Mere Missions

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producing tangible results for mission and bringing health and vitality to the church. We can powerfully equip qualified emerging leaders to become godly, effective servants of Christ for missions. By emphasizing good selection, careful and capable supervision, meaningful assignments, and regular feedback, we can help emerging, developing, and mature movements gain invaluable training to expand and advance the Kingdom of God in their context. Let’s take a closer look at the apprenticing process: Identify. Equip. Commission. Release. Identification In Luke 6.12-16 we read the following story, “In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.” Jesus, “the apostle and high priest of our confession (Heb. 3.1), identifies, from a group of disciples, twelve whom He was going to apprentice to be apostles. Jesus follows the laws of His creation by “reproducing in kind.” An apostle apprenticing apostles. When apprenticing potential called and gifted individuals for missions, it is important, that apostolic called and gifted individuals seek the Spirits direction to identify those with whom they are going to equip for missions. This is different than making disciples by proclaiming the Gospel through the routine of our daily life and, those who convert because of the conviction of the Holy Spirit, are equipped through baptism and in teaching them to obey what Jesus has commanded. When an apostolic individual is identified through prayer and the confirmation of the Holy Spirit, the one with the apostolic gift gives them their time, talent,