The Five-Fold Ministry

Ephesians 4:11-13:
“It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.“

It’s an interesting passage this one – I know lots of people have thought about what each of the ‘offices’ mean. What I haven’t really thought about until yesterday was just how much the truths of this passage affects the whole church, and how we relate to our leadership.

So, I would implore you to invest 50 minutes of your days in listening to the talk by Kris Vallotton that got me thinking. You can get it for free right here:

The Role of the Five-Fold Ministry – Kris Vallotton

Free worship music!

Well the easter holidays are nearly upon us and you’ll have to wait a full 24 days for some more reach goodness. So why not fill that time with some free music courtesy of the IHOPs?…

CLICK ME!*

And if you like this kind of stuff you might want to check out the Forerunner Music Podcast.

*The eagle-eyed among you will be aware that this link has been posted a couple of times, but the free tracks get updated every month – a gift that keeps on giving!

Let Me See Your Eyes

If you’ve a spare penny or two, you could do a lot worse than sending them in the direction of…

Cory Asbury – Let Me See Your Eyes

I got this album a few weeks ago and just haven’t stopped listening to it. I think it might be my favourite “worship” album ever. It’s funny because part of me thinks it really shouldn’t be. A good 3 or 4 of the tracks have a strong RnB/Hip-Hop influence, which usually spells disaster for many Christian-crossover hopefuls, but for whatever reason it just works. Cory’s voice is astounding and every track is enjoyable to listen to. They’re really good songs! But ultimately I think it’s just such anointed worship that you can’t help but love it – it draws you into deeper intimacy with Jesus. Get involved, you won’t regret it!

The ‘hits’: Jesus, Let Me See Your Eyes and My Beloved (see vids below)

My favourite track: Always Faithful (Prophetic Song)

Free Sample!: You can download Psalm 18 for free right here

Where can I buy it? You can get it from the IHOP bookstore, but the easiest thing to do is just download it. I got it for a fiver off Amazon and it will be on iTunes as well.

Website of the Week – IHOP (again!)

Yeah I know we’ve put ihop.org up already but there’s some new stuff on there right now that’s really worth highlighting:

1. It’s all been kicking off at the IHOP University. Whatever you call it – revival, awakening, whatever – God’s doing some cool stuff. And they’ve got it all up on their website for free – live streaming, highlights, testimonies. Check it out!

2. Over New Year they had the OneThing conference. I caught bits of it on TV and it was ace. You can get your hands on video archives, teaching notes, mp3s etc. Just click here.

Perfect revision break I’d say…

Website of the Week – Desiring God

www.desiringgod.org – God centred resources from the ministry of John Piper

In its own words,

“Desiring God exists to say that…

God’s ultimate goal is to glorify himself.
And that’s good news.

Everything we do aims to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ.”

It is a truly staggering resource, with more than 25 years worth of sermons available to read, listen to or watch online. All of them organised by date, scripture, series, topic, occasion and title. In addition this, many of John Piper’s books and articles are also available alongside a wealth of other resources - and all for free!

If you find yourself with a spare minute, or just really need to hear a sermon (or six) on virtually anything, I’d highly recommend checking www.desiringgod.org out!

Website of the Week – IHOP

Apologies for the lack of action recently, hopefully you’ve had more chance to browse round the other bits of the site instead.

So, WotW is back, and with a bang! This week’s incumbent is…

IHOP.org – The International House of Prayer in Kansas City

In case you’re unfamilair with IHOP it is a ministry committed to night and day continuous prayer and worship. They have their main house of prayer in Kansas City, but have a presence all over the world. Their passion to know God’s heart is really encouraging.

It’s definitely worth checking the website out – it might reinvigorate how you think about the importance of prayer and fasting and how they relate to the day-to-day Christian life. The great things is that they don’t box things off into prayer or worship or teaching or whatever – everything is prayer and everything is worship, they flow out of each other.  They’ve got loads of cool resources on there too – especially in the Forerunner music section – so make sure to have a look through them to see if there’s anything that interests you. Go get involved!

If you’ve found a website that you think should feature on here drop us a line and we’ll make it happen!

Bill Johnson – He Tore the Heavens

Bill Johnson talks from Isaiah 64 about the significance of God ‘rending the heavens and coming down’. It’s really good stuff – you’d be well advised to give it a listen!

iBethel.TV // Bethel Church // He Tore the Heavens : Nov 16 ’08
(to watch this you’ll have to sign up to iBethel.tv – it’s free to register and just requires an email address and password)

If you’d prefer, you can directly download just the audio (via facebook) here

The whole thing is about an hour long, but there’s about 10mins of pre-amble at the start. Go listen!!!

P.S. – off to Soul Survivor this weekend so it might be a little while before the next update