The two-winged church

Welcome to episode 2 of our Synergy Sessions Podcast where we listen to a teaching from Alan McWilliam (Cairn Movement). Alan explains how he believes God is calling us to a 'Scottish Gideon's army' to see the Gospel powerfully moving forward in a similar way to how the Celtic church approached mission. This army 'wing' works alongside the more local 'wing' and Alan highlights the importance of both.

Then we have Scott McRoberts (Minister @ St Columbas's church) and Heather Sutherland (Dream House, Streams Scotland) unpacking the teaching. Enjoy!

Transcript

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Hi, this is Alan McWilliam and this is Charity Bowman-Webb and we want to welcome you to the Synergy Sessions. Hi, my name is Alan McWilliam and I lead Cairn Movement which is a network of missionary practitioners in Scotland and in Ireland and today I want to talk to you about how God is recalibrating his church here and across the nations for what it is he wants to do in the future. My background is that I'm a Church of Scotland minister, I've been involved in the church for the last 56 years because that's how old I am, I've been always part of the church.I came to faith when I was 11, I came into ministry when I was 25 and I've been involved now for many, many years and I've been really committed to the church and leading local churches and developing new mission projects and new church plants right across Scotland and Ireland and I love the body of Christ, I love what Jesus has done amongst his people and I'm delighted to be able to talk about just how God is doing a new thing within the church today. But before I kind of get into the new thing, I want to talk about the old thing. I actually want to talk about those of you who live in Scotland and who come from different places with the names like Kilmarnock and Kilburnie and Kilpatrick, they're all places which have been named after the Celtic saint who brought the gospel of Jesus Christ to that community and established a village or a town or a city in that area.So those of you who are from Kilmarnock, that is the cell or the church of Marnock, those of you from Kilburnie, the cell or the church of Burnie, Kilpatrick, same again with Patrick and those are all from Ayrshire. You have Kilbride which is of course the cell of Bride which is around Lamarkshire and also in Argyll, Kilallan which of course I'm interested in, the cell or church of Allan which is in Renfrewshire. One of my favourite ones is Kilbucco which is the cell or church of Bucco which apparently is in Peebleshire but you also get Kilfedder from Wigtonshire, Kilconker in Fife, Kildrummie in Aberdeenshire and I could go on and on naming villages and towns that the Celtic saints were named after as they planted churches all over Scotland.And I suppose as I talk about what's happening now, what's going to happen in the future, I wanted to sort of point back to the fact actually that Scotland was actually won by a whole bunch of very highly committed missionary bands who poured out across Scotland from places like Whitthorn led by Ninian, Iona led by Columba and Lindisfarne led by Aidan and Hilda and that in the early 400, 500, 600, around that kind of period of time, that was when Christianity swept right across Scotland, right across a pagan Scotland, right across a Scotland that was completely disinterested in Christianity and actually was quite resistant to it and I believe that actually that whole group of people, they were like a vibrant Christian community that poured out and that's what God wants to do. He wants to continue to create vibrant Christian communities in every location and every network in our country and beyond and the way that he is doing it is that he is raising up a new Gideon's army in the same way that Ninian and Columba, Aidan and Hilda brought forth missionary bands who took the gospel out into Scotland and established loads and loads and loads of places where the local people who responded to the gospel believe that that is what God is doing today and God wants us, God wants to raise up a new missionary band to see the gospel powerfully moving forward in Scotland. In 2014, I had the privilege of speaking at a clan gathering event and one of the things I said was that I believe that God was calling up a Scottish Gideon's army for today and that the Scottish Gideon's army was really kind of an army that was going to be characterised by God-fearers, radical obedient disciples, people who would go anywhere and do anything, do whatever God was saying even if it was the crazy stuff and that's why I talk about it as being like a Gideon's army because here they were, these 300 fighting against what they thought was about 300,000 of the Midianites and what did they do? Well they had this crazy plan which was to kind of go up to the top of a hill with a trumpet and a torch in the middle of the night to smash the torch and blow the trumpet and charge down the hill saying for Gideon and for the Lord and that somehow was going to beat the 300,000 Midianites but it's exactly what it was that happened and I think that one of the things that we're going to sort of see as God raises up this kind of Gideon's army again is an unintimidatable group of people who are not afraid to do whatever it is that God is calling them to do and to give themselves to exactly what he says and I believe that that is what God is doing today but I think that what I want to talk about today is that it's not a case of just of God raising up these people and then randomly charging it and doing things.I think that first we need to see a restoration of a biblical, historical and theologically accurate pattern of church which will enable and facilitate this new Gideon's army of folks to push right out and right across Scotland. I believe that as that happens we will see an empowered and enabled group of people and especially we'll be able to see apostolic, prophetic and evangelistically gifted people brought to the forefront of what it is that God is doing. So as we get into this message I want to start by reading together from Acts chapter 12 and reading from verse 25 and then on to Acts 13 verse 3. It's the story of Barnabas and Saul being sent out and this is us rooting ourselves in the biblical narrative about the nature of the church as it functions in missionary mode and that's really what we're talking about today.When Barnabas and Saul had finished the mission they returned from Jerusalem taking with them John also called Mark. Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Mannion who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch and Saul and while they were worshipping the Lord and fasting the Holy Spirit said set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. So after they'd fasted and prayed they placed their hands on them and sent them off.So what I want to say today as we think about this whole thing about the kind of the two-wing church and the kind of recalibration that God is doing of the church across not just in Scotland but across Western Europe and America as well is I believe that God is recalibrating the church to bring it back into line with a biblical historical and theological pattern of church which is the church in missionary mode. God is already starting to bring people out into different spaces and move them into spaces that they didn't expect and he's doing that deliberately and he's doing that because actually he wants to see the church become effective in being ready for preparing to take the gospel into every community and network within our cities and our nation and the nations. So we want to start by sort of saying that actually I think that we see here in this passage from Acts chapter 12 and 13 we see a biblical pattern.We see that Paul and Barnabas and John Mark were sent out. They were sent out in Acts chapter 13 and 14. They went to Cyprus and Antioch and Derbe and place by place what they did was they preached the gospel they saw people come to faith and they established local congregations and local leaders but they did not stay there because actually what we find as we move into chapter 16 is we see a second wave of missionary activity.We see a new missionary band being established and sent out this time Paul and Silas and Timothy and they went to the eastern Mediterranean. They went to Syria and Cilicia but they did the same thing. They preached the gospel, they saw new people come out of faith, they saw new congregations established and they established elders and left them to look after the local congregation and this trans-local missionary band went out again.So we have Acts chapter 19 to 21 where Paul this time with Aquila and Priscilla went to Corinth and Ephesus and Antioch and again what happened was that they saw people come into faith, they saw new churches established, they saw elders being established to look after the local expression of the church as they then continued to move into other spaces as God led them to. What we are seeing at the establishment of the New Testament pattern of church is two patterns, two sort of aspects of the church being expressed. One is local and one is trans-local.One is local believers believing in a local community gathering together with leaders being appointed and one is trans-local missionary bands moving from place to place to take the gospel to wherever it is that God would want them to be. And so we see that in the in the biblical pattern but we also see it in the historical pattern. If we go back to the earliest church records that we have of the church in the second, the third and fourth generation, what we immediately see is we immediately see the establishment again of these two patterns of church life.We see the local in the priest and in the parish, in the bishop and in the diocese and at the same time we see the trans-local in the monk and in the monastery and the abbot and the houses of prayer. And what we find is that actually as we as we see the church developing we continue to see these two patterns being very clearly demonstrated. In the Roman Catholic tradition, well it wasn't Roman Catholic at that point until we got to the Reformation of course, but in the in the development of the church what we actually got were missionary orders in these trans-local spaces and so you got the establishment of things like the Franciscans and Cistercians and Dominicans and Jesuits and all of them had a particular role in trans-local ministry developing and taking the gospel into areas where it hadn't yet impacted or transformed the community.And so we continue to have these two relationships in the church, one local led by local priests and ministers and all the rest of it and the other one led by folks who were trans-local who went out and who did things to take the gospel into different places. And that is exactly what happened all the way through the church, all the way through the Roman Catholic church, all the way through the Orthodox church until we get to Luther, until we get to Martin Luther who was the great father of the Reformation in the 16th century. And what happened at that point was Luther was trying to bring Reformation to a very dysfunctional church.There were lots and lots of different things that were unhelpful. There was people who were thinking that they could get into relationship with God just by their acts of contrition or the way that they were kind of paying money or that somebody said a special service for them. These kind of things were actually kind of taking people away from the truth of the gospel which is that the gospel is entered into, the relationship with God is entered into by faith alone and of course that was a great cry of Luther and the Reformers that it's actually by faith alone that we are saved and not by any works of ourselves.But part of what Luther also did at that time was he began to look at the structures of the church and critique the structures of the church where they were dysfunctional and where they were actually pulling away from the true nature of the gospel and the true nature of the work that the church was called to. And so what happened was he called out the corruption of the translocal mission orders, Franciscans, Cistercians, Dominicans, Jesuits and all the rest of that kind of group of folks and he said look because of the corruption that's there partly because they were influencing, you know, they were very political, they were involved in