"The fivefold ministry and a personal word about Jan and I "
I wanted to write this blog to convey where Jan and I are at this time and the direction that we are looking to go in the near future.
As such this is less of a teaching blog although there is an area of understanding from the word of God in Ephesians that I do have burning upon my heart to share, however in general this is more a' posting' of what we are about to do.

In Ephesians 4 Paul speaks of five distinct leadership gifts sometimes named the five fold ministry v7 "But to each one of us Grace was given according to the measure of Christs gift.

Therefore he says "When he ascended on high He led captivity captive And gave gifts to men"

v11 And he gave some to be apostles, some prophets some evangelists,and some pastors and teachers"



So the risen and exalted Christ has continued to apportion grace in the form of an ascension gift which when received calls equips and anoints men (and women) into one of these five ministry offices.

Now the church has often been confused in its conception of this, and there are indeed large segments of the body of Christ that insist that the first two categories of these ascension gifts have been struck off the list.

In part they believe this because they have been taught that eph 2 v20 states that the apostle and the prophets ministry was to lay the foundation of the church.

Thus they erroneously conclude that part of their task became all of their task and that once the foundations were laid their purpose was expended.

Other traditions of theological reasoning have taught that since the cannon of scripture was closed; meaning that the bible in its current form was finally accepted by the church as the unalterable and inspired word of God, there is no further need for apostles because many of them were used to write inspired scripture.

To me both of the above arguments are unconvincing and are at heart quite contrary to the clear meaning of the scripture.

Simply put the bible gives us no such leeway to chop off the list of eph 4 those gifts that we assume have fulfilled their purpose already, on the contrary I believe that all of these gifts are vital to the present and future maturity and equipping of the church.

Eph 4 v 12 continues to state the purpose for these ministry gifts "And he gave some", by saying that it is for "the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
That we should no longer be children carried about by every wind of doctrine and by the cunning craftiness of men by which they lie in wait to deceive.

But speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into Christ who is the head from which the whole body jointly knitted together by that which every joint supplies according to the effectual working by which every part does its share causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love."

This is a very concentrated statement but nowhere does it suggest that the fivefold ministry gifts have been suspended or withdrawn until the job of perfecting the saints has been complete(and this will only happen when the Lord returns for his church)

On the contrary to disbelieve in the validity of some of these gifts is to guarantee our perpetual immaturity and our tendency to be swayed by winds of teaching that do not cause us to grow up further into Christ.



On the practical side I believe that the church in this country is woefully negligent in its understanding of the role, validity and purpose of the ministry gifts and that ignorance is costly to us.

On the one side you have the conservative Evangelical world who for the most part deny the existence of contemporary apostles or prophets and say that the ministry today should revolve around the pastor who is the teacher and called to do the work of the evangelist.
Some however would acknowledge the distinct calling of an evangelist.

On the other side you have the charismatics many of whom believe passionately in the many membered ministry, but often imply that every gift and ministry is as necessary as the other and have so emphasised that every christian is called to the work of the ministry that they have often failed to distinguish and to discern that only some are called into one of the five fold offices.

On both sides the unbelief or the immaturity ensures that the place and provision of those operating in the ministry gifts often is overlooked or neglected in many churches.
This does not prevent the Lord from raising up those whom he has appointed to these offices and using them for his purposes but it does mean that many churches and individual churches are spiritually robbed of the blessings that could be theirs if they were more open hearted to believe.

One of the major stumbling blocks that we must remove in order to mature in our view of the ministry gifts is to remove the mystique that surrounds the calling to be a prophet or an apostle.

For many people to say in all good conscience "I am called to, or so and so is called to be a evangelist or a pastor," requires no explanation and elicits no controversy. However should those same people say that they or someone that they know is called to the office of a prophet their assertion is met with scepticism at best and scorn at worst.

In reality each one of these ministry gifts are less about the personalities or people who are the recipients of these callings rather they are about the ministry of the risen ascended Lord Jesus Christ who is fulfilling his ministry and working through these gifts to mature and to perfect the church.

