Synergy Sessions

5Q in Established Churches

• Streams Creative House & Cairn • Season 1 • Episode 9

Share episode

In our last podcast of 2025, Peter Neilson shares thoughts about 5Q in established churches and the challenges then Charity Bowman-Webb and Scott McRoberts unpack some of the teaching. Thank you for sticking with us this year, we will be taking a break in December and look forward to more releases in 2026!

SPEAKER_00:

Hi, this is Alan McWilliam.

SPEAKER_02:

And this is Charity Bowman Web.

SPEAKER_00:

And we want to welcome you to the Synergy Sessions.

SPEAKER_01:

Hello, this month's teaching is by Peter Nielsen on Five Q and Established Churches. And please stay tuned for Charity Bowman Web and Scott McRoberts chat about it afterwards.

SPEAKER_03:

Well welcome to this podcast about how we can uh include the fivefold ministries in the established churches and help them to work together there. Let me introduce you to Willie Jennings. Willie Jennings is the Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and African Studies at Yale University. His book After Whiteness writes about the struggle that African American students and teachers have within the current seminaries of the USA. However inclusive and diverse they may be in policy, he argues that there's an inherited mindset that draws on European and colonial attitudes. It's ingrained in the institutional life of the seminary. He can even track the culture back to the cotton plantations where the black slaves were under the rule of the plantation owner. He advocates a new approach. He says the challenge is how to build life inside a revolution that is being resisted and a crumbling that is being denied. Without diluting the depth of dysfunction which pervades those racially infected institutions, we could well take his words and apply them to the established churches in the Western world, still captive to Christendom mindsets and inherited patterns of ministry. To introduce the fivefold ministry of APEST into an established church is, in Jennings' words, to seek to build inside a revolution that is being resisted and a crumbling that is being denied. Only within the forge team. But the pattern was around in various forms in the independent networks in nineteen eighties and only came into mainline prominence through the writings of Mike Frost and Alan Hirsch in the last twenty years in the writings on the church after Christendom. They reaffirmed Paul's application of Christ's gifts of grace for each, for some and for all in Ephesians four. Out of the generosity of Christ, each of us is given his or her own gift. Christ handed out gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor teacher to tain Christians in skilled servant working within Christ's body, the church, until we're all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God's Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ. My introduction to this Ephesian model came much earlier through the writings of John Stott, David Watson, and Michael Harper. Their focus was not so much on individuals with those gifts as on the body of Christ representing or representing the ministry of the incarnate Christ, as the ministry of the ascended Christ is made present through the Spirit. What Jesus did in the flesh he now does through the Holy Spirit in his spirit constituted body. So the focus at that time was not on the individual individual apostle, prophet, evangelist, or teacher, but on how their gifts equip the body of Christ to represent Christ fully. Jesus was the unique teacher, the good shepherd, the bringer of good news of the kingdom, God's prophet and the sent one. He embodied these gifts in their fullness, revealing the active, redeeming the presence of God. In the same way, the contemporary body of Christ is to teach, to care, to share, to listen, and to go. In the words of Michael Harper, let my people learn, let my people care, let my people share, let my people listen, and let my people go. And when the body of Christ lives out those dimensions, that's the way to let my people grow. This is where we face Jennings' challenge. How do we build life inside a revolution that's being resisted? And a crumbling that's being denied. There are inherited patterns of ministry which resist this five-fold model. They are embedded in church patterns which are crumbling despite institutional denial. The Church of Scotland has focused on the parish minister in a way that has led to a focus on the one person fulfilling so many of the functions of ministry, albeit with a team of elders. That translates into other titles in other established denominations, but the effect is the same. Jürgen Moltmann said that the Protestant theology of ministry was the unfinished business of the Reformation. Somebody else suggests the word ministry has become a greedy word because it gobbles up all the other ministries of the body of Christ. We have settled for the pastor teacher and ignored or outsourced the apostle, prophet, and evangelist. The result is a reductionist model of ministry. While as I say I've not worked with the APAST team in a local church, throughout my ministry I have taught and implemented the doctrine of the ministry of the whole people of God. I have taught that as a church we are to express those different aspects of Christ's ministry. So following the example of Michael Harper, for instance, I would map out five areas in a room and ask people to go where they sensed that they most belonged. Were they teachers, were they carers, were they sharers, listeners, out-of-the-box people that saw new possibilities? And that then led to conversations around five these five areas of gifting. Each has been given a gift of grace. Some have been given gifts of leadership capacity in each of these areas. And it's their role to equip all others to grow into their giftings so that the body builds itself up in love. So what practical steps can we take to integrate this new approach uh into the established church today? Step number one is teach it. John Stott said that if he was to go afresh to a new church, he would spend the first year teaching on the