It was a Sunday evening. My wife and I had returned to a church meeting to hear and discuss vision. As we worshiped, I had an impression of a huge cornerstone. But the stone was out of true; it was no longer sitting squarely along proper lines in accord with the rest of the building. It seemed that the foundation itself had shifted in relation to the Corner.

On top of this foundation was a wall of smaller stones. But the wall was disorderly, with many stones sticking out, and some holes where others had literally fallen out as the foundation had shifted.

And you also are being built up into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:5

The renewal of apostolic ministry is about rebuilding foundations in order to extend the kingdom. Extending the kingdom involves both works of power and works of weakness. Paul is the best human example we have of apostleship, and he "gladly boast[ed] in weakness." The ultimate model for apostolic ministry is Jesus Himself, who was "crucified because of weakness, but lives because of the power of God" (1 Cor.13:4).

The apostles built foundations. Apart from solid foundations, the entire building is at risk. In order to understand apostolic ministry we need to know what the foundations are and how they are built. In today’s society and church, we need the foundation-building function. Consider Ephesians 2:19-22.

The only way to propagate a message is to live it. As Jim Wallis has stated, "Community is the place where the healing of our own lives becomes the foundation for the healing of the nations" (Call to Conversion).

Recently I was at my daughter’s baseball game and when she wasn’t at bat or on bases I was reading in Jimmy Long, Generating Hope: A Strategy for Reaching the Post Modern Generation. He begins his book by describing how he went to University with the idea of becoming a Meteorologist, specializing in hurricanes.

Hurricanes are complex weather systems that are governed by two primary types of wind: feeder bands, the conflicting and multiple currents that generate the many funnels that form and cause all the destruction; and currents, the wind force that actually determines the direction of the entire storm. The current is like an invisible river channel, a foundation that directs the storm.

When I read this I thought of renewal in the church and its context. Renewal and revival are like the feeder bands of the hurricane. It’s easy to focus on the powerful things that God is doing and become caught up in that excitement. When we do this it’s easy to miss the broader context and direction, the foundation, the current that acts as a channel for the storm.

If the whirling storm is renewal and revival in our time, an expression of great power and rapid change, the context and direction is toward foundation-building through apostolic ministry: "I will build my church." Renewal and revival are always unto the church and the kingdom, and the work of apostles is to build the foundation (1 Cor.3:10 ff).

"When the sky is the limit it’s easy to neglect foundations."

Recently Graham Cooke spoke at our church in a series of meetings. He referred to "wise master builders" as those who build, and don’t merely bless. Too many leaders prefer to merely "bless" the work of ministry around them rather than invest their lives in building solid foundations. We settle for "power" and don’t pursue "presence." We want results quickly and don’t want to spend the time investing our lives in a solid foundation.

I have a friend whose father was a partner in founding one of the most vital mercy and missionary organizations of our century. Yet the legacy he left his family is one of neglect and pain; he failed in his most vital calling. Because he was an important and powerful man in the kingdom, he lost the simplicity of Christ. Instead of serving others, he looked for people who could serve his vision. In the end, he was really building his own kingdom, and he failed to walk in love.

Visionary leaders can easily neglect relationships, and often their own families, in favor of the "important" things of ministry. It’s easy to bask in the approval that comes when we exercise our gifts. Moreover, the sky is the limit in the kingdom and it’s an exciting time. Investing in my family is often more like work, less exciting, and the rewards are rarely immediate. Sounds like real ministry, doesn’t it? My family, like the church, needs my presence and not merely my blessing.

The renewal of the apostolic function means the rebuilding of the foundations of community among us. Some of the most vital gifts in our faith communities are the most commonly neglected. Most of us are attracted to the bright lights, to flash and glitter. We notice the whirl of the storm, but not the current that directs it.

The "current" of the Spirit in the church is connection and community. Yet because community-building gifts reside more commonly in women than men, and because these gifts are rarely "power" gifts, we tend to undervalue them. How sad when relationship is meant to be the foundation of all ministry! As Paul said, we "have not many fathers in Christ." We desperately need fathers and mothers and mentors.

Henri Nouwen, the Catholic priest who went from a Harvard lecturer to caretaker and friend to handicapped people in the L’Arche community in Toronto, once wrote that, "Ministry is the creation of space for community to develop."

