Advancing the Fivefold Ministry

I want to welcome you to this General Conference seminar on advancing the fivefold ministry. Most of you, I'm sure, are aware that the United Pentecostal Church is making a concerted, organized effort — perhaps the word I really should use is "intentional" — to advance the fivefold ministry among us. We've been on this journey now for over a year, officially, and I've been asked to chair the fivefold ministry committee, and so we have some exciting things to report to you today. But I want to share some of the things that I'm seeing, hearing, and feeling among us.

This past summer I was privileged to minister at five different district camp meetings, and I thought, since this is my assignment right now in UPCI, I'm going to do what I can to engender a conversation of the fivefold ministry among us. And so I've been teaching and preaching right out of the book of Acts and the Epistles about the fivefold ministry — particularly the ministry of apostle and prophet. So our mission is to normalize and demystify the fivefold ministry. And by the way, I cannot go any further without just giving a shout-out to Sister Flo Shaw, who heads up World Network of Prayer — and the fivefold ministry committee is under her purview, and she has been a fantastic ministry partner, that I'll say more about in just a moment.

But we want to give, for what it's worth, everyone permission to explore the fivefold ministry — to pray about it, to talk about it, to study it. I don't think that it's controversial; it should not be controversial among us. And of course, we are more comfortable and more situated right now, as we stand, with evangelist, pastor, teacher. But we cannot ignore the two elephants in the room: apostles and prophets. And they are among us, and they are closer, perhaps, than what we realize. But if we are going to have the full expression of the spiritual authority and power of the church in these last days, then we must also have a full complement of the fivefold ministry in operation among us. I think we all realize that.

So I mentioned that I'm serving as the chair of the fivefold ministry committee, and so we are planning three fivefold ministry discovery conferences. We've already had the first one — it was the end of March, first of April — hosted by District Superintendent and Pastor Art Hodges, and it was a tremendous conference. Brother Bernard was there; he was our keynote presenter. And our goal was not to just have another church conference, but we wanted members of the fivefold ministry there and present. And by the way, let me insert this: the fivefold ministry is among us, and they are the licensed ministers of UPCI — all of our apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers that are in the fivefold ministry are licensed ministers with UPCI. And so at this conference, Brother Mark Morgan was there, Brother Doug Klinedinst, Brother Gordon Winslow, Brother Dan Butler, Pastor Art Hodges presented, Brother Bernard presented, I myself presented, Sister Flo Shaw, perhaps among others, and we just had a conversation. And invariably, at the end of each session, the presence of God moved in and was manifested in many various ways. Of course, the Bible says the signs of an apostle, Paul said, are signs, wonders, and mighty deeds — and that certainly happened among us.

The next fivefold ministry conference is scheduled for March 23, 24, and 25, and that will be hosted at our church in Kansas City, Missouri — The Life Church — and we hope that you can make plans to attend, and be watching World Network of Prayer and other UPCI promotional materials for more information on that.

I want to read Ephesians 4:11, 12, and 13, which says: "And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, until we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." So Paul is saying that if we want to be the church that God has ordained us and called us and envisioned us to be, we cannot be that church without the full expression of the fivefold ministry. In fact, he said the fivefold ministry is necessary to equip the saints — and I'll speak about that in just a moment. He said the fivefold ministry is required to bring us to full spiritual maturity. In other words, the church cannot be fully equipped, we cannot achieve our full spiritual maturity or functional destiny in these last days, without a full complement of the fivefold ministry.

Now, as Apostolic believers — everybody say "Apostolic." Okay, I didn't hear you, but I'm sure that you said it — embedded carefully within the word "Apostolic," sort of cryptically embedded in the word "Apostolic," is the word "apostle." I'm sure that you have noticed that the Bible affords us prolific mention of the word "apostle." In fact, it's mentioned in four divisions — all four divisions of the New Testament: Gospels, History, Epistles, and Revelation. And the word "apostle" is used 79 times. By comparison, "prophet" is 45 times, "teacher" is 12, "evangelist" 3, and the poor pastor, like myself, gets one honorable mention. Of course, that's not a hundred percent true, because the Bible says Paul ordained elders in every city, and we know that all pastors were elders — not all elders were necessarily pastors, but all pastors were elders.

So because we are Apostolic, I think it goes without saying that we want everything that's Apostolic. All things Apostolic are ours to claim, to operate in, and to believe. So we don't have the liberty of cherry-picking a few items that we really like, that are sort of our candy sticks of what we're comfortable with, under the banner of Apostolic faith and values and doctrine. And so, by definition, if we are going to be Apostolic, we really cannot fully define what it means to be Apostolic without apostles and prophets walking among us.

And where the church is going in these last days, we must have the spiritual authority and the ability to create, to initiate, to go, and to open that apostles have. We must also have the expression of the prophets. The prophets are like eyes to us. The prophets are an important voice to us. The prophets have the ability to discern spiritual conditions and to give us understanding of the times that we are living in. And I have learned, as a pastor, the significant importance of being partnered with apostles and prophets, and certainly with evangelists and teachers, here in our local church in Kansas City.

