Measurable Values of a Disciple

I just returned from the Right Now Conference in Dallas, TX. As we have been talking about core values and mission statements, here is their mission statement and four measurables to define what success would look like.

Mission Statement -- Our Mission is to help people trade in the pursuit of the American Dream for a work that desperately needs Christ.

A Trader is a new kind of missionary, not defined by geography, but defined by a resolve to...

Choose Daily to sacrifice our time and money to apply The Parable of the Good Samaritan and to "go and do likewise."

Hate Injustice and find specific ways to bring the hope found in Jesus to desperate situations.

Work as Worship because God is glorified when we use our God-given passions and skills with excellence.

Act Swiftly because the time is Right Now!

I sat in on a breakout led by Will Mancini (www.willmancini.com, www.churchunique.com. He is a clarity evangelist and wants us to all have precise clarity about why our individual church exists. He helped Right Now develop these statements. He lays it all out in Church Unique.

Here's my question for discussion: Do you agree that an individual church should have a unique existence and calling? Why don't many churches have such clarity?

Organic Discipleship

In the Missional Leadership Initiative in the CGGC, we are finishing out the first year of a two year process.

We are currently being challenged very heavily to "change the scorecard."

This has proven to be a more challenging task than I expected. It is a fact that at our church, The Crossover, we count two things --
1. Do you attend the Sunday morning service?
2. Do you attend a home group?

My desire is that The Crossover be about two very focused things --
1. Find ways to introduce people to Jesus Christ.
2. Create regular discipleship opportunities for people who know Jesus (and maybe even for those who don't)

So we are finding that what we are counting isn't creating our desired intentions for people. We have a lot of questions we need to be asking ourselves. Again I will give two.
1. In what context would it be our best opportunity to introduce people to Jesus? And then how can we count the people who take this opportunity to share and the number of people who respond positively?
2. How do we define a disciple? What should be the expectations of a disciple? And then how can we count people who meet these expectations?

As Bill looks for a model to implement, I think these are the two key questions that must be answered before we create a model.

Exponential Conference 2010

My friend Tom Toner asked me my thoughts on the conference I just attended. I thought it might be worth reposting them here.

Tom,

The conference is refreshing. It gives me time to stop and ponder and listen to thoughtful speakers spur my imagination.

That being said, it was a weird collection in some ways. Several speakers seemed to have attained all they wanted to attain and now hated it. Two examples are Francis Chan and Matt Chandler. Chan has become a very popular speaker and wrote the book Crazy Love. Chandler planted a church with Chris Tomlin as his worship leader so duh, people loved the worship.

They both planted churches, crowds showed up, people loved their churches, and now they want to do something that feels more dangerous and real, like helping poor people. There was a powerful feeling from the organizers (my impression at least) that this was really, really wonderful. And it is... But there is still that feeling of we want to accomplish the success first (lots of people, lots of adoration) and then we will listen to those guys say we should help the poor.

On the other hand, they did have Shane Claiborne speak, who is a Tennessee boy who now lives in a Philadelphia commune in a slum area, who said, "Don't plant churches! Well, ok, plant a church, but live there for 5 years first. And maybe instead of starting a new church, go to a church that is already there." People think that is really cool and admirable, but the church planters at Exponential aren't going to do that. So why did they bring Claiborne in? To challenge our thinking a bit, but not to channel us down that path. To give a shout out to the crazy Jesus lovers, but not to give up the need for a trailer to store all your portable church planting stuff and to hire a payroll company to do all your payroll (these were a few of the sponsors of the event).

It's almost like they (the organizers) have one hand on the golden goal of a big successful church and one on what it would look like for the church to be a dynamic wildfire spread. The breakout speakers all had churches over 1000 in attendance (I didn't check every bio so I could be wrong.) And I'll sinfully admit I want the same thing.

For example, I'm listening to Alan Hirsch say the problem with the Western Church is that it isn't easily reproducible. So he and his partner speaker said, "Here's a model of a reproducing church. It doesn't have services necessarily. But each time a person is baptized, they are an ordained minister. They look for people who are open to God and share the Gospel with them. They share a one page list of what it means to obey Jesus. And they start doing life together. Repeat."

A young man sitting in front of me explained to his friend, "Yeah, and then the theology becomes so messed up as it's passed around without enough explanation and thoroughness. Bad idea."

