Rethinking the five-fold ministry

TheOOZE is a website dedicated to the emerging Church culture…

Have a look around the site, especially if you are wired into the emerging church discussion. There is not much on the site devoted to discussion of ministry to children in a post-modern context.

But I did just read a fascinating article of the type that you often find on the site about the five-fold ministry mentioned in Ephesians 4.

There is a bunch of 50 mg zoloft stuff to get you thinking in the article:

The idea that apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherd/teachers are ministry titles is a post-Biblical invention. It is also an anti-Biblical invention! It is sad yet prevalent today to hear men and women wielding these Biblical words as personal titles. “Apostle Tommy and Prophet Wilma,” “Bishop Jaquanza,” “Pastor Rotunda,” and “Evangelist Billy-Bob” all run against the grain of our Lord’s aversion for titles and position which was a mark of the Jewish mindset of His day.

In fact, nowhere in the New Testament do we find any ministry or function in the Body deployed as a title before the names of God’s servants. Christians who are “title-happy” need to reflect seriously on this! 

The philosophy that we operate in, in our ministry is that my role as pastor is exactly that… a role, not a title.

Anyhoo have a read of the article here.