What to Do if Your Pastor is Behaving Like An Absolute Ape

What do you do if your pastor is behaving like an absolute APE?

Nothing! Because here's what happens.

If you can set your pastor free to act like an APE (that is, to function in the Apostolic, Prophetic and Evangelistic gifts, Ephesians 4:11), then he or she can be about some amazing work for the Gospel.

Luckily, I serve a church that pretty much sets me free to do this work. But I have to be clear about something... there is already a strong lay leadership at work to handle things that in the typical church the pastor ends up handling. So, the teams at Morehead handle the finance issues, the building and property, the administration, the personnel. It's a pretty sweet deal. I get to spend more time visioning, preparing sermons and going APE than I ever have. I don't think that's the norm, so not only am I thankful, I have to give previous pastors credit for allowing this flourish.

We are growing... and as we “change the scorecard” of what it means to grow, we find that it only takes us deeper on the journey of following Christ.

So these past two weeks I have been going APE... started two small groups and we are seeing some great stuff already: sanctification, victory over besetting sins, decisions of conscience, deeper fellowship leading to conversations about the call to ministry, a new member and a baptism.

And the goal of going APE is to allow others to do so, too, and hopefully to expand the ministry out where someone else says, “you know what? I want to go APE, too!” And we are also hopeful that all those APEs out there inspire someone to step up and be a shepherd and teacher, to round out the five-fold gifts that you see in Ephesians 4.

We have not always been comfortable with hairy APEs, but we are discovering that as more of America is on the margins of church, we need to go out to them. And as we do that, remember that we are at work as one. You've got to let the APEs out of the cage and off the chain. And then be willing to see the shepherds and teachers build up and edify the believers.

We have quite a few teachers in our community, you can see it in the way Sunday School is strong. And how cool is this? I have had 4 people in the last month bring up pretty much the same issue: letting one of our great shepherds train some others to become part of the work of the Body of Christ!

You know what I like most about this? It's not me. I did not set out a credible plan to unleash this or that. The Spirit is doing it. It feels like God sees we are receptive to His mission here, and is unleashing that very things he placed in us to carry it on. I pray that we will continue in faith, undaunted!