Keeping The Connections From Christ To 5Q

Recently, Alan tweeted something that created a fantastic opportunity for discovery.

Click here to follow him on twitter.

So, this week, we are going to explore the three dimensional connections that are rooted Jesus and extend from Father to his people, the Church. What we see is that,in Christ, God is connected to the world through the fivefold gifts of the Body of Christ. So let’s take a look.

The Love of Christ and the Fullness of God

Deeply embedded in the assumptions of the whole APEST/Five Fold conversation is the understanding that Ephesians 4:11 is moving the church somewhere; there is a destination in the mind of the Apostle, namely Ephesians 4:12, “His purpose was to equip God’s people for the work of serving and building up the body of Christ until we all reach the unity of faith and knowledge of God’s Son. God’s goal is for us to become mature adults—to be fully grown, measured by the standard of the fullness of Christ.”

The five fold gifts Jesus gives to the church aren’t a jam of the month club that shows up at your door and overcrowds the refrigerator shelf. These are capacities that are meant to be activated in the Body. They are personalities that are exercised in the people. They are grace at work in the most surprising of ways.

APEST as The Defining Marks of The Church

APEST as the defining marks of the church presents us with an outstanding, ready-made, inbuilt, and theologically robust, way to assess the church’s overall spirituality, ministry, and effectiveness. And we are effectively making an assessment against the ultimate benchmark of all Christian ministry—the ministry of Jesus Christ himself. Having then identified relative strengths and weaknesses, we can then go on to develop appropriate leadership and organizational strategies to suit.