Key # 4: The Leadership Key

The apostolic foundation in the church is the ambition God places in the hearts of His people to make disciples and plant churches where Christ has not been proclaimed. When this ambition spreads in a community of believers, a culture takes hold that empowers a church community to have radical faith for the impossible. Apostolic passion enables a church to live boldly for the purposes of God. This is important because apostolic ambition originates in the heart of God: He longs for His Son to be worshiped by the nations and peoples who have never heard about Jesus.

When Paul was traveling on his missionary journeys, the Spirit led him and his team by dreams and visions. They planned to go to those who had never heard the gospel, but the Spirit led them day by day in the details of where and when they should do things. Their passion was to both go where no man had gone before, and to be led by the Spirit as they stepped out in faith.

“Prophetic foundations involve dependence on the correcting, strengthening, guiding and empowering presence of God’s Spirit.”

Apostolic and prophetic foundations mean both building and blessing approaches to ministry. Building means being intentional, strategic, focused – looking beyond the local church or our individual wants and needs. Blessing means seeking the power of the Spirit right now, spontaneous, open to anything and everything the Spirit says except to be diverted from the task of making Christ known to the lost.

Building on another man’s foundation as Paul describes it in Romans 15:20, most likely will lead to conflict of values and vision. It’s vital for each church planting movement to be clear on how they define church, what approaches they take to starting new churches, and the core values they deem essential to their endeavor. If a local church has a passion to make Christ known where God’s love has never proclaimed, they have apostolic passion. It is not that other foundations are wrong, but differences in vision and passion can lead to conflicts, to time and energy used for other things than making disciples, training leaders and planting churches.

“Building on an apostolic foundation means having a passion for the lost to know Jesus, especially those who have never had a chance to hear the gospel one time.”

Paul knew and taught radical values that were essential to his pioneering work. Paul could not have taken on the challenges he did in reaching villages and towns that had never been reached with the gospel if he did not have these kind of core values. His core values were consistent with his passion to preach the gospel where Christ had not been named.

(To be continued)