The Genius of APEPT

I mentioned this book in an earlier blog, but I swiped this summary straight from Jay Lorenzen and his possie.

What if Ephesians 4:1-16 was a model for the kind of leadership required to build movements?

Frost and Hirsch believe that Paul laid out in this passage a fivefold leadership matrix around the functions listed in verse 11: Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor and Teacher (or APEPT for short). They interpret Paul’s list as the very mechanism for achieving movement building as well as Christian maturity.

Here’s how they define these foundational leadership functions of APEPT. Are they present in your movement building environment?

• Apostolic function, usually conducted translocally, pioneers new missional works and oversees their development.
• Prophetic function discerns the spiritual realities in a given situation and communicates them in a timely and appropriate way to further the mission of God’s people.
• Evangelistic function communicate the gospel in such a way that people respond in faith and discipleship.
• Pastoral function shepherds the people of God by leading, nuturing, protecting and caring for them.
• Teaching function communicates the revealed wisdom of God so that the people of God learn how to obey all that Christ has commanded them.

PopWarner and Movement Realities

For the last few weeks I have been an assistant to the assistant coach for a PopWarner football team. It is hot, fun and hysterical - and the boys love it. As soon as they figured out how to hit, many of them became wild men.

One kid stands out. Calvin weighs about 75 lbs - shoes, pads and helmet (average weight for the team is around 90). He has good speed and pretty good instincts, but above all else he is tenacious.

Tuesday he was playing linebacker and giving up 20 pounds to the kid blocking him. We ran a little sweep and Calvin dodged the block and made a hit that made the faint of heart look away. It was a sight to behold.

We also have a kid named Baxter. Baxter is a talented kid who is a coach favorite (he is the coaches kid), but he lacks the fire in his gut. The same day Calvin made the big stick, Baxter was playing nose guard - after two plays he wanted to be free safety. He was tired of getting hit.

For me, the Calvin / Baxter dilemma is a principle in kingdom growth. It appears Jesus selected on tenacity, drive and a can do attitude. He honored men of potential big faith (lack of faith is what he chastised them for the most). Theology, Talent, Ability, Education, Speaking, Bible Knowledge, and Strategery (as well many other things) were secondary - or not even mentioned.

The gospel moving ahead is built upon God acting through the right people in the right place. Find the right people and we are well on our way to incredible results. Training (although good and needed) can never compensate for finding the right people - simply put, the right person finds the training they need.

Development plays a role, but finding/surfacing plays an even bigger role. Of course, we are not going to find people in perfect condition (I am surely not there!), but men and women with a desire to change the world can be developed in extraordinary ways. They are movable and moldable and that makes all the difference.

This is why Jesus selected 12 out of many. He brought them aside and said, "Gentleman, lets change the world." And they did.

It Can Be Done - John Waidley

Today's guest blogger is John Waidley. John and Faye lead with Campus Crusade for Christ in the Pacific Southwest. John is the Catalytic Regional Director.
He sent me this email on August 2, 2005 regarding the Epic Project in Hawaii. Epic is the Asian American student ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.

Aloha,
Tomorrow I take the 30 epic project students to the airport and they go home a lot different people than they were 6 weeks ago.

Last night the students held a final banquet for the project. I can honestly say it was was of the coolest things I have ever been to on staff...I wish you could have been there. We had about 60 people in attendance...the other 30 people were students from the new Epic campus ministries that have been planted on Oahu! The reality is we have three solid new ministry plants...we had prayed and worked toward four but while we had students from the fourth campus at the banquet and the fact that the spiritual gatekeeper on this campus is behind us, I still cannot call it a legit plant.

I sat at a table that had faculty advisers (translated old people and those who signed on to legitimize each ministry on campus). One of the advisers said to me, "Over ten years ago I attended Hcc as a student...I really asked the Lord to start a ministry among my classmates so we would see Him change the campus...while we had a bible study it never really turned into much...when your students showed up with there great heart and vision I knew the Lord was answering the cry of my heart from years ago!"

Another advisor and print shop owner designed and printed 4 "epic Hawaii" signs to be used by all four ministries in Honolulu...they were sweet!

From the beginning all three project leaders believed this project had to have two strong elements for the students sake as well as Hawaii and Epic in general. That it would be highly evangelistic and we would attempt to open 4 ministries on four campuses in 6 weeks during the summer using cultural outsiders. God was sooo good.

