2012 | Release the A.P.E.

Two Ways Urbana Has Blown My Mind

2 responses
December 30, 2012

It has been an amazing time at Urbana! Over 16,000 delegates have gathered and God has been inspiring us to reach this world! Here are two of my favorite things that have happened so far!

David Platt Brings Conviction

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This was one of the best talks I have heard in a long time. One that I want to go back to and listen to again. It was so convicting and it really helped me re-callibrate with Jesus. He preaches out of an often avoided text in Luke and he really called the American Church out for its low risk, high comfortability ways. (Platt starts at 53:50)

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Are You Going to Urbana? Let’s Meet Up!

3 responses
December 26, 2012

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Let’s Meet Up @ Urbana!!!

Urbana is kicking off tomorrow and many of us are really excited about it. It is the largest Missions Conference held in North America and we are expecting 18,000 people to show up! It is going to be an awesome time getting re-calibrated to the heart of God for the world.

While we are there we might as well have a meet up!

For those of us that love talking about apostolic, prophetic, and evangelistic things this could be a great time to get together and process what God is doing in our midst and how we can move forward with him.

Plus, if you are a reader or regular contributor to this blog, this could be a fun time for us like minded people to just kick back and have some fun together. Make the 18,000 person conference a little smaller.

Three Reason you should make the effort

It’s the first Release the A.P.E. gathering ever!
Many of us have never met each other
You can have a space to talk with like minded people!

A friend has kindly opened up his suite to us in Ramada Inn, so lets meet there Friday at 10:30pm-12:00am. I don’t know the room yet so Tweet Me or FB message me Thursday or Friday. Or you can sign up to be on our email list and i will email you and update!

I know it is late, but it’s Urbana! Feel free to come and hang as much or little as you wish. It will be casual!

When: Friday December 28th

Time: 10:30pm – 12:00am

Where: Ramada Inn (Room # TBA)

Ramada St Louis

811 N 9th Street.

St Louis, MO, 63101. 800-992-2694.

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*remember to tweet me or FB message me for room # or you can check back here and I will update once at the conference!)

If you are not going to Urbana, you can follow the conference live here.

Do You Hear The People Sing?…My Reflections on Les Miserables

4 responses
December 25, 2012

FRANCE - CIRCA 2003: A stamp printed in France shows Vidocq, circa 2003 [this is part of the series “A.P.E. in the Movies” read the other post here]

Tonight I saw the premiere of “Les Miserables” and it was fantastic. I had never seen the musical or read the book so I was anxious to see it.

Here are two things about A.P.E. leadership that I walked away from the movie with and a song for you to listen to at the end.

A.P.E. Leaders are Called to Be Revolutionaries

The movie is cast in the time of the Revolutionary France and you actually get to see the beginning of a revolution come about in the movie. The Revolution starts with a small band of men and women who decide to step out and catalyze the revolt! Men and women full of courage, conviction and vision of what could be!

They built a barricade and stood strong…even giving their life to see freedom come. This small band of people in the movie were truly catalysts for this revolution.

I couldn’t help but think about A.P.E leaders as revolutionaries in God’s Kingdom and the fight we daily fight to push back the Kingdom of Satan. It is Apostolic leaders who take new ground, Prophetic leaders who call for change and Evangelists who win people to the cause and grow the revolution. A.P.E.s are the catalysts. And our job is to take stands at different times so change can happen!

And when I watched the men and woman sing the song, “Do You Hear The People Sing?” in the movie, I couldn’t help but think of A.P.E. Leaders singing this song with a slight lyric change. It really moved me.

Free Book Give Away: On The Verge

10 responses
December 20, 2012

We have had some great book giveaways so far and I am excited to do it again! I can’t say enough about the writers and the publishers who have generously given us books to give to you all! They definitely want some more A.P.E. Leaders released!

So let’s do it again!

This week we are giving away “On The Verge” by Alan HIrsch and Dave Ferguson.

5 COPIES!!!!

Where Has God Planted You?

no responses
December 18, 2012

[This post is part of the Start Something New series. Read the other posts here!]

One of the first steps in starting something new is identifying the places and people groups you most often intersect with, and praying for God to show you where the “windows of opportunity” are. One of the quickest and most potent ways to do this is to write your name in the middle of a blank piece of paper, and then draw several circles around your name, each with a place or people group that you are relationally connected to. Next, you can write the names of individual people around each place so that you begin to see your relational networks.

