Transfigured by the Spirit: Empowering the Whole Church for Mission
Part Six: The Rise of Transvocational Ministry
In the previous installments, we explored the biblical and historical foundations of transvocational ministry and some of the challenges that churches face as they seek to embrace this holistic, integrated model of faith. We also discussed the practical steps for navigating obstacles like the clergy-laity divide, rigid church structures, and the balancing act of work and ministry.
As we continue this journey, it’s essential to dive deeper into the foundational power source for transvocational ministry: the Holy Spirit.
E Stanley Jones—The Applied Edge of Redemption
Last week we spent some time with E Stanley Jones and his suggestion that “the center of gravity” must shift from the clergy to the laity. Jones writes, “The reconstruction of the church must be by the laity who are in a position of being at the core of secular life, and thus can change it from within by demonstration of the new order at the base.”[1] What is this power that can transfigure from within through a demonstration of love? Jones calls the Holy Spirit, “the applied edge of redemption” … “With our consent and cooperation the Holy Spirit works miracles where we could stand helpless and baffled and beaten.”[2]
Everything I have said previously is useless if we don’t anchor ourselves here. This is a shift from seeing ourselves as the primary actors, asking the Spirit to bless our activities, to prayerfully discerning what the Spirit is doing in the world and joining in.
Thus, the work of the Holy Spirit is central to any vision of ministry, but particularly so when it comes to transvocational ministry, which calls for the Church to be empowered to serve in every aspect of life—not just within the walls of the sanctuary.
The Spirit doesn’t merely equip a select few for the work of ministry; the Spirit empowers all believers for their God-given vocation in the world. Transvocational ministry is an invitation for every Christian to engage in God’s mission wherever they are—whether in the office, the school, the home, or the marketplace.
How does the Holy Spirit enable and empower the church to live out its calling in a transvocational way? Let’s consider how the Spirit transfigures us for our specific roles in life, infuses all work with divine purpose, and empowers the church to embody the mission of God, the “applied edge of redemption” in every area of society.
Transfigured by the Spirit
One of the primary ways the Holy Spirit empowers transvocational ministry is through the gifting of believers. In 1 Corinthians 12:4-11, Paul explains that the Holy Spirit bestows various spiritual gifts upon the Church for the common good. These gifts are not limited to church leadership or “spiritual” ministry roles but extend to every area of life.
Furthermore, Ephesians 4: 11-13 states,
“The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.”
Ephesians describes a fivefold gift matrix (apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers) that enables the church to grow into the “full stature of Christ.” These five giftings or personalities can be defined in this way:
Apostles: are those tasked with the extension of the faith through direct mission and church planting. Their focus is moving the church outward, seeding the Gospel in new places, with new people, and in new ways.
Prophets: are those tasked with maintaining faithfulness to God. They speak and embody God’s now truth into the community. They are typically located on the edge of the center, both speaking a word into the community, and to those outside of it.
Evangelists: are the naturally infectious persons who recruit others to the cause. They are outwardly focused, enlisting others into the movement, and casting the seeds of the Gospel throughout the world.
Shepherds: (pastors) are tasked with nurturing the spiritual development and maintaining the communal health of the church. They serve the inward function of engendering the community in love towards God and each other.
Teachers: pass along the wisdom and understanding bequeathed to the church. They too are focused internally on protecting and passing on the faith. [3]
All human beings operate in one of the APEST giftings, it is in some ways biologically and genetically determined. As I sought to demonstrate in The Five Congregational Personality Types, the APEST aligns perfectly with what trait psychologists call the Five Factor Model (FFM). The Revised NEO-Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) more commonly called the “Big Five Assessment” is a 240-item instrument, scientifically validated through hundreds of studies across many different cultures. It produces scores on the five major personality traits, and six sub-scores for each of those major traits.[4]
Thus, contemporary personality psychologists suggest that the multitude of various personality traits can be organized into these “big five” basic dimensions: extroversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism.[5] In essence, the Big Five personality traits are used to describe the broad traits that serve as building blocks of personality. One way to think about each trait is on a kind of spectrum, as in:
Extroversion (outgoing/energetic vs. solitary/reserved)
Agreeableness (friendly/compassionate vs. critical/rational)
Openness to experience (inventive/curious vs. consistent/cautious)
Conscientiousness (efficient/organized vs. extravagant/careless)
Neuroticism (sensitive/nervous vs. resilient/confident)
Essentially, modern psychology is affirming the Biblical truth of Ephesians 4. Consider these correlations:
1. Apostle: the “sent one” and “healer” innovating, moving to the edge, connecting outsiders, and expecting Holy Spirit guidance/intervention. Openness is a main trait of their personality.
2. Prophet: the “activist” and “truth teller,” a heart for justice and allegiance to God are primary giftings. Neuroticism can be an obvious trait of prophets. Interestingly, many biblical prophets were known for sadness or emotional instability, simply read Isaiah to Malachi in the Old Testament. However, Jesus is the fullest expression of a low-neuroticism, healthy prophet, emotive, demonstrative, but stable.
3. Evangelist: the “recruiter” and “promoter” proclamation, networking, and connecter of people are primary giftings. Extroversion is a classic trait of the evangelist. They turn strangers into friends easily and often.
4. Shepherd/Pastor: the “nurturer” and “shepherd” creating fellowship, care giving, and cultivating others are primary giftings. Agreeableness is a primary trait of pastors.