For the uninformed this project was totally Epic and totally catalytic. The staff and students were trained on the basics of catalytic...prayer-walking, decoding, finding a person of peace, identifying a leader, utilizing the God squad...as well as sharing the 4sl and follow-up. Evangelism was our lead foot on campus, in Waikiki and we did some mercy ministry with street people. Search for Significance was our small group text...the girls liked it more than the guys. Ethnic identity issues were addressed about 6 different times but the faith issues were all wrapped up in ethinic identity issues and the students discerned that.

Here are some of the conclusions we came to yesterday with the student leaders.

1. Keep this project pioneering and evangelistic...this was stressed so strongly print doesn't do it justice. For sure a lot of issues needed to be overcome related to initiative but they were thrilled with the results. One student said to me 'my epic group at home is so much about 'in reach' it feels great to actually be doing 'outreach' and not just talking about it". Keep it pioneering...I told the students Hawaii will run out of campuses in a couple years and we might have to move it to a major city...they said "do it!"
2. The project should be a week or two longer and give the staff a few more days with the students.
3. The project needs consistent staff leadership with the vision as well as more returning students.
4. Prayer and hard work work well together!
5. Keep it Asian...another reality is for the time being this needs to be a "B" project.

In light of the great victory and overcoming of this summer I share concerns of the students...it is simply this; when they return to the body they have come from they wonder if they will be able to convince anyone that pioneering and evangelism are on Gods heart in a way that will change anything. Reality is they have experienced something that many of peers are afraid of or don't want to be involved in. Please pray for the student re-entry tomorrow as many have the vision for new kind of epic movement but wonder if they will have the strength to go it alone.

I challenged three students specifically to staff...the graduating seniors to internships with epic and the rest to return to the project next summer bringing 5 friends with them.

At lunch yesterday on of the leaders asked me 'john, do you know of any summer projects in the US that have pioneering three new ministries? I said 'I am not aware of any.' He said 'It's pretty cool that Asian American students can lead the county on this!' ...I totally agree...
thanks for your prayers...the ground was totally prepared.

Way to lead John and Faye (and the rest of the staff) - and thanks for the update.

Evangelism, Movements, Prayer

Three simple things.
Evangelism is a must.
Movements do Evangelism (or they ain't movements).
Prayer is essential for effective evangelism.

To do what God is calling us to do - we must always be moving toward winning the lost. If we win the lost, everything (and I mean EVERYTHING!) gets solved. Everything is connected to winning the lost. When many people are won to Christ, we quickly have all the gifting we ever need to do whatever else needs to be done.

We cannot do movements outside of evangelism or prayer. We are not just doing evangelism and prayer without building movements to sustain our work.

We must exercise radical faith to get Jesus to as many as possible by the best means possible.

Not Mutually Exclusive

Often times I catch myself building a dichotomy between apostolic ministry and movement building. Or in our vernacular, SC and CAT. Scope and Depth. Reach and Send. Lost and Laborers. However you want to slice it, it is easy for us (ok at least me) to bully the one in light of the other. The straw man comes in handy at this point.

So first, a bit of groundwork on apostolic lingo:

• Apostolic simply means sent one. This is the basic definition of an apostle. The Greek word apostolos (throw in the Greek to impress the ladies), means a delegate, an ambassador of the gospel, officially a commissioner of Christ, messenger, he that is sent. We sometimes call this a pioneer missionary (which is not a term you find in scripture).
• The GC is a an apostolic endeavor. Jesus was sent, the Spirit was sent and we are all sent. It is fundamental to the faith.
• The apostolic makes the assumption that God has gone ahead. Moving quickly and watching God work is essential. The apostolic mode depends on God for the lead rather than determining that a ministry must exist in a certain location among a certain group.
• Nothing we do in movement building contradicts moving in the apostolic. Movement building is actually the second phase of apostolic turf taking. (in my opinion, and since I made these into bullet points, it must be true).
• The problem is not the movement building principles, but that these principles are not being applied in enough places.
  

The reality is that we need great movement building principles among those who are sent. And we need sent ones to go to places where the gospel is not (including pockets in places we have been for years). Tried and true principles of building a movement must be applied in enough places by enough leaders so that as many students hear as possible.

Couple this with the reality that these principles can actually be employed by young staff, interns, faculty members and yea even freshman (if God so chooses) and we have the making of some Godly chaos.

So do we punt the freshman strategy that has worked so well for so many years? May it never be! May it be that we figure out some way to run that bad boy on another 1500 campuses in ways that are not nearly as staff intensive as what we may have done in the past. May it be that some wise soul figures out how to run it for all the Latinos showing up at Texas A&M, or all the African Americans at UCLA. The principles are awesome, but we have to get someone (apostolic like) to the location to find the people who can run the movement building strategies we have worked so hard to develop.

For more on apostolic functioning, check out John Eckhardt's book Moving in the Apostolic. (bullet point #1 is taken from page 25).

Backyard Filosofiyin

Today I was out in my yard trying to repair my electric "shock the dog" fence. I busted it just before summer travels and now I must find the break. Don't ask how - I even invented a few new words in the process.

As I am struggling to get some traction on this key project of grand eternal significance, my neighbor wanders over. He is a nice guy and a good neighbor, but as a man who has seen 70+ years of life, he has an intractable opinion on just about everything - including my "FidoFrier" fence.

But today it was about organization capacity and leadership. He said, "I have been thinking about you and your organization." (mind you, Tom is not a believer and does not want to be one any time soon- at least at this point - but my kids are praying for him). So he says, "I have been thinking, what do you do to give the young generation of leaders the ability to lead."

His thinking had to do with what we do with all the "ground soldiers" we raise up. By "ground soldier" he meant the students we indoctrinated with our foolish message of love, hope and eternal life. His thought was that, at the rate we attract students, we would soon be out of things for them to do. Or worse yet, they would find the older guys (read me) in the way and go on to do other things.

This is indeed concerning. As we age as an organization, we lose something. Where are the days we the young buck 25 year olds had a shot at the CD job? They might have been a bit young, but they sure didn't know it. They jumped at the chance to lead.

Some would say, 'Well, this generation is different, they are not like that and they are not ready." I say they are and that we must give them a shot! What do we have to lose? Can you really screw up the Great Commission by being to young?

Now, if we don't have these types around, then we really have reason for concern. Where does a young Crawford Lorritz, Dennis Rainey, or Eric Swanson go in our organization today. Do they sit on the bench until some regional or national guru picks them to lead some minor effort when they are 30? The kind of people we need are not going to wait around that long. In fact, if they did not get to jump in as students, they are long gone before they ever join us!

Sixty years ago last week, "Little Boy" was loaded in a B-29 Superfortress bomber headed for Hiroshima. This was no small endeavor. The B-29 was the single most complicated and expensive weapon produced by the United States during World War II, and the Manhattan project that produced the bomb was the most extensive research and development project for any single weapon. On August 5, 1945 they loaded the bomb and painted "Enola Gay" on the plane in honor of the mission commanders mother. The commander was a guy named Paul Tibbets. His job?

In September 1944, Paul was briefed on the Manhattan Project, It was to be his responsibility to organize and train a unit to deliver these weapons in combat operations. He would also determine and supervise the modifications necessary to make the B-29 capable of delivering the weapons, and for this, the unit had to be self-sufficient. Secrecy was paramount. The unit would support Los Alamos with flight test airplanes to establish ballistics and detonator reliability to explode the bombs. Paul was told, "You are on your own. No one knows what to tell you. Use normal channels to the extent possible. If you are denied something you need, restate your need is for "SILVERPLATE" (a codename) and your request will be honored without question."

In March 1945 the First Ordnance Squadron, a unit designed to carry out the technical phases of the group responsibilities, became part of the 509th. The personnel count now exceeded 1500 enlisted men and some 200 officers. Then, quietly, the group started moving overseas to Tinian Island in the Marianas chain. On the afternoon of August 5th, 1945, President Truman gave his approval to use the weapons against Japan. At 02:45 A.M. August 6th, the Enola Gay lifted off North Field with Paul Tibbets and his crew en route to Hiroshima. At exactly 09:15 plus 15 seconds the world's first atomic bomb exploded. The course of history and the nature of warfare was changed.

Paul Tibbets completed this mission when he was 29 years old.

Spiritual Aggression

It is a curious thing to me that Christianity seems to always work best on the offensive. Culture is not neutral and to attempt to maintain is to lose ground. However, as the gospel goes forth, it transforms (or better to say it accentuates the good) of any culture. The basic essence of the gospel makes a difference.

This is why we are healthiest on the attack. By attack I do not mean in antagonistic fashion with culture (evangelical mistake in the culture war), but an aggression with the goodness of the gospel that changes the very perspective of God in any given setting. Doing good in the name of God so that God's named is glorified among the godless even while the godless are coming to know him.

