Mere Missions

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The individual is now RELEASED with full authority to go and do that which they have been identified, apprenticed, and commissioned to do. To be released is to be “sent off” and not “sent away.” The commissioning authority, gives authority, to move forward and multiply. The individual is not to be “managed” but to be “regulated.” In other words, the individual will report back to the sending authority, but the individual does not take orders from it. He/she has been commissioned and will now begin to reap the rules of the harvest just like everyone else who has been commissioned throughout the Church’s history.

Connection: Rules of Engagement (ROE)

Calling, equipping, commissioning, and releasing has been God’s designed process for the advancement and expansion of His

Kingdom. We see it in the Old Testament through individuals like Moses, Elijah, Elisha, David, and the prophets. In the New Testament, the Apostle (sent one) to the World, Jesus, was called (Matt. 1.18-23; Heb. 1.2), equipped (Matt. 4.1-11), commissioned (Matt. 3.13-17) and released (Matt. 4.17). He then calls the twelve (Mark 3.13), names them as Apostles (Mark 3.14), equips them (Mark 6.7; Luke 9.1; Acts 1.3), commissions and then releases them into missions (Matt. 28.19 w/Acts 1.8). God’s designed process hasn’t changed except now He works through appointed leadership in His Church. Paul of Tarsus was the first to go through God’s designed process through the appointed leadership of the Church of Antioch. Three days after his conversion, Paul receives his calling into Apostolic missions from Jesus as communicated through Ananias (Acts 9.15-16). Though we don’t know all the details of the next ten to fifteen years of his life, other than he immediately was evangelizing (Acts 9.20 and 28), we can assume that the Spirit of the Lord is equipping Paul for his calling. All that was