kind of all sorts of kind of different things, lots and lots of corruption through gathering money and estates and resources that actually that had made them very rich and Luther was sort of saying you know this is not what this is for, this is not what they were there for in the first place. And so what Luther did was to reform the church.He said the church is fundamentally, as we move forward into the Protestant era, the church is defined as a local congregation. And at that moment essentially he removed one of the wings of the church. He, for the very best of reasons and actually I think for good reasons he decided that what we want to do is we want to get healthy local churches led by local ministers who could preach the word of God faithfully, administer the sacraments faithfully and bring order to church life and that is what he taught.And because of that all over the Christian world, all over the Protestant world I should say, and since then really what's happened is that actually that when we talk about church and the Protestant tradition what we're actually talking about is local gathered congregational life with either a minister or a priest or a pastor in charge and that is what people think of when they think of the church. And as we have done that, that has been for as I say for the very best of reasons because of what happened during the reformation but it has had massive consequences which we did not anticipate as a result of what was going on. Now during the time of the reformation the kind of understanding would have been that Christianity had really spread to all of the known world and as a result of that the sort of thought that perhaps they might not need people to go and to take the gospel to other places, you know that was not something which particularly kind of impacted the reformation thinking.And so really for probably a couple of hundred years until you got to 1793 and William Carey who came along and who established the first of the Baptist missionary societies and they did that because during those kind of years what had happened was that they discovered that actually there was an unknown part of the world as well as a known part of the world and that the unknown part of the world you know sort of like Africa and Asia and Americas, many of the folks that were there didn't know Jesus and so all of a sudden the church became alive to the need to send people to these places to share the gospel and to bring people to know about Jesus and that's where you sort of see the multiplication of a whole bunch of missionary movements and even within the kind of the UK context, within the kind of the European context, what began to happen was people began to realise actually although we're sort of saying we're a Christian country, although we're saying we're a Christian continent, there were lots of people who actually didn't go to church and who didn't know Jesus and actually that was part of the reason why not only did you get missionary societies going across the world but increasingly from the last kind of couple of hundred years you've also then began to get missionary organisations functioning in our context and so you had Wesley and that created Methodism amongst other things, you had Booth who raised up the Salvation Army and then you had a whole bunch of new organisations who were really about promoting Christianity amongst our own population, you had the Bible Society being established, you had Scripture Union being established, you had the Sunday School movement being established and all of these interestingly now are called para-church organisations or they are alongside along meaning para or they are part of the kind of church but they're not seen as the congregation or the kind of church as we would define it. Why am I telling you this? Well I'm telling you this because I believe that God is recalibrating his church to create us back into a pattern which is both biblically and historically and I believe theologically attuned to the missionary context that we are in. We are in a profoundly missionary context.Scotland has roughly about eight percent of the population that attend church on a Sunday by Sunday basis. If you kind of like drill into those numbers though you find that less than two percent of that number actually are Bible-believing Christians who want to share their faith and that is the definition, anything less than two percent is the definition of an unreached people group according to the Lausanne Convention on the World Evangelization. We, Scotland, have become an unreached people group and we need to understand that we are in a missionary context and so God is recalibrating his church and he is doing something which is really significant.He's saying we need to get both of the wings of the church working again, recognised again as legitimate expressions of church for today. Birds do not fly without two wings. If you have a broken wing you see a poor thing just on the floor not able to take off and the important thing that we need to do is that actually we need to re-legitimise what has been called the parachurch organisation as true church but this time just calling it what it was in the biblical pattern, the historical pattern, which is the translocal expression of church where we see new missionary organisations, mission bodies and networks working a way to see the gospel of Jesus Christ taken out into the wider work and that these two together work perfectly when we see the local church blossoming and blooming and sending out people into the kind of wider work and when we see the translocal church sharing the gospel, seeing new people come to faith and adding them into local congregations or planting new congregations where that is required.That is what is going on at the moment and I think it's really important for us to be able to see that and to legitimise that because I think that at the moment what's happening is that we are in a strange season of dislocation or recalibration perhaps where we're beginning to see that we can't continue to do what we've done up till now. We can't continue to function in the way that we have up till now because actually there are a number of issues about the fact that actually where we only think