I suppose that is most of our problems. We each have something we think is essential that won't fit on one page or easily reproduce, and we won't give it up for the good of the Kingdom of God. It's either doctrine or style of music or preaching style or building needs or financial compensation standards or whatever it is. Hirsch says, "Get over all that and let God spread like wildfire."

One breakout I was really excited about was talking about reproducing leaders. I'm under the conviction that this is the single most important thing I am not currently doing and that it would change everything. Scott Hodge (www.scotthodge.org), a young pastor who helped his dad transition an older Assembly of God church in Aurora, IL spoke well on the subject of transition and leadership. He described exactly what I hope to do... except... I asked what size was your church when you started this leadership training. His answer? 600-700. What does that mean for our church of 80-100? He said, "Do it anyway." (Again all the speakers were pastors of huge churches.)

I waited around after the breakout to make a phone call, and a guy named Patrick Grach (www.lifehousechurcheast.org, which may be the coolest site I've ever seen) grabbed me (he's pretty intense though he didn't actually touch me) and told me how he does leadership development and what might work more at our size church. He said to do the same amount of preparation (in other words, prepare as much for this as you do to preach) and then take potential leaders out to breakfast early morning every other week and see how they respond. That was the most helpful thing I heard because he brought it down to my size level (which just happens to be the most common size church in America).

Pastor Brian Miller
The Crossover Church (www.thecrossover.org)
New Life for Haiti (www.newlifeforhaiti.org)
Midwest Church Planting

Grass Roots Podcast - Episode 20 - CGGC Leadership Initiative

I have spent the last five years in the CGGC like a guy who stumbled upon a sleeping bear in the woods. I froze and have kept my eye on the bear, for the bear, if it notices me, could devour me. Then I started backing away slowly. I have not participated much regionally or nationally, though I've been told by both regional and national directors that I am welcome and would be appreciated at both levels.

Over the past five years, I have become a fan of Reggie McNeal, a former southern baptist denom official in South Carolina, who I believe understands the exact change that the North American church needs to make and who articulates it in a way that churches at large can get a handle.

So while attending IMPACT as a breakout leader (teaching Reggie McNeal's three shifts for the church), I overheard that Reggie was coming out to consult. Rather than a desire to be helpful denominationally, I selfishly have sought opportunities to sit in the same room as Reggie (and I wasn't disappointed). So I asked if I could sit in and was warmly welcomed.

The results caused me emotional confusion. I left hopeful, passionate in fact about the idea of participating in this leadership initiative, hopeful that this could be a prescription for renewal in this denom that I do truly love. Confused, because I've been wary of the bear, pulling me away from what is most important for me -- local ministry.

My fear is that the people who need to be involved in this initiative are also people who have stumbled across the bear and who also have been slowly backing away. I hope these are the people who listen to our podcasts. These (you) are all people who I have found to be intelligent and reflective and I would love to have a conversation with you about the pros and cons of this initiative. But since I can't, I did have a conversation with Lance Finley, Fran Leeman, and Bill Sloat about it. I thought the conversation was helpful. I think it might be helpful to you to listen to it and get some feel for this initiative, which Lance incredibly optimistically would like to roll out in January.

I am not an official representative of this leadership initiative. I'm just a pastor who loves our denom and who heard something that sounds hopeful coming around the bend. This recorded conversation was a frank and honest evaluation of what we know so far.

We invite your feedback.

Download: Podcast - GrassRoots - Episode 20 - CGGC Leadership Initiative

I made a compressed version that plays about 20 minutes shorter. It is the same as the other, just plays faster.

Download: Podcast - GrassRoots - Episode 20 - CGGC Leadership Initiative Compressed

IMPACT and Reggie McNeal Consultation

Thanks to everyone who participated with me and Bill at IMPACT -- Jerry, Jim Wilder, Bill Reist, Dan Horwedal, Joe ?, a proud father from Columbia City, Judy Nolt (Doug's wife), and others. I thought the initial discussions were great, but as we reached the peak (talking about leadership changes suggested by Missional Renaissance), the conversation broke down. Oh well, the summit is the hardest to climb!

The next week on July 30 (?), Reggie McNeal came to Findlay to consult with the denom about a leadership initiative. Upon hearing about it, and my obvious fandom for Reggie (who sat by me at lunch!), I asked if I could sit in and my request was granted.

Reggie led the group through the process of defining what a leadership initiative would like with the hopes of changing the culture of the CGGC to be a missional movement. (These are my descriptions of what happened. Whether it is the official view of the CGGC, you'd have to ask them.)

The proposed process is a two-year intensive with the best CGGC leaders we can find. I'll be dead honest -- it was the most hopeful thing I've heard in my 20 years with the CGGC. They hope to start in January.

Here are the two requirements for success. (In my opinion)

1) They have to keep the deal intense. They need to pay the money to get Reggie to lead most of the six gatherings (over two years). Reggie exudes mission and excellence. And it will rub off.

2) They have to get 'buy-in' from 25-50 of the best leaders in the CGGC. I would say the best leaders in the CGGC have made it a policy NOT to get sucked in to denominational initiatives. They will have to be convinced, and that leads me back to my first requirement. It has to be well worth their time.

2009 Exponential Conference

I spent the last three days in sunny Orlando Florida. Several CGGCers were there, including Ed Rosenberry (who I only saw at dinner... could he have been at Disney World the rest of the time? :) -- a joke). Thanks to Midwest CGGC for paying for me and one of my leaders to go.

Here are some quotes from the conference I wrote down. They may not be exact quotes. I wrote them down as I heard them.

Erwin McManus

"The church is scared to death of reality." -- Erwin McManus

"Jesus Christ died in the most heroic act anyone has ever done and then asks us to live our most heroic lives." -- Erwin McManus

"The gospel of the traditional American church is the most narcissistic story in our society." -- Erwin McManus (He was speaking of the "I'm a sinner. Jesus died for me. I get to go to heaven if I say I'm sorry.)

McManus said he almost cut his ties with Christianity (at least with organized Christianity) a couple of years ago when he was labeled a heretic for going into the "Marketplace" and discussing Jesus such as Paul did at Mars Hill. He would rather cut ties with organized Christianity than feel any limitation to sharing the gospel.

Alan Hirsch

Alan Hirsch defined what Missional is not.
-Not emerging church
-not simply being evangelistic
-not just social justice
-not church planting

"The church doesn't have a mission. The mission has a church." -- Alan Hirsch

Hirsch spoke of prevenient grace as the ability for our church to participate in mission.

Tri Robinson

"Vision is being who God made you to be and doing what he told you to do." -- Tri Robinson

Bob Roberts

Bob Robert's Ten Things to Learn from the Church Around the World

1. Gospel of the Kingdom of God -- not just the Gospel of Salvation

2. The Gospel encompasses the reconciliation of all things.

3. The focus is on the disciple not the preacher.

4. All religions are all places which makes for a naked public square and thoughtful communication.

He spoke of meeting with muslim and communist leaders all over the world and gaining access to share the gospel by invitation rather than by secrecy.

"Christianity started as a Jewish movement to Jesus. It will end as a Muslim movement to Jesus" -- Bob Roberts

5. Knowing other religions isn't just for experts but for everyone who would communicate who Jesus is.

6. Risk is seen in life and death not nickels and noses.

7. Never, never, never, never vilify another religion.

He didn't finish the ten but they can be found at glocal.net

Bob is always my favorite speaker. I could listen to him for hours. His books don't have the same effect at all unfortunately.

Neil Cole

Weeds in the Garden of Leadership

1. Institutionalism -- elevate institution as only institution doing God's work.
-Over 50% of Christian leaders will not finish well. Their calling became a career.

2. Corruption of Leadership -- the desire for power, fame (being liked by everyone), possessions, or pleasure

3. Legalism -- Protecting the powerful -- non-biblical traditions become equal to God's commands

4. Still in the Dark Ages - contributing to ignorance in an age of scholarship (keeping the Word out of the hands of the people. you do it more than you think.)

5. Bound by Chain of Command -- we're a mess from top to bottom

"Make everybody a disciple of Jesus so they will fall short of Jesus. If you make them your disciple, they will only fall short of you." -- Neil Cole

Efrem Smith

"What was it that disturbed you when you decided to plant a church? You can't live in disturbance. If you live angry, you will be dysfunctional, but that disturbance should continue to be at the core of your vision." -- Efrem Smith

"If you study the roots of most things (Hip Hop Culture for example), you will find "God Thoughts." -- Efrem Smith

Two Keys to turn white churches multi-cultural
1. Preach the Bible as a multi-culturally strong document.
2. United by Faith -- the measurements for multi-cultural church are not as high as you think. Dominate group is not more than 80%.

