Being the Praise of God's Glory in Business

In the  2010 Sugar Bowl, Tim Tebow, Quarterback for the Florida Gators had this verse outlined under his eyes, since He knew that hundreds of thousands would be watching Him. The Twittersphere at the time logged a mixture of reactions, anger, confusion, people asking what it meant, but I have no doubt that many believers have had a chance to share this gospel message with their seeking friends as result of his action. In his Marekteplace, the football field, he was being the Praise of God's Glory. Father I bring praise to You today because of Tim Tebow's actions.




Two verses, one Chapter Earlier talked about this.

"He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will,to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. "

Ephesisans 1:9-14 (NASB), Biblegateway

Administration here is the Greek word oikonomia, specifically a religious distribution done over a household by its steward. In other words,

God distributed to us the religious knowledge of His will as a part of His work, at just the right time, so that we could see that all things in the heavens and the earth are summed up in Jesus.

In God's unfolding Story of God revealing himslef to us, The event of Jesus in history, the events of His life, His words, His Actions, in these are the Will of God. It was God's will to give us an inheritance before we were born, the purose of this inheritance is to used being the Praise of His Glory.
Being the Praise of His Glory......What does this mean for us called to the Marketplace?

It means

• Publically aknowleding complete dependance on God in all Marketplace Activities
• Ambassadorial behavior representing Christ well.
• Being available, useabel and useful to God for His purposes there.
• It means that your actions will bring good things to your part of the marketeplace
• It means crediting God in all things, so that He is prasied.

Father, teach me to walk in the inheritance you gave us in your Holy Spirit as we carry out our calling in the Marketplace. Teach me that I cannot carry my assignment out there without completely depending on you. Teach me the ambassadorial skills that I need. Help me be available to you at work, not just "holding my breath" until I can breath again among the body of Christ. Make my performance at every level worth of bringing honor toy our name. Father, allow me to bring success to wherever you have me,  that I may bring credability to all you uhave to say through me.  May I never try to steal your glory, but serve You and other before myself @ work, and may I be the priase of Your glory in business.

In Jesus name, I ask these things for your Glory and Honor.

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The Power of the Poor

When the poor get access to property ownership and documentation, their lives change forever.

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Top Three Business as Mission Documents

I.
God is at Work by Ken Eldred

This is a book about kingdom business, the effort to promote Christian faith and commerce through profitable business. It recognizes and describes the fundamental connection between spiritual transformation and economic transformation. By mobilizing its business people, the church has a unique opportunity to make an impact in developing nations. While secular development efforts focus solely on economic objectives, kingdom business recognizes that successful commerce, which improves a nation, requires a biblical moral-cultural foundation.

-Regent Center for Entrepreneurship

II.
Luassane Occasional Paper 59, Business as Mission

This document clarifies what Business as Mission is, and what it is not, This is a must read, as it was a set of standards set up by a working group of passionate Practitioners in 2005.

III.
Business as Mission: The Power of Business in the Kingdom of God  by  Michale R. Baer

If God has called us into business, our goal is to discover why and act on that purpose. As we do so, God's creation will be blessed, and He will be glorified." - Michael Baer

This book is a great read! According to this book, there are four characteristics of a kingdom business:

1. A kingdom business is vocational; something that God has called us to do.
Col. 1:16-20, Eph 4:1, Rom 12:1-2

2. A kingdom business is intentional; God has a very specific purpose for each business.
Eph 2:10

3. A kingdom business is relational; we are exposed to a vast network through business and God wants these relationships to be valued.
Mark 12:30-31

4. A kingdom business is operational; operations must honors and reflect God.
1 Cor. 10:31

Baer suggests establishing a kingdom business by doing the following:

1. Create a kingdom foundation
Write out what you believe about: profit, people, growth, service or quality, productivity and innovation. Examples:
- We will always seek mutually beneficial outcomes in all that we do.
- We will operate in a fiscally responsible manner.
- We will maintain the priorities of family and friendship.
- We will endeavor to find the maximum enjoyment in whatever we do.
- We will seek continual learning and improvement so that what is done is done well and with full commitment.
- We will live lives that invite inquiry.