of the congregation of life as the only true expression of church for today, the problem is that actually it's delegitimising lots and lots of key things that are actually happening and it's blocking the development of people to move into spaces because they're not sure whether they're legitimate to do so and so what's happening is this and actually I think that what's happening is that we are now being called to see both of these wings of the church flourish again, both of these things being established as the two wings of the same thing, the church, the body of Christ in Scotland, in Europe, in America and I think that's really important and I think it's important because I think there's lots of people who are sitting listening to this who really feel I don't fit in church. I don't fit in church anymore.There's no space for me. There's no space for me to develop the calling that I've got. There's no space for me to use the gifts that I have.It feels as though I keep pushing against some barriers when I'm part of church and actually I cause difficulty. I actually am causing chaos and disruption which I don't like and I don't want to be part of that and yet I don't feel as though I can be part of local church but at the same time I know that I'm called to be. I am a Christian and I am part of the body of Christ but I don't seem to fit anymore.It's really interesting in the last number of years there's been a couple of studies done in the UK about people who are committed Christian people who have not lost their faith but have been dislocated from church and I want to talk to you, if that's you, I want to talk to you and I want to say I wonder whether or not you are part of the recalibration of the second wing of the church that God is doing at the moment. Now I'm not saying that we shouldn't be part of, you know, we shouldn't be in the right place, that it's really important we have local churches, it's really important that they flourish but I'm asking the question as we look back on our history both biblical, historically and theologically, actually is God bringing about something quite profound, the restoration of these two wings of the church? I believe he is. So the research that was done in 2002, written into a book called Churchless Faith, discovered that of the 65 million people that live in the UK at that time, 1 million of them were bible-believing Christian folk who had been displaced from church.Fascinating, isn't it? In 2010, same sort of research that was done and this time Stevie Unstor brought a book called Invisible Church and I think that's probably a better word for it. It's not that it's not church, it's just it's invisible, it's not necessarily seen, it's not necessarily what we expect and I think that what I want to do as you listen to this is if that's you, if you're part of that kind of displaced, that kind of we don't quite fit, I want to acknowledge the pain of rejection. I want to sort of say I get the fact that actually this has been a very difficult journey for you to be on but God has brought you to this place for a reason and I think that's because God is actually restoring the translocal structures and the translocal patterns which will actually enable us to function as a church in missionary mode again so that we would be able to go back to the days of you know Marnock and Burnie and Patrick and all of these other Celtic saints who were missionary bands sent out across Scotland to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to other people and I think that's why within the context of things like Cairn that I'm part of you know we're looking to becoming a network of missional practitioners dispersed and gathered together at certain points in the year because we want to resource that.We see that as well in the new monastic patterns of Aidan and Hilda or in the Order of the Mustard Seed. You know we're beginning to sort of see where people are thinking I do want to be, I am part of the church but I recognise that there's something else going on and so I think that actually what we want to do is we want to actually establish and legitimise the fact that actually there's something going on that God is at work and I want to invite you if you hear this to say hey if you are if you do feel that sense that actually you don't quite fit into those local congregations that there may be part of what God is sort of saying is that he's inviting you to be part of this network of missional practitioners of different ways of different places and different stages and so if that's you I want to sort of say I want to encourage you because I want to encourage you particularly those of you who are apostolic prophetic and evangelistic. Now these are the missionary breakthrough gifts in the body of Christ that Paul talks about in first and fourth in Ephesians chapter four where he and the apostolic is really about taking new ground it's about seeing that the edge of the territory of the kingdom of God and pushing beyond to take new ground for the kingdom of God.The prophetic is about hearing for God and actually calling God's people into a greater intimacy and connection with him so that they would be able to push out as alternative communities actually as kind of counter-cultural communities into the places that they are in robust and powerful ways to see God at work. The evangelists are the recruiters of the kingdom they are out there seeking and saving the lost they're looking for people to bring them in to hear the gospel and to ask them how to become disciples who then share with others and for many of us what we're finding is actually it's the translocal networks and structures and places which are breathing life and giving energy and creating the space for those of us who are gifted and apostolic prophetic and evangelistically we're finding that these are the places where actually we can express our gifts most naturally. Often what we find is that the shepherds and teachers actually are best within the kind of gathered spaces within the local spaces but we need all five actually in both spaces helping the church to function really effectively but I want to say particularly for those of you feel that as you hear this you're actually thinking yeah that's