Jesus himself has given gifts to his people to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers, to train and build up the church for acts of service. Jesus gave all of these gifts through the Holy Spirit so that the church would reach unity in the faith and become mature in the fullness of Jesus (Eph 4). The problem is that the church has mostly adopted and been comfortable with three out of five of these gifts. But in order to revive our fellowship and revive our communities, we must embrace them all.
Most churches are most comfortable with the gift of evangelism, shepherding, and teaching. These giftings are championed and the names are used in positions of leadership. Churches of Christ hire Evangelists for preaching the word of God. Ministers are also called Teaching Ministers. Elders in many churches are called Shepherds.
I’ll attempt to define the functions of these gifts.
Apostles
People with an apostolic gifting desire to create new ventures and partnerships to share the gospel. They want to create new opportunities and go into new spaces and territories with the love of Jesus. They have an entrepreneurial spirit.
Prophets
A person with prophetic gifting calls God’s people to repentance and obedience. Prophets have the ability to discern God’s will and the movement of God’s Spirit connecting the dots of Divine activity where others may be unable to see.
Evangelists
Evangelists have the Holy Spirit’s gifting to share Jesus with anyone at any time, in any place, in any way that is amicable and convicting. They have a bias towards outsiders and will organize people to seek after the lost, enabling them to share their faith.
Shepherds
Shepherds are gifted with the ability to sense the brokenness of the world. They have great empathy for the pain of others and want to bring people healing and wholeness. They protect the flock. They lead “sheep” to water and green pastures. They guard doctrine, direction, and discipline producing godly sorrow.
Teachers
These people love immersing themselves in reading and reflecting on God’s word. They provide the tools and resources for people to understand the will of God and grow in their knowledge of God.
All of these are theological terms that are coupled with the Holy Spirit’s gifting but in many churches, they have become offices. Churches organize their leadership not based on gifting but based on officing. Churches must be able to shift their leadership paradigm from offices within an organization to functions of the Spirit within the body.
When churches organize under office or officer-based leadership then they are not operating as a body but as an organization. Spirit-based (gifts-based) leadership allows the church to consider the function of the body.
Both preacher’s and elder’s giftings from the Spirit can be repressed under office-based leadership models. Apostolic giftings are not recognized or given room to grow as to be put to use for the church to enter new pathways and envision a new preferred future.
Prophetic giftings are spurned because of their disruption of traditional organizational compliance and maintenance. Obedience is restricted solely to “seeking the old paths” and The Active God becomes an artifact to study and not a Living God to follow. Who needs to discern a dead document (the Bible)?
Yet, we need all of these giftings “to equip God’s people for works of service” (Ephesians 4:12).
In 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 along with Romans 12, the Apostle Paul teaches the church that they are one body with many parts. The church has many members with different gifts all given by the same Lord. The gifts are different “according to the grace given to each of us.” They manifest in the members of the body for “the common good.”
The Spirit’s gifts allow us to minister to each other and propel us to give the hope of Jesus to others for the life of the world. The mission of Jesus equipped and empowered by Spirit-filled followers is the common good.
A healthy, living, vibrant body of Christ exercises the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit by using their gifts to build up the church. Thereby the church discerns the living word and the living body and functions as contributing members to the mission of Jesus.
Like the church in 1 Corinthians 14:1 we must today, “Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit.”
Eagerly desire spiritual gifts. Our future depends on it. The hope of the world depends on it.
The church will desire the mission of Jesus when it eagerly desires the gifts of the Spirit.
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Jovan preaches for the Littleton Church of Christ near Denver, Colorado. Visit here to listen to sermons preached at the Littleton Church.