2. Articulate a kingdom direction
Vision: broad, expansive statement of the general direction in which company is headed.
Mission: a narrower definition of your vision - or your vision with metrics.
Purpose: the expression of what you believe God has as his specific will for your company.

3. Identify kingdom targets and objectives
Target: a three year goal for your business.
Objective: a one year goal.
For example: revenues, expansion, staffing, profitability, ministry and missions.

4. Focus on a few pivotal strategies
For example: execute marketing/business plan, etc.

5. Draft and assign quarterly action items
Break down your plan into a list of 10 or fewer action items

6. Schedule regular accountability

-Review on Amazon

Related topics but not the same as Kingdom Business are:

-Tentmaking
-Church Planting with a partially supporting business
-Business activity built around a ministry.
-A church or parachurch ministry that survives primaily through ongoing donations.
-Social Entrepreneurs
-Ethical Enterprise


-Great Commision Companies are one type, a subset of Kingdom Businesses

There  are about 2 dozen books out there, but these three guys get it.









LeeRoyal

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A Kingdom - Purpose Driven Business

The Purpose Driven Business Concept is one of the Anchors On the Qualitative Axis of the Kingdom Business 3 Dimensional Model. It is at the oppositend of the axis from The Workplace Minitsry Anchor.
So what is a purpose driven business?

Here is what Brad Dawson says in his article, a Purpose Driven Business:

"A purpose-driven business is an organization that balances quantitative financial performance metrics with qualitative higher level personal
values. Unfortunately, a definitive purpose-driven business model does not exist. Since success is subjective and cannot be measured by financial statements alone,it is defined by the attainment of the owner’s vision at a given time."

This ecoomist says that a purpoe driven business considers Outcomes along with Incomes in Building a Business:

Tina Olivero at Trans4mind Suggests that Indivduals design their own purpose driven work experience by asking the following questions:

1. The place we are today, how did I create this? How can we create connection, peace and purpose?
2. The place I want to work becomes a place of personal expression and purpose; what structures do I need to create this?
3. When I look back on my working career I want it to be meaningful. What do I need to do to create that?
4. How can I develop creativity, imagination, and vision within myself and my people that will make a difference and have us in alignment with our mission?
5. How can I foster, courage, persistence, and passion in pursuit of the goals and missions of our people, teams and outcomes?

An adapation of this list provides guidelines for designing A Kingdom-purpose driven business

1. Would Jesus be engaged in doing this kind of enterprise?
2. How can we create connection, peace and purpose in business model Design?
3. How can the business model create an expression of Kingdom purpose that believers will want to join; what structures do I need to create this?
4. When the business looks back at its accomplishments over the past decade, you want it to be meaningful for Kingdom purpose. What do I need to do to create that?
5. How can the business develop creativity, imagination, and vision within myself and my people that will make a difference and have us in alignment with our mission?
6. How can the business encourage, courage, persistence, and passion in pursuit of the goals and missions of our people, teams and outcomes?
7. How Does the business model Serve Matt 28 19-20,
8. How Does the business model Serve The Two Great commandments, loving God, loving people?

Step One is Creating a Shared Vision:

The Design of a kingdom Purpose Driven business is led by a leader with a God-given vision for the business. They cast the vision to a small group of people who, together, will hold a stake in the success of the company. At a minimum, they give detailed answers to these ten questions:

1.     Who are our Customers?
2.     Who are our Competitors?
3.     What are our products and or services?
4.     Where will the business operate?
5.     What is your plan and budget for starting up,
6.     Where will this funding come from?
7.     Who is the owner(s) (Steward (s)), and what roles do others play?
8.     How will the owner meet their own obligations until the business can pay them?
9.     How does the business advance the Kingdom of God?
10.  What are the political, cultural, situational barriers that must be overcome, and how will you go overcoming themt?

The answers are the beginings of a business plan.

Step Two is Begining to prayer together over the vision, and building the business plan.
(Stay tuned)









LeeRoyal

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Kingdom Business 3D Business Model

(c) Enterprising  Ministry

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Tent Makers Are Alive and Well

Originbally published
Sunday, November 01 2009

For Stuart Hake, his personal venture into missions has been mind-bending.