right I've really kind of bumped my head against lots of things in the local church and actually in this wider open space this translocal space this place where I'm reaching new areas of culture and society new areas of kind of either geography or network or or affinity groups you know that's actually where you find you've come to life because actually that's where God's always designed you to be but I want to encourage you that actually you'll need to be trained if you're going to do that you'll be you need to grow in maturity you need to learn how to serve in there you need to to to be part of something bigger than yourself because actually it's not good to have kind of lone rangers it's not good for us just to be out on our own God's not meant us to be like that and I recognize it's not been an easy journey for those of you who are like that there's been lots of people who perhaps have misunderstood you maybe even rejected you or your gift and and so said there's no place for you here it feels like that you don't fit and perhaps many of you have felt hurt as a result of the rejection that's come and and actually for you you're going to need this time to be able to kind of heal and to be able to forgive and to release others and then step back into what it is that God has called you to I believe that God is calling us to recognise this restoration of the two-winged church the restoration of the local and the translocal both the body of Christ both legitimate expressions of the church of today and actually both of them allowing every person in the body of Christ to exercise the gift of the ministry that fits with their calling and their ability and if and if as you hear this teaching you feel just a sort of sense of just a surge of excitement about that then I want to encourage you get in touch talk to us because there's lots more that we can say about all of this as we develop our gifts and develop our spaces and move into these new places and we and as I say we we need to do that both together in the translocal space and networks and so on but also together as two wings loving the fullness of the body of Christ the local church and the translocal church allowing God to make us into the body of Christ the church that he needs us to be in our missionary context today bless you as you pursue God in whatever space he's called you to and as you understand these new things that he's doing I pray that that would eliminate your heart and open up the possibility of what it is that God wants to do with you today thank you bless you hello I'm Scott McRoberts and I'm Heather Sutherland and just before we introduce ourselves a bit more and get into discussing Alan's teaching I wonder if we could just pray let's pray Father God we thank you for the church thank you for every part of it the local the translocal the the many and varied gifts and the many and varied people that you have put together to build your church to build your kingdom so we pray for a discussion just now that is useful and to those talking and those listening in Jesus name amen great so I'm I'm Scott I am a church of Scotland minister in Inverness I've been a minister in Inverness St Columba for just about 12 years now so very much in the local church but also doing a bit of work with the Cairn movement as the learning community development lead. So helping primarily local churches to look at revitalising, renewing a culture of discipleship and mission for what God is leading into at the time that we find them.So Heather, tell us a bit about yourself. So I'm Heather. I have been working with Streams Ministries International since 2005.But just at the end of last year, I took on the role as head of training for Streams in Scotland. So I'm working very much in the sort of trans-local space at the minute. And we're an organisation that exists to help people learn how to hear from God in a whole variety of different ways.But I've spent over 20 years as being a minister stroke pastor's wife. So I understand the local church context as well. We've been up and down the whole of Scotland, starting off in Caithness and currently in Fife.And we did a stretch in Portsoy as well. So we were there for eight years. And yeah, now looking to move south of the border, but still being north of the wall.Oh, well, you can't get much more trans-local than that, can you? Crossing the border and everything. So yeah, really interestingly, we hope for this is that you've got someone who's primarily local in myself, but does some trans-local things. And you've got someone who's primarily trans-local in the ministry with Heather, but is also well-rooted and established in the local ministry.So let's see what we make of Alan's teaching. Before we get to that, we wanted just to share a bit about who we are and our kind of giftings around apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, teacher, give you a sense of who we are. So Heather, tell us a bit about you.What's your kind of shape? What's your gifting? Um, I tend to sit mainly in the sort of teaching prophet kind of scope, but I must admit the last time I did an APES test, I came out as shepherd, much to my husband's amusement, because that's not how I would describe myself. But I think because of at the time what I was doing my work, um, that's who I needed to be for the other people in the office at the time. And I think that came through in my, um, my answers and how I reflected on things at that particular moment.But for me, um, teacher, prophet would be where I would naturally see myself. So what about you? Yeah, for me that again, the last time I did one of these, it's interesting how we change over time or what different, um, emphases God gives us at different stages of life and ministry, um, apostle primarily. Um, and, uh, I think that's actually quite interesting in our discussion because I see myself very much as local in ministry, but apostle by role in gifting.And then my kind of second thing would, would very much exactly the same evenly be prophet evangelist and teacher. Um, and then like pastoral is very low. So I once heard Alan McWilliams say what his pastoral score was on an APS test is lower.So, uh, so that's my kind of thing. Right. Uh, and yet actually similarly