Prophetic Ministry
Rightly Related To The Body Of Christ,
2nd Edition

Team Ministry Concepts

One of the necessities for the Church, if it is to fulfill the mandate God has given that we be "one body", is to come into a better understanding and practice of team ministry. these principles apply to leader and saint alike. It is of vital importance to the building of the church that leaders recognize their need for corporateness and team ministry. The concept of "team" ministry can be found in as fundamental of a place as the Godhead Itself. God Himself functions as a team: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Team is a very integral part of God's nature. To be a team player, however, presses us into a whole new dimension of character issues such as loyalty, humility and deference, while dealing with our issues of jealousy, competition, insecurity and need to be prominent.

As a football player in high school I (Jim) learned how important it is for each part to fulfill his part for the good of the team. As a "tight end" I would sometimes serve the team as a lineman, while other times going out for a pass. Sometimes I would be in the limelight as the guy who would catch the pass and run for the yardage, while other times my "part" was to knock out the guy in front of me so that our guy with the ball could go for the yardage. If our team made progress, I was successful, if our team did not, I was not.

God desires to bring into the Body of Christ a level of unity and team ministry that is significantly lacking right now. But change is almost always resisted, even if it is change for the better. Change takes us out of our comfort zone into the unfamiliar. Most people will strive to stay in the familiar, even if it is "bad" familiar just because it is familiar.

In a chapter called "The Kingdom Net" from his excellent book, "Apostles and the Emerging Apostolic Movement", Dr. David Cannistraci builds on the concept found in Ephesians 4:16, "from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love."

He states that the trend away from denominationalism is giving way to things instead such as alliances and networks. Networks and alliances work from the basis of relationship rather than organizational structure. The Body of Christ is "joined together and united" through relationship. The key and operative word here is relationship. He states: "True apostles are people who are willing to merge their gifts with the gifts of others in the Body of Christ to properly establish the Kingdom. Apostles and prophets have a unique blending of gifts and often work together in this regard."

However, the historic trend has always been that the most recent previous restoration "movement" is the one who is tested the most when the next thing comes from God. I have been very intrigued to watch that trend, which Dr. Bill Hamon describes very adeptly in his book "Prophets And The Prophetic Movement," that throughout history each restorational movement seems to be most adamantly resisted by the most recent prior movement. He showed it over and over again all the way to the current century. If the trend continues, the implications are that many of the prophets who have emerged and found recognition during the previous 10+ years of the "prophetic movement" are in danger of being the very ones who most strongly resist the "apostolic movement".

There are always some who make the transition into the next thing, and others who stumble for some reason or other, and don't make the turn. Some make the transition into the next thing, and others resist and harden their position unwilling to embrace change.

We have seen the rise of the prophets over the last two decades of this century. Praise God for that! What we saw during that time as well, were some teaching ministries and pastoral ministries of the 70's and 80's that had a hard time embracing the prophetic in the 90's. Not surprising, since every restoration movement presents things that require adjustment for the rest of the church. But the prophets were established, with all the "fringes" and "abuses" that any fresh movement has, but at least it's here.

The prophetic movement saw its ministers breaking free of "man made" restraints and issues pertaining to "fear of man". It took a courageous disregard for structures that were not of God, and a willingness to "buck the system", and go against the tide. That of course, can produce the proverbial pendulum swing to the opposite and equally negative extreme of independence and isolation if not brought into certain boundaries and limits. One of the boundaries God is putting into place is the emergence of proper government and accountability within the Body of Christ, and a greater understanding of the value of team ministry--one of the specific characteristics of the emerging apostolic movement. What God needs are leaders and saints who can embrace submission one to another and become co-laborers so that together they will be foundational to the church God wants to build.

Team ministry will always produce a greater capacity for progress. The Lord gave me the word "synergism," defined as "the interaction of elements that, when combined, produce a total effect that is greater than the sum of the individual elements, contributions, etc." Many of the kinds of things that God winked at in the past are now being challenged. Very specifically, He is challenging independence and lack of relationship. This is because relationships are so very essential to God's end time purposes.