“I’ve come to recognize that much of our thinking about mission has been influenced by Greek thinking—that spiritual is superior to physical,” he says. “The problem with that is it is not biblical. We base so much of what we do on an unbiblical concept.”


Stuart and Debbie HakeIn the summer of 2008, Stuart and his wife, Debby, left their comfortable life in northern Indiana and moved to Bangkok, Thailand. He had spent the previous 12 years as chief financial officer at Grace Brethren International Missions (GBIM). She had a successful career teaching disabled children in the local public school system. Their three children were grown and settled in careers or families of their own.

“I’m recognizing I have only so many years left in my life where I can invest my life for the kingdom,” says Stuart.

In Bangkok, his focus has been to explore business as mission, a concept that encourages economic development at the local level, providing support for the physical needs of the indigenous people while teaching them about Jesus. It’s a biblical mandate that seemed largely forgotten throughout much of the 20th Century and only in recent years has been re-invigorated as thousands of Christian workers around the world strive to share God’s love with the poorest of the poor while helping them learn to support themselves.

The Hakes are virtually self-supporting, needing to raise only about a third of the support a traditional missionary must raise. Though sent by their home congregation, the Winona Lake (Ind.) Grace Brethren Church (Bruce Barlow, lead pastor), Debby joined the staff of the International Community School to help with their support. (The English-speaking school uses biblical principles in their teaching methodology.)

“It’s demeaning to the people we are working with to assume they are needy and we’re not,” Stuart stresses. He feels it leads to an attitude of superiority on the part of the missionary, even if unintentional. “Let’s find out what assets they (the nationals) have,” he adds. “That doesn’t mean we don’t want to assist; we just don’t want to cripple them by doing things they can do for themselves.”

Wayne Hannah, who travels regularly in Asia as the GBIM director for that region, sees business-as-mission as “planting uniquely cultivated, contextualized seeds.”

“We kept bumping up against a cultural glass ceiling,” he remembers. To develop a ministry among many of the unreached people groups was difficult. “We couldn’t go further. There were cultural, linguistic, and economic barriers.”

He also notes that those who study church-planting movements say that to the extent that a people depend upon a subsidy from the west, there is an inverse correlation, to that extent they will not likely reach their own people with the gospel.

“We need to encourage enterprise on a small scale to help the nationals subsidize themselves,” he recognizes. “When that happens, stand aside. When they take ownership, you see that God can empower them to reach their own people.”

Stuart has spent the last year analyzing the region to determine what methods fit best in GBIM’s ministries in Southeast Asia. Soon there will be nearly 12 staff members who will have some role in holistic or benevolence ministries and businesses in the region, according to Wayne, who has overseen missions in Asia for 14 years. He hopes to take the concept of holistic missions throughout Asia.

“It’s a way to approach a country and reach the least reached,” Wayne says. “Without it, the national church will never take full ownership to reach their own people.”

Stuart hopes to play a role in one of four ways—as a consultant with enterprises created by missionaries to work with local people; to mentor interns or students coming to Southeast Asia to learn or study; to be a catalyst for business as mission while promoting the concept in U.S. churches and with business people or pastors; and possibly working as a professional manager in an existing business in the region.

The recent economic downturn has only emboldened Stuart in his quest. “People are seeking help,” he says. “We need to be positioned to help people in all aspects of their lives.”

(Editor’s Note: If you would like to help Stuart and Debby Hake in their unique mission, contact them at sahake@gmail.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .)

The Rest @ FBGC World









LeeRoyal

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Business as Mission: A Comprehensive Guide to Theory and Practice

Business as Mission
A Comprehensive Guide to Theory and Practice
C. Neal Johnson Inter-Varsity Press, January 2010

Business as mission (BAM) is a mission strategy whose time has come. But Christian companies and business leaders do not automatically accomplish missional purposes. BAM requires mastery of both the world of business and the world of missions, merging and contextualizing both into something significantly different than either alone. C. Neal Johnson offers the first comprehensive guide to business as mission for practitioners. He provides conceptual foundations for understanding BAM's unique place in global mission and prerequisites for engaging in it. Then he offers practical resources for how to do BAM, including strategic planning and step-by-step operational implementation. Drawing on a wide variety of BAM models, Johnson works through details of both mission and business realities, with an eye to such issues as management, sustainability and accountability. More book information. Download 40% discount code.

