Streams in the wilderness

We are convinced that the church can never be what God has called the church to be unless and until the apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic, shepherding, and teaching voices are all empowered to speak up, are heard, and work together in order that we become a mature community (Ephesians 4:1-16). These are the five functions of human society, being formed by God, who sends us into all the earth to bless others (Genesis 1:28; Genesis 12:1-3), who emphasises the importance of hearing and being heard (Deuteronomy 6:4-5; Psalm 18), who declares good news (Isaiah 61:1-4; Mark 1:1), who is compassionate in nature (Exodus 34:6-7; Matthew 9:36), and who calls us to seek wisdom (Proverbs 1:2-7, 2:6, 3:5-6, 4:13).

But this is far from the self-understanding of the local church. If we are to see genuine, lasting culture change, better education alone will have little impact. Education does not change how we live (if it did, expository preaching—which does matter—would have a far greater impact than it does). More than that, we need equipping. But most of all, actual change in how we live needs immersive experience. When I was at school, I learnt about the Impressionists, not only their paintings but their lives. The Impressionists interest me. I like their paintings. I’ve even taken oils and brushes and a canvas and easel outdoors and dabbled in painting; and I’ve even gone along to art classes. But I have never immersed myself in a community of artists, in the sharing of ideas and experimental techniques and the joyful monotony of everyday life. I’ve never painted day after day after day. I may have some artistic potential, but I have invested my energies elsewhere.

Lasting culture change calls for a mix of education and equipping and experience, and not in equal measure. Culture change comes about by a 10% focus on education, 20% on equipping, and 70% on experience. (This is why fundamental changes in our practices towards the environment are so hard, despite knowing more about the impact of, say, plastic waste or energy production and despite having a growing range of tactics available to equip us to live more lightly on the earth; because we, in the west, have yet to experience the impact first-hand.)

So, where we have a congregation who are deeply settled in the unconscious biases of what church ought to look like, reinforced by their experience having far greater weight than any re-educational impact we can bring, what is to be done?

Here is what I think we are trying to do.

Education: 10%

I am a Bible story-teller, and when I do this in the context of the gathered church I do it through the lens of move-listen-share-care-learn, asking such questions as:

How does this passage move the story on?

Who speaks? What do they say?

Is there any good news to share?

How is the community built up?

How does this passage connect with what we already know?

There are, of course, other areas of education—which will more often than not take the form of unpacking and making sense of experience, but will sometimes precede experience.

Experience: 70%

We cannot easily take an aging congregation to other contexts where they might experience different ways of being church; but we can and do seek to help them to parse their own lives (in which they are immersed) and our neighbourhood (parish, city, nation, global) through the same lens:

Where have you been this week? What did you see? Who did you meet?

What have you heard—from God? from others?

Do you have any good news stories to share?

Who is in especial need of care? (And how might we respond?)

What are we learning to do as we follow Jesus together?

Equipping: 20%

In many ways, this is the hardest sphere for me, and one that calls for putting tools into people’s hands. But it is good that it is hard for me, as this only emphasises the importance of teamwork, of bringing to bear all the voices, all the talents. For example, Jo is far better than I am at inter-personal skills, at (almost every form of) communication, at finding and arranging resources, and at the practicalities required to make things happen.

Move: equipping the congregation to be sent out will need to engage with the Church of England’s national initiative Setting God’s People Free, and involve working more closely with other local congregations as part of a Deanery Plan. But I am also in this two-year transition role to help a congregation re-imagine how to be and do church without a full-time vicar, and so far this has included a (modest) change in the Sunday services to include a monthly service that is not dependent on being clergy-led, has opened up some new opportunities for new people to bring their gifts to bear in music and in Bible study, and includes hearing stories from the lives of the congregation through the week.

Listen: establishing a pattern of corporate prayer. So far this has included having the building open for prayer through the day in Holy Week, and Morning Prayer in the week leading up to Pentecost. My intention is to introduce Evening Prayer, perhaps twice a week, and to run The Prayer Course (Jo: resource-finder) on Tuesday evenings in September-October.

Share: I recently posed the challenging question, how many people do we expect to see come to faith in the next six months? and this calls for attention to equipping people to share their faith, although I am already hearing reports of positive conversations being had (here, the evangelists—those wired for sharing good news stories—will take a lead). We’re also working on social media presence (again, Jo is great here).

