Today we are in a second wave of the missional movement, which has some of its own unique nuances to match our postmodern world. My hope and plea is this: let’s not repeat the mistakes of the first missional movement, but identify and correct them.

Would to God that all men and women who feel called to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds/teachers would soberly reexamine what these ministries were in the first century and in the thought of God.

So what happens when gifted Christians are reared in a human organization built on unbiblical systems rather than growing up naturally in an organic expression of the body of Christ? To put it another way, what happens when a gifted Christian’s only experience is in the modern institutional church?

If a group of believers gathers around Jesus Christ alone (rather than a doctrine, a theological system, or a ritual) —and they are void of a clergy system— —then that group will eventually produce all the gifts and gifted ones that exist within the body of Christ.

The doctrine of the restoration of “the five-fold ministry” is over 180 years old. And it’s been repackaged from movement to movement.