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Five Fold Mission Statement
The Church Jesus is building is full of gifts (charismata), talents, callings, and passion. Those gifts are organized, developed, deployed by the leadership gifts (domata) Jesus gave-- the five-fold ministry of Jesus Christ to the Church as described in Ephesians 4:11, 12.
“It was He (Jesus) who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service . . .”
We have used slightly different terminology: Global Focus, Leadership Development, Assimilation, Disciple-making, and Worship. However, it is difficult to extract ourselves from the culture we were raised in and that is in us -- the default mode of departmentally-driven, consumerism ministry. Using biblical terminology may help us re-focus our paradigm and sharpen our strategies for New Testament ministry, discovering and deleting redundant or ineffective ministries or re-formatting them to the Five-fold objective.
We have also come to understand that the big church issue of our times, at least in the West, is not to identify apostles, prophets, and pastors, etc., as much as it is to facilitate what those ministry gifts are to produce in the church; i.e. a pastoral community, a prophetic community, an evangelistic community, a teaching community, etc. By using the word “community” I mean a band of like-minded, and like-gifted people with a common purpose. Everyone in the church will find their place via their giftings and callings in one of these five communities, or in the sixth group -- the support and administrative team.
Calvary as a Five-Fold Functioning Church
Each of the Five-fold office leaders (elders) give oversight to a developing community (i.e. Apostolic Community, Evangelistic Community, Prophetic Community, Pastoral Community, and Teaching Community). At Calvary we have called these Leadership Development, Global Focus, Worship, Assimilation, and Discipleship.
The role of the Five-Fold ministry is to equip and release the body to do the work of ministry. In the local church that happens as these leaders pour themselves into others, stirring up like gifts (like begets like), and creating communities of anointing/gifting in the church.
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