A. Fournier
http://www.cbn.com/spirituallife/ BibleStudyAndTheology/ Disciple
ship/ fournier_SaintPatrick.aspx [6/12/15]

" From The Life and Acts of St. Patrick, translated from the original Latin
of Jocelin, Cistercian monk of Furnes of the 12th century, by
Edmund L. Swift, Esq., Dublin, 1809. Quoted in Resurrection Miracles
Performed by St. Patrick, Apostle ofIreland
https://www.olrl.org/lives/patrick.shtml [6/12/15]

18 [bid

19 Tbid

20 From Patrick Saint ofIreland,

http://www.ewtn.com/saintsHoly/saints/P/stpatrick.asp [6/12/15]

21 The claim of Patrick's papal connections is denied even by some

Roman Catholic scholars. Aidan Nichols writes in a recent Vatican
publication, “Patrick's own writings ... make no such pretension to
papal support. It seems that the conversion of those Celtic areas that
lay outside the civil zone of Roman Britain was initiated by British
Christians themselves. (Aidan Nichols, "The Roman Primacy in
the Ancient Irish and Anglo-Celtic Church," in Michele Maccarrone
(ed.), Il Primato del vescovo di Roma nel primo millennio (Vatican:
Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), p. 475)

22 http://www.bhsu.edu/dsalomon/mystic-1/9704.html [6-25-2001]

23 The Book of Leinster, p. 353 of the facsimile edition, col. 4

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