to you, Heather, there's, there's bits where actually God has grown in me the pastoral over time, particularly in this kind of season post COVID where there's just been a need for that.And it's just really interesting to see God's spirit at work in our lives that way. But primarily I'm an apostle, uh, and then that kind of balance prophet evangelist shepherd. So not shepherd that's a teacher.So the teacher in me, um, actually likes just, just coming on to Alan's teaching. Yeah. Love the fact that, you know, starting in the word of God, starting with have a look at it here is in scripture.Yeah. Here's how the church works, local and translocal have a look at acts and how the church function together. So for me, that kind of stood out as a, just a really helpful starting point of, yeah, yeah, it's there.You can see, um, translocal missionary people going around the place, starting new things and establishing well, the local that's going to follow that. So yeah, that, that for me just stood out as a great starting point. Yeah.I think for me as well, again, the teacher in me liked what, um, Alan was doing, but I connected more with this sort of historical overview, um, in terms of what had happened from the sort of Celtic saints and then bringing us up to Luther and so on. I really quite enjoyed that quick history lesson, um, and how he brought it to help us to understand where we got, how we've got to where we are now, I suppose, um, in terms of the emphasis being a bit more on the local than maybe he started off with in the, in scripture, um, with the story of, um, what happened with Paul and the different groups that he went, um, around, um, in the book of Acts with and the wee groups, you know, and how they changed, you know, Paul was maybe constant, but we hear that he went out with different people. So that was, that was quite good.Yeah. I liked that. Yeah.I found that really helpful as well. And just that sense of, you know, he's looked into it and he's looked into it and there is a basis to this thought he has of, I think there's something broken about where we are. And as we look back in, in both scripture and history, we can see where it was before and gone off kilter.So, you know, the analysis makes sense to me of, of why are we, where we are, what's broken. And so, yeah, that for me was, was helpful. Um, and, and, you know, what then emerged from that of, okay, we got to Luther and then it kind of broke for good reasons, but then the parachurch thing.So that kind of rang true for me of parachurch being alongside the church, not the same as church, just alongside it. And that kind of, that's how we've treated, um, these, these movements of mission over the past couple of hundred years, probably. So I used to work for scripture union, parachurch organisation.I get that. I do work for Cairn parachurch organisation. Um, and so I get that kind of identity question of, of power alongside, rather than actually being at the heart of church and the issue with that.But, you know, if I get that a little bit, I'm speaking as one in the local, do you know, how do you feel about that kind of idea, Heather? Um, I think my upbringing, you know, I was brought up in the Church of Scotland and my, my missional training came through the Church of Scotland. You know, we did Church of Scotland summer mission, um, but I also did the training to be a leader there. And that was kind of, I suppose in some ways it's like a halfway house, um, because you're working with different congregations, but you're bringing in a team that's from all over Scotland.Um, and that's where we kind of, um, sharpened our iron as it were, I suppose, in terms of mission and stuff like that, but that doesn't exist anymore in the same kind of form. Um, so it's all gone to like, um, magnitude and issue and youth for Christ. And, you know, these are the organisations now that are taking people out on, on mission trips rather than necessarily being local congregations.Um, so, so yeah, that, it does kind of feel, you know, if you're just in the local church, I know, I know that sounds really bad, just in the local church, but for me that, that wasn't enough. I never felt like a completely fitted, even being the sort of minister's wife, it always kind of felt a little bit awkward, um, being in that situation and not really, um, where I was supposed to be and not always with people who understood, um, where I was coming from. And I think that's the hard thing is if you are, and Alan mentioned, you know, um, teachers and shepherds kind of fit more naturally into the, um, local setting.But if you're the apostle, prophet or evangelist, you know, if you're an ape, um, then it doesn't always feel that you're in the right place with the right people. Yeah. So it is that kind of time then when you've got to look for, well, well, where do I fit? Yeah.So that's really interesting because I want to ask you more about that then, because, uh, I listened to that and I, as I said earlier, I am apostle, prophet, evangelist, that's my strong ones, teacher as well. And yet I feel entirely at home in the local and, and, and recognize as well, um, that everything Alan's about those who feel they haven't had a place there, they haven't been recognized as hurt in that. That's not me.That's not where I am, but I do see it around me. And, uh, and if, if you can relate to that more, Heather, I think it'd be really, really helpful for you to just say a bit more about that, because I see it around me. And when you're part of Cairn, you are mixing with people who feel like that and express that kind of thing.And yet for me, I would just recognize, you know, that's it. I suppose it's a position of privilege to go, well, look, I don't feel like that and I'm all right where I am. Um, and so I want to hear more of the voice of someone who might connect with that, that, yeah, no, I feel a bit like that.It's like this for us. Yeah. Um, I, I suppose in some ways the role of an evangelist is still kind of recognized, um, you know, and that people within local congregations realized, yeah, they need to be doing mission of some sort.So if you're somebody who's stirring up, um, mission and going out to do stuff, then that's kind of recognized. But as a sitting