To be a pastor means that the calling and the grace to occupy that office is manifesting in the life of the one called to occupy that office, which in turn quickens the ability in that person to minister the Grace of God in a particular way to Gods people.

In a similar fashion to be called to be a prophet means that the grace of God and the anointing of Jesus Christ is operating through and flowing through the person called to occupy that office.

It is usually accompanied with a manifestation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit especially in the areas of the word of knowledge and the discerning of spirits and the gift of prophecy.

None of these gifts are intended to have a sort of spiritual kudos attached to them but we should get to the place where we can discern those ministry gifts among us and receive them for who they are.

Jesus said that he that receives a prophet receives a prophets reward so it is clear that to harden our hearts towards one called to an office of ministry is to fail to receive the benefits and blessings of that gift.

In fact even if someone has a wonderful anointing their effectiveness can be severely impeded in any given situation by the failure of the people that they are ministering to to receive the gift of God that is working in them to minister to the saints.

Why is there this rampant unbelief in so much of the church today?
What ever the reasons it has impeded our growth, however it is also encouraging to see how much more understanding the body of Christ has gained in this area in the last thirty years.

I believe that in this next generation all of the ministry gifts are to going to operate in tandem together to a higher level than we have seen since the early church.
Infact it is my settled conviction that we will go beyond the early church not in terms of revelation which is already set in the scripture for us, but in terms of the scope and reach and fruitfulness and effectiveness of the anointing of God and the manifestation of His Glory in these last days.
And the purpose?
To preach this gospel to the ends of the earth and then the end shall come.

As an illustration in church history which highlights to me this movement away from seeing the ministry gifts for what they are during the Scottish reformation there were certain individuals who clearly operated as apostles or prophets. One of these men was a man by the name of Alexander Peden who demonstrated a powerful prophetic ministry.
Whilst this period of history would not have been noted for accepting the restoration of the ministry gifts in a wholesale way there was an open and frank acknowledgement of the way in which the Spirit of God moved through certain men in ways that gave them the unambiguous title of being called prophetic or apostolic.

For instance Robert Flemming who lived in the seventeenth century wrote a book called the fulfilling of scripture in which he included many first hand accounts of the miraculous events surrounding the lives and ministries of many of the key men in that Scottish reformation.

He unambiguously asserted that God had released an apostolic and prophetic Spirit upon the lives of many of his servants who were contemporary ministers of Flemming.



In 1755 John Howie wrote a book entitled Scots worthies in which writing of one of the key leaders of the reformation in Scotland George Wishart , Howie wrote that,
"He possessed the spirit of prophecy to an extraordinary degree"

However when this same book was republished over seventy years later the publisher could not bear to reprint such 'primitive beliefs' and changed the text without license to read that Wishart possessed "an extraordinary degree of sagacious foresight"

This is a single small example of the way in which there has been a veil of unbelief concerning the supernatural, except with relation to the new birth .

However it is my conviction that in these days in which we are privileged to be alive we are going to see the wraps coming off and the Glory of the Lord being displayed in extraordinary ways.

All that I have said above brings me to share where Jan and I are at this point and what we believe that our future holds.
Many of you who read this blog regularly have been stalwart supporters of Jan and I in your friendships and in your prayers for us, and still others of you in your financial generosity.
We do genuinely appreciate all of these displays of kindness and support and thank you for them.
Twenty two years ago I had a life changing encounter with Jesus Christ that turned me from the path that I was pursuing and the worldly success that I had envisioned for myself.
I did not then know then that I was called to preach, but I did have a burning desire to serve the Lord in any way and in capacity that he would lead me into.
As a point of interest that same year of 1988 was the time that Jan was also filled with the Holy Spirit and awakened to her calling.
When two years later God called me to preach, or empowered me to preach it was my desire to walk out this calling as faithfully as I can.
And it has been my desire in the subsequent years to continue to do so.
What has become evident to both Jan and I over the last few years is that we have been trying to fit into a mould that we could never fully obey God whilst remaining in, not just in terms of the constrictions that I have felt in that environment, but also in terms of trying to occupy a ministry office to which I am not called.
This decision is not a snap one but rather the culmination of many years of hearing God and of endeavouring to cultivate a more obedient ear to his heavenly calling.
In reality sometimes it is easy to get sidetracked by circumstances that seem expedient or by the desire to see a measure of financial security coming in so that the uncertainties and need for faith are diminished.
But we have known that our calling lay on a different path and that knowledge has lay at the root of much of our unhappiness over the last decade, not with standing many peoples kindness towards us.
I spoke recently on the phone to a minister friend of ours and said that in my view there are three tell tale signs of a person trying to pastor who has not been called to be a pastor.
Firstly there will always be in that man himself a great measure of restlessness.
Inwardly he will remain a frustrated man because in reality he cannot enter into his rest until he finds the place of ministry that the Lord has called him to.
Secondly he will always seem to be contending against a 'cap' over his church with regards to church growth.
Even if he is very gifted and able and anointed it will seem that the church just continues on the same level more or less of attendance but never experiences real significant growth.
This is partly because part of a true pastoral anointing is the God given ability to gather.
And lastly a person not called to the pastoral office will never see the fruitfulness in their ministry that they would if they were true to their anointing and stayed true to that.
So what do we believe that God is saying to us?
Well ultimately we believe that our calling and the next step for us is to go to Spain and to begin a work in Barcelona.
That is what we are praying towards, sowing towards, releasing our faith towards and working towards.
But in the mean time we believe that we need to actually begin the ministry that God has called us to, and to do so by making ourselves available now and taking every opportunity that God grants us to minister his word to his people.
That will we believe involve travelling and as such I am now beginning again to make it known to my contacts that I am available for ministry, trusting that the Lord will open doors of utterance to us ,especially to open new doors now into the more Spirit filled church scene.
My calling is to be a teacher and to minister with a prophetic anointing as God leads.
For years I have been to embarrassed to state this clearly and unambiguously, for fear of being misunderstood, but now I know that I must obey God rather than man.
That means that we look to the Lord as he develops this ministry to meet all of our needs, but our purpose now is to devote ourselves fully in terms of our time talent and energies to the discharging of this ministry that we believe that God has called us to.
I have applied for jobs over the last few months that I would have considered myself very qualified for and did not even get as far as an interview.
Recently as we took communion Jan and I prayed that if I did not get offered the job that I had most recently applied for which looked potentially good that we would take this as his indicator that we were to entirely trust him to embrace our calling to an itinerant ministry.
Subsequently we heard that I was not given an interview.
I am still applying for jobs to supplement our income but it does seem to us that thus far the Lord has not opened up or blessed these endeavours which has only served to focus us more concertedly upon the ministry that we believe that we are called to.

The issue of our trusting God now to step out fully into this ministry calls into question whether we will need to combine this initially with some secular work or to entrust ourselves to live by the ministry alone, and that will become evident by the extent to which the ministry develops over these next few months.

I know that as we begin to launch out in the freedom to minister the way that God has anointed me that the fruitfulness will be considerably greater and we will be far happier.

I believe that as we say a big yes in our hearts to fulfilling this itinerant role of teaching and encouraging Gods people the Lord will manifest the open doors of ministry to us and will pave the way for us to get to Spain.
For in reality we know that Barcelona is to be our future base and that we will continue to consider ourselves as travelling ministers of the gospel, both in Spain and abroad.
For those who have stood so faithfully with us over the past few years we thank you and encourage you to pray for us as we pray for you daily, that the Lord will anoint us and use us in these days to testify of the gospel of his Grace.

As a postscript I have just published our ministry website which is extremely basic and still being finished.
However it is a point of contact with the wider public out there to introduce them to who we are.
The web adress is malachi4heartsofthefathers.weebly.com.