I’m D avid Chen from Bangkok, Thailand. I came to know Christ in 1983 when both the church and I w ere young. I grew up and served in my church, starting from the student ministry and eventually I moved to adult ministry and local missions. Later, I moved to the International Fellowship (I.F.). I now have two roles in the church: One, as the Advisor to the pastoral team of the International Fellowship (I.F.); the other, as part of the Apostolic Team. Currently, I’ve travelled to many countries, speaking in conferences, training leaders and networking with other churches across the world.
The Ministry of Apostolic Team
I would like to share about the ‘Apostolic Teams’ concept with you because it may be new to many people. What is it? Why do we have it? Who can become part of it? You’ll find the answers here......
Apostolic Team in the bible
Ephesian 4:11-13 It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
We know that Jesus has given the Five-fold ministry to the church. Their existence and roles were obvious to the First Church as recorded in the New Testament. To prepare the church to her glory at the End Time, God restored these roles back into His body – the church.
We have experienced the appearance of a number of evangelists, pastors and teachers in the last century. There will come a time when God will lift up plenty of apostles and prophets, the key actors of the new and old testaments respectively, to prepare the church for the Great Harvest.
The formation of Apostolic team
By God’s grace, we pray that many of these gifts of Christ will rise up among our family of churches. Are the gifts already in our congregations? Who are they? We don’t know. Maybe, the seeds have already been planted and are growing to the measure God has intended. However the work is growing and we are racing against time to fulfil the vision God gives us, so we cannot sit back and wait.
As a result, we decided to form teams of people, who possess apostolic and other various gifts, with the expectation that each of these teams can function somewhat like an apostle to help our churches in different parts of the world.
We hope to have these teams both at the global level and the local level in different continents and countries soon.
The roles of Apostolic team
Basically, they visit pioneering groups to help lay down right foundation and visit existing churches or contacts to assist their areas of needs; just like what the apostles did for churches in the Bible.
Joining the Apostolic Team
We recommend that these people have leadership skills, able to evangelise, preach and/or teach, and have proven themselves in serving in our churches and are experienced in pioneering new groups, church planting and/or running a church.
In some cases, the teams may need people who can adjust to different cultures and work in different locations for weeks or months.
Some of these people may be full-time members of the apostolic team while others may be on-call for the apostolic teams whilst having other roles in their churches.
Apostolic team ministry in Africa
Personally, I’ve made a couple of trips to Africa as part of the apostolic team. I can testify a number of wonderful things that God did in these trips. You may be interested in reading these exciting stories [Africa Missions Reports].
As we see in the Bible, apostles worked hand in hand with leaders of local churches, the mobile apostolic teams can be a great blessing by filling any need in our Hope churches.
I hope to see more and more qualified people joining these teams, as part of the bigger team, to finish the work God has given us to bring His love to the world.
Together for the Great Commission
Pastor David Chen
For more information about the “Apostle Teams” please email Pastor David Chen davidchen2015@hotmail.com