in the, in the prophetic sphere, it's very different, you know, in a lot of places, not everywhere. Um, and not in every denomination we've kind of been written out.Um, that can, um, sort of happened in the, sort of from the enlightenment onward. Right. You know, that, you know, if science can't explain it, then it doesn't really happen.Um, and you know, who are you weird people that saying that you're hearing from God and that this is what God is saying. And, um, you know, so coming from a cessationist background, the gifts of the spirit weren't always recognized. Um, that made life very difficult at points.Um, because people didn't understand how I was relating to God and how I was hearing from God. And, um, you know, I've had issues with that as well. Um, but with some people in, um, shepherding roles who kind of saw me as a threat or saw me and my friends as threats, because we were meeting other times in little groups to try and understand what is God saying here? Yeah.Um, and, and how do we understand this and how do we live out, as Alan said, you know, the book of Acts, there's a whole range of things in the book of Acts that the apostles did that you don't always see in local churches. Yes, indeed. We could probably spend quite a long time listing those and going through those.An interesting study in itself. So, and it's almost like, if you're involved in the trans local, then are you trying to take people away from local churches? And I think there's a lot of misunderstanding, uh, happening in that space because, you know, I saw myself as trying to learn how God was leading me. Um, but that was misunderstood by people in leadership positions within the congregation that I was in at the time.It didn't go down well. Yeah. And I'm sure there'll be people listening to this who could absolutely connect with that.And you could tell that story many times over in the experiences of folks across Scotland, or whoever's listening to this. Do you know, when Alan said, I think the point about both the local and the trans local needing all five roles, apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, teacher, I think that was important to say, because I think the danger is that you go, well, apes, apostles, prophets, evangelists, they're the trans local ones. Shepherds, teachers are the local ones.And Alan did say in his teaching that often that is where people will find their home more. And, but he did also helpfully say both of these need all five. I think actually that's really important to hold on to.Yeah. Something there about both those places needing all five gifts and that being recognized, because I think at times the trans local experience I have is, um, apostles, prophets, evangelists can be a little bit down on shepherds and teachers and the local context, I can see the shepherds and teachers can be a bit down on apostles, prophets and evangelists. We need all five in both.But I also think that there's something about the left hand talking to the right hand, that the problem is not just, we stopped trans local with Luther, but that it was even dislocated before that. So I think the dislocation of local and trans local is what has led to the corruption that Alan described in, in both of those things in the church. So if you go from the act stuff that he was talking about, you can see a really healthy interplay of, uh, local, um, sends the trans local and then trans local plants the local, and there's a kind of reciprocal relationship going on there.But as you go on through that, that history that he, he sketched out for us, you know, I'm reading dominion by Tom Holland at the moment, and you can just see the trans local church and the local being dislocated from one another. And that's where it all starts to go wrong. So I think it goes wrong before Luther.Um, and it's that dislocation that I think is the problem. And so part of the solution has got to be recognizing trans local, recognizing local and having them speak to and trust one another and that interplay that there is there. Yeah.Cause I think to use slightly different analogies, you need your pioneers and you need your settlers. Right. Yeah.Um, so your pioneers are going to be your evangelists and your prophets and your apostles that can see this is where God is leading us. But then you've also got your settlers who are okay. So this is what's happening in the local place.This is where we are right now. And these are the people who are around about here. Um, and I think we see that a bit with the Celtic saints, you know, um, Alan went through a list of all the places that are named after, um, saints and they, although I must admit, I was a bit disappointed.He didn't mention my favorite one, you know, Kilmahog. Somebody called Mahog came and planted the church. Yeah.But I was under the, um, idea for a long time that it was actually a place where people would kill their, their pigs. But I didn't realise it was something to do with Celtic saints, but I still really liked that place named kill my hog. Um, but yeah, so they would come, but they would settle and they would try and understand the culture.Um, Aiden, I suppose that's the one that I'm kind of looking at at the minute, given that we're in the process of moving to Lindisfarne. He came from Iona. Um, he was asked to go and live in the castle at Bamburgh, but said no, and went to live on Lindisfarne and sort of got to grips with what the local culture was like and how people spoke and what was important to them and then ministered from that place.Yeah. So there's something about what the translocal does about moving, learning, listening, understanding that the, an over-settled church isn't really doing. And Alan talked about the missionary context that we're living in in Scotland now, but yeah, we are an unreached nation now.It's going to need that, that kind of movement, that moving from the settled. You definitely see how the, that we've got to give not just a place, but leads to the translocal to, to go and to do those things. There was a bit of me that, just a question in my mind, and I wonder, Heather, did you have any questions about the teaching, anything that it kind of raised for you? Wait a minute, I just wonder about, oh Alan will like this, the