On a campus setting, we do not have the ability to build and maintain (Thank God). We must move into the darkness of the campus culture and win those who will carry the glory of God into the next generation. If we do not, we will be frustrated in our anemic state and God will raise up something else to get the job done.

Enough doom and gloom. Lets take the world.

5 Word Direction

This morning I had a great conversation with Ken, a wonderful Godly leader. He dropped more spiritual nuggets on me than I have time to share here, but one that really stood out in regards to movements. He shared that back in his Campus Director days (he now leads the campus ministry for a country), he would simply begin their year by explaining to students the purpose of the group in 5 simple words. Three are obvious, the other two are glue.

• Win
• Build
• Send
• Movement
• World

The summary seems simple, and yet by defining what we do and where we go, you gain a potency from the early stages of involvement. It is known that this is a group that exists to reach lost people, to establish them in their faith, to send them to reach others and to continue the process so that the whole world knows. Worship will happen, Praise will happen, Bible studies will happen, Teaching will happen, but they will all exists to accomplish what God has called us to, not as an end in and of themselves.

It is hard to do "movement" if you are trying to be the prettiest show in town. Simplicity and rock solid direction are great assets. Many students may not buy into this, but many of the right kind of leaders will, and they will radically change the campus they are on (see John 6:22 and beyond)

However, like many things, this is much easier on paper. The campus is a complex beast, but we should never shirk away from challenging students to what may seem impossible. This is the only way to find those who are convinced that God is in the business of changing the world.

20 Students

Tonight I logged some time with my good friend John Boudreaux (doing the deed at LSU). We (ok maybe I did too much of the talking) were dreaming about how you could leverage our afternoon exercise at CSU on a local level. Here's a shot.

1. Bring in all the staff, and top 20 student leaders (if you don't have 20, as many as you can get). (Important Safety Tip: These students need to be missional, not simply righteous - there must be a sign of life and a passion to see their school changed with the gospel).
2. Ask the question - Two years from now there is 10% of the student body involved in spiritual things. How did we do it?
3. Let each person contemplate for 5-10 minutes.
4. Group them together in 4s and have them consolidate the plan.
5. Present the plans (no comments, just presentations in short blurbs).
6. Consolidate the whole. Bring out the best emergent ideas and consolidate similar ideas.
7. For each piece of the plan, have students / staff volunteer for what they want to implement. As each person votes with their feet, you are actually building your strategic plan.
8. Do it.
   
   Ok, it might not be this crisp, but talk about getting students involved. They just wrote your job description. What if you did this with the top 100 students!

Goose Dead, Eggs Not So Golden

Today I was part of a pretty killer exercise. About 1/3 of the US Campus Ministry was in Moby (at CSU) and together we engaged in a process directed at launching 2000 movements in 2 years (results)

It was a pretty good time with some good ideas generated. However, I want to touch on something that was said that I believe to be impossible.

Sometimes when we talk of expanding, people get all wigged out and think we will "kill the goose that lays the golden egg." Presumably meaning that we will grow to fast and spread too thin and then die. In my humble opinion (yea right), this is impossible. It is contrary to how the gospel functions. It is contrary to the DNA of the gospel. It simply cannot be done - and I am pretty sure that it has never occurred in history. No group has been so radical about spreading themselves to every tongue, tribe and nation, that they ceased to exist. This is not what slowed down the Methodist, the YMCA or even the Student Volunteer Movement.

There are a lot of ways to kill the goose, but expanding and moving forward is not one of them. In fact, this is the sure fire way of keeping the goose very healthy, lean and fit for the future. Such a goose will crank out many a golden egg.

A Whole New Way

Some good stuff from a respected leader. Read and think grasshoppper.

"I think the reality is that we really do need to be asking people to look at doing ministry in a whole new way. To be sure, some are already approaching ministry with apostolic means...finding leaders who will own the mission and coaching them to effectiveness, but the majority of our ministry is still too staff-intensive at a grass roots level. That's what blows my mind about the whole church growth phenomenon world-wide. Growth is occurring in the lives of new believers and the entire movement without the influence of paid professionals at the grass roots level. And, management of those churches and movements is viewed completely differently because it's not programmatic in nature. It's organic. It's movement. No one is worried about all the intricacies of running programs. It's about life-change.

