All organizations have life cycles. They tend to begin under the leadership of a charismatic leader or leaders who have a “better way” of doing things. Over time they grow into institutions that tend to be less innovative and more bureaucratic. Organizational experts call this phenomena “historical drift” and suggest there are clearly defined stages in an organization’s life cycle: man, movement, machinery, monument.1
Given this tendency toward institutional decline, is there a way to remain dynamic, innovative, and effective, especially in church movements? The answer is yes, but the solution is not easy and is seldom embraced.
The Bible says: “It was He [Christ] who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, 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 to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:11-13).
Notice three general ideas in this passage. First, Christ gives gifts to leaders in the church. These gifts are often referred to as ministry manifestations, leadership gifts, or the fivefold ministry gifts. Second, these gifted leaders are to “prepare (equip) God’s people for works of service.” Third, these gifted leaders are to work together in their equipping ministry until the church achieves “unity” and “maturity.”
In times of revival when God pours out His Spirit and a great harvest of souls is reaped, the two sides of the gospel (evangelism and discipleship) are held together in dynamic tension and the fivefold ministry tends to work together to contain the fruit of the harvest.
As time goes by there is a need for stabilization, which usually involves the development of statements of faith and policies and procedures to define the growing movement of local churches and standardize their activities. It is during the stabilization stage that the unity of the fivefold ministry leaders is challenged.
Apostolic and evangelistic leaders are wired by God to be evangelism oriented and immediate or short-term in their perspective. Pastors and teachers are wired to be discipleship oriented, and cautious and long-term in their perspective. Because of these differences in perspective, apostolic and evangelistic leaders tend to become frustrated with the growing stabilization of the movement and leave to form mobile church movements that focus on new ministry models and evangelism.
The transition of apostolic and evangelistic leaders out of the local church movement seems good at first. It usually alleviates growing tension between the two perspectives; but over the long term, it robs the local church of needed innovators and evangelists. As the revival wanes and the movement is stabilized, local church movements plateau and most church growth comes from biological and/or transfer growth (rather than evangelism of unchurched people).
On the other hand, the mobile church tends to implode over time as the revival wanes and stabilizes around the short-term ventures that tend not to develop the mature leaders needed to support the growing movement.
The role of the prophet during this stabilization stage is to call the mobile church and the local church back into the dynamic tension of partnership in the completion of the Great Commission (Matthew 24:14).
The Great Commission involves both evangelism and discipleship. God has given ministry gifts to leaders to prepare the people of God to work together in unity and maturity until His purpose of salvation is completed.
The leaders of the mobile and local church who have fivefold ministry gifts must partner together to avoid stagnation and to see renewal come to their organizations. Together they must lead the way in reaching unity and maturity so the church can attain “the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” for the salvation of many and the glory of God.
In the next issue of the Message, I will share how Open Bible Churches and Youth With a Mission (YWAM) are partnering together as a local church movement and a mobile church movement to complete the Great Commission in our generation.