Francis Chan

"You wouldn't read the Bible and think, 'I need a building, a band, a sermon, and a room for the kids to have church.'" -- Francis Chan

Church Advocate

Though you can't tell it by the cover, the latest Church Advocate is exactly what I've been asking for. For those who don't know, the Church Advocate is the bi-monthly magazine of the Churches of God General Conference. The writers/editors have always been good, but the media has shown no vision or mission, reflecting not the writers/editors, but the denomination herself.

Born Again -- pages 2-3

Ed says on page 3, "The reason the CGGC exists (other than to glorify God) is to help churches do just that, make disciples. This happens best via a growing network of healthy reproducing churches. So, inherent in the disciple making mission is the vision for more and better churches which in turn requires more and better leaders."

A few flaws (IMHO) with Ed's Born Again article -- not sure 2025 celebration should occur at the site of Winebrenner's grave.

And he closes with "The rebirth of our CGGC mission and the realization of the vision for more and better churches will require a team of committed leaders. Here's good news. All willing players are welcome on the team." This is the shepherd's heart. Everybody should get a place at the table. But leadership requires that some be raised up and some be asked to step aside. These are the tough calls I haven't seen the CGGC make.

But overall, this is the right theme and should be the flavor of all Ed's communications.

Field Director Update

And I quote, "For example, there's a need for apostolic oversight of CGGC-USA Haitian ministries..." Did he say APOSTOLIC?!

And I like the idea of field directors as long as we don't use "All willing players are welcome on the team." To get this leadership to rise that Ed wants will require some tough love.

An Interview with Jeff Rockey, pages 6-8

A nice interview with a guy who is making smart transitions within a church. I'd actually like to hear more.

Planning for Leadership Development, page 9

Ed says, "If the purpose of the Church is to make more and better disciples, then somebody must lead the change, but not just anybody."

And "For broad based themes emerged:
1. Seek Spiritual Vitality [Is Jesus Enough?]
2. Clarify Denominational Identity
3. Release Apostolic Leadership
4. Harness Youthful Zeal"

Did he say APOSTOLIC?! Also he said, "Release." There is a recognized sense that apostolic leadership is restricted at some level in the Churches of God.

My encouragement to Ed is to heavily recruit these leaders to be developed. This is good talk, but please, please, please... make this into something more than a bumper sticker. The CGGC leadership has to be proactive to make this happen.

Ed actually makes me want to join in on this leadership development.

The rest of the magazine puts some opportunities at the end. Very well done.

Three recommendations for further Advocates.
1. The content is just right. Do it again! Mission/Vision/Practical Implementation. Ed, Lance, and Don should continue to write strong missional pieces and interviews.
2. The cover should highlight this visionary/leadership content, not "Get Ready for Summer."
3. Make the content of the Church Advocate the Home Page of www.cggc.org.

Triperspectivalism and Leadership

It seems as though there is a recognition in various church movements of the importance of understanding different leadership gifting.

As Bill has been championing in this context and Alan Hirsch is bringing to the foreground in the missional movement, we have neglected the APEST distinctions in Ephesians 4.

Another way of thinking about various leadership giftings has popped up - mostly from what I have seen in the Reformed Missional movements (like Acts29)

It is a paradigm and philosophy of ministry based on the 3 offices of Christ: Prophet, Priest and King.

They talk about leaders being gifted in these three areas. From what I can tell, the prophet role is described similarly to the discussions we've been having, the priest role is that of the shepherd and the king role seems apostolic.

Perhaps the weakness of these distinctions is that they are perhaps more theologically rather than biblically based in a text(s).

My point is that others are thinking about these same subjects profitably.

If you are interested, blogger Timmy Brister has compiled a lot of resources on triperspectivalism HERE.

An Example of APEST in Action

As someone who is interested in how good ideas might work out in practice, I found an interesting article by Alan Hirsch from Leadership Journal.

Hirsch tells us that his church movement in Australia made sure that they included a person from each gifting on their leadership team.

It is worth reading in it's entirety, but here is a 'practical' application:

"When facing any ministry issue, we begin by committing ourselves to the common mission of the group. We covenant to do whatever it takes to see our mission fulfilled. But this kind of interpersonal commitment requires a bond that goes beyond the professional relationships that exist on many church staffs.

