PURSUING UNITY
Where Does the Apostolic/Prophetic Movement Go From Here? - Mark W. Pfeifer
Unity among Christians and churches is a subject as old as the New Testament.
And a constant challenge!
We’ve heard about unity so much that it often falls on deaf ears and cynical hearts. We know we need it – we all admit that – but it’s so difficult to achieve and maintain.
We’ve tried and failed so often at bringing unity among churches and leaders that many of us have become tired and skeptical. We’ve worn our people out with unity messages, unity movements, unity services, unity meetings, unity concerts, unity crusades, unity banquets, unity outreaches, etc.
I get it!
It’s a lot!
But we cannot stop!
We must continue to pursue unity!
Here’s why…
I. THE NEED FOR – AND MEANS OF – UNITY IN THE CHURCH
The prayer of Jesus still guides us, inspiring and directing every Christians to pursue becoming one in the Body of Christ…
“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.” - John 17:20-23
The need for unity has not changed in the last 2,000 years. His prayer resounds through the centuries. But what unites the church has changed over time.
Let me explain…
A. Unity Built Around a Common Doctrine
For the first 1,000 years of Christianity, there was only one church on earth. Then, in 1054, over a variety of theological issues caused the “Great Schism” which divided the church culturally and geographically.
The Orthodox church dominated the Eastern part of the known world while the Catholic Church ruled the West. Each side rallied around their own particular beliefs while the worship experience for the congregants changed very little.
Five Hundred years later, the Protestant Reformation split the Catholic Church. New groups unified around doctrinal objections like the ones Martin Luther enumerated in his 95 Theses. Again, styles of worship didn’t change much from Catholicism to Protestantism - but the doctrines surrounding worship certainly did.
As a result of the Reformation, churches found unity primarily around a set of agreed upon doctrinal statements. Every detail was parsed out and magnified as a necessary obsession since doctrine was the main means of unity. People were accepted or rejected based on their verbalized doctrinal conformity, down to slightest detail.
As a means of unity, unfortunately, statements of doctrine eventually became the basis of disunity. Groups continued to fragment and reorganize around a variety of doctrinal details that were placed at the center of each group’s identity.
This created what I call the Denominational Franchise Model that has prevailed from the late Sixteenth Century until now. This describes a group of churches, united around core theological beliefs, owned and operated by a central governing entity with a strongly defined doctrinal brand.
Most major denominations around the world fit this model. The brand is created around a unique central doctrine while the business model is built much like a franchise. Hard assets like buildings and real estate are owned by the central organization - which is largely responsible for quality control and the education and placement of leaders.
Local responsibility is focused on keeping the brand relevant to its adherents, maintaining financial viability and assuring recognition within the community.
B. Unity Built Around a Common Activity
Doctrine as a single unifying factor began to change slightly in the Americas sometime between the late Colonial Period and its formation as the United States. During this time, a new means of unity emerged, one that migrated away from doctrinal distinctions and embraced something a bit different.
While the business model didn’t change much, the basis of unity took on a new dimension as liturgical and spiritual activities became an issue.
The seeds of this new unifying power were sown in the previous two centuries. Movements like the Anabaptist unified people around the act of rebaptizing adults who were previously baptized as infants. While this demonstration was supported by their central doctrine, it was the physical mode of baptism, not the quoting of creeds, that unified them.
The Moravians were also unified beyond creedal adherence. They found agreement around the acts of prayer and sending missionaries. Based on the teachings of Jan Huss (1372–1415), Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700-1760) reorganized and unified the Moravians around acts of in the Kingdom of God, more than doctrinal confessions.
This paved the way for similar unifying forces birthed in the First and Second Great Awakenings in America. This means of unity drew from the example of the Moravians but added a deeper dimension that transcended most previous affiliations.
C. Unity Built Around a Common Experience
In the First Great Awakening (circa 1730-1750), preachers like George Whitfield, Gilbert Tennent, Jonathon Edwards, Samuel Davies, John Wesley and James Davenport drew large crowds of Colonists and united them around the common act of repentance and holy living.
The records of this time are replete with people’s emotional reactions to these messages, creating a shared common experience that united the Colonists.
In the Second Great Awakening (circa 1790-1850), preachers like Peter Cartwright, Francis Asbury, Barton W. Stone, Alexander Campbell, and Charles Finney did the same, using personal experience as a basis of unity rather than doctrinal creeds.
On the American frontier, for instance, places like Cane Ridge, KY saw worshippers experiencing a myriad of unusual spiritual manifestations.
But it just wasn't on the American Frontier that these phenomenons were happening...