Care: the charism (the grace given by God for a particular purpose) of this church, named for St Nicholas, is surely to be a community that holds out safe have for those who find themselves ‘all at sea’. The story of sailors caught in a storm who cry out to God to be saved and to whom God sends a vision of Nicholas to guide them to harbour is depicted in stone over the main entrance and in stained glass window, and another window depicts Jesus’ disciples caught in a storm on the lake. Many in our community find themselves ‘all at sea’ due to the enormity of the global environmental crisis, or the national ‘Brexit’ omnishambles, or the impact of Austerity, or due to cancer or marriage breakdown. We are called to such people, and will tell the story of our charism, in a variety of ways, on a regular basis.

Learn: this one is less clear. I think there is a historic love of singing, and I would love to see a regular (termly?) opportunity to come together to learn some new songs; but ongoing listening might result in the development of other areas as well or instead.

That’s the plan, right now, in as much as there is a plan. It isn’t secret, but neither is it owned, yet—and it might not be. It isn’t the culture round here, but the best means of necessary culture change. It is a beginning, and a slow one, involving bringing to light our unconscious biases (starting with my own!) that will create resistance. Yet it holds true that God declares,

“I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” (Isaiah 43:19)

Feast of the Ascension

Are you a scientist or an engineer, pioneering new solutions to the problems we face? Jesus is exercising God’s reign of justice and joy through you.

Are you an artist or a campaigner, enabling us to see the world from a new and life-affirming perspective? Jesus is exercising God’s reign of justice and joy through you.

Are you in marketing or promotion, telling good news stories about a place or product and connecting people to opportunities? Jesus is exercising God’s reign of justice and joy through you.

Are you a healthcare professional, enabling healing or supporting preventative well-being so lives can flourish? Jesus is exercising God’s reign of justice and joy through you.

Are you a teacher or trainer, investing in the next generation? Jesus is exercising God’s reign of justice and joy through you.

Today is the Feast of the Ascension. Raise a glass to all the women and men caught up in the greatest unfolding drama the world has ever known, in a myriad of ways as they go about their lives.

You—yes, you, my friend—are a gift of Christ to the world.

APEST and Anglicans, part 4

The definition of ‘discipleship’ adopted by the Anglican Consultative Council on behalf of the global Anglican Communion (tens of millions of members in more than 165 countries) is:

“living and sharing a Jesus-shaped life.”

That, to me, is a clear invitation to APEST.

These infographics, designed by Kevin Miller, are helpful:

APEST and organisational ethos

‘APEST’—shorthand for apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers—proposes that human beings bear the image, or likeness, of God in a combination of five ways; and that, collectively, these give expression to five functions of human community, culture or society. These might be described as:

the impulse to innovate, to explore, to push (beyond) boundaries, to create and populate new ‘worlds’…

the impulse to agitate, to reform, to call into question, to oppose injustice, to paint alternative futures…

the impulse to connect, to recruit to a cause, to tell stories, to share news…

the impulse to care, to attend to wellbeing, to pursue communal health…

the impulse to instruction, to gather and systematise knowledge and wisdom and pass this on to the next generation.

These are the five functions of human community, culture or society, as expressed (for example) in:

innovation in all forms of technology, the sciences, music and art…

civil rights movements…

sales and recruitment, story-telling in all its forms…

health-care and hospitals, peace-keeping and stability…

schools and universities…

While any organisation might have a primary purpose, it must attend to all five functions if it is to flourish. The primary purpose of a university is teaching, but it must also attend to pioneering research, to investing in alternative futures beyond the university, to recruiting new students, and to the well-being of academic and support staff and students as well as nurturing links with alumni.

Or to give another example, we are seeing Google, as a pioneering company, come under fire for their performance in relation to care of their employees, and the level of tax they pay (a prophetic concern of justice and injustice), and their perceived need to tell a good news story about themselves…

APEST profile case study

‘APEST’—shorthand for apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers—proposes that human beings bear the image, or likeness, of God in a combination of five ways; and that, collectively, these give expression to five functions of human community, culture or society. These might be described as:

the impulse to innovate, to explore, to push (beyond) boundaries, to create and populate new ‘worlds’…

the impulse to agitate, to reform, to call into question, to oppose injustice, to paint alternative futures…

the impulse to connect, to recruit to a cause, to tell stories, to share news…

the impulse to care, to attend to well-being, to pursue communal health…

the impulse to instruction, to gather and systematise knowledge and wisdom and pass this on to the next generation.

The APEST profile is a personality profiling tool that measures the relative weighting of these five aspects, and considers how they interact; and, by extension, how we might interact with other people.

