We’ve got rid of the people who make us uncomfortable and now we wonder why we are not effective!

Ephesians 4:11 makes it clear that some people are called to a particular kind of ministry.

The Apostle was to live on the frontiers, bringing the Kingdom to new places in new and unexpected ways. In their wake they left fledgling groups of Christians who were bringing the Kingdom of God into their particular context. These groups were Kingdom Cells.

The Prophet was to speak God’s word into this moment, not only to the church but also to the world. It was their job to highlight the places of darkness where the Kingdom of God was still to permeate.

The Evangelist had the joyful task of inviting people into God’s Kingdom by introducing them to Jesus.

The Pastor/Teachers were to carry the weight of responsibility for those in their care. They were to walk alongside their flock, loving them, helping them discover their vocation and equipping them to fulfill it.

In the English it appears that the gifts of Pastor and Teacher are separate, but in the original language it is clear that they are related, which makes sense. A pastor who can’t teach produces dependency and a teacher who doesn’t care produces alienation

These gifts are still sorely needed in the church today, however our paradigm of church has reduced their effectiveness and missed the whole point of what Paul was trying to communicate.

Paul says the purpose of the gifts was to “to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.“

The purpose of the Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist and Pastor/Teacher was to release the body of Christ into the world as mature disciples of Jesus to transform the world.

In this picture of church, each and every one of us has a mission and our brothers and sisters in the body of Christ are to encourage us to fulfill it.

Somewhere along the way, church became about Sunday services and bible studies. The Apostles and Prophets who asked uncomfortable questions were gradually shown the door.

The Evangelists were harnessed in an attempt to get more ‘bums on seats’ at the Sunday Service.

The Pastor/Teachers were trained in the art of putting on a good performance, and would be judged mainly on their ability to present well at the Sunday service.

All of this meant the church was divided between the performers and the audience, the ministry and the laity.

Faith became something you did in private, or in the sanctioned space of the church building and even there, the congregation were reduced to the passive role of observers.

Christianity fitted nicely into the establishment, and started to decay as it lost the life that comes from a Kingdom Cell.

We are called to live differently.

We are called to bring our faith back into the messy, dirty, confusing, tragic, hopeless, lost, scary places.

Archbishop Oscar Romero said:

“I’m going to speak to you simply as a pastor, as one who, together with his people, has been learning the beautiful but harsh truth that the Christian faith does not cut us off from the world but immerses us in it; the church is not a fortress set apart from the city. The church follows Jesus, who lived, worked, struggled, and died in the midst of a city, in the polis.”

The most important job each one of us has is to discover what our life is about and to make a commitment to following through.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman said

“The first duty of a human being is to assume the right functional relationship to society — more briefly, to find your real job, and do it.”

The bible won’t clearly show you what your individual job is, and the truth is that many people never do the work to even ask the question.