...they hit the urban centers, as well!
Jeremiah Lamphere (1809–1898), a lay leader in his church, drew people together for payer in Manhattan at The Fulton Street Church. This became known as the Businessmen's Revival. This movement united people of all denominational backgrounds across cities in the United States around the endeavor of passionate prayer for themselves and their city.
These movements unified people around shared spiritual experiences. While Methodism was still doctrinally focused, one can’t help but see how Wesley’s Aldersgate experience changed the way he read and interpreted the Bible. This created a pathway for the Methodist church to unify people around an experience with the Holy Spirit, subsequent to salvation, as a part of their common doctrinal beliefs.
In the wake of 150 years of revival movements in America, Pentecostalism exploded on the scene in the early decades of the 1900’s. This movement organized around a specific common experience – speaking in tongues. The watershed event of this movement was the Azusa Street Revival which began in 1906 in Los Angeles.
This singular spiritual experience became the basis of unity among believers and churches across the United States and around the world. Utilizing the aforementioned Denominational Franchise Model to consolidate their unique brand of Christianity, a half dozen or so major Pentecostal brands emerged from this period that we recognize today.
Then, about a half-century later, another shift took place…
D. Unity Built Around a Common Personality
When mass media and entertainment became an important American value in the mid-Twentieth Century, Churches and their leaders began aligning themselves around Christian celebrities.
Doctrine and experience took a back seat to the living mantra, “It’s not what you know but who you know that counts!” Charismatic Personalities unified people in a way that surpassed doctrinal distinctions and personal experience.
This trend was exacerbated by the rise of independent churches across the United States during this time. These unaffiliated churches, led by strong, charismatic personalities, were free to join whatever group they wanted - or start their own groups if they pleased.
Many televangelists and popular ministers used their celebrity status to create their own brand of associations and organizations during this time. Leaders could join and be connected relationally with hundreds – and sometimes thousands – of other eager patrons, simply by paying a yearly fee. There were no rigid doctrinal statements or a common spiritual experiences necessary for fellowship.
These groups gathered at conferences and special meetings that fostered unity around a central personality. These events became yearly pilgrimages for many people, especially those leaders hoping to advance their careers.
What many people riding the coattails of celebrity preachers failed to realize, however, was that popular leaders seldom allow their followers to achieve more success than they do. This would create competition. And for those heavily invested in the Church Entertainment Complex, competition is a threat to maintaining the celebrity status they worked so hard to achieve.
E. Unity Built Around a Common Apostle
About 20-30 years into this time, the Apostolic/Prophetic Movement came into being. Early pioneers duplicated the success of previous movements by unifying people around a central personality.
But they offered people an added benefit!
By affiliating with their network, they could be a part of something that God was doing on the earth presently – acknowledging the functioning of apostles and prophets in the church.
Starting in the late 1980’s into the 90’s, apostolic networks formed around a central apostle. These networks operated much like denominations without the encumbrances and demands of larger organizations.
This was a perfect fit for most independent churches. Local churches kept their facilities, practiced their own styles of worship, adhered to their own sets of doctrines, and kept financial resources at home.
Today, some 20 to 40 years after these networks first came into being, there are a couple of challenges the movement faces here in the United States.
(1) The Challenge of Aging Apostles and their Successors
First, a generation of apostolic leaders is aging, and succession has become a challenge. Since the organizations these pioneers built were largely relational, “handing off” these relationships to a successor has been awkward.
It is also uncertain whether the next generation will find the title of apostle and prophet as interesting as did their predecessors.
(2) The Challenge of Large Networks and their Members
Second, apostles and the networks they formed are victims of their own inimitable success. As the number of relating churches and ministries increased, greater organizational structures were implemented.
In the end, the central apostle, who was the drawing card for participation in the first place, has little or no personal contact with his/her “sons and daughters.” The network has become like most denominations they promised to reinvent.
While these challenges can certainly be overcome, it is still worth having a conversation about how to overcome them.
Which brings us to this central question…
II. WHERE DOES THE APOSTOLIC/PROPHETIC MOVEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES GO FROM HERE?
Ours is a movement that has championed a new kind of unity, one built around Biblical government.
Our uniqueness came from the recognition of prophets and apostles being active and relevant in the church, operating alongside a fully functioning five-fold ministry as described in Ephesians 4:11:
“And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers,
According to Paul, the combined ministry of these five gifts brings the church into extraordinary unity and maturity. In the next five verses he describes the process:
"...for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.” Ephesians 4:12-16
Our movement represents an opportunity for a new kind of unity, one that transcends individual spiritual experiences, single charismatic personalities and accommodates various doctrinal distinctives.
