Get to Know the A.P.E. Writers… JR Woodward

3 responses
September 17, 2012

[This is a series designed to bring you into the the unique A.P.E stories of each writer on this blog. We hope each one of you can find a little of your A.P.E story inside of one of us. Read the other stories]

I never thought of myself as a “frat boy, “ but I became one. My roommate was invited to a fraternity rush party, and he wanted a friend to come with him, so I tagged along. I met some cool guys there, and before I knew it, I was pledging a fraternity and eventually became a full-fledge brother.

Little did I know that it would be in the Fraternity that I would meet two brothers who would cause me to consider the claims of Christ. I was working my way through college and didn’t have the money to go to summer school and pay for an apartment at the same time. Two of my fraternity brothers offered me a place to stay for free, and it was their hospitality and lives as Christ followers that provoked me to read the gospels. Through reading the gospel I fell in love with and surrendered my life to Jesus.

I happened to be the Resident Assistant in my dormitory. It was my responsibility to care for and help the sixty residents that lived on my hall. I didn’t know very much scripture, but I did know that God loved the whole world. I did know that God wanted everyone to be with Him so much so, that He put on flesh and bones, lived among us, died for us, and rose again. I didn’t know much, but I knew that, and that was enough.

Beer Pong, Fraternity, & Jesus

11 responses
September 16, 2012

[This post is part of the “Non Conventional Places A.P.E. Giftings Show Up” series. Read the rest of the posts here!]

A few Thursdays ago as I was prayer walking the Greek system with a student who is helping me to launch Greek InterVarsity on campus at USC. While on the walk, we decided to stop into his fraternity and say hi.

Some of the guys were playing beer pong and invited me back later to play with them at their party late that night. I don’t drink with students, but I did want to play beer pong and incarnate my self into this world of theirs for the purpose of building relationship and hopefully a great spiritual conversation. I also wanted to model for Alex what evangelism looks like. He lives in that house and has the opportunity for ministry every day.

We went back that night and had a blast! The party was bumping and they had 3 tables set up and people were going at it! My biggest takeaway in the first hour was that I surprised the heck out of them with how good I was at this game!

As I was leaving the night, I walked passed one of the guys that was my partner that night. He asked me what year I was and of course I said, “I am not a student, I am friends with Alex and I am a Christian minister on campus”. Like it always happens, he was very surprised and it was a little AWKWARD! But I simply asked him in that moment, “Are you curious about Jesus at all?” (Remember I spent some time with him that night having fun and building trust). He actually responded that he was curious.

So I sat down on that fraternity porch. It was loud, crazy and with many around we talked about his journey with faith and his soul entering college until 12am that night. He told me that he was looking for away to get back with God, and I told him, “I bet you didn’t expect God to send you a minister as a beer pong partner tonight?!”

Canadian A.P.E…Don Bennett

no responses
September 14, 2012

This is a guest post by Don Bennett has spent the past 12 years serving as a Pastor in different roles. Currently he serves as an Associate Pastor at the Meeting House (Oakville – Main Site), a Multi Site Church throughout Southern Ontario. His passion is to invest in people and engage in conversation. Don enjoys meeting with people over a coffee at Starbucks and loves everything about footy (soccer). He cheers loudest for Celtic, Aston Villa and Toronto FC but he’s partial to his home team which includes his wife Karin and three kids Jake, Josh and Ella. He is a graduate of the Arrow Leadership program (24th ELP), has a B.Th from Masters College and Seminary and is nearly completed a M.A in Evangelism and Leadership at Wheaton College.

Our Church tag line is “A Church for people who are not into Church” and a key element to that is the gospel message of Jesus. My main role is being with people who are connecting or are connected into our community and fostering discussions that are centered on Jesus. Evangelism is my heartbeat and alongside being Pastoral this is my gifting.

Here is what I am learning presently:

Bill Hybels recently taught at the Global Leadership Summit that the sowing of seeds (Luke 8) needs to be a top priority. I noted in my notebook that an evangelist should see this in a greater way. His question that seemed directed straight at me was “What does sowing more seeds look like in community and with my friends.” 75% of seeds planted never grow, but 25% if cared for effectively can. What would it take to plant more than ever? What if we as leaders looked at the community and said we will plant more now than we ever have. We will take our time and energy and nourish these seeds and spend as much time as needed to see them grow.

This is re-energizing my life!