I want to just briefly touch on a definition for apostles and prophets. I've mentioned a few pieces of that just a moment ago, but: apostles go — which means they are sent. "Apostolos" means "sent one," so they are sent, they initiate, they create, they open, they have spiritual authority for a mission, on a location. Paul said that the signs of an apostle, once again, are signs, wonders, and special miracles. Apostles — some operate locally, some operate regionally, some nationally, and some apostles have spiritual authority globally, or on certain foreign soil where God particularly uses them. Prophets guide. They are the eyes to the body. The gift of prophecy is resident within them. They foretell and they forth-tell. They assess spiritual conditions and climates where they are. They are specially empowered by God to give correction, direction, guidance, and insight. And God knows that we need the full expression of the fivefold ministry among us.

I'm not trying to control apostles, but let me just give some guidelines for the apostles among us. The Bible says, "Let another praise you and not your own mouth" — that's Proverbs 27:2. And so, if others refer to someone as an apostle because they have seen the signs of an apostle, then they would be right to do so. But for now — I say "we," our committee has discussed it, we've discussed it with our bishop, Brother Bernard — it's not time right now for someone to come out and claim to be an apostle or a prophet. That may seem unfair; it may seem inconsistent; but that's just where we are right now. We just need apostles and prophets to be who they are. We just need them to operate in their full gifting.

Some other things that are germane to a book-of-Acts apostle: apostles have impeccable character. They also are endued with a great amount of humility. They also practice mutual submission among the other members of the fivefold ministry. So in other words, a biblical apostle is not a law unto himself, but submits to proper authority. For example, no apostle has the authority to go into a local church and usurp the authority of the local pastor. They can be in partnership, but according to Acts 15, when you study the unfolding events of that general council of the church, it was James, the local pastor, who had the final say after all the apostles and prophets present had weighed in and stated their concerns and their understanding of what God was up to with the Gentiles coming into the church. It was the local pastor who spoke, and he was not contested by any apostle there.

And so, by the way, the pastor is the key. In fact — I just have a few minutes left, so I'm just going to finish with this — the pastor is the key to releasing the fivefold ministry on a local level. And if I was a pastor — wait a minute, I am a pastor. So, as a pastor, I have tried to be intentional about praying, about reaching out, to connecting with, showing up at meetings, conferences, other local churches around the country and around the world where fivefold ministry members are present. And I can say that, as a local pastor, once I began to partner with apostles and prophets, evangelists, and other pastors and teachers intentionally, my life and the ministry that God has given me dramatically was impacted and changed. In fact, I will say it this way: the trajectory — and I don't mean that in any political way, of any office that I've been elected to or been privileged to serve in UPCI; I simply mean spiritually — the impact on me personally is immeasurable. The impact on my family, my wife and my children, is immeasurable. And then, of course, the impact on our local congregation has been just extraordinary.

And so I want to encourage any pastor who's watching this seminar to be prayerful and intentional. And don't give up. Don't quit. If you've reached out to someone that you feature as an apostle or prophet and they haven't been responsive, they haven't reciprocated, they haven't seemed to be all that approachable — I've told the story all over the country about reaching out to Lee Stoneking, you know, 32 years ago, when he preached the camp meeting in our district. I was not serving any office in our organization at the time; I would say that I was way under the radar. But I just went after him, and it took five years — year after year after year, conference after conference after conference, meeting after meeting after meeting, conversation after conversation after conversation — and finally, Brother Stoneking came and ministered, and has been preaching here now, except the last two years of COVID, for up until that time 23 years, at our annual Passing the Mantle conference. So don't give up. Don't quit. Don't be discouraged. Be intentional. Be purposeful. Do what you can to raise up a fivefold ministry team, even locally. The only thing that's better than bringing in the fivefold ministry is to have it within your local church, and that is a powerful thing — a very powerful thing — to have in your local church.

So I've probably created more questions than I've answered, but we're in this conversation together. We want to advance and discover the fivefold ministry — to give it a place, to let it breathe, to let it function, to let it operate, to let it flow, to let it be released among us. And so, even at this General Conference, I'm confident that the fivefold ministry, in their full expression, will impact our General Conference, and I know God is going to do great things.

Let's pray. Lord, I just want to say thank You for these few minutes to perhaps walk into somebody's life, to speak a word, to say a word, to inspire, to challenge, and maybe to give direction to someone who's hungry to see the expression of the fivefold ministry in their life. I pray, Lord, that if there are up-and-coming members of the fivefold ministry at this conference, or watching this video, that their hearts will be challenged and that they will be open to be used of You, in the purpose and the path and the plan that You have prescribed for their life. Lord, I just pray a blessing on everyone, Lord, who is hungry for more of You, for they shall be filled. And I pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.

The Lord be with you, and thank you again for this great opportunity to have a few minutes to talk to you about the fivefold ministry. May the Lord be with you.