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24/7 Community
Peter Vanderwal; 17th January 2011
God is wanting to restore the apostolic nature to the Church, not just raise up apostles in our midst.
God is looking for a people upon whom He can pour out His Spirit in a particular way and for a particular purpose. He seeks a people who will allow Him to bring them into unity. Then with one heart and one mind they will arise to do the work of God.
The size of the group is not important, whether it be 200, or 50, but with deep unity, and wisdom and revelation given by the Spirit, there is nothing that God cannot accomplish through them.
What does ‘apostolic’ refer to?
Firstly, to the timeless and unchangeable nature of the life that God has given us as a people, in His son.
· It refers to the sort of community that only the Spirit of God can form within a people. It reflects the very nature of the Godhead, the unity between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is a community based on relationships.
· Apostolic community has more to do with what we are, rather than what we do. It is not so much the activities we do, the ministry we exercise, or the things we build, that define whether we are an apostolic. It is how we think, and feel; the heart attitudes and values that we hold out as Christians. It is about how we relate to God and each other.
· This community is so formed by the Spirit that its central impulse and focus of life is a radical and total jealousy for the glory of God. God wants the whole man, and the whole people –a people with no strings attached, no conditions, no restraint, no questions...these are the ones He can send. He looks for a heartbeat of “Here am I, send me”
· One heart and one mind-unity. Love and acceptance of each other is real. The work of the Spirit brings oneness. Not just agreement, or just co-operation, or just partnership; but actual oneness.
Every conflicting spirit is removed-jealousy, control, striving, arguments, lawlessness, dissension, etc. People see each other differently. Hearts have been changed. There is a sense of belonging, acceptance, love, appreciation, and admiration.
The Spirit brings unity, it brings people into one heart and one mind, and opens the way for the grace of God to come upon a people. Unity is not an end in itself, but the purpose is greater intimacy with God and thus walking out His purposes.
· Humility and submission
· Honour –of leaders and each other. Opposite of striving and envy and selfish ambition.
· Covenant relationships, not ones of convenience.
· Transparency and accountability and openness and honesty.
· Laying down our lives for each other. Acts 2 ”All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.”
· Love - selfless and sacrificial love. We must give up our rights and look after the interests of others as well as our own.
· This apostolic community, comes into a state of being of one in mind and heart with the Father. Like Jesus said, “I always do the things that please the Father.” John8:29. “I do the things I see My father doing”. “I speak what I hear from the Father”. In this state of oneness with each other , and with the Father, nothing can stop the church. The key to it all is oneness of mind and heart. A people of one heart and mind.
· Acts describes the work of the Spirit creating an amazing community. The direct result of the work of the Spirit in these believers, forming such a community, was amazing power. The book of Acts tells story after story of what can be achieved, what life can be like, when the Spirit forms an apostolic community, when people are brought into a deep oneness of heart and mind, with God and each other.
· You can build only on one thing - effective, authentic, wholesome relationships in Christ. It is impossible to build a work for God unless these kinds of relationships are built. In a fragmented church or community, you cannot have the fullness of grace, the fullness of blessing and anointing. In the Acts church, there was created one community in God. There was proportionate power to preach and do mission. Results came because there was community.
Secondly, the term apostolic refers to the unchanging method God uses, whereby in everything He does, God’s nature is such that He always seeks to express Himself through others and fulfil Himself in others – He works through ‘sent ones.’
· The Father sent the Son to speak on behalf of the Father, and to do His works in the world. This process must be reproduced in us. Christ must be fully formed in us. We must learn to represent Him, and speak on behalf of the Father and the Son, and we must by faith and prayer determine the will of God and open the way for the works of the Holy Spirit.
· This is God’s apostolic method, functioning as a result of His apostolic nature. God has always chosen to have someone, or some people, represent Him to as to accomplish His purpose in the world.
· In an apostolic community, with one heart and one mind pervading the life of the people, there is true fellowship with each and God, there are common attitudes and values, a common way of seeing things, a depth of insight, and wisdom and revelation from the Spirit that is received and understood because hearts are willing and open to understand and obey.
· The people rise and work and worship as one, not by conformity being imposed, not by being controlled or mindless, by the Spirit bringing unity into the hearts and mind of the people. God’s people now see and know and discern and understand.
· In Chronicles 30:12, the people of Israel came into one mind and one heart, to fulfill the purposes of God. “also in Judah the hand of God was on the people to give them unity of mind to carry out what the king and his officials had ordered, following the word of the Lord”.
· In Acts 2, it says the people were devoted to each other, devoted to the apostles teaching, and devoted to God and His mission. And Acts 4:32 ”All the believers were one in heart and mind.”
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Name change, from 24/7 Metachurch, to 24/7 Community. Why? God sometimes changes peoples name to signify a change of heart and purpose and ministry, a change of season for the person or people.
I believe God has brought us to this place. This is not something that has come about suddenly. God spoke to me about name change to 24/7 community about 18 months ago. 2010 marked a significant year where the Spirit of God worked in many of our hearts, working out the truths of sonship, of spiritual fathering, and aligning our hearts and minds with each other and with Himself. It was a commencement of a journey with God, where He is forming us, bit by bit, to be an apostolic people, an apostolic community.
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