Empowering Evangelists…InterVarsity’s Ignite Conference

8 responses
September 13, 2012

An ordinary every day student being equipped to go start something new at InterVarsity Southern California’s Ignite Conference

[I love training others in evangelism, and I do it for churches and InterVarsity Chapters all the time. If you would like me to come to your church or ministry and facilitate evangelism training, please email me to set up a time]

This weekend at our Regional Evangelism Conference “Ignite” I watched at least 500 students get vision, training and empowerment around the apostolic, prophetic and evangelistic giftings.

A word was preached imploring us to live by faith and start the new things God is calling us to go do. There were multiple seminars on topics like “Justice and evangelism” “Turning every day conversations into spiritual ones” “Starting new things with God” and “how to start prayer movements that empower evangelistic culture”.

I watched them hear from God, get trained and make plans to do what God asked them to do. I couldn’t help but think of who will be coming to faith on campus this year. I was reminded of this tweet I got last year just days after my seminar I led on spiritual conversations.

This tweet and this conference brought joy to my heart as I knew we were raising up more A.P.E. leaders. We are bringing a more complete and full picture of Jesus to each other, the campus and the world.

It brought together what Paul makes plain in Ephesians 4:1-16

Releasing the five-fold ministry is what shows the full expression of the church, and therefore Jesus. Without all five, we are showing just a shadow of who He is.

Unfortunately what I got to witness this weekend is not the norm in the church as many subscribe to a belief that the A.P.E. is not for today or if it is, it is only for leaders.

Thankfully this ordinary woman didn’t believe that “only a church leader could do this” and she got to experience the best joy in the world…seeing a friend come to faith because of her partnership with God.

**UPDATED at 8:55pm**

I just received this facbook update on our InterVarsity site. This is a report from just this last weekend.

Here’s a praise: a frosh who came to Ignite was physically healed.

During the healing prayer time, God stretched her shortened leg (from a ski accident and birth defect combo) 1-1.5 inches. So her legs are now almost the same length. Her back and hip problems are now clearing up. God also stretched her faith–as you might imagine.

She’s testifying at large group tonight. We’ll see what our community thinks of physical healing miracles. Thank you, Lord, for your mercy!

Get to know the A.P.E Writers…Eric & Stacy Rafferty

2 responses
September 12, 2012

Eric & Stacy (left) with a group of students from UNO

[This is a series designed to bring you into the the unique APE stories of each writer on this blog. We hope each one of you can find a little of your APE story inside of one of us. Read the other stories]

We didn’t plan on moving across the country from So Cal to Omaha, NE. We were happily going about business as usual in our third year of leading a campus ministry in the LA area. But four short months later we were driving over the Rocky Mountains in a giant yellow truck full of everything we owned in the world. We had said yes to God’s spontaneous call to plant an InterVarsity Christian Fellowship chapter in Omaha, NE and in a matter of weeks we were there.

How did that happen?

Every Corner

A few things happened. The funding for our previous ministry dried up inexplicably. A few intercessors started telling us things like, “God is leading you in a new direction. Get ready for a change.” We even had an experience similar to the apostle Paul’s Macedonian call (Acts 16:6-10). I was sitting in a Starbucks asking God where he was calling us, and if it might be the city of Omaha where I grew up. When I didn’t hear anything I opened my computer and found an email from a Dean at Creighton University and his wife. I had never met either of them, but they told me they’d been praying for 15 years for InterVarsity ministry to be planted in Omaha and asked who they had to contact to get someone out there. That felt like a pretty clear call.

But the call that really moved us to pick up everything and go was a deeper calling. It was a call to plant the gospel on every corner of a campus and to do it in a way that showed the city what the Kingdom of God was like. It was a call to an apostolic and prophetic vision.

Interpreting Ephesians 4: The Five-Fold Giftings

19 responses
September 11, 2012

There is such a better view of the Kingdom of God and of the church when we are releasing all five gifts

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

When it comes to interpreting Ephesians 4 and the five-fold giftings mentioned in verse 11, it is important to know that two main lines of thinking has crept up over the years.

1. Apostles and Prophets were just for the founders of the church (the 12)

2.The five fold ministry does exist today but only for leaders in the church. Not for everyone.