pause means no.No, I'm just trying to think how to, to formulate it. Yeah, I think coming back to, you know, what I was saying about shepherds finding it threatening to have prophets and evangelists and apostles within their local setting, and they can sometimes see it as an upheaval. Could, what, no, what would we need to do as apostles, prophets and evangelists to help them see that as being more of a holy discontent with what's there? How, how can we help them to change their way of looking at things without being seen as a threat and causing upheaval? That I suppose was the question that, that came out to me from what I was saying.It's a good question, and clearly, you know, one born of experience for you. And if you're a shepherd listening to this, I bet you're going, same question in reverse. So how can, how can apostles, prophets and evangelists just slow down a minute and just listen to what we're saying? You've always got that kind of creative tension, don't you, between the roles.But from your perspective, that's a helpful question, because you're not saying you need to think like us. You're saying how, how can we help you? How can we help you to, to almost see our hearts, to see our motivations in this? Yeah. Yeah.Okay. That's a good question. I guess, I guess food for thought, rather than trying to solve that one together.The downside is, if that is not dealt with in a helpful way, then what I've seen is prophetic people, with a gift from God, going then to the new age. And I've seen, I've met them in spiritual fairs and things, because that's where how they operate is readily accepted. Yeah.And also we need to be helping the shepherds to see that these people, and evangelists, you know, they, they become salesmen, and also become business leaders, that they're not the threat that maybe they're perceived to be. And if that conversation is not dealt with well, then there's going to be a loss to the kingdom. Yes, I was going to say it's, it's discovering how can I use the thing I've got for the kingdom, and giving that to everybody.Yeah. Okay. So question that emerged for me, actually, when Alan was teaching, there was a, I don't know if folks will know of this guy that are listening, but a guy called Dick Delset was a missionary with OMF, Overseas Mission Fellowship.And when I was a student, like 20, 30 years ago, he would be doing the rounds, doing the CU teaching and all that. And Dick was this lovely chap to speak to. If you had a conversation with him, he was so warm, and pastoral, and he would like to speak, you'd feel like speaking with him, you're getting a great big hug.But when he was teaching, it was like cutting into the heart. And one of Dick's things was about, you know, getting on with it, getting on with mission. And so he would challenge us students with the call to go, go overseas, there's such a need for people to hear about Jesus.And Dick said, but people would say back to him, but you know, there's a great need in our own country too. And he said, that's fine. Get on with it then.And he was quite like forceful about it. And you know, that, that kind of stood out to me. And I was wondering, why did that come to my mind when Alan was teaching? It's this missionary context of Scotland thing.And it's this business of the invisible church. So the research that Alan mentioned, the invisible church by Steve Agestorp was based in the Highlands. And so that's where I am in Inverness.And there is a bit of me, this won't sound very pastoral, this is where my pastoral low score kicks in. But when people find themselves misunderstood and disconnected from the local and in the invisible church, there's a bit of me that wonders about saying, go on then, if your gift is missionary, go and reach out to people. Because for me, from where I'm sitting, sometimes there's a bit of, I get that you feel discontent with the church and misunderstood and hurt.But are you just sitting in a house like you and Jesus, or you and your two pals that are Christians and Jesus, when there's a world that actually needs your evangelistic and apostolic gifts? Now, that might not sound very pastoral, apologies if I've just offended you. But I think that it led me back to the translocal and local need each other. They've got to hold hands.It is not that we dish and that we dismiss the local church when we're feeling hurt by it. But equally, as you've said earlier, Heather, the local church has got to understand and release and bless the translocal to go for it, don't they? Isn't that the thing? We've got to fly with both wings. Yeah.I mean, I think that's the thing. We need each other. It's not an either or.It's very much a case of both and. Yeah. Because that's the biblical experience or expression that we have in the Book of Acts.You know, Alan mentions, I think he was talking about Acts 12, where he was talking about Paul going. But if you look at Acts 2, then that's your local expression, with the disciples meeting on a regular basis in homes and in the synagogue. And so the Book of Acts has got both and.So if that's what they needed, then why do we think we're any different? Yeah, that's a good place for us to land on, really, I guess. Let's go back to Acts, go back to the start, go back to the patterns that Alan was teaching us about there. And just as, you know, the church begins in Antioch, that's local.Antioch is the local, sends Paul and his team as the translocal. Yeah. And some more, that's the local, they send in turn.We need to get back to that symbiotic relationship, don't we? Yeah. Well, great. Listen, thanks for the chat, Heather.It's really helpful. And you, Scott. I wonder if I sort of prayed at the start.Would you mind just finishing off in prayer for us today, Heather? OK. Father, thank you for the message that you gave to Alan. Thank you for the conversation that it has generated between Scott and myself.And may your spirit work on everyone who hears this podcast, that you would challenge them as to how they see the local or the translocal church, depending on their own situation and what each of us needs to do so that we can become part of an organisation that is flying with both wings in tandem. So we're flying well and expanding your kingdom. Amen.Amen. Amen.