By Grant Crawford.
Some principles we have learned over the years from Dudley Daniel
- How to receive an apostolic gift (transfer trust & take seriously)
- Nonsense regarding titles
- Invited vs imposed authority (the dangers of invited authority are selective inclusion and “playing the field”. The dangers of imposed authority are “control related” and too scary to contemplate)
- Realms of government that need apostolic involvement (discipline, doctrine, direction, ordination, finance, succession )
- Primary vs secondary relationships need to be considered. Ie, who do we partner primarily with and who are simply friends in the ministry.
- Apostolic giving needs to be considered and managed with conviction
- Don’t build on guest speakers
Some principles we have learned through the NCMI transition
- The nature of apostolic teams, leadership and roles of 5 fold gifts
- The value of apostolic vehicles such as missions and regional training times, church planter courses etc.
- The value of honour
- The reality of autonomy in a local church and the wisdom of inviting governmental perspective from trusted voices.
Some conclusions that we have come to regarding how a local church relates to apostolic teams
- There are five distinct arenas that we express our apostolicity
- Receiving of ministry gifts (as the elders feel the need for the local church, from various movements around the world )
- Friendship (all elders encouraged to have friends with pastors outside NCF)
- Governmental bouncing board (we have selected 4 NCMI men familiar with multisite and our journey to speak into NCF elders forums- not necessarily Sunday)
- Partnership, sowing into (Primarily , not exclusively NCMI)
- Training resourcing (Primarily, not exclusively NCMI)