nature of the church, focusing on the letter to the Ephesians. Eugene Peterson taught his congregation in Maryland, a new congregation, to live inside the story of the Book of Acts, as though they were chapter 929 of the Acts of the Holy Spirit. We need to help people to live inside a new story. But we do not think ourselves into new ways of living. We live ourselves into new ways of thinking. So provide opportunities for people to explore their gifts. There are online questionnaires that go straight to the point of identifying those who are or are not gifted with those five core motivational gifts. Given the makeup of many established churches, they will be heavily weighted to people with teaching and pastoral gifts. There may be a frustrated evangelist or two. Often there will be a prophet sitting on the edge of the inside. And the apostles may show up as those who have lots of good ideas, but at this point few followers. Indeed, you may discover this many of the apostles have left long ago. The sheep questionnaire offers a comprehensive overview of all the gifts distributed throughout the body of Christ. It should be used as a stimulus for prayer and discerning conversations with others. It's helpful to think of gifts of and gifts for if we're to be inclusive. For some people may not have the gifts of evangelism as direct communicators of the gospel, but they want to use the gifts of hospitality or of administration for evangelism. They find their place in that sector of the church's ministry. Thirdly, visit other churches where shared ministry is already practiced to see how it's being done and ask your particular questions and tease out the practicalities. Send out spy teams to learn from those further down the road from you. Invest in personal conversations and study times with key leaders and c complement those intensive times with open church conferences to cascade the new perspectives out into the wider congregation over a period of time. Avoid an us and them divide. Fifthly, offer opportunities for apprenticeships through shadowing others who are more mature in their gift. Now that may mean seconding some key people to other churches to have some live-in experience. If you do that, be careful with the re-entry of the new enthusiast. They may be there may be resistance to what they would see others would see as foreign imports. So prepare the way for them to share their experience wisely in ways that build up and do not undermine this slow work of transition. Beware of power trips. Beware of those who want to use their gifts as a means of exerting power and control. All gifts of grace are given to be given away, not to boost our ego. The spirit of Jesus is the spirit of the servant. That's the litmus test. Whatever our gifting, it is to be at the service of God's people. If you are A, P, E, S or T, then use your gift to equip others to be a better A, P, E, S, or T than you will ever be. And take a long view. Don't overestimate what you will achieve in a year, but do not underestimate what you will achieve in five. This is about changing an embedded culture. And it may be ten years before it becomes your church's new way of being. In the words of Eugene Peterson, it means a long obedience in the same direction. In all these steps, we are assuming that the minister, the pastor, the priest in charge is taking the lead in initiating these changes. It's important that the lead person is clear about his or her primary gifting and learning to let go some of the other roles that may have been part of multitask ministry. That will require a high degree of emotional security and spiritual maturity. It means moving from high control and low accountability to a pattern of low control and high accountability where people are free to exercise their gifts, but within a team setting of mutual trust and mutual accountability. Paul's vision for this pattern of ministry is that we grow together into the whole measure of the fullness of Christ, returning to that message translation until we are all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God's Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ. In other words, this approach to ministry is more than a pragmatic way of organizing ourselves. It grows out of grace filled lives that makes space for others to mature and grows into an expression of church that looks like the ministry of Jesus reenacted in the here and now. I hope these few steps will help to equip people to live inside the revolution while limiting the resistance and the denial so that the crumbling creates space for something new.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, let's jump in. Right, Scott, welcome. So we are going to have a little chat about today's Synergy Podcast, which was given by a wonderful speaker and a friend of Cairn Movement called Peter Nielsen. And he talked basically about how the fivefold, how can the fivefold ministry, the fivefold, the five Q, how can they work in the established churches? Which that's a tricky question, and I thought he tackled it really well. So quick introductions. For most people who don't know me, I am Charity Bowman Webb, and I head up Streams Creative House and Streams Scotland Training Centre, which are both part of Streams Ministries International. And Streams is based in the states in Dallas, but has hubs in about eight different nations, different training hubs, and within those nations, all sorts of communities. And the heart and vision is to train people to hear from God, to understand his communications and to see the prophetic gift healthy and mature, and indeed working with the rest of the APES, the Fivefold. And Scott, you are a local pastor in Inverness. I live in Inverness as well. But you are a pastor for the Church of Scotland. And I believe your church started in 2010, and you have a wonderful all-age congregation. And we've just been chatting before we started about growth and young people coming to faith this last year, which is so exciting, and even a building project that you're hoping to begin next year. So is there anything else you would like to say about yourself before we begin?