5. Teacher: “the preacher” and “educator” proclamation and teaching are primary giftings. Conscientiousness is a primary trait of teachers. They thrive in the orderly study and passionate proclamation of Scripture.
Thus, the fivefold typology is in some way a category universal to all humankind. This is a journey of transfiguration and new creation. When we become Christians, the Holy Spirit breathes on these preexisting personality traits, imbuing them with new life for the service of the kingdom. It’s not us being changed into someone else, it’s a process of “being made new” through restoration. An awakening of the core image-of-God bearing self we already are.
Recalibrating for Transvocational Ministry
In the clergy-centric form of the institutional church, not only were the Apostles, Prophets, and Evangelists disregarded, they were actively suppressed and silenced. Missiologist Alan Hirsch refers to this as “The Exiling of the APE’s.” In this scenario, all ministry has been forced into the predetermined molds of shepherd and teacher, with pastors and scholars the only legitimate leadership within the church.[6]
In 5Q: Reactivating the Original Intelligence and Capacity of the Body of Christ, Hirsch, calls for the “recalibration” of the church in the West. He explains how a return to the fivefold ministry as a “primordial form” (one of the meta-ideas that serves as a foundational concept) is essential for the multiplication of the church.[7]
Every church needs all five APEST characteristics, which are embodied by Jesus in their fullest potential. Meaning, when we see Jesus, we see what it means to be an apostle in the fullest sense of the word. Jesus was the apostle of all apostles, the “author and perfecter of our faith” and “our apostle and high priest.” Jesus was the fullness of the prophet, who both comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable. He was the greatest evangelist who ever lived, growing 12 into 70, then releasing a global movement that has transformed every human life that will ever exist. Jesus was the embodiment of a good shepherd, who tended the flock, and would leave the 99 to go after the lost one. Jesus was the teacher of all teachers, they called him rabbi. Jesus is the “exemplary” of all five APEST roles.[8]
Holy Spirit—Life Force of the Body
Hence, as the “body of Christ,” it takes all of us collectively to make one Jesus. The church is in actuality the body of Christ in the world, a flesh and blood organism, consisting of each Christian as a kind of cell in the body. The Holy Spirit is the life force that flows through this body, imbuing us with the living presence of Christ. Individually, we are re-ligamented into the greater communal configuration. While none of us are the fullness of the body in and of ourselves, when use our hands to serve and bless others, they are the hands of Christ. We could say the body takes on the five forms of the APEST at a cellular level, empowered by the Spirit.
This is the way Jesus designed the church to thrive in every age and space. Transvocational ministry allows local churches to release the whole priesthood of believers, the APEST, operating in their areas of hard-wired gifting, to equip the body to grow into full maturity.
While the pastor/teacher roles are immensely important among the body of Christ, they are not sufficient alone to advance the body into the “full stature of Christ.” We are so deeply ingrained in this one-dimensional way, that it is extremely difficult to make any other proposal to long-term church attenders. The catch-all-title of “pastor” being used for all clergy is a remnant of a declining Christendom model in the West. Hirsh highlights the irony of this reality, being that this word ποιμήν (poimēn) “pastor” is used only once in the entire Bible to describe a function within the church.[9]
This partly accounts for many people who are called by God to serve in ministry, burning out and leaving in droves. It’s like trying to fit square pegs into round holes. They belong, but they are being forced into a single shape that is not true to their core wiring or gifting.
It also reveals why so many lay leaders feel frustrated with their roles in the inherited church which are limited to the pastor/teacher centric model.
When we view ministry through the traditional lens of clergy-laity distinction, we often compartmentalize spiritual gifts and assume that they are reserved for activities within the church—preaching, teaching, praying, or pastoral care. But the truth is, the gifts of the Spirit are given to every believer to serve God’s mission in every sphere of life.
The Spirit at Work
Gifts for Everyday Life: The Holy Spirit equips people with a diverse set of gifts, which can be expressed in the home, the workplace, the arts, healthcare, education, business, and more. Whether someone has the gift of leadership, administration, craftsmanship, encouragement, or wisdom, these gifts are intended to be used for God’s glory in every context.
Empowerment in the Workplace: For example, the entrepreneurial gifting of apostles may allow them to start new businesses that fund the church and create new job opportunities. Evangelists are adept at organizing resources effectively, recruiting others to the cause, and ensuring that projects or ministries run smoothly in a corporate setting. Prophets organize social justice movements that bend communities/organizations toward justice and create systemic change. The pastoral gift may manifest in creating environments of welcome and care in homes, workplaces, or community events. Teaching may happen in classrooms, boardrooms, or family dinners. No gift is confined to a sacred/secular divide—every gift can be used to serve God’s mission wherever believers find themselves.
The Holy Spirit not only equips believers with gifts for ministry, but also gives us the boldness and wisdom to step into our transvocational calling, seeing our daily work as part of God’s larger redemptive mission.
In the next post we will get into some of the practical applications and possibilities of this approach.
[1] Jones, E Stanley. The Reconstruction of the Church. The E. Stanley Jones Foundation, 2020. (First published by Abingdon Press, 1970), 68.
[2] Jones, 36.
[3] Hirsch, Alan, Tim Catchim, and Mike Breen. The Permanent Revolution: Apostolic Imagination and Practice for