We lived out our unity in Christ by living together, struggling together, worshiping together, praying together, and facing our problems together. It was the healthy trust developed on the team (fit) that allowed divergent opinions (split) to be expressed without fear of offending one another. It was the strong sense of commitment to one another that gave each member permission to operate out of his or her own ministry biases, and then unapologetically represent their perspectives on the issue at hand.

The apostle would press the need to galvanize the community around mission and extension. The prophet would challenge just about everything and ask probing questions about how God fit into our grand schemes. The evangelist would always emphasize the need to bring people to faith and expand the reach of the gospel. The shepherd inevitably expressed concerns about how the community could remain healthy amid change. And the teacher tried to discern the validity of any new idea from Scripture and history.

The presence of these divergent interests inevitably caused debates and arguments (contend). But we did not try to resolve disagreement too quickly—much to the discomfort of the shepherd on the team. In my experience, the greatest tension usually arose between the apostle (with the missional drive) and the shepherd (with the community health impulse), but we almost always managed to overcome conflict through dialogue and prayer (transcend).

Remember, we were committed to stay with the problem until we had assessed all options and had, through dialogue and debate, arrived at the best solution. As a result, the outcomes we reached were more full-orbed, faithful to God, sensitive to the needs of not-yet-believers, sustainable, mature, and theologically well grounded."

A Letter From Pastors Brian Miller and Fran Leeman

Dear friends and fellow-leaders in ministry,

As we begin this letter, we begin with a plea: read it carefully, take seriously the words that follow, and please consider the invitation we are extending to you.

Over the last several years, the tide of people asking serious questions about the church in Western culture has been steadily rising. Significant thinkers like N.T. Wright, Dallas Willard, Bob Roberts, and Alan Hirsch have been writing books that explore questions about whether some things are seriously wrong with how we think about the Gospel, the church, and what it means to live life as a Christian.

But more than that, many of us who lead and pastor on the front lines have gradually become convinced that the church here in America (even in its evangelical or "Bible-believing" forms) has in many ways ceased to reflect the values and flavor of the Jesus we find in the Gospels. These questions are not just the long-time debates about who is liberal or conservative, or who takes the Bible literally enough, or who has just the right doctrinal understandings. Rather, they are questions about whether we have rightly understood the mission for which Jesus came and what it looks like to share in that mission.

If you doubt whether we really need to take a hard look at our understanding of the Christian faith and how we live that out in the church, take an honest look at the perceptions of the non church-goers and non-Christians in our culture. Books like Dan Kimball's They Like Jesus, But Not the Church have chronicled what people hear the church and Christians saying. And what they hear us saying are things like:

It's just about getting your free pass into heaven and staying out of hell.

Believing in Jesus is how you get your hands on "the good life".

We just want to pass laws to keep all the gay people in line.

Jesus' message was "The time has come! The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the Good News!" (Mark 1:15). He told his disciples that when they went into a village they should announce that "The Kingdom of God is near you!" (Luke 10:9). Jesus' message was different than what the church today is often saying.

Jesus' life was different from the way today's Christians live. Jesus did not embed his life into a religious club that stood back from society and condemned the people who didn't fit the club's tastes. He went where people were— where they lived and shopped and got their water. He ate at their tables, asked them about their lives, listened to their stories, and loved them in a way that could help them find the way.

His primary concern was not how to get them to show up at the synagogue, but how to heal their brokenness and awaken them from their blindness about life, God, and their own hearts. The whole point of the incarnation seems to have really been that God wanted to be "with us", as opposed to preaching at us from a distance. Much of the church today has become a religious enterprise rather than a mission to enter and bless the world (Genesis 12:3).

The simple fact is that few people experience Jesus as being anything like the warm, tantalizing, enjoyable, puzzling, intriguing, engaging, challenging, radical, life-giving Nazarene of the Gospels.

And so more and more of us are asking:

What would it look like to live like this Jesus… to be the hands and feet and voice of God to the world of human beings which surrounds us?

And what would Christian communities that look and smell and think and love like this Jesus look like?

And what would it be like to see people enter into these churches like they did in the early book of Acts, where all the believers had everything in common and none was without need?

Over the last year, we have noticed that God has started to connect us to more and more people willing to ask the hard questions, people who are hungry to recover a way of following Jesus and ways of being the church that resonate deeply with the Jesus of the Gospels and take seriously His message of the Kingdom of God.

