I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you. For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know Timothy’s proven worth, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel…I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need…So receive him in the Lord with all joy, and honor such men, for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me. (Philippians 2:19–30)
Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well. (Romans 16:3–4)
Apostolic teams, these consist of men and women after the order of Timothy and Epaphroditus, and Prisca and Aquila. These are teams of like-minded, kindred-hearted companions to journey with in the challenging contexts we have been sent into. These teams are critical for perseverance, for spiritual nourishment, for inspiring vision, and for encouraging the disciplines and practices that facilitate the formation of the worker. On the flipside, it is also possible for an apostolic team to become a drain on spiritual life and nourishment of a worker.
It is true that like-minded companions in the work are needed in helping to bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2) and often the people among whom the team is casting seed are not yet at the point of fulfilling this role. The burdens and difficulties of ministering in a challenging context are shared and lightened when the team is supportive and healthy. The expectation, though, that the apostolic team should exist to meet the worker’s idealized need for community will most certainly go unmet. Conflict and disappointments are inevitable. The team is made up of sinners in the process of transformation by the work of the Holy Spirit.
“It is not until we are saved and come into the fellowship of other believers that we really begin to learn and understand the dimensions of human depravity.” – Art Katz
The community of the apostolic team is crucial for sustainability in long-haul ministry in hard places, but it also carries with it a boatload of brokenness and varying expectations that create tension and stress. This is unavoidable, but some things can be addressed and brought into the open from the start. We often say expectations are a minefield. Clarifying and adjusting our expectations is essential for the health of the team. One prominent mine that will need to be addressed is what an apostolic team means by community.
Many people love the idea of community but it can mean a variety of things to a variety of people. The InnerCHANGE order is composed of apostolic teams that exist because of the mission to which Jesus has called them. This mission is one of pursuing a movement of disciples, and it emphasizes the priority of building community with our neighbors who are far from Christ. These neighbors are all potential brothers and sisters in Christ who the team (and the Church as a whole) need in order to see the glory of Christ more fully. This priority creates tension between a desire to build community inwardly as a team and building community outwardly with the team’s neighbors. Amy Carmichael (a missionary to India) wrote a powerful little booklet entitled God’s Missionary. In this booklet she addresses the tension the missionary experiences in coming to understand sustainability in terms of whether they derive it from the missionary community (or team), or from the people they are sent to love. Carmichael writes,
There are men and women in the mission-fields today who began by going in for the usual round [spending their time with the missionary community], because they were told they must. But they are just as strong and well now that they have given all up in favour of a life lived with the people and for them; and they can witness gladly to the bond that binds them to their Indian brothers and sisters, all the closer, surely, because they come first in real love, and because they know they do. We can never know an Eastern people – it is fallacious to imagine we do – while we find our chief recreation to be an escape from their companionship into the society of our fellow-Europeans. (p. 23)
In order to know we must spend time with our neighbors. Our contemplation in the streets hinges on our willingness and ability to behold Jesus and experience him as we are with those to whom we have been sent. An over reliance on the apostolic team to provide every social need we as workers experience draws us away from patiently waiting on God to meet that need through those the worker has been sent to love with the gospel. As workers on an apostolic team, we need to push ourselves to prayerfully seek God among the people in the context we are in. Like the manna in the wilderness, there is spiritual food to be gathered that we have not known.
Anything of beauty and worth seems to need the elements of heat and pressure to bring out those characteristics. The creation of a worthy and beautiful people requires the heat and pressure of God’s loving discipline through suffering. The heat and pressure most often come through other people, who like us, are sinful and broken, but whom God is making new. This makes any romantic idea of a team or community a minefield of expectations that often explodes in the face of the reality.
God is forging his people into “…a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). The apostolic team is the sent expression of the church and therefore is meant also to embody this beauty, declaring the excellencies of the one they are beholding and treasuring. The church (and by extension the team) is called to reveal the manifold wisdom (glory) of God (Ephesians 3:10). It is the tangible sign in this present age of God’s coming kingdom, but made up of sinful people still growing into maturity in Christ. It is difficult to bring a message of hope and reconciliation to people who have often been violently traumatized and wounded, when the apostolic team, who supposedly have all the advantages of the Spirit and grace of God, are not able to live this message out among themselves. Teams have an opportunity to both behold and display the beauty of Christ as they learn to bear with one another in love. It is an opportunity to feed at the table that has been spread for them in the wilderness.
