January, 2013 | Release the A.P.E.

Multiethnic Ministry That’s Apostolic

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January 31, 2013

An apostolic vision of multi ethnicity is about reaching every corner of a campus or city.

[This is part of the series “Multi-Ethnicity in the Missional Church”. Read the other posts here]

By Eric Rafferty

When multiethnic ministry is an expression of our apostolic calling it becomes something more than another value to care about. It is the benchmark of mission; the people of God sent to every culture. Apostolic multiethnicity is more than getting different colored people in a room together; it’s a diverse community of disciples being sent to every corner.

Lead From The Front

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January 30, 2013

Jon Ferguson leading a baptism service in Chicago

By Dave Ferguson

Apostolic leaders lead from the front! The apostle Paul led from the front. That’s why he could say,

“I urge you to imitate me. For this reason I am sending to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church” (1 Cor. 4:16 – 17).

He felt confident enough in the mission that if others would just follow his lead, the mission would be accomplished. In fact, Paul felt confident enough that he was sending Timothy to lead them, because he knew that he had apprenticed Timothy and that if they just imitated Timothy’s life, they could accomplish the mission.

Major Problem: Making Mission A Program In Your Church

3 responses
January 29, 2013

[This post is part of the A.P.E. Theology series. Read the rest of the posts here!]

missio Dei 2 One of the key theological foundations in the missional conversation involves the concept of the missio Dei, or “mission of God.” It is God who has a mission to set things right in a broken world—to redeem and restore it to what was always intended.

Therefore, mission is not a program of the church. It is not something we invent. Mission is not something we initiate. Instead mission flows directly from the nature and purposes of a missionary God. It is not that the church has a mission; it is that God’s mission has a church. In other words, it is God’s mission, and the church is an instrument created by God to be sent into the world to join in his mission. This is a complete “game-changer” in several ways, but for now lets consider one.

How Do I Gather An Apostolic Core Group?

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January 28, 2013

Greeks at USC studying scripture for the groups they will lead!

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

By Beau Crosetto

Over the last few months, since the start of this blog, I have had a couple of people reach out to me with these specific questions,

“How do I gather apostolic people on campus?

“Beau, how do you get your core team to actually start new things? I have gathered people, but what do you do to get them moving?

In some ways these are two different questions, as one asks how I gather, while the other asks how I take a gathered group and move them to action. But I think at the root they are similar in that these people want to know how do you get an apostolic, or action based core team that actually takes risks and steps out to start new things?

Here are a couple of things that I practically do with core teams or keep in mind when I am starting a new ministry and gathering a team for the first time.

[If you would like to receive my go to material for new core teams, join the APE newsletter!]

Missiology as World Building

2 responses
January 26, 2013

City Scape

This is a guest post by R. York Moore. He works for InterVarsity on a national level, and has been training Christians in personal evangelism through his seminar,“Tell the Story!”for over 10 years and has been an evangelistic speaker for over 15 years. After coming to Christ as an Atheist at the University of Michigan where he honored in philosophy, R. York Moore has led thousands of college students to Christ throughout the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean.

As an abolitionist, over the past ten years I’ve brought together leaders in business, academia, medicine, entertainment, law, government, with non-profit leaders to engage the growing problem of human trafficking. Through large city-sized campaigns to small events on liberal arts colleges I have been surprised to see how easy it is to build coalitions around the ‘common good.’

Challenges to justice are the single greatest unifying force between Kingdom-minded Christians and this emerging generation of globally conscious non-Christians. This unifying force provides a firm foundation to build not only movements but importantly the kinds of working relationships that can lead to real transformation.

The challenge often comes with the lack of theological understanding and vision on the part of Christians, both of which are needed to help us move from a place of mere activism to what I call ‘world building.’

How Do You Plant 3 Ministries in One Day?

4 responses
January 25, 2013

network map of students at Lincoln Nebraska

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

By Shawn Young

One of the contributing writers on Releasetheape.com is Eric Rafferty. He and his wife Stacey were selected to participate in InterVarsity’s national planting cohort 3 years ago and have launched a thriving student ministry at the University of Nebraska in Omaha. Recently I heard a rumor that Eric had visited another college in Lincoln, NE and managed to launch 3 new missional student communities in one day. Yes. You read that right. In fact, he launched a Black Student Ministry, an International Student Ministry, and a Greek Student Ministry.

I work with hundreds of the most talented ministry leaders in the country and they know how hard it can be to get just one student ministry to launch. So I asked him to speak with me and several other leaders about how it happened. The more Eric talked, the more I realized that we were listening to the pure mojo of a genuine apostolic-evangelistic leader. But I firmly believe that much of what Eric does instinctively can be learned and passed on to all of us—the whole church is strengthened for God’s mission when we learn from examples like Eric and Stacey.

How Do You Know If God Is Speaking?

2 responses
January 24, 2013

ear

I love our church. We’re small, and we meet in our home. And we’ll often just sit and listen to hear what God might be saying to us. Some will share visions. Others, dreams. Still others will share Bible verses that are apt for the moment. Through it all, it becomes clear that one word from God is worth a thousand sermons.

Isn’t that what prophets do? Figure out what God is saying for the moment? I haven’t seen anything else motivate a community more than a word that everyone knows is from God.

So how do you know if God is speaking?

Ken Kong: Organic Ministry Among Our Immediate & Extended Families

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January 23, 2013

Check out this cool video done by InterVarsity’s Asian American Ministries at Urbana:

Ken Kong: Organic Ministry Among Our Immediate & Extended Families

We come from cultures where families are really important to us. How does God move through our extended families? How do we participate with God in this? Ken Kong lays out some practical steps in his video, “Organic Ministry Among Our Immediate & Extended Families,” below:

[tentblogger-vimeo 57380544]

Learn more about Ken or InterVarsity Asian American Ministry.

Working within Community – Ten Commandments for Apostolic Leaders

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January 22, 2013

courtesy of InterVarsity’s 2100 productions

[This is part of a series on “How Do I Develop an Apostolic Leader?” You can read the other posts here.]

“The hand cannot say to the arm I have no need of you…” I Cor 12:21

It’s tempting for apostolic leaders to think that every new idea should be pursued independently, no matter the cost. But, when we teach apostolic leaders that running without restraint is their Godly task we are in danger of developing misfits who are unable to build a movement of change or have impact on a large scale.

In order for apostolic leaders to achieve the Godly kingdom impact they desire, they must serve within and through a community of faith.

But too often we don’t see this. Either apostolic leaders resist community and letting others speak into their dreams and desires, or the community resists the apostolic leader and their crazy dreams.

This article helps to encourage us towards being healthy in community:

A community where apostolic leaders are humble and let community speak into their dreams, and actions, as well as a community that seeks not to subvert the apostles ideas but focus the apostolic leaders energy to its greatest effect.

So, how do we help apostolic leaders live in that kind of community?

Modeling our Faith

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January 21, 2013

noah coffee

“Dad when I get bigger and bigger I am going to drink coffee too.”

One the funniest things about being a dad is the way that my kids try to copy me, repeat what I say, and really aspire to be like me.

It is fun, makes me feel loved, and also gives me a huge dose of humility as I realize what I show them is really important.

Everything I do, especially the things I do every day, are showing my son what it means to be a man.

He wants to drink coffee because his dad drinks coffee…every day.

This hilarious and sobering fact makes me immediately think about two things:

That I want to show him I read my bible and pray every day, not just drink coffee!
That young leaders who follow me also look at what I do regularly as a sign to what they should be doing too.

I have never told my son that he should drink coffee when he gets bigger. He just sees me doing it and infers that when you are a “big guy” you drink coffee.