Activating Apostolic Genius
Acts 2:36-39, Acts 4:32-35
Why did the early church grow so rapidly? In fact the 1st century church grew exponentially. It was an incredible phenomenon. As people study the Acts of the Apostles and various other historical documents we discover that certain characteristics were present in the early church that the church of today has lost sight of. Let me share those six unique characteristics that together made the church of Peter, Paul and John and viral movement.
· Jesus is Lord.
· Disciple-making
· Missional-Incarnational Impulse (taking the church into the world)
· Apostolic Environment (every believer functioning by embracing one of the five-fold ministry roles which are Apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher)
· Organic systems (the church becoming a simple grassroots movement)
· Community
These six elements are present in every church. We may not know it but they are. In most churches these six characteristics are latent. We need to re-discover these elements and we need to activate them in the life of the church. When these six things begin to be lived out in the life of the church then there is a much greater chance for the church of the present day to become a movement once again.
As we look at the scripture of this week we are going to be looking at how these six things functioned 21 centuries ago and how they can function in the church today.
