In the forgotten ways, Hirsch describes a missing element in today's churches. That is the element of the "apostle." Throughout the book he has been defining and explaining "mDNA," (standing for "missonal"DNA) and apostleship through examples such as the Chinese church and the early church and the movement of the Spirit that makes it multiply itself in people's lives. Here are some things he says that "apostleship" does, and he says they are mostly missing in today's Western churches:
1. To embed mDNA, [or the missional realities of our faith in Jesus by multiplying people], through pioneering new ground for the gospel and church...As custodian...the apostle is both the messenger and the carrier of the mDNA of Christianity. As "the one who is sent," he or she advances the gospel into new missional contexts and embeds the DNA of God's people into the new churches that[come] in those places. At heart, the apostle is a pioneer, and it is this pioneering innovative spirit that marks it as unique in relation to the other ministries. "...the church is called to be a dynamic movement rather than a static institution. For that reason, it's leadership is to be drawn from those on the front line of the expansion of the church."
2. To guard the mDNA through the application and integration of apostolic theology...But for the custodian of the DNA of Christ's people, the responsibility of apostolic ministry does not end with pioneering missionary work. He or she is also mandated with the task of ensuring that the churches remain true to the gospel and its ethos. This aspect of apostolic ministry can be described as creating and mainting the web of meaning that holds the movement together. Apostolic ministry does this by reawakening the people to the gospel and embedding it in the organizational framework in ways that are meaningful....All authentic apostolic ministry does this. Apostles are not just hot-headed entrepreneurs; they are also working theologians - or at least ought to be if genuinely apostolic.
3. To create the environment in which the other ministries emerge...Ever wondered why, in all the lists of ministries, that of apostle is always explicitly listed first? And why it is considered the most important of the minsitries (I Cor. 12:28ff; Eph 4:11)? Or why in Ephesians 2:20 Paul says that the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets? Not because of some hierarchical organizational conception of leadership, because such ideas of leadership did not exist in the New Testament movement. Rather, it is because apostolic ministry is the foundational gift that provides both the environment and the reference point for the other ministries mentioned in scripture [Hirsch goes on to describe this from what he calls an APEPT concept - apostolic leading to prophetic leading to evangelistic leading to pastoral leading to teaching/didactic].
He spends alot of time unfolding what all that means, and he is very thorough. But he describes the need for apostleship in this way:
Apostolic ministry is basically a function and not an office. Office as we normally conceive it, relates to a position in an established, centralized institution, and it gets it authority from being an "official" in an institutional structure. One simply cannot find this level of "institution" in the New Testament and in the postbiblical period. On the other hand, the New Testament church has all the hallmarks of an emergent people movement with little or no centralized structures, no "ordained" or professional ministry class, and no official "church" buildings.
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All subsequent apostolic ministry models itself on this archetypal ministry of the original, and authoritative, apostles. This is to say that he/she is the person who imparts and embeds mDNA. And once the mDNA is embedded in local communities, apostolic ministry works to ensure that the resultant churches remain true to it and that they do not mutate into something other than God intended them to be.
Though that is only part of his unfolding of the mDNA and how apostleship functions in the church, is there anything that rings true for you?
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