The Rest @ Business as Mission.com










LeeRoyal

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Reclaiming Enterprise as an Act of Worship: 10 Essential Principles

1. Whereas enterprise is a biblical domain in God's Kingdom, the place where vast numbers of Christ followers are predestined to joyfully labor in advancement of His Kingdom, Christians in the secular workplace and workplaces designed and owned by believers in Christ are called to Matthew 6:9-13, Mathew 10, and Matthew 28:19-20 Commissions.

2. God often places kingdom business professionals in kingdom businesses and non-kingdom businesses alike to advance His Kingdom. Wherever they are called to serve, Ephesians 2 is their guide, serving their workplace leaders whether present or not, knowing they are really serving God.

3. A kingdom business is owned or privately controlled by a kingdom business entrepreneur, a subset of kingdom business professionals.

4. A kingdom business may be in any principled business area, no matter how mundane it's labor, and is designed and operated according to the following:

-The enterprise, whether constructed as for profit or non-profit, is designed for and is successful in generating both revenue and sufficient profit to stabilize it, and plan for enterprise survival and growth, and the development of its employees.
-The enterprise's policy and practice obey the laws of the land.
-The Steward of the enterprise can ask God's blessing for its mission, short and long term objectives, within the transparent context of advancing God's Kingdom.
-The Enterprise's demands of and ministry to its employees advance God's Kingdom while obeying the laws of the land.
-It's demands of and ministry to its suppliers and other partners advance God's Kingdome Enterprise, demonstrated by the enterprises character and integrity.
-It's products, services and ministry to it's customers advanced God's Kingdom through their joint interactions.
-The enterprise is known in it's community as a good citizen.
-It practices sound and biblical financial practices in a transparent manner.

5. The Kingdom Business encourages its employees to support the local church, and recognizes The church’s authority. Kingdom Business Professionals actively practices the personal disciplines of a believer, including Active participation in the local church and small group accountability. The enterprise makes no attempt to create a parallel or replacement organization for the church in the workplace.

6. As in all things belonging to Christ, the enterprise acknowledges it's entire dependence on God for provision, most notably the provision of work for the enterprise to do that generates revenue.

7. Therefore, an interpretation of economics which suggests that any successful enterprise must always act in its own self-interest toward the accumulation of wealth, and that only individuals who receive that wealth are capable of good works, is rejected as an incorrect, and amended as follows:

-The "invisible hand" that guides economies proposed by Adam Smith, who wrote both The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations, is the Hand of God.

-That Christ followers in the workplace act in the interest of God's Kingdom, which may be interpreted by non-believers as their own self-interest, or the interest of the company. However, the supremacy of God as revealed by His Word reigns in all actions and choices, including enterprise.

-Therefore, Kingdom Business Owners and Kingdom Business Professional alike are stewards of business opportunities provided by God for His purpose.

8. The Enterprise is a "finger on the Hand of God" just as are other domains which actively engage our world culture, such as government, media, art and entertainment, education, the church, etc.

9. Kingdom business owners (Stewards) and Kingdom Business Professionals reject the concept of secular business, with a set of truths and principles separate from God's word.

10. Kingdom Business Professionals who operate inside an enterprise designed on a secular-sacred separation hold themselves to a higher standard, and pray for creative ways to demonstrate Kingdom Business integrity, principles and solutions while serving their leaders in their most excellent way, using Shadrack Meshack and Abendigo as Models. (Daniel Chapters 1 and 2)

- Lee Royal










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About US

We support the Lausanne Covenant as our Statement of Faith,

·Enterprising Ministry's aim is to share tactics, techniques and ideas that integrate business in ways that awaken the global entrepreneur.