God needs are prophets who are courageous enough to stand alone when need be, but also wise and humble enough to recognize their need of corporateness; prophets who can embrace submission to authority and become co-laborers with apostles so that together they will be foundational to the Church God wants to build. In the 70's, independence was the virtue. But now the ability to be corporate is the valuable virtue. Some will make the turn; some will not.

The prophets who cannot or will not transition into team ministry are going to become the enemies of this emerging restorational movement. Prophets who will not receive the grace from God to become corporate will find themselves sliding into delusion and error. God designed us for relationship; for inter-dependence. Not an unhealthy dependence (born out of fear of man, people pleasing, and fear of rejection), nor independence (born out of pride and rebellion) but inter-dependence; the humility to recognize our need for one another. One of the tests for the prophets during this new season in God's restoration purposes will be the ability to remain teachable, accountable, and therefore, of greater usefulness for the larger good of the church.

Another test for the prophets is whether they can embrace a "builder" mentality that is a driving motive in the heart of the apostolic. Anyone can tear down. But God is wanting something built. Anyone can be an "accuser of the brethren", but God wants an "intercessor for the brethren." Many prophets like to embrace the first half of Jeremiah's call, "to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down." But many do not realize they also need to do the second half, "to build, and to plant". Jer.1:10

Removing Wrong Mindsets

There are some mindsets that have found root in some prophetic circles and that must change! One mindset is that anything with structure is bad. Another is that the traditional church as we know it should to be rejected and written off. Another is the implication that anything governmental is false. That would, of course, include by default "pastors", since the common word in our church culture for the person in "government" in the church is the "pastor." (In my opinion, some of these pastors are really apostles incognito). If we can, for just a moment, lay aside labels, we will see that the real issue is government. Prophets will have to co-operate with government if they want to be optimally useful in what is coming around the bend. Prophets need not reject and condemn government, they need to arise together with apostles and become government!

5-Fold Ministries and Government

It is important to realize there are many blends and overlaps in the definitions of these callings. For instance, Paul told Timothy, who was pastoring as an apostle, to do the work of an evangelist. The fact is, if each of the 5-fold ministries are doing their equipping responsibility, they are training each member into their particular grace gifting. In other words, an Ephesians 4:11 evangelist should be equipping the church (i.e. every member) to be evangelistic. The same follows with the prophet; they are to be activating the prophetic-"ness" of each member. Please note, not all are prophets, true, but each should have some prophetic-ness about them if they are to be Christ-like. Therefore, to be a full orbed Christian, we need influence and equipping from all 5 of the offices.

If this is true, every leader as well as every saint should have some of "each" in them. But individuals will obviously have a strong suite as a result of their particular 5-fold ministry calling. It would be wrong for me, for instance, to say "Well, I'm a prophet, therefore I can't or shouldn't or don't need to be evangelistic."

In reality, what we have are prophetically gifted apostles, apostolically oriented prophets, pastorally oriented apostles, evangelistic pastors, prophetic teachers, teaching prophets, etc etc, etc. So then, the prophet who has had exposure to the apostle's influence will have a "builder" burden; or the evangelist who has been open to the pastors burden will care about follow-up with the "fish" he caught., etc.

It is essential, however, to realize that God designed there to be a unique relationship and placement, between the apostle and prophet. The Church has the interesting description of being built upon the foundation of apostles and prophets together as the foundation. (Eph.2:20) A church without both foundational influences will be crippled and not all God intends for it to be. The apostle left alone will build wonderful but sterile structures. The prophet left alone will have everyone so envisioned and motivated that they burn out before they can build anything that has permanence to it. Or, in his zeal for the "pure & perfected church", the prophet will continue to pull down and rip apart anything that is less.

If we want to see the church become all God wants it to be, it will take a team to accomplish it.

It is obvious that God knew just what kind of tension and balance was needed in the building of the church. He told us that apostles and prophets TOGETHER form the foundation for His Church. When apostles and prophets find the grace to embrace each others distinctiveness and work together, you have a wonderful foundation upon which something of worth to the Kingdom of God can be built with Jesus, of course, the Cornerstone.

Note:

This teaching was composed, in part, of excerpts from Jim's book "The House of His Choosing... Is the House He is Building"; published by Destiny Image Publishers.