Profiling tools give a snapshot of a moment in time, and current circumstances have their own impact. Nonetheless, regular profiling over time is likely to establish a more stable profile. My own profile is (most often) PATSE.

Our primary impulse is the ‘lens’ through which we see the world. Just as we don’t see our contact lenses or the lenses of our glasses, but see everything else through them, we do not ‘see’ our primary impulse—and the primary impulse as identified by profiling often comes as a surprise to the individual concerned. My primary impulse is prophetic. I see things from an angle or perspective that many people experience as different from their own, and yet find insightful, creative in a way that is simultaneously encouraging and challenging. I am a disturber of the status quo, a painter of alternative futures. This comes naturally to me.

Our secondary impulse is the one that ‘gives voice to’ our primary impulse. My secondary impulse is apostolic. This impulse is concerned with movement, with innovation, with change. I get ‘itchy feet’ on a regular basis, and especially where I find myself in communities that are resistant to change, or are rightly stable; I respond positively to new opportunities or challenges, but prefer to establish something new and hand it on than to maintain something that is already established (whether by someone else or by me). Though this is my second greatest impulse, it is much less developed than either my third or fourth impulses. This is in part because the church values and invests in and gives opportunity for teaching and shepherding (pastoral care), and in part because most of the apostolic role-models I have known are very extrovert whereas I am very introvert, and their approach does not sit well with me. However, this means that the impulse with which I ‘speak’ is under-developed, and lacks maturity: ‘You need to move! You need to change! ... Why aren’t you changing?’ It can lead to a cycle of frustration, for me and for those around me. I need to identify those who can help me to invest-in and develop my secondary impulse.

My tertiary impulse is teaching. However, this facet of being-human-made-in-the-likeness-of-God is well-developed in me, partly because the church has tended to place a higher emphasis on teaching and pastoral care and so I have had considerable opportunity for training to teach and for exercising a teaching role. Many people would consider me to be a teacher, but it is not my primary or even secondary impulse. It is, on balance, more life-draining than life-giving to me; and, in-and-of-itself, not necessarily the best way that I can serve others.

For me, the impulse to care, and to recruit, are much less prominent. This does not mean that I do not care about people (I do, and deeply; but in short time-spans), or that I cannot communicate passionately about things that engage me (such as APEST, or my running club); simply that these are less instinctive to me, relative to the others. And that is okay, but requires that I work with others towards communal regeneration and well-being.

APEST and Anglicans, part 3

Continuing an occasional series of technical posts:

‘APEST’ refers to an understanding of personality profile as a combination of five impulses—apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic, shepherding, and teaching—that interact with the personality profiles of everyone else towards five corresponding functions of human community, culture or society: innovation, agitation/reform, promotion/recruiting, care, and instruction.

The five ‘Marks of Mission’ have been adopted by Anglicans (and, indeed, a number of other church traditions since) as expressing ‘the Anglican Communion’s common commitment to, and understanding of, God’s holistic and integral mission.’ The five marks of mission are:

1. to proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom

2. to teach, baptise and nurture new believers

3. to respond to human need by loving service

4. to transform unjust structures in society, to challenge violence of every kind and pursue peace and reconciliation

5. to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth.

Here are some reflections on the interplay between APEST and the Five Marks of Mission.

The five Marks of Mission are not (in my opinion) an organising principle; but they are the evidence of a healthy outworking of unity and diversity in the body of Christ. All five people-gifts—apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers—get to play in each mark of mission; but it may be that different gifts are best suited to help the church by giving a lead in different areas.

The first mark is clearly evangelistic, and here the evangelists might take a lead, but need apostles to open up new frontiers; and, in fact, all the others get to join in.

In the second mark, the teachers might take an obvious lead, supported by the shepherds in a nurturing role. Nonetheless, all the others must be involved, because without them, the mark is incomplete, its ‘outcome’ partial or distorted.

The third mark calls for the shepherds to lead us; but needs the insight of the prophets, and, yet again, the others to join in, not abdicating responsibility for care by outsourcing it to the shepherds alone.

In the fourth mark, the prophets might lead us in engaging social in/justice; supported by the shepherds in order that we move beyond speaking out against injustice to the work of reconciliation. But, yet again, it will take the whole body working together to see true and lasting transformation.