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, yeah, that's all the interesting stuff there. Charity, that's great. Yeah, I'm I'm I am Scott. For those that have been listening to the Synergy Podcast for a while, you'll know who Charity is. And and you might even know who I am. But if you don't know who either of us are, where have you been? You've been missing out. Absolutely. Exciting things happen in our church just now, which, as Charity and I were talking about before hitting record on our podcast, we are just seeing locally here in Inverness, I think, um, something that that we're speaking about nationally, the the rise of uh a younger generation interested, curious about Jesus, um stepping forward into faith in him in a way that others before have have perhaps not in the same way. And it is exciting, I guess, to be digging into what does APIS look like or a growing culture of APIs in the established church, being a Church of Scotland minister that is almost synonymous with established church. So, yeah, how does that play out in the Church of Scotland? Um, is an interesting question for me, for us. Yeah, so looking forward to digging into this.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I was I was thinking this as I was listening to Peter. I was thinking that you and I are quite a good discussion panel because we're probably going to come at this from quite different angles. We both love God's church, but we both have sort of a different journey, a different experience. So I'm not a church, you know, local church pastor. I'm not particularly working within the established church. Um, but I've certainly been part of God's church for, oh, I'm getting old, about 28 years now, and uh I did not get raised in the church. So I think, you know, looking at all these um these younger folks, the teenagers and students, beginning to get curious about Jesus, like you said, and and beginning to respond. I would have been in my 20s when I found Jesus. So it's a wonderful, wonderful time for God to reach in and rescue you before life gets even more messy. But it's a it's a great age and stage to kind of you know find out more about our identity in Christ, why what's our value, why we're here. So, what we're gonna do is just remind folks, if they don't know, of our sort of key apex to gifting um and where we might be coming from through those lenses when we discuss some of the um questions around this podcast content. So, I when I've done the test recently that helps you identify gifting, I you could almost cut me right down the middle and go half prophetic and half apostolic. Every time, which makes that's the kind of season I've arrived at in my life where I think very prophetically, but then I think about multiplication and how do we do things? And I'm very practical as well as very creative. So running streams creative houses because I have qualifications and a background in design and the arts. So imagination, all of that's a huge passion of mine, creativity. But at the same time, I am a rare, rare, very practical, strategic thinking artist type designer person.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, you'll get many of those, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

No, I am quite rare, which is why I think I I lead and organize lots of other creative people. Because I get them, but they need a little help with the organization, which is fine, which is good. What about yourself? What what's your kind of key gifts?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, so I I haven't done the test in a little while, and so uh I'm gonna say the same thing as I usually do on the on these synergy podcast site. I uh apostle would be my kind of um strongest one or or largest uh role. Uh then pretty balanced between prophet, evangelist, and teacher, and just not far behind that. The upshot of all that is that uh pastor is very low for me.

SPEAKER_02:

So goodness.

SPEAKER_04:

So it's it's fairly atypical, I guess, of of Church of Scotland, except that there are a growing number of people coming into ministry with a wider variety of apests, I would say. So uh the apostolic is the strongest for me, and and so a similar lens perhaps to charity in that regard. But as you mentioned before, you didn't grow up in church, came to faith in your your early 20s. For me, did grow up in church, you know, chose Jesus for myself when I was 13, but I've definitely always grown up and been disciples in it. So a different lens there. Um, and yeah, that'll be interesting to see where we go with that.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's funny, pastor's my lowest gift as well. And so it'll be interesting to see how we discuss this. Um, but you know, for those of you who are maybe not as familiar with APEST, obviously it's important that we all have some measure of the gifting. And at times in previous podcasts, they really kind of hit the topics of, you know, to what degree do you improve the ones you're weak in? And you know, what what do you what do you focus on? So I think the Bible is pretty clear that we should all function at some level in all five, but we can't all be, you know, they can't be key. Every every gift can't be key. And that is why we're a body and we need each other. I love that. When I get stuck, I think that's so good. There's so many wonderful people in the body of Christ. And one of the key things about APEST is the working together, isn't it? And Peter really did um hit that very that very important point. So let's move to question one. Um, just a little reminder, some of the key things that we want to hit is we were just saying Peter brought up a wonderful quote that was really kind of a heavy hitter when looking at how does the ape rise within the sort of traditional church structures where it might not be in full bloom, so to speak. He said it was actually very difficult. And he introduced this chap called Willie Jennings. And the quote was how to build life inside a revolution that is being resisted and a crumbling that is being denied. Ooh, so that's he's not mincing his words. Um, and I love this as well. I'm just gonna start us off with this. There was that beautiful um version of Ephesians 4, 7 and 4, 12 to 14 for the message Bible regarding the fivefold. That, but that doesn't mean that you should all look and speak and act the same. Out of the generosity of Christ, each of us is given his own gift to train Christ's followers in skilled servant work, working within Christ's body, the church, until we're all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God's Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive in Christ. Doesn't that sound like the perfect church?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, let's get along to that one.

SPEAKER_02:

I was thinking, I don't think we're quite there yet with all kinds of moving rhythmically and easily, but let's take a look at some of the reasons perhaps why not. So, question number one in response to this teaching is what do you think, Scott, it would look like for the church to make room for all five apest gifts? Um, especially within a context that, as Peter identified, as have many others, that it's primarily still quite pastor-teacher led, pastor teacher dominated. Um, and it's important to say that that that isn't the fault of all the wonderful pastors and teachers out there. This is very much what Peter defined as a sort of Christendom model, as in there's the thinking in traditional structures is a bit stuck in Christendom. And actually, we don't live in a Christendom era anymore. And so it's vital we start to make a shift. So, what are your thoughts around that?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, so making space for all five gifts. When we have in the established church quite a strength around pastor teachers, it probably starts with those teachers teaching Ephesians 4, and and other passages are available. Um, I was interested by yeah, I've I've actually taught Ephesians 4 so many times that it's fallen out of my Bible. Um but yeah, it was interesting that Peter mentioned that that John kind of advised that you you want to start with the church by taking a year, uh take a year in Ephesians, or you know, really teach on the nature of the church, and and a lot of that is there. I think we'll probably have said this before in these podcasts that Ephesians is like Christianity 101, it's like a source document for uh what church is, what defines church, what it's to be. And so properly understanding these rules is that that comes from teachers teaching scripture to show us the the range of rules that there are. Uh and so you can already do that in the established church. Um, I think the established church wants to to dig it a bit. Sometimes I think it gets a little bit tired. Well, apes, that's that thing, and that's that personality test. So I think actually a serious reckoning with what is the theology around Ephesians 4, let's let's really see it, um, would would be a good place for the established church to start to let those roles bloom and understand that they are all there and teach them. You then need to make space for people to step into them. And so um I think there's something here about outlining for people there are these five roles uh and giving space to invite what you think you might be. Peter also said some health things we think we'll come on to around it's it's not kind of me and my gift and my personality test, but actually the body of Christ has these five things, and and you've mentioned already charity that a healthiness around that is actually about the body of Christ having all five of these things together. Um so there's something about recognizing the roles in one another, giving space to them, a bit of curiosity uh and permission about what would it look like to let people explore this and and try to offer it to one another. We're not gonna discover what it looks like unless we let people have a little bit of a go at it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that's great. And actually, that that's practically the answer I was I had in my notes. I was just thinking it starts with teaching, good teaching. It's a game changer, isn't it? It it breaks misunderstanding, it you know, good teaching on the APEST helps us to stop thinking, why is that person doing that? That's annoying, they're not doing what I would do. And you start to understand the different functions, our different lenses for people. And also, um, what's I was um had a Zoom this week with a fellow creative leader, um, and I loved what he said. He said, you know, even within those five APES giftings, each individual person is still going to express them differently. Not all teachers are alike, not all prophetic voices are alike, you know, and you could say the same of all of those things. There's so much diversity. And I think as you say, you know, you start with the teaching, but then you allow people to start to out, you know, the outworking of the gift they carry. And what is their expression, which might be totally different to their fellow evangelist who would also say that's their top gift, but they're going to evangelize very differently. So it's allowing that. I think we're so in an era where we're moving away from that sort of um divide between the few who can actually do ministry, or so we used to think, and everybody else watching. And really in a time when God is calling up this priesthood of royal believers and as leaders, it's like, how do we not be the rock star because we shouldn't be, but how do we really um rise to that challenge of making space for people to get good teaching about their gifts, but then learn how to activate them and function as part of the body of Christ? Because all gifts are for service and um, you know, to serve other people as well as for to enjoy ourselves. You know, God wants us to have fun with our gifts. So it's a teaching is usually one of the first things that changes misperception. It just breaks down walls between people, and we realize the wall we put up was because we didn't understand something. Um, and I think even just teaching the the church needs to move into the era of allowing all five to come forward and not always waiting. You know, my experience of being mainly prophetic apostolic is that we've all been waiting of the permission of the shepherd teacher for just about everything, which doesn't really work because they've only got, you know, they've only got a certain lens. And it's that holistic lens of the five that's needed, isn't it, to really be what was described in that beautiful scripture passage that was a word. So all good stuff. And um, I find another lovely quote here that said that the church must shift from roles that maintain the organization towards gifts that activate the people, which is really cool. Really cool. And also just resistance lessons, um, you know, from people when they understand, but also when they see the gifts in action and they see the fruit. That's always the thing that changes people's minds and they start feeling so threatened by the differences you know in in others than the way they might do something or see something. So let's move on for the um to the next question. What do you think healthy shared leadership looks like? And how do we move from this sort of model that Peter was referring to that's been sort of high control and low accountability? How do we move into low control and high accountability as a leadership model to allow the gifts to come forward? What's your thoughts around that one?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I I think I think we've we've seen something of this in in St. Columba. Um we began in 2010, as you quite rightly said, charity, and um I guess I was a church plant, and and our early experience was actually quite high control and low accountability. It was and and I'm fairly sure that was actually right at the time. It was a a kind of we'll lead from the front, and here's an example, and then you guys can kind of learn as you go. But actually, as you become more established, and this is the thing, we're talking about the established church now, and that needs to shift. So you need to grow up into a mature place of letting people take over, have a go with things. I think it's been a good thing for us to learn to do that, not least through um the ministry of of care and and exposure to APEST as a as an understanding of Ephesians 4. And so um I think it involves uh being willing to take risks and let people take risks. I think it involves a mind shift to you have a goal with that, and we'll we'll jump in if it's going wrong. It's okay if mistakes are made. Let's analyze that and pick that up, and we'll course correct. So I I think within the established church, as much as as many other places in the world, we can have it. We don't want to get this wrong. What if it goes wrong? Um and there are important areas in which it's yeah, we have to make sure it doesn't go wrong. We do have that, but in too many spaces in in our church life, we we have held that mindset for the whole show. Instead of giving us space for have a go with that, and that didn't go right, let's have a think about it. This actually went really well, and we saw some fruit that we'd never have seen if you hadn't had a go. Uh, and so that it's a a mind shift for leadership to let's see what happens when we let you do this, rather than um we're waiting until we think you are ready to do this.

SPEAKER_02:

It's a great answer, actually. I was just thinking for many years we were part of a church in Inverness called Kings. And I at the time the pastors were Tom and Ruth Roller, and they they were such, I didn't realize at the time, I knew they were, I knew it was special the setup, but they were they were leaders just like that. They would have been, you know, low control, high accountability, very loving to the congregation. But as a pioneer, they let us try loads of stuff. They would let us try something, they would see the fruit. So, for example, that would that was part of a real wave of prophetic evangelism, prophetic and creative evangelism. So we would train people with the streams courses, so there was good teaching. But then we would go out onto the streets, the pubs, the spiritual fairs, uh, and we would see this tremendous response from the people to the gifts of the spirit being used in evangelism. But they would, you know, they would let us try something, fruit, try more fruit. And it just grew and grew and grew. And I think that was a rare gig that they didn't try and step in and control it. But the fruit, you know, the example of the fruit was in a way their safety net, but at the same time, they they still, you know, probably um allowed quite a lot of risk around what we were doing because it was, let's put it like this it was very creative. It was, and we're going into sort of wild, you know, spiritual fairs and ministering to clairvoyance and all this kind of stuff. So it wasn't tame, and it certainly wasn't um something you could have said, this will be the outcome. Half the time you never knew what the outcome was going to be, what this Holy Spirit was gonna do. But the fruit was incredible. Um, and I was just thinking that that was a beautiful example of how they led so many of us because it allowed us to take the gifting into completely different areas that blessed other people. Um, so I was just thinking that, I was just thinking that one of the key things, just like you said, is allowing those spaces for experimentation. And as leaders, you know, I lead a lot of very creative pioneering people. So my main job is let them have a go. But as you say, there's there's still that that crucial place for good safety structures.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

So I've always thought that. It's great that you can think of you know strong local examples. And I guess as people are listening to this, I hope that maybe what they can do is think of where am I seeing this, you know, locally, or where am I not seeing it? Where actually do we need to shift here? Because those examples are kind of the evidence of it. And as you were speaking, the other thing with seeking charity is that I think maybe nobody tends to be good at accountability. So the high control people, which can be our default in the established church, doesn't need to bother with accountability because we've controlled it so much, it's just got to be done this way. Whereas the the flip side of it can sometimes be guys, have a go, God bless, you know, have an adventure. But without accountability, that's where it does become a bit of a free-for-all. So it does still require a discipline and responsibility amongst our leadership in church to go. You've had a go, but we're still willing to step in and have some tough conversations at points with that. So that's that's my my pondering. I wonder if by default none of us agree at accountability, and actually to create the space and allow the play in the adventure um requires church leadership to to kind of have a this both the spine and the heart to do the accountability stuff as well.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I think um being sort of raised up through Streams ministries for the last 20, coming up 26 years, I hadn't realized that was that's like their plumb line. You know, you the all the art of hearing God um, you know, principles in that course, that's a foundational course, we're about accountability, character development over gifting, you know, like be a safe person while being exploratory, creative, pioneering. So I was kind of raised that you are you're super accountable while being allowed to be, you know, quite um well, creative and exploratory with all sorts of gifts. So I guess now that's taught me to lead like that. So and you do you can't control everything, but we can't control the Holy Spirit. So actually, what it does is I think it leads us to be believers who less and less try to control the Holy Spirit if you don't try and control other people. Yeah, which is kind of how we're supposed to be, but you do have to hold your nerve for years. Sometimes I've just heard this little voice inside my head when we're about to do something crazy, and God will just say, Hold your nerve. I've I've heard it a lot over the last decade. Just hold your nerve, just like don't panic, just hold, and then God just moves and beautiful things happen. But I resist the urge to rush in and control. And it's uh yeah, you just got to follow that trail of the Holy Spirit really closely, don't you? To the best of our ability. Okay, time-wise, we're gonna move on. I love this question, obviously. I would. It says, What role does imagination and creativity play in moving the church beyond Christendom era patterns?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I guess that suggests that the Christendom era patterns didn't involve as much imagination and creativity. This this takes us back, I think, to that strong quote that stood out for both charity and I uh from Peter's teaching. The the Willie Jennings quote, how to build life inside a revolution that is being resisted and a crumbling that is being denied. And I think, like Peter, we have to acknowledge that that quote was not about the church and the transformation of the church around APEST or anything, it was around uh institutional racism in universities in America. So we we acknowledge that, but we we we take the learning from it, we see how it's applicable within the established church of our day. And uh I I I wonder if actually the crumbling that is being denied is beginning to be accepted. That that actually the Christendom era thing, like the world gets it that it's not Christendom anymore. I think the church is beginning to see that as well and admit that and and look to a future that's more on the fringe and more in that sense prophetic. Um and so your your teaching charity on this podcast a few months ago uh encouraged us to think about the the role of the imaginative and the creative uh and in the kind of streamlined as as real weapons that God was gonna use in what's coming next. A little bit under the radar, perhaps. There's something a little bit transformative that's going on under the scenes, uh behind the scenes, I should say. Uh so what what role does it play? It it probably plays that role, it plays a kind of subversive um picturing of what could be, uh a kind of envisioning for the church of what could be, what will be next, I might dare say, um, that helps us to move beyond the Christendom era patterns. Um so yeah, we probably need our artists, our musicians, our prophets, our apostles, uh our evangelists at that level of our pioneers to envision what could be so that it it it it it it kind of shows the church what will be. Does does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02:

100% absolutely. You you would you would be a great teacher for Streams Creative House right now.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh great.

