Whether you gather 10 or 10,000 the goal of heaven is the same, to make disciples.

June 20th, 2023

By: David Hoskins

Spiritual leaders who are five-fold must learn to equip and empower the saints rather than just corral sheep into their respective pastures.

Teach a man to fish and he will never go hungry.

Some religious leaders pattern codependence rather than empowerment raising children in the faith who never come into maturity.

Old school leaders love an audience more than disciples. It is work making disciples. It requires fathers in the faith and not just teachers or guardians.

1 Corinthians 4:15 (NIV)

15 Even if you had ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.

Some parenting styles empower while other parenting styles enslave. Enslavement mindedness creates dependent minions who do nothing but live a life of co-dependence and limited fruitfullness. Strong willed children know there is something more causing them to often breach the limitation of the sheep pen they have been assigned to.

Enslavement mindedness causes the saints to remain children in the faith when the goal is actually for the saints to become a light on a hill that cannot be easily hidden.

Every five-fold leader has an equipping and empowerment responsibility concerning the saints. Five-Fold Leaders are not called to just govern from their grace. Five fold leaders are called to equip and empower from their grace by helping the saints to develop in a fivefold way into the fulness of the nature of Christ.

Evangelists should disciple us to become more evangelistic and manifest the power and love of the Kingdom to others.

Prophets should disciple us to discover our gifts and calling. They should help us to hear the voice of God and respond accurately to His voice. It is the voice of God which sets the stage for our life.

Apostles should help us to gain traction in our callings and work together for the greater purpose of manifesting the Kingdom in everything we do. In every sphere we represent.

Pastors should help us to care for those around us. They should help us become so set free and secure in our faith that we help to set others free to fully discover the love of the Father.

Teachers should help us to learn how to make disciples ourselves. They should help us gain a framework of the truth of God’s word. They should help the saints learn how to reinforce the plumbline and truth of the word of God societally.

When Five-Fold leaders do their jobs well the saints in many ways become fivefold in nature themselves.

Using pastors as an example. The number one goal of a pastor should be to disciple the saints about how to become pastoral themselves blanketing the city with compassion and the love of God. The truth is that the saints should be so empowered with the pastoral grace of Christ that the city experiences the pastoral nature of Christ flowing through the saints to every nook and cranny in the city. The city should feel so pastored by the saints that they are drawn to Christ to discover the other 4 dimensions of who He is as well.

If leaders govern but fail to teach self governance then the saints learn to rely upon their leaders primarily rather than relying upon Holy Spirit.

We must as leaders help the saints to become more like the ant where the command of the King and the five fold design of the Kingdom is in each of us. There is only one queen in an ant colony. The queen ant is like King Jesus and He has a plan that we we can all get in on. It is called the Kingdom. When we seek the Kingdom first then everything else comes into its proper alignment.

Ephesians 4:11-13 (KJV)

11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; 12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: 13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: