What Is Jesus Currently Doing In His Church?

Greetings Church Alive Family and Friends,

When I first learned to drive, we owned a vehicle with a standard transmission. That simply means I had to use a clutch and manually shift gears. If you have ever had the experience, learning to rev up the engine and let out the clutch at the same time is a skill to be developed. I killed the engine several times, ground the gears as my dad ground his teeth, and caused the car to buck roughly until it got into gear. The good news is this, after a bit of experience, I learned to drive a manual transmission and can do so well to this day! Where am I going with this?

Jesus is shifting gears in churches and people who will let Him. We are moving into a time where the true five-fold ministry functions are coming to the light. People are beginning to understand the five gifted types of leaders and welcoming them. For those people and those church bodies, a new wine skin and a new expression of the body is emerging. These five ministry functions are equipping God’s people to step out in faith and do the ministry. Everyone has gifts and graces to be used at home, in the church body, and in our respective communities. The church is awakening to their God-given gifts and understanding their true value. Finding and doing our intended purposes is so fulfilling! We are no longer the passive, sitting, and soaking it up church. We are becoming alive in our relationships with God and others. We have been the church ignored and trampled. We are now manifesting as the church triumphant!

Ephesians 4:11-16 says this: “And He gave some as Apostles, and some as Prophets, and some as Evangelists, and some as Pastors and Teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of every part, causes the growth of the body for building itself up in love.”

Our Church Alive body has the function, not titles, of an apostle, prophets, and teachers. We are seeing the rise of evangelists and pastors in our midst. Some are in our local body and some come in from other church fellowships. We are learning to cross-pollinate. As we a see each five-fold gift function in our local bodies, we will receive the benefit and find ourselves maturing in Christ. What I am seeing is trust and mutual honor rising in our multiple church and ministry leadership gatherings. We are learning to surrender to the Lord and each other without the need for recognition. The unity and presence of the Holy Spirit is marvelous! We will always be a focused tribe with our assignment form the Lord, but we will grow into relationships that bring the other tribes together to be one nation [body of Christ] in Northwest Arkansas.

When this unity becomes entrenched and focused on what Jesus wants in our region, we will see a mighty transformation and great outpouring. Let’s embrace what Jesus is doing and pray for three areas that need our focus. One, Lord change my heart to embrace the unity of the body in the spirit of peace. Two, pray that five-fold leaders and local church leaders surrender and come into a unity of allowing the Holy Spirit to reveal what this emerging kingdom church looks like. Three, change church people to want and come into this unity of the Spirit. 

Advancing His kingdom and assisting in the forming of a new wine skin- Tony