Types of Prophetic Missionality Gifting
The prophetic role in scripture reaches back to the
beginnings of the Old Testament and continues into the New Testament.
Based on the early church fathers this role continued well into the second and
third centuries. The prophetic gift is the special ability that God gives
to certain members of the Body of Christ to discern current conditions in the
congregation and community and to exhort and admonish believers to respond to
both existing and future conditions. They “investigate” the internal and
external conditions, and through the special illumination of the Spirit of God
they are able to exhort and admonish the church regarding appropriate responses.
In fact, the prophets often revealed
spiritual insight that the Holy Spirit had given them -- and thus
were believed to speak in a very special fashion in the name of God
and with His authority. Because of this special gifting,
the early church gave the prophets the task of dealing with gross
cases of sin in the congregation; handling church discipline
including both absolution and restoration.
God uses those with the a prophetic gifting
to discern spiritual and cultural issues both among the believers
and among groups of people in the community -- some are
Congregational Prophets, some are Community Prophets,
and some are both. Generally the spiritual and cultural issues
they investigate pose either an existing or potential threat to
fulfilling the missional tasks to which God has called us. The
person with the prophetic gift draws attention to the issues that
need to be dealt with and calls missional and ministry leadership to
action to address the issues in an appropriate manner.
However, this does not mean that the prophet knows the solution to
the problem -- his or her function is discernment -- not necessarily
problem solving.
Because the prophetic gift deals with
problems and issues, the person with this gift may be viewed by some
as a "negative person" or "a person who is always in opposition to
what is going on around here." However, this just simply is
not true -- they are not gripers and complainers. Instead, the
prophetic gifted person will call attention to issues that need to
be addressed in which he or she has not personal vested interest.
Rather, the issue is surfaced because it negatively impacts either
the mission of God or the people of God.
Dimensions of Prophetic Missionality Gifting
In both cases, Congregational and Community Prophets are called by God to 1)
admonish and exhort the church to fulfill their mission better and 2) encourage
the church to make necessary changes in order to appropriately respond to
changing conditions and 3) depend upon the Holy Spirit to reveal the spiritual
and cultural issues that need to be addressed. Focused upon both the
external and internal conditions, those with the prophetic gift tend to be
"questioners" who probe sensitive personal and organizational issues.
Committed to evaluation, they investigate ministry performance and assess team
functions with a view toward improvement.
Because they value discernment and valid analysis, those with the prophetic
gift tend to emphasize the need for a research process to be in place in order
to identify the need for appropriate changes to ministry functions and missional
roles.
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Summary of Prophetic Missionality Gifting
Examiners
The Prophet
(P) Gift has a primary prophetic gifted role.
This gift produces “Examiners” who may believe they are
called to improve the ministry (worship, instruction, fellowship,
outreach and service) and missional activities of a church or group
of churches. To
prepare for this type of ministry you will need to identify the
spiritual and cultural issues both inside and outside the
congregation or church that negatively impacts its ministry and
missional activities.
You may need to create ways to observe people within a specific
cultural group in order to discern the spiritual and cultural issues
that will impact evangelization and discipleship processes.
You may need to observe the ministry and missional activities
of your church directly in order to discern organizational or
systemic issues that impede missional processes.
You may also need to bring recommendations to the church or
missional team to make adjustments to their evangelism and
discipleship efforts or organizational structure in order to address
the cultural, spiritual, or systemic issues that you discerned.
The intense desire and ability you have to analyze and
critique the situation in which you find yourself may need to be
tempered in order to both maintain a godly attitude yourself and to
gain a hearing of those who can affect change. "Doing
things better" becomes a theme that drives much of this
person's orientation.
Variants of the Prophetic Gift
The following APEPT gifted blends are variants of the Prophetic
Gift:
- Prophetic-Apostolic (PrA) Gift Cluster
- Prophetic-Evangelistic (AE) Gift Cluster
- Prophetic-Pastoral (APa) Gift Cluster
- Prophetic-Teaching (AT) Gift Cluster
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