All of this leads to the danger of telling people that what we are talking about is basically what they've already been doing all along (but, just a little more). As long as these ideas about movements are basically viewed as adding more to their already complex ministry, then it's not very attractive. It's just too risky and tiring to try to do more. No, the paradigm needs to be radical enough and different enough that it busts open the window to do a whole lot more, but in a completely energizing and exciting and attractive way. If we hang onto ministry as we've know it with our suppositions that students can only grow if staff are involved, and that we've got to have a whole lot of management of things like weekly meetings going on, and that the students of our culture are just so messed-up that it's going to take a long, long, long time for them to be fruitful gospel people, and all of our current trappings, then we're really stuck. We're really pretty much all done. Draw a line in the sand and say, "This is good. Let's just be content with where we are."

I'm not saying we need to tell staff that they're bad people that everything they've been doing is wrong. Not at all! But we do need to paint a compelling picture of the future! I fear that if we do not, then God will raise up someone else to do it. We will continue in a nice successful ministry, but we will miss the opportunity to touch the future.

The children of Israel slogged along for many years really only partially taking the promised land. Sure, they were home, but the reality is that it wasn't very safe, or fun. They were constantly being attacked by all kinds of enemies still living in the land. Varying judges arose to spark regionalized victories, but everything was still very tenuous. Like Gideon, they were content to thresh a little wheat in the cellar for fear the Philistines would see them and take it. Even Gideon's victory was only short-lived and localized. But then, God raised-up a leader from being a shepherd (meaning being: least attractive job on the totem pole) from an inconsequential town and he spent his entire life (well, except for the parts where Saul was trying to kill him) leading the people to secure the whole land and God's glory in their midst. It was a bloody, ruthless sort of existence. It was a life of constant battle. Not at all a pretty, serene sort of picture. I imagine the epic movie David...more battles and blood than Lord of the Rings, but all of it real. David finished the job, and his son, Shaloam-man (Soloman) led in a period of unbelievable peace and prosperity.

In many ways it feels as if we are living in the time of those judges and we need to spark a new vision to secure the whole land. Samuel was sad to see the days of the judges come to an end. But it was time for change. It was time to secure the land. It was time to take the future! It was time to bring peace to the whole land! And David did it.

Okay, I'll quit waxing. I think you get the idea."

Another Churchy Thought

Most churches have members that have been there more than 4 years. We do not. We have to continually siphon through the collegiate masses to find leaders to reach the campus. If we do not, we become a stagnant and youth groupy and fail to continually reach the whole - and fail to surface the kind of leadership we need for our future and that the kingdom needs on the whole. That's all I have to say about that.

Church Envy

The other day I asked a pastor friend of mine how he would lead if, every year, he lost 15% of his leadership base and the most mature member in leadership was 23 years old. He looked at me like I was wack.

As I have asked many pastors similar questions I get responses from "cant be done" to "why would you lead something like that." I have also heard "you would really have to concentrate on leaders" and "everything would have to focus on the hunt for new leadership." Exactly.

This is one of the reasons why we must avoid thinking like a traditional church. The very nature of our business is incredibly missional and apostolic. By that I mean that we are continually having to take turf year after year.

Even just to maintain, we have we must take new ground. Even though we are not moving geographically the ground is always moving underneath us. Not to mention the gaps on campus that already exist. We are also the kind of group that talks in terms of EVERY. Every student, every freshman, every campus, every culture. This is the language of an expanding missional organization. By our very nature, we must take turf. If we dont, we die.

This is why 'church envy' is very dangerous for us. We cannot function and act like a local church. We should not even try. We cannot simply teach well and maintain. I love the local church, but within their context the church has the ability to grow and maintain, and then possibly add to that growth. We cannot do that. We must aggressively take the land year after year after year - an in doing so we continually develop leadership for the kingdom. In this way we function as the leadership engine God has called us to be.

We are Joshua not Solomon. We are Paul not James.

5000?

Why 5000 movements? That is what we figure it is going to take to get the gospel relationally close to every student on our currently targeted locations. Over the next few years we need to rapidly increase our ability to launch and coach movements in all kinds of settings and flavors. We will need to see the Lord show up as we move forward with intentionality into uncharted waters. This will be our grand task if we are truly thinking of "everyone knowing someone who knows Jesus."

Shaping of Things to Come

Over the last few weeks I have been reading The Shaping of Things to Come by Michael Frost, Alan Hirsch. A fascinating read - especially in regard to the advancement of the gospel to infect culture. What I love about this book is the missional flare. More on this later.