Nouwen’s insight is profound since foundations are the most easily neglected during times of increased spiritual activity. It becomes too easy to focus on externals: feelings and healing and manifestations. The inward works - increased intimacy, hunger for righteousness, brokenness, and repentance - are less visible and more difficult to measure.

Nouwen talks about "creating space," because no one can truly create community, one can only prepare the soil so that the conditions are right for community to flourish. Community rises out of intimacy, intimacy requires honesty, commitment and vulnerability (or weakness), and vulnerability requires safety. There is no ministry apart from community, because without relationships of trust we don’t invite others into our lives. Like the old song said, "No one can fill those of your needs that you won’t let show" (Lean on Me).

Without community (koinonia), there is no significant ministry. Without significant ministry, where is the body? Marcus Barth translates Eph.4:16 to emphasize that it is only as each part of the body is close enough to the other parts to contribute significant life will the body ever attain maturity. Ministry occurs in the in-between, at the point of connection. Community describes the way in which we are joined to others in the body of Christ.

"Our task is to help people concentrate on the real but often hidden event of God’s active presence in their lives. Hence, the question that must guide all organizing activity in a church is not how to keep them busy, but how to keep them from being so busy that they no longer hear the voice of God who speaks in silence." Nouwen, Way of the Heart.

Remember the Law of Moses, My servant,
Which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel,
With the statues and judgments.
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet
Before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD.
And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,
And the hearts of children to the fathers,
Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse. Mal.4: 4-6

Some biblical teachers recognize that this prophetic promise is for our day. The breakdown of the family is endemic; never have so many children been so alienated from their parents.

This passage is first about authority. It begins with God calling to the remembrance of His people the Law with its statutes and ordinances. The Law reveals the character of God and is "a lamp to our feet." To be rooted in it (Ps 1) is to be fruitful. All the prophets, Old Testament and New, had a deep passion for God and His word. Respect for God’s word is respect for God’s authority. His word (written and spoken) is life. And apart from recognition of the word as authoritative, there is only rebellion.

Around the turn of the century a British hospital was overrun with abandoned children and infants. At that time very little was known about the attachment process (i.e. the later John Bowlby and his followers.) But the nurses noticed that the children who were picked up and fondled tended to thrive, while infants who received less attention were more likely to remain ill or get sicker. In fact, it was discovered that if an infant was only changed and fed but otherwise not handled, it would die.

The hearts of children are alienated from fathers when they are either abused or neglected. Too much water or too little water will both kill a plant. Likewise, the hearts of people become alienated when pastoral authority is not exercised or not divinely given, or is abused by efforts at control. And once this authority is lost, like the crumbling foundation of a building, the entire wall is unstable.

The point of the renewal of apostolic ministry is not authority per se, but the right and secure establishment of the entire building in relationship to the One Corner, Jesus Christ. In a sense the primary task of the foundation is to create safety, a secure place for the walls to rest. The foundation is there so that the walls can remain strong and safe, in right orientation to the Cornerstone.

If the Malachi passage is primarily about authority, then "hearts of fathers to the children" means that the ministry of Elijah is first about the right ordering of relationships under God as King and Father. Now the connection to apostolic ministry becomes obvious. Apostolic ministry is a fathering ministry of restoration. God gives his ministry of fathering to his church through divine anointing. Authority is a covering that provides safety (remember how safety is the foundation for intimacy), and under that covering there is freedom and release. Anyone outside the covering is at risk.

The first implication is the right ordering of relationships. God is intensely interested in the healing of families. But families will only be as healed and whole as we have strong foundations in our churches. When we get the foundations in order, the walls will have a secure base.

Just as dysfunctional families are toughest on the weak ones, so the misalignment of the foundation in the church is most quickly felt and most destructive to the weaker ones. Even one stone out of place in the wall leaves an opening for the enemy. Because we are a body, the growth of one strengthens us all; the loss of one hurts us all ("if one suffers, all suffer.") The "weaker" gifts are most easily neglected and the most vulnerable.

Connection is critical. Remember Paul’s words to Timothy in 1 Timothy 3:5: "for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?"

The coming generation are fatherless like none have ever been before them. The so-called "Generation X" don’t trust authority and often have negative experiences of family, but they long for intimacy, they thrive on friendship, and they welcome mentors. Robert Banks in "Paul’s Idea of Community" points out that Paul’s entire ministry in caring for the church is like that of a father, with deep compassion, strong attachment, and great love and gentleness. This fathering ministry is greatly needed today!