SPEAKER_02:

Because imagination, what's wonderful about imagination, I I teach on imagination quite a lot, and it's like if you think, for example, that scripture about faith being what we can't see, we've got faith for something we can't see yet, and so we pray it in. And imagination is a gift from God, so it's the gift that links us into the unseen realm, into that realm of possibility and faith. And you know, we can literally see things in our imagination that don't exist yet. It is an amazing gift, and if we allow it to be sanctified with the Holy Spirit, by the Holy Spirit, if we keep that imagination clean, then it's amazing what God, the vision that God can drop into our imagination that then connects with our faith, and we start to rise up and prepare and get ready and pray it in. And creativity, you know, the gift of creativity could be the arts, but it could be business, it could be church leading, it could be, I mean, it's for every calling. But creativity helps us to think outside boxes. And boxes are as human beings, we build boxes, we get comfy in our boxes. We've heard a lot of this language in church, but if we, you know, it's the language would then say, break out of your boxes. But if we don't foster good spirit-led creativity within the culture of the church, then it diminishes. And that I see a lot of it of it being diminished in the church culture of this day. A lot of, you know, as you diminish the prophetic, the apostolic, and the evangelistic from their true sort of healthy levels of maturity within the church, creativity and imagination usually go out the door with them because they're very, very key, particularly in those gifts. Because if you think about the shepherd is gifted to keep the sheep feeling safe, loved, nurtured. It's a brilliant gift. We all love it. We all love somebody pastoring us. Um, and the teacher is to, you know, bring that truth and keep people on track. But then you won't necessarily look for change. Because if you've got something safe and running well, as it should be, and that's why God made the other gifts think what do we do next? How do we evangelize next? Who do we need to reach? So the imagination and creativity are absolutely essential within all the gifts, but particularly those three that we often diminish, we are also running at a much lower level of creativity than God intended within our DNA as Christians.

SPEAKER_04:

I think just as you were saying that we need it in all the gifts, that that's what was running through my head a wee bit, is perhaps our apostles, our prophets, our evangelists in different ways lead this and need space for this. But but actually my mind was going to but shepherds and teachers can highly creative creativity and teaching, imagination, and how will I love this person best? Um how does it need to be different to where it's stuck? Um, all those things really matter too. And I wonder what you make of this, Jarati. It also went through my mind last Sunday. I had someone in my church who told me I was watching something online thinking about which was encouraging me that what what I imagine is what God is is is leading me to. You know, it's kind of a to to achieve it, you must believe it kind of stuff. It sounded like to me. Uh and my answer was that uh I think if we take this as is God saying rather than God is saying, so it's not that whatever we imagine God is saying, yeah, but just to flip the words and go, is God saying, to be curious about praying into that more, weighing it up against scripture, what are our teachers telling us about that? Does that match? Taking those gifts together to discern it. Was that a good answer?

SPEAKER_02:

That that is a great answer, and that's like healthy prophetic as well. It's like it streams we weren't trained to hit people with, thus saith God, you know, the Lord, because that puts people in a corner, and we're all meant to weigh and judge and you know, hear from God for ourselves, but to to you know, present things to God. This is what I believe God is saying, this is what I sense God is saying, and allowing each one of us just to weigh, to grapple, you know, to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, whether that's a teaching or you know, an experience of a gift we're not as familiar of, we need to grapple with God. We need to speak to God about all these things, and that's how we grow and we don't just stay spoon-fed. Now, I said we wouldn't go on too long, but I think we've got two minutes to hit the last question because I think this question is such a hot topic right now. What does it look like to disciple younger generations in the APEST gifts while honoring the older generations who formed the foundations? I think such an important conversation right now.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, and we can do it in a minute and a half. I I think again, I'll go to local example here that when we as a told charity before this call, and we don't have time for this today to tell you guys all the whole story, but the young people that are coming to faith in our community and are now coming into our church, um the first thing is for them to recognize their identity in Christ, um, and and then on that foundation, their emerging identity of calling and gifting. So I I can quite quickly say to them, I see this in you. Do you want to have a go at this? I can quite quickly pair them up with somebody in our church who's older who has that same gift and calling, and there's a discipleship that can go on there. So we had a youth event, youth worship event at at King's Church charity the the other week, and it was uh joint youth event. I was speaking at that, and there are three young people in our church that said, Can you come and join in with this? And they just shared a little bit each. I can see that they've all got a gift of of teaching, and and so I just want to give them a shot, let them have a try, join in with something that I'm doing. So where the older in our church know their gifts, and where the younger discovering them is a pairing up and a discipling and mentoring and uh and a and an eventual kind of handing over. You do the talk, and I'll do a little bit if you want me to.

SPEAKER_02:

That's just a great answer, Scott. I mean, that's really from everything else we've just said, is like we can, they're young and they're coming into the church and they're not tripping over all the old barriers that we've tripped over. Or, you know, there's been a lot of healthy discussions with other leaders recently. Let's not teach them through our baggage, you know, as as an as older people in the church. Let's um let's just bring them that fresh canvas, let's just let them have a go where they're apest, you know, let's teach them about the apest gifts from the get-go and help them identify where they're strong, where they need improvement, what the Bible says about them all, and then let them have a go. But I think it's so important that some of the people who are not in their 20s are saying, well, should we just get out the way and you know, is this quiet revival, this rising tide, is it really just for the kind of young Joshua kind of generation type metaphor? But actually, the young adults, I have two, my children are both young adult age right now, and a lot of the young adults are feeding back, don't do that. Who's gonna mentor us? We need your wisdom. It's a it's a multi-generational breath of God on the church right now. And what the younger people need is people who are willing to be spiritual fathers and mothers. They're not trying to be rock stars, they're not trying to dominate them, they're doing exactly what you just said. How can we parent them well and pass on wisdom without passing on unnecessary baggage, which I think is is our our challenge, isn't it? Anybody over the age of 30, welcome to the challenge. But we are all needed, loved, and valued, and we've much to pass on to the to the next generation while still growing ourselves.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, and really quickly, yeah, really quickly just to say about that. I think that's right. I think this is the message I've been sharing at said youth event was it is actually going to be you guys that are gonna lead us into what God's doing next. But we're gonna help you, we're gonna mentor you in that. And I do think that the Moses generation, this is really important for the established church. This is a message I believe the Church of Scotland needs to hear, uh, amongst others, that there will be uh a generation that passes, that that does die off and and doesn't, in a sense, get to see the promised land. We'll get a glimpse, but it's so important that Moses prepares Joshua and gets him ready for taking them in. And so uh what God is doing in this this quiet revival of this raising up of the young is for us all because we do get to be part of it when we get to pass on. I would describe it as our spiritual will to the next year. Here's what we want you to inherit from us before it is your time to step forward and into this. Uh so there's still work for Moses to do, it's still exciting. And as Ruth Haley Barton wrote about Moses, the best thing for Moses was not the promised land that he never got into, best thing was God, always God with it with it, and and and so do we.

SPEAKER_02:

So love that, love that. And I was just in that chapter of the Bible this morning, actually. Moses was 120 by the time they crossed the pro. He was he it says he couldn't go out and he couldn't go in anymore. The guy was done, he was tired. Yeah, it's uh he got to he was like, I'm done because he he didn't have to be caught up in all the all the battles, and you know, but there was also Caleb. Caleb was probably about 80 when he crossed over. Um, so there's there's some of the generation that will absolutely, you know, lead that, help lead that charge or support into the the next season, the next era as well. But it's exciting, and let's just see how God unpacks all of this within the uh within the gifts being matured and raised up in the church. Well, Scott, that's our time. So I just want to thank you as always for being uh a tremendous podcast guest and a fancy conversationalist. Good stuff. Thank you so much, Scott. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Synergy Sessions podcast.

SPEAKER_00:

We hope that you've been inspired by what you've heard, and we hope that that encourages you as you press in for what God has got for you in the future.