In the past, the two of us led an organization called Midwest Church Planting, which focused mostly on the logistics of jump-starting new churches. After MCP died off, we knew that the way we would try to help other leaders in the future would look different than it had in the past. What has become clear to us is that what most of us need, as pastors and leaders, is others with whom we can share this journey, with whom we can explore and find better pictures of the Kingdom of God, of following Jesus, and of leading our communities in His beautiful mission.

So in response to this new movement that God has stirred up toward a more centered, incarnational, and missional church, we are forming a fresh network called Grass Roots. The purpose of this network is to help us search for these better pictures, and to help us better lead Christ's community.

What will Grass Roots do? At least once a year (maybe twice) we will hold a Grass Roots Gathering, a two-day event for you and any leaders you care to bring, where we will explore specific questions about the Gospel, discipleship, incarnational living, being missional churches, etc. These will neither be vague discussions nor quick-fix seminars because we believe that deep discipleship and good churches will flow from right perspectives and right hearts.

Our first Grass Roots Gathering will be November 7-8 in Urbana, Illinois. The format of the gatherings will involve several talks, each followed by discussion in smaller groups, then feedback and dialogue back in the larger setting. What we want to create is an environment where we learn from each other, fueled by thought-provoking presentations. There will also be times of worship and time to just be together interspersed into the gatherings. There are two other things we hope will emerge through Grass Roots:

1) Seeing people share in missional adventures together, whether that is with New Life for Haiti, collaborating to birth new churches, or some other mission you bring to the table.

2) Seeing people cross racial and cultural divides. So we hope we will have at least Hispanics, Anglos, and African Americans gathering to encourage and teach one another.

In the near future, there will be a Grass Roots website, through which we'll be able to keep each other informed and point each other to good resources.

Grass Roots is not intended to replace your current connections (to denominations, who you have ministerial credentials with, etc.) We just want to form a family of leaders who want to help each other learn to see and live like Jesus and create communities through which God's Kingdom is made evident.

There won't be any membership fees or lifetime commitments. The only costs will be whatever it costs for us to pull off the gatherings. The content for the first gathering this Fall is already in place, and one thing we can promise – you won't be is bored! We're going to be exploring the shifting sands in the western church, asking how the church today is like/unlike the Jesus of the Gospels, and play with some pictures of what more authentic discipleship, community and mission might look like. The attached flyer has all the details—I've attached it in both JPEG and PDF formats (if you can't open PDFs, click the JPEG to open it larger).

Our hope is so much more than to just create more conversations. We want to restore the nature of the church to be the most effective force in expanding the Kingdom of God in North America. Interested?

Fran Leeman Brian Miller
August 26, 2008

GR Gathering Flyer.jpg
GR Gathering Flyer.pdf

What will it take?

During Worlld War II Will Rogers was invited to a discussion by the War Department on the danger of submarines. As German U boats were getting closer to our shores the government was trying to come up with some ideas to stop them. Will Rogers asked this question, "Will a submarine stay under water if the water is boiling?" He was told that U boats would not stay under in boiling water. So Will then suggested, "Let's boil the water." He was asked how this could be done and he replied, "I come up with the ideas. You guys will have to figure out how to make them work".

I am not Will Rogers but I have an idea. I will leave it up to you to work it out. Any suggestions will be read and placed in the appropriate file. So here is the idea:

Let's reorganize the CGGC on the basis of Ephesians 4--Apostlles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers. ( I don't think the Granville Sharp Rule applies to this passage so it is pastors and teachers NOT pastor-teachers)

Just a few observations--Given my dispensational background I will have to accept there are modern day Apostles and Prophets (which I am willing to accept). Secondly, we will have to agree on a definition of evangelist that is more in keeping with First century meaning. I would suggest the modern equivalent is closer to church planter than itinerant preacher.

Then we would have to define the role of pastors and teachers. Pastor is a New Testament term but does it refer to a localized/stay in one place office or is there a sense in which pastor and teacher are gifts given to the whole church and there is therefore some itinerant idea? In other words, can the gifts of pastor and teacher be shared between churches.

One more observation, it would seem to me that even if a prophet had a ministry in one church his salary should come from denominational headquaters. It is difficult to be a prophet when your income depends on the giving of a local church.

So that is my idea. How can we boil the water to see if it floats?