Ephesians 4 is one of the great passages on gifted ministry. Recently as I read the chapter I was struck by the community message that lay just below the surface. The passage begins with relational unity ("one body and one spirit," and "bearing with one another in love,") and then moves through the listing of gifts ("he gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists and pastors and teachers.") Paul then mentions the direction of these gifts ("equipping the saints"), and ends on two notes: the functioning of the healthy community ("joined and knit together by what every joint supplies,") and the means of growth, love! The body "upbuilds itself through love," the primary task is relational and on that note Paul closes one of the most often quoted passages in the New Testament.

But isn’t it odd that our focus has been the governmental function, and not the community function? We have become so task oriented that we have missed much of the meaning in this passage. Perhaps as leaders we are sometimes too focused on our own significance in the community.

"God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and the weak things of the world to bring to nothing the things that are…." Paul

"The ability of people to move to a new place tomorrow depends on the love and acceptance they feel today….

The only thing greater than our awareness of each other’s sins is the awareness of God’s love for us and God’s desire to see us healed and made whole. The principal lesson of community is that God breaks in at the weak places". Jim Wallis. (Call to Conversion).

We have tended to think of the apostolic in terms of signs and wonders and authority. Typically in our culture, we import worldly models into a biblical paradigm and think we have grappled with the truth.

Instead, the call to apostleship is a call to service and to be poured out like wine at a table of sacrifice (1 Corinthians 4 and 11). In times of renewal we tend to separate the Spirit and the Cross. Yet it was the Spirit who impelled Jesus to the Cross. He chose the way of weakness. The temptation to power that Jesus rejected is too easy to embrace in the name of the kingdom.

I walked a mile with pleasure,
She chattered all the way,
But left me none the wiser
For all she had to say.
I walked a mile with sorrow
And ne’er a word said she;
But oh! The things I learned from her
When sorrow walked with me. Henry van Dyke

During times of manifest power we can make the mistake of seeing power and healing as the only path to God’s glory. A few years ago I was visiting with some good friends whom I hadn’t seen in three years. Dan was always a man of exceptional insight and character, and a devoted father. Dan’s daughter, Emily, was now twelve, and had a rare and incurable disease and had not been expected to live to eight years of age. I asked him how his faith was doing.

And they shall rebuild the ancient ruins,
They shall raise up the former desolations,
And they shall repair the ruined cities,
The desolations of many generations. Isa.61:4

This passage follows on the heels of the proclamation of the Servant that He is anointed with the Spirit "to preach glad tidings to the poor" in Isaiah 61. The Lord is intent on rebuilding the foundations of the church and reshaping our understanding of apostleship. The purpose of leadership is not power but empowerment, but so that all the people of God can be released into the world to serve Him and to offer their lives as sacrifice to Him. "The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve…"

What is all of this "unto?" We could as easily ask, "Why the church?" Paul says that "God’s plan is to unite all things in himself: things in heaven, and things on earth" (Eph.1). He desires to pour out His love on all people, to show His glory in all creation, beginning with the church. God is purifying us, preparing us to be a part of a great harvest before the return of Christ.

Apart from solid foundations, revival will not tarry. No matter how beautiful the edifice we build, it will not last if it is founded on sand. If we would move in both the "great grace" and "great power" of the original church we cannot do less than build the same foundation of caring community.

I Cor.13:4

We live in an upside down kingdom, but continue to think in worldly ways. God is working hard at changing our minds, and many of us are discovering that "when we are weak, then we are strong." We are learning not to despise the small things and that the way of the Cross is the path to glory. Leaders who have learned to walk in weakness can be trusted with power. Power without compassion is destructive; but power tempered with compassion is released in blessing.

The principal of community is that God breaks in at the weak places. If we would walk in the apostolic we must grasp the wholeness of the truth as we build communities not merely of power, but of Presence!

Both vision and nurture are foundational to church life. We need both the whirling power of God’s Spirit, and the quiet places of rest and nurture in our caring family. Apostolic restoration is about fathering and creating places of safety so that the kingdom can be extended in communities discovering the wholeness of life in Christ. Jim Wallis put it best:

Both vision and nurture are key to community. Without nurture, a community will soon exhaust itself in pursuit of the vision. Without vision, a community will become stuck in self-preoccupation and will travel in circles. With only vision a community soon loses any real quality of love. With only nurture, the community forgets what its love is for. (Call to Conversion)