The fifth mark points to an apostolic lead, supported by teachers who might systematise and help embed our learning to live in a new way. The apostolic impulse is concerned with environment and the ‘architecture’ of our lives. Immature expressions of apostolic gifting have pioneered the cultural changes that have been so devastatingly detrimental to the natural environment over the past 100 years (with massive acceleration over the past 30 years). Conversely (perhaps ironically; perhaps, correcting an irony), mature expressions of apostolic gifting will pioneer the cultural changes that are now needed to address this global crisis. Nonetheless, within the church, thinking about apostolic calling remains largely unapplied to safeguarding the integrity of creation: this needs to change.

Essentially, APEST is not a different structure for thinking about mission, one that is ‘other’ or outside from an Anglican perspective; but, rather, healthy APEST diversity-in-unity is essential to the five Marks of Mission becoming a lived experience.

APEST and Anglicans, part 2

The Lambeth Quadrilateral (building on the Chicago Quadrilateral) is recognised as the common basis of Anglican ecclesiology, defined by:

(a) The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as “containing all things necessary to salvation,” and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith.

(b) The Apostles’ Creed, as the Baptismal Symbol; and the Nicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith.

(c) The two Sacraments ordained by Christ Himself—Baptism and the Supper of the Lord—ministered with unfailing use of Christ's words of Institution, and of the elements ordained by Him.

(d) The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the Unity of His Church.

How does APEST relate to this? Here are some initial thoughts.

(a) APEST function (corporate behaviour, presence, or manifestation) and vocation (personal calling, profile) are found throughout Old and New Testaments, and as such where any dimension is missing, the Church has fallen away from the scriptural rule and standard of faith. But is this ‘necessary to salvation’ or adiaphora—things permitted but not essential? Firstly, it is hard to describe the unfolding drama of salvation history without drawing on all five functions. Salvation is wrought in the person of Jesus by his being sent (and sending) (A), his covenant faithfulness (and drawing others into this) (P), his embodiment of good news (E), his laying down of his life as the Good Shepherd (S), and his instruction as the Way, the Truth and the Life (T). Moreover, if salvation is something to be lived-into, it cannot be fully embraced and inhabited without all five functions.

(b) The Creeds are historic statements that address particular issues facing the Church at the time of their formulation. While we affirm, in particular, the Apostles’ Creed and Nicene Creed, they are first words (sufficient) rather than last words. The Apostles’ Creed is the baptismal declaration, by which we offer ourselves to the Lord (to use the gift receiving-and-giving language of Psalm 68, in which Paul anchors the gifts of Christ). Both Creeds begin with God and the created order (see my earlier post on APEST cosmology). Both Creeds affirm the ascension, the act from which Jesus gives APEST to the Church. Both, especially the Nicene, emphasise the apostolic sentness of both Jesus and the Church. Prophets are recognised, in relation to the Holy Spirit, and also the call of the Church to holiness. Unity is recognised in the call on the Church to be one; diversity recognised in the insistence that the Church is catholic (i.e. we recognise one another, in our difference). The Jesus event is proclaimed as good news for humanity. The forgiveness of sins and the resurrection of the dead are profoundly pastoral, shepherding emphases. The systematising of faith into a creed that can be taught, a teaching impulse.

(c) Baptism is the event in which people—apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers—are liberated, through the waters, from death to life, and presented as gift by the Lord to his Church. The Supper of the Lord (or, Holy Communion, or the Eucharist) is the regular event in which our unity and diversity are held together; in which we recognise one another, and Christ re-members his Body.

(d) The Historic Episcopate is apostolic in that it guards the deposit of the faith (through time) and its spread (through space). (Not every bishop is primarily an apostle by gift, though all must attend to that aspect of their APEST profile.) The call to attend to the varying needs of nations and peoples called into Unity requires attending to all five ‘intelligences’ or biases, in order that the Body be built up: what needs to step back, in this or that context, in order that another might step forward?

APEST and Anglicans, part 1

Earlier this week, I was engaged in delivering some APEST teaching for a cohort of Anglican clergy in Durham Diocese (and as I am a member of the Durham clergy, they are my regional colleagues). In preparation, they had taken Alan Hirsch’s APEST profile test. One of the observations was that, in a room that represented a diversity of tradition, age, gender, and length of ministry experience, there were several Traditional Catholic colleagues who all came out as ES (Primary gift: Evangelist; Secondary gift: Shepherd).

