The apostolic gift

What I’m about to share with you makes me extremely uncomfortable.

I am apostolically gifted. (cringe) Let me explain.

My deepest desire is to form communities of people who love Jesus and do what he says in places where these communities don’t exist… yet.

Spreading the good news about Jesus is important to me, but I’m not an evangelist. I resonate with the evangelist’s hunger to witness and their disappointment at the Church’s weak outreach, but my communal view of Jesus communities keeps me fighting to light a fire in the church instead of running to the streets.

Sharing the riches of the Bible is close to my heart, but I’m not a teacher. I am passionate about quality hermeneutics and fight tooth-and-nail against heretical doctrine, but my eyes are always roaming to the people who need to learn that Jesus is trustworthy before they learn substitutionary atonement or the essential need for cultural context in their interpretive strategy.

Caring for the hearts and bodies of my community, especially the weak and injured, is vital to me, but I’m not a pastor. My entire being is drawn towards the hurting and vulnerable, but I can’t keep my gaze from wandering to the next street/neighborhood/city, wondering if the vulnerable there share a loving Jesus community.

Why do I cringe?

Applying the word ‘apostle’ to myself makes me cringe because the word invokes a mantle of authority I have not earned. It’s like I sit down at the same table with Peter, Paul, and Junia and claim to be their equal if I claim to be apostolically gifted. Perhaps I’ve mistaken the gift?

In the last couple years I’ve been coming to terms with the way I’m geared. I have an unswerving ambition to influence the world towards Jesus, but I’ve noticed that the way many achieve influence is by expertise. My nature vies against any hope of expertise because I simply can’t commit myself to only one subject. If it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in one subject, I’ll be an expert in twenty things sometime around my eightieth birthday. In other words, I’m never going to be the best at anything.

When I consider the role of an apostle, however, I realize that it’s crucial to be a broad amateur. To plant communities of Jesus followers it’s important that all gifts operate in healthy ways to build up the community. It’s not my role to take the teacher’s position in an established church, but I should equip a new teaching-gifted disciple with the basics of their discipline so that they can go on to be an effective teacher in their community. I shouldn’t be the evangelist, but I should be able to model what it looks like to share Jesus with others and help an evangelist remain tethered to the church. I ought not be the pastor, but I should encourage the pastorally-gifted to fulfill their charge to serve and protect the flock with honor. I’m the board member, not a member of the C suite.

The truth is, I’m the least of all the church. I can teach, but I’m a novice compared to a teacher. I can share, but it’s hard to notice next to an evangelist. I care deeply for the community, but my love looks cold compared to a pastor. I fit nowhere, but spend my time everywhere. With this in mind, my claim to be apostolically gifted feels less like a mantle of authority and more like only another expression of God’s amazing gifts poured out upon humanity.

Two aspects of the apostolic gift have been particularly difficult to accept.

First, I didn’t realize right away that i had a lifecycle in a place. Like Peyton Jones, I’ve felt that I have deficient commitment whenever I struggle to keep the same role and performance. I think this aspect of the apostolic gift has overlap with embracing my polymath identity.

Second, my commitment to the Church is at odds with how apostolic planters have a wildness that doesnt function in the domesticated church system. I’ve spent years trying to contribute inside the domesticated church system only to be misunderstood, sidelined, and overlooked.

It’s an encouragement to me that, while I may have many fears, planters sent by god are nearly impossible to stop.