It is...
✅ Invitational,
✅ Voluntary.
✅ Relational.
It is a unifying alternative somewhere between the constraints of the Denominational Franchise Model and the impersonal letdown of the Christian Entertainment Complex.
A. Apostles as Spiritual Fathers and Mothers
While all unifying components have their place, what appears to be most needed in this hour is a company of true spiritual fathers and mothers who will embrace, empower and promote a fatherless generation.
I think this is what people are looking for, whether they realize it or not...
...especially the next generation!
Apostolic generals must also be apostolic fathers and mothers. This probably won’t propel leaders into a great spotlight in the Christian Entertainment Complex. It may keep them from bragging about the hundreds and even thousands of spiritual sons and daughters they have.
But it does mean that we can have a true generational impact with a legacy of raising up sons and daughters in the next generation of leaders in the church.
It means being present and spending time with a limited number of people in a relational, family environment. Ambition for global or national recognition may have to take a backseat to personal and local bias.
For the Apostolic/Prophetic Movement to continue to expand into the next few decades, we will have to grow larger by growing smaller!
B. Apostles as One Part of a Team of Five
Apostolic and Prophetic Leaders must be willing to humble themselves and partner with the other four expressions of Christ described in Ephesians 4:11 – on equal footing. Only then can saints mature and the Body of Christ be edified appropriately.
People must experience all five expressions of Christ in equal proportion in their local assemblies if they are going to be properly discipled.
What this looks like moving forward is hard to predict. The Apostolic/Prophetic Movement, by necessity, had to deconstruct the Five-fold Ministry to study all its working parts individually...
...especially since the gift of apostle and prophet were thought to be extinct in by many in the Body of Christ and, consequently, were largely unidentified, unrecognized and understudied by the traditional church.
Perhaps now is the time to focus on reassembling the five-fold “motor” to figure out how all five components work together to bring unity and maturity to the Body of Christ.
I, for one, don’t think we’ve yet worked this out entirely on a practical level. There are still too many unanswered questions.
Like…
Exactly what does a functioning five-fold ministry look like in a local church?
Does this mean every local church needs an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher in the house?
Do we give them all titles and form a five-fold committee?
What if we don’t have all five of these gifts present?
Do we appoint them anyway?
How does recognizing fold-fold gifts in the church effect existing government?
Are these governing gifts?
What about the elders and deacons?
And exactly where does the bishop fit into all this?
III. USING DIMENSIONS AND DOMAINS AS A CONCEPT OF APPLICATION
What if we thought of these gifts more in terms of domains and dimensions of Christ’s influence in His church rather residing in a single individual with a title?
What if people could experience the influence of each dimension of Christ without having to announce themselves as “apostle” or “prophet” or “evangelist,” etc.?
What if we moved beyond titles and positions in our conceptualizations?
What would it look like if a group of people were equally influenced by each of these five dimensions?
▶︎ The Apostolic Dimension brings that what is MISSIONAL to the church.
▶︎ The Prophetic Dimension brings that what is SPIRITUAL to the church.
▶︎ The Evangelistic Dimension brings that what is ATTRACTIONAL to the church.
▶︎ The Pastoral Dimension brings that what is FAMILIAL to the church.
▶︎The Teaching Dimension brings that what is INTELLECTUAL to the church.
What if a company of people served the church by influencing the saints in equal proportion with all five dimensions of Christ, making them Missional, Spiritual, Attractional, Familial and Intellectual?
What would it look like if a congregation was influenced by all five dimensions and functioned under those influences in the world?
What would a Five-dimensional Disciple look like?
What would a Five-dimensional Church look like?
How would it influence a community?
IV. USCAL REGIONAL ROUNDTABLES in 2025
This is a concept we call 5D – making 5 Dimensional Disciples in the Local Church.
And it is the focus of all USCAL Regional Roundtables this year.
How we mature the saints and make disciples is a challenge and concern in every local church.
We want to invite you to join the conversation. Lean in and help us formulate ideas into working models that help make 5D Disciples in your church.
We need your help in creating ways to implement this concept in practical ways on the local level. We need to formulate how this can be realistically implemented by local church leaders
Somewhere in the midst of our dialogue, we just might hit on the next steps necessary in the Apostolic/Prophetic Movement for future strength and maturity as we obey Christ’s commission to “make disciples.”
You can read more about 5D here: https://www.docdroid.com/a72Z1Os/what-is-d5-pdf
You can register for any of our USCAL Regional Roundtables here: https://qrco.de/uscalrr
I hope you join the conversation!