So if you come from a camp that believes one of those thought lines, or are going to a church with these beliefs, you are not going to hear teaching on the five –fold gifting much at all. If it doesn’t exist today, point one, then why teach on it? If it is only for leaders, then if it is talked about at all, it will be talked about with those leaders. Not with the common man or woman in a common place like Sunday morning worship.

This is just a shame and an inaccurate reading of Ephesians 4. It leaves us at 40% capacity and only empowering shepherds and teachers with a tiny bit of evangelism sprinkled in.

[I will write another article about these beliefs and unpack a bit more where they come from…stay tuned]

But for now, let me present to you an alternative way to read Ephesians.

Facing a trial? What gives you strength?

no responses
September 9, 2012

John Wesley Preaching in Ireland. (c) John Wesleys House & The Museum of Methodism; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

[This is part of the A.P.E. Pitfalls series. Check out the other posts here.]

If you are going to be a person who starts new things for God, takes any kind of risk, or wants to prohpetically call the church out into things on the horizon, you will face trials, rejection and at times marginalization.

What will you do at that point?

Well, Here is something that might help you!

John Wesley

Lets take a look into the journal of John Wesley!

He is what I would call the epitome of an Apostolic leader…He started new things, led movements of people and organized mission around the common person as well as anyone… He was the father of Methodism.

Often times we make the apostolic leader the sexy thing, when in fact it is often very hard to be called by God in this way and it comes with great costs. Often times much failure and rejection is part of the resume.

Take a peak at Wesley’s journal…

Release the A.P.E. Radio Interview

2 responses
September 7, 2012

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

Here is an interview I got to do on a radio show in Seattle on August 4th, the second day of the blog! The show is called “Live From Seattle” and it is hosted by Doug Bursch. He started following us on twitter and asked me on to the show. I can tell Doug is a pretty cool dude and I can’t wait to meet him. He gets the APE.

Pretty cool huh?

This interview is 17min long and it helps you grab the intent of the blog and what we are trying to do with it.

He asks me questions like

who is this blog for?
How do you define Evangelistic?
How do you define Prophetic?
Do you have any pharisees on the blog? Yes, he asked me that!! But he was joking…listen to what I say!
What is our big dream for the blog…what do we hope to see happen here?

Check it out!

Listen to the interview

Get to know the A.P.E. Writers…Shawn Young

4 responses
September 6, 2012

Compelled By My Inner APE

When the Apostle Paul wrote,

“Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” –1 Cor. 1:26-27

He must have been thinking of me. I’ve never been a stellar student, (I take months to read books), and have often felt outclassed by my intellectual friends. When it comes to charisma, I am about as magnetic as a wet walnut. I love watching people who can light up a party the minute they walk in the room—they are marvelous in action. I’m the opposite of them. I think I actually suck light out of the room when I enter. I’m a social “black hole”.

That is, until I meet someone who shares my fixation with the profound life and current genius of “God’s own fool”, Jesus. That’s when a connection starts to happen, and a creative but very practical set of gears start whirring in my head, and before I know it, I’m actually influencing someone with a stream of ideas for extending the gospel to more people. After 20 years in college ministry, a few hundred Kingdom leaders have experienced my “serious foolishness” and I’m honored to have played some part in their adventures.

I didn’t know it, but these were signs of my inner APE.

Get to Know the A.P.E. Writers…Jon Hietbrink’s Story

2 responses
September 5, 2012

I had never thought of myself as a planter, let alone an apostolic leader.

I came of age as a spiritual leader in something of a “mega” campus ministry at Central College. It was the late 90’s, and the seeker-sensitive movement was gaining traction. In the space of a few short years, our InterVarsity chapter had grown from about 100 to averaging over 400 students a week (over 25% of the campus). We had the best worship band on campus, thoroughly relevant teaching, a compelling vision to grow, and a culture of invitation–we soon outgrew our room and had to find a different place to meet. I remember the crowd gathered for my first talk as a staff with InterVarsity. The room sat 625, it was standing room only, and I realized I was way over my head!

Go Plant

Three years later, ministry was still humming along. Our chapter was running about 350 students, we had seen more than 40 students come to faith over the course of the year, and our community had hosted a 24.7 prayer room for an entire semester (over 2,500 hours). On the outside, we were one of the largest, most fruitful InterVarsity chapters in the country, but on the inside, I was frustrated, tired, and restless. Was any of this effort making a real difference in the lives of students? Were students actually being transformed or just entertained? How long could I keep running the machinery of this ministry?