The Nature and Role of an Apostle

no responses
December 17, 2012

You can’t make footprints in the sands of time with your butt, and who wants to make butt prints in the sands of time?” – Unknown [A slogan for Apostles]

As we start to see a restoration of the five equippers in Ephesians 4 come to reality in the missional church, including the APE’s, and as we re-imagine how to approach leadership, certain questions arise. What does an Apostle do? What is their role? How are we to understand the nature of an Apostle?

To understand the role of an apostle it is first helpful to understand the nature of the missional church. Jurgen Moltmann gives us some help here, in that he enables us to recognize that the starting point for mission is not the church, but God himself. Mission is grounded in the very being of God. He says,

“It is not the church that has a mission of salvation to fulfill in the world; it is the mission of the Son and the Spirit through the Father that includes the church.”

In other words, there is mission because God is a missionary God.

You Know Your Scripture, But Can You Plant a Church?

9 responses
December 13, 2012

This is a guest post by Peyton Jones. Jones is the founding Coach of New Breed Church Planting UK/USA and is currently planting an urban church for Refuge HB in Long Beach, CA in addition to coaching multiple planting teams. Peyton is also the author of upcoming book Church Zero about A.P.E.S.T. ministries (Publisher: David C. Cook. Release date: April 1st, 2013). You can follow him on twitter here

When a young guy expresses that he wants to go into ministry, it’s usually assumed that he’s gunning for a pulpit ministry. He’s told that he’ll need to buckle down for a lengthy term at seminary and a hefty bill to pay the price. On the day he graduates, he somehow doesn’t feel any more qualified to minister to people than when he went in. He’s had his nose buried in texts, but like Spurgeon once said,

“He’s at home among the books, but at sea when it comes to men”.

Many seminary grads who once dreamed of “tearing it up” for Jesus come to the realization that at the end of their seminary term they have no idea how to do what Paul did in the book of Acts. They can alliterate points, protect Christian orthodoxy, yet they are unable to do the most important thing that Paul did…plant a church.

Paul was not a Pastor. Sure, he did pastoral things, but Paul was a front-line church planting missionary. The New Testament model of ministry is about EXPANDING outwards, wherein most of our churches today are about building upwards…getting a bigger widescreen; a better website; a larger parking lot; more comfortable sanctuary seats…and don’t forget multiple services!

So if Paul wasn’t a Pastor, what exactly was he? The Greek term apostolos means “sent one” or missionary. In other words, he was a man on the move. Like a gospel Navy Seal, Paul would infiltrate a culture, and with deadly efficiency, complete his objective, nail his target, and “whoosh!”, he was gone. On to the next one! The glass slipper of a mega church would never have fit the apostles travel worn soles. Paul would rather plant churches “where Christ has not been named” than to stay in on spot.

Taking students on a sex-traffic treasure hunt…

3 responses
December 12, 2012

What if success for your church or ministry was measured by the impact that you were having on the furthest corners of your city? What if instead of impact within your ministry, success was measured by how the world around you had changed?

One of our good friends has been on a roller-coaster journey with Jesus over the last year and her story is a powerful testimony of a vision for impact beyond a building.

Amy Becker leads a student ministry at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, and about a year ago she felt God beginning to invite her to have a bigger vision. Jeremiah 29 was a passage that held a lot of guidance for her.

Sow Seed & Sow it Liberally!

2 responses
December 11, 2012

²⁶He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. ²⁷Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. ²⁸All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. ²⁹As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” – Mark 4

When I was a junior in college I was a young and bold and passionate about the gospel and others knowing it. I was a Resident Assistant on a floor of 30+ guys and I saw it as my calling to evangelize the whole floor.

Have a Cranky Leader? Use Aikido!

one response
December 10, 2012

This is a guest post by Kate Vosburg. She has been on IV staff for almost 15 years, on 6 different campuses. She loves serving alongside her husband, Dave, who is a professor on the campus where she serves. With him as a faculty, on the inside of campus, there have been some amazing opportunities to share the gospel. Kate is an evangelist who loves to be on the front-lines with her students, finding ways into unreached communities and sharing the Gospel. Dave and Kate have 3 kids (Nate 6, Isabella 4, Diego 4) who keep Kate on her toes and laughing at their creative, crazy antics. On a personal note, Kate was the very first InterVarsity Staff worker I (Beau) met with after becoming a Christian in college! I look up to her so much.

Ever felt like your ministry has been attacked—by someone on the inside? That cranky person who seems to just complain and complain about some situation? Maybe you realized the situation and didn’t know what to do about it? Maybe you were blind-sided by the person’s complaint?

How do you respond to cranky, complaining people?