This didn’t surprise me, though it took some unpacking for me to articulate why. My observation is that our own tradition shapes us for the nurture of particular gifts, as well as how they are expressed. So, for example, a conservative evangelical context will nurture Teachers, because ‘right teaching’ is of central importance. My observation of the Trad. Cath. tradition is that for generation on generation, they have gone to communities that live with multiple indices of deprivation; and, while not pretending that the challenges aren’t real, insist that such communities are deserving of and indeed in real need of beauty. Trad. Cath. ritual, with its colours and smells and processions and dressing up and candles and statues and ta-dah! is good news writ large for all the senses. And if we come from a very different tradition, that would express good news in a very different way, we might not even see it. And then, of course, they live alongside these communities and care for those who present themselves in need, of food or conversation or help in coming before God to give thanks for the birth of a child. Of course such a tradition produces ES’s.

As for me, I had been thinking that the Church of England is relatively weak at communicating good news. But whenever I teach, I learn. And on this occasion what I learned was my need to repent of my earlier assessment and believe something new.

APEST hermeneutics

Increasingly, I am using APEST as my hermeneutic of understanding pretty much everything, grounded, as it seems to me to be, in the very nature of God. As Alan Hirsch suggests, this pattern applies to cosmology (the way in which God has created, has set up the universe), anthropology (how we understand humans and human society), Christology (our understanding of Jesus), ecclesiology (our understanding of the Church), and eschatology (our understanding of where everything is heading).

Here is an outline APEST cosmology:

The universe is expanding, and inspires us to send out probes in search of other life. That’s apostolic sent-ness.

The goal is that all creation be reconciled to God in Christ Jesus. That’s prophetic covenant-faithfulness.

The heavens declare the glory of God. That’s evangelistic good-news-telling.

We live in a Goldilocks Zone that enables life. That’s the shepherding impulse to enable life to flourish at work.

There are whole university departments built on discovering the mysteries of the universe. That’s the impact of the teaching function.

Here is my take on APEST as hermeneutic for reading scripture and/or Bible story-telling:

A: How does this passage move the story on?

P: Who speaks/ What do they say?

E: Is there any good news to share?

S: How is the community built up?

T: How does this passage connect with what we already know?

And here is my take on APEST as hermeneutic for reading the Body of Christ, our lives in our neighbourhood:

A: Where have you been (say, this week)? What did you see? Who did you meet?

P: What have you heard—from God? from others?

E: Do you have any good news stories to share?

S: Who is in especial need of care? (And how might we respond?)

T: What are we learning to do as we follow Jesus together?

APEST and Psalm 68

Ephesians 4:¹ I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, ² with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, ³ making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. ⁴ There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, ⁵ one Lord, one faith, one baptism, ⁶ one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

⁷ But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. ⁸ Therefore it is said,

‘When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive;
    he gave gifts to his people.’

⁹ (When it says, ‘He ascended’, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? ¹⁰ He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.) ¹¹ The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, ¹² to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, ¹³ until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. ¹⁴ We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. ¹⁵ But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.

Writing to the Christians in Ephesus, from where many churches had been planted across the cities of Asia Minor, about the gifts of Christ—apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers—Paul refers to Psalm 68, citing (in Ephesians 4:8) verse 18.

I have argued for the best part of twenty years that this is not a tangential thought, but that it anchors Paul’s thesis. Psalm 68 describes God descending on Mount Sinai in order to liberate his people from slavery in Egypt; journeying with them in the wilderness in order to shape a new community; before ascending on Mount Zion. For Paul, this prefigures the incarnation, ministry, and ascension of Jesus. The ascended Jesus liberates women and men who have been held captive to death by taking them captive by and for Life; and gives these newly-liberated human beings as gifts to his people, his ‘body’ the Church.

But when Jesus, or Paul, or any of the other writers of the New Testament, cite a verse from what we now call the Old Testament, they are expecting their hearers to do some work, to call to mind the full context being referred to. And twelve verses before the one Paul explicitly cites, Psalm 68 declares:

‘God gives the desolate a home to live in;

he leads out the prisoners to prosperity,

but the rebellious live in a parched land.’

(Psalm 68:6)

In recent weeks it has struck me with fresh force that the outworking of Jesus’ gift-giving, Ephesians 4:12-16, is also anchored in Psalm 68: that we find the fullest fulfilment of our personal calling within the context of the body of Christ, the Church, a community in which we are given a home and, together, do the hard but worthwhile work of knitting-together for mutual prospering. The picture painted in Psalm 68, taken as a whole, is of the transformation of the whole world, physical landscape and human society. The purposes of Christ, in laying claim to the redeeming of all, of each, of captive apostle and prophet and evangelist and shepherd and teacher is no smaller vision.

(By the way, ‘children’ in Ephesians 4:14—we must no longer be children—is better translated ‘childish’—we must no longer be childish.)