5 Great Posts To Kick Start 2018

 

Happy New Year from the whole 5Q team! We are beyond excited for 2018 and can’t wait to share all the latest news and updates that we’ve been working on, but…we are going to wait just a little longer.

Last year, we had an amazing co-op of writers and thinkers come together and provide some inspiring and paradigm-shifting content. So, before we launch a new year’s worth of Re5Qlutions and new resources, let’s take a look at five great posts from the last year that have pushed the 5Q conversation forward way beyond the blog.

 

To miss out on your calling is to miss out on a large part of why God made you.

And to fulfill your calling is an incredibly noble thing.

After accepting our calling to Christ, the Apostle Paul (through Ephesians 4) wants us to discover this Theogenetic code that is embedded in each and every person on earth. As we awaken the fivefold typology (APEST) in our church planning and discernment, what we will discover is that we are empowered to live into our God-given, Spirit-shaped calling.

Paul says in Ephesians 4:7, “but to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

to read the full article, click here

For all you leaders out there who have read 5Q and are now ready to tweet, preach and train your people to a premature 5Q-end. Please just take a moment.

Stop, save the tweet and read the ways below that you can save yourselves and your people lots of bumps and blind alleys.

Lead by example – This has to be something you embody. You won’t become Yoda overnight, but you have to start to embrace both the 5Q paradigm and practice. Start small and start somewhere. There is nothing worse than telling everyone to do something you don’t understand or teaching someone else content that you’ve not grappled with. Internalize 5Q and begin to incarnate 5Q before you broadcast & boast about it! 

to read the full article, click here

We are losing far too many passionate, talented and truly called leaders because their calling, once placed within the congregational setting, is lost to the expectations of everything the word “pastor” carries with it.

Even if you are called to teach as a teacher, our churches do not necessarily want to empower you to teach. Before you do that, they want you to love, care for and nurture the community. Then you can find time to teach.

If you are called to listen deeply to the Holy Spirit and stir the hearts and minds of the people as a prophet, the church would rather you just love and care and nurture the community first and attend to these spiritual matters later.

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 Like most parents, I struggle with my kids’ nightly bedtime routine. It is the perfect nexus of parental fatigue and childhood rambunctiousness. Yet, my wife and I are committed to spending those last moments of our children’s days with them knowing that they often yield our best spiritual conversations. Over the years I have tried many strategies to pray for my kids as I put them to bed: different character traits for each day of the month, soliciting personal prayer request from them, even asking them to pray for me at times.

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What does prophetic ministry look like? This is a really good question, and to be honest, it’s is quite challenging to answer. In my opinion, prophetic ministry is actually the most complex form of ministry within APEST. That being said, I want to suggest four features of prophetic ministry, and then show how those features can come together to form various expressions of prophetic ministry.

Prophets have a tendency to recognize and reveal the space that exists between us and God. They drawing attention to the “gap” between God’s reality and our own. This does give prophetic ministry a somewhat critical feature. But it’s short-sighted to say this is the only feature of prophetic ministry. For example, Walter Bruegemann characterizes the role of the prophet as one who both criticizes and energizes. These two categories suggest a continuum upon which prophetic ministry can be located.

to read the full article, click here