· We believe that ministry without enterprise is like faith without works.

·We believe enterprise without ministry is like works without faith; both approaches, alone, are dead. Tactics that separate ministry from enterprise reinforce the sacred - secular separation myth.

· We are interested in concepts that find, encourage and equip believing entrepreneurs, removing barriers that prevent them from serving in their evangalical, God-given roles, in every country on earth.

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The Kingdom Task Force Team

A Kingdom Task Force Team is a small group with specialized skills. When linked together as part of a larger Task Force, The Team serves a vital but narrow role in a much more com plex ministry.

Though a tems my have a multitude of Specialities, there are three functional types: Front line teams, Support Teams and Catalyst Teams


Some Examples of Front line Teams are:

• Prayer walking Teams
• Personal Evagalism Teams
• Church Planting Teams
• Remote Learning Center Instalation team
• Micro-enterprise installation teams
• Water treatment project installation
• teams

Some examples of Support Teams are:

• International Project Finance Teams
• Remote Computer Learning Center Architecture Teams
• Water treatment project specialists

Some examples of Catalyst Teams are

• Regional denominational teams
• A strategy team made up of representatives from Catalyst teams
• A team with a full vision who recruits the other teams they need

Charachteristics of a Kingdom Task Force Team are that they:

• Have a biblical accountablity structure
• May be or operate like a small or life group
• Constantly maintaining expertise in their specialty
• Have a self-sustaining operating plan
• Participate in newtorks where they can engage in Task Force Projects

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The Fishermen

There were three fishermen Who fished with their sons everyday on Lake Malawi.
Each day, the three Father and sons would each would pray to God to bless their work, and the family would take their boat out on the waters. Each day, every Father and son's boat brought back ten fish.

Al three fishermen families brought their ten fish back to the beach each day, and cooked them all over coal fires. Each prayed together with the rest of their Families.

The First Fisherman's Family


The first fisheman's family always prayed this prayer:
Thank you God that you made us wise enough to know the sea and the fishing grounds. We are grateful for great eyes to see the good fishing places.
We will take the ten fish, the fruit of our labor, and we will feast tonight.

The second fisherman's family:

They brought their ten fish back to the beach each day, and they took one fish to the local priest before they cooked the 9 remaining fish over coal fires. They then prayed:

Thank you God that Showed us favor today and send the fish to our nets. We show our gratitude by returning to you one of the fish from the ten that you have given to us.

We will take the nine fish, the fruit of our labor, and we will feast tonight.

The third fisherman's family

They brought their ten fish back to the beach each day, and they took one fish to the local priest.

They built a hut where there was a slow smokey fire buring all the time. They took the second fish and hung in on a rack in the smokeing hut, where it dried.

They cooked the eight remaining fish over coal fires.

They then prayed: Thank you God that Showed us favor today and send the fish to our nets. We show our gratitude by returning to you one of the fish from the ten that you have given to us, and we set aside another fish so that you may use us to share with others who have no fish.

One Day, a great tsunami blew over the reefs, and for seven days that came and went when the fish disappeared from their waters and all the nets of the fishermen came up from the sea empty.

After their first day without fish, The first and second fishermen came together and cried out to God, because they knew that their children would soon not be able to sleep because of their hunger.

The third fisherman's family took their dried smoked fish and fed all three families for the next seven days.

The third family prayed this prayer:

Father God, we are thanfull that you provide all our needs, thank you for using some of the fish you sent us to meet the needs of your people.

Such is the way of God's provision and fellowship:
He often uses the most grateful, those most dependent on him to sometimes be the provision and instrument of fellowship for his people.

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What Roles do Business as Mission ( BAM ) Leaders Play?

• Justin Forman has just written an excerpt Ken Eldred's God is at Work book in the Business as Mission Network Newsletter. If you are just now exploring BAM, It takes us to the next level:
  
  Now that I get Business as Mission, who is doing it, what roles do they play, and where are they serving?

He identifies nine roles:

• Founder or manager of a Kingdom business. Those with entrepreneurial or managerial skills are building and leading successful businesses in developing nations.
• Lender to the poor. Christians are extending microloans to those considered unbankable. They are also providing business and spiritual instruction to loan recipients who typically establish simple cottage industry ventures.
• Mentor and financier of Kingdom businesses. Christian business professionals are providing the necessary funding, advising and mentoring to local Christians who are establishing or operating businesses in the developing world.
• Trainer in Kingdom business. Some are training local managers in the basic skills and principles of business. These training courses typically include instruction in biblical values and principles that lead to successful business.
• Short-term consultant to Kingdom businesses. Christian professionals are engaging in short-term missions work that seek to bless business owners in developing nations.
• Expert advisor to Kingdom businesses. Western Christians with relevant business experience are using their knowledge, expertise and contact network to assist Kingdom businesses in the developing world.
• Sales partner to Kingdom businesses. Kingdom business professionals and organizations located in the First World are seeking to promote Kingdom business companies in developing nations by marketing products or establishing sales channel partnerships.
• Investor in Kingdom businesses. God has blessed some people with the financial resources to be major investors in Kingdom businesses around the world.
• Manager of Kingdom business funds. Though this role is still emerging, Kingdom business professionals can also act as private equity fund managers. Working within existing laws governing the establishment and management of investment funds, they can serve entrepreneurs, managers and investors by assisting and funding Kingdom businesses.

Get the rest of this great article in the Business as Mission Network Newsletter, and God is at Work

Ken Eldred is currently CEO of Living Stones Foundation and Chairman of the Board of Advisors of Parakletos @ Ventures. For over 20 years, Ken served as CEO of Inmac, a public company he founded. He has assisted in the founding of several other successful companies, including Ariba Technologies. Ken is involved in ventures in the US, China, Europe and India, and he advises various Kingdom business ventures and ministries. He has an MBA from Stanford and was a Visiting Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution.

Ken is the co editor of On Kingdom Business, winner of a 2004 Christianity Today Book Award. Ken and his wife, Roberta, have three sons and spend their time in Northern California and Colorado.

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Enterprising Ministry in the Transformational Wave

• Introduction: What is Enterpising Ministry and what are Transformational Waves?
• Chapter 1: Four dimensions to help you find where your Enterprising Ministry fits
• Chapter 2: Dynamics in the Body of Christ that Shape the Four Dimensions
• Chapter 3: Relationships between Enterprising Ministries - Teams and Task Forces
• Chapter 4: Give us this day our daily bread: Funding Enterprising Ministries

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Finding Where You Fit: Waves, Mountains, Locations and Roles

Four Dimensions of Enterprise Ministry

It is an empowering revelation to understand which tool you are in the box, which part of the Body of Christ. One way to inquire of the Lord about this is to ask Him where he has anointed your ministry to serve along the following 4 dimensions:

The First Dimension to understand is where your ministry fits among the Five Transformational Waves

God has been transforming nations in progressive waves of change, each new wave advancing on the foundation laid by the previous wave

The LORD your God will clear away these nations before you little by little; you will not be able to put an end to them quickly, for the wild beasts would grow too numerous for you.
- Deuteronomy 7:22 (NIV)

Each wave passes over the land, bringing a phase of change to the body of Christ and the world, leaving in its wake seeds and nutrients of transformation that will prepare the land for the next wave.

There are five transformational waves

• The first wave is the Seeding wave; Matt 28:18-20
• The second wave is the Soaking wave. Ephesians 6: 4-5
• The third wave is the Stabilizing wave.
• The fourth wave is the Sharing wave.
• The fifth wave is the Securing wave.

The Second Dimension: Where does your Ministry fits among the Seven Mountains, or Seven Mind Molders that influence any culture?

• Religion
• Government & Law
• Family
• Education
• Business
• Media, Communications& Technology
• Arts

The Third Dimension: Where in the World does your ministry fit? There are too many places to list, but the list may include:

• Your Native Land
• Asia
• Latin America
• Africa
• Central Asia
• Etc

The Fourth dimension: What role does your ministry serves? There are at least three role types:

• Enterprise A: Front Line - Tactical ministry: Individual and Small Group works of service
• Enterprise B: Front Line Support: Providing specialized services and skills that multiply the effectiveness of Front Line Minis ties - Organizational works of service
• Enterprise C : Strategic support coordinating or connecting the work of multiple organizations, - Meta-organizational works of service.

So what about the Ephesians 4: 11-13 roles?
"And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ."
-Ephesians 4:11-13
These are clearly Leadership roles that need to be present in every Enterprising Ministry. The Apostle role may not be inside every single Enterprise A Ministry, but each Enterprise A has someone or a group of people in an Apostolic role over it. Enterprise B & Enterprise C Ministries also have someone or a group of people in an Apostolic role.
But each Enterprising Ministry has Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors, Teachers, for the equipping of the saints called to their ministry

• For their work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ;
• Until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
• Johnny Combs, in his book Kingdom Catalyst describes Prophets as Entrepreneurs, Consultants as Prophets, Pastors as Managers, and Supervisors as Teachers.

So to find where your ministry fits, Find where called God has called you to serve among the 5 transformational waves, In which of the 7 Mind-Molding Mountains he has gifted you, in which geographic area God has given you a passion, and what role of service your Enterprising Ministry has been anointed to serve the other ministries near you. The Ephesians 4:11 Leaders in those Enterprising Ministries will provide the Leadership for those Ministries.

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The Emerging Church

The Emerging Church is a movement among 20-35 evangelicals. It's an internal conversation in which they biblically examine each component of their relationship with Christ and compare it to the church they grew up loving or hating.

They then take their deeply personal relationship with Christ and seek to find their own generational expression of living a missional life. They see the weaknesses and failings of the previous generation of believers and move to avoid them. Yet they seek the council and teaching of the previous generation in ways that boomers never did.

In this conversational journey, five areas seem to be in discussion:

1. The nature and methods of worship
2. Biblical interpretation and Authority
3. The roles of women & family
4. Engaging the culture without engaging sin
5. Living a missional life furthering God's Kingdom

The secular church world is trying to capture the movement by contemporary issues like gay rights and green living.

Some examples are:

• Scum of the Earth in Denver, CO
• The Village Church In the Dallas-Fort Worth, TX
• Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis, MN
• The Crucible in Nashville, TN
• Vintage Faith in Santa Cruz, CA,
• Apex in Las Vegas, NV
• Holy Joe’s in London, England

They believe that:

• Jesus intended his followers to interact with the culture around them, not cloister themselves away.
• They adhere to the ancient creeds of the church: They are generally doctrinally conservative
• They emphasize the visual and performing arts
• When we draw closer to God we draw closer to each other, despite the denominational boundaries.

Honestly, most of what has been written about the movement has been written by 45+ church leaders they watch them take charge of the direction of the church. It's too early in the discussion to know where it will come out, but the following outcomes are likely:

New, powerful, healthy, culturally appropriate connections will be made to lost generations in the western world.

• The secular and the sacred will no longer be divided in the Body of Christ.
• This church will connect to each other and the world, crossing barriers with ease that held older generations back
• They will sacrificially serve the international gospel in ways their great grandparents and grandparent's did.
• Young religious humanists will try and carve out a place, but will largely fail and their decline will continue.
• Terms that have been contaminated by an increasingly hostile secular society will fall out of use by these Christ followers, like evangelical, fundamentalist, Religious right, and even biblical literalists.
• They will eventually establish ways of interacting and worshiping and being in relationship with each other, the world and Christ, and a new orthodoxy of unorthodoxy will continue to emerge.

In the mean time, for those of us 45+ let's pray for them, figure out what it means to become mentors as they figure out what to do as Christ has given them charge. Let's figure out how to serve this generation as they make the choice to turn their eyes outward instead of inward, to looking for moments that are about someone else instead of themselves, to create interlocking families of Kingdom purpose.

Lord, give them freedom to move in new ways, freedom from the traditions of man while maintaining a desperate love for the traditions of Christ. Guide this period of discussion and discovery, and maintain in them a passion for your word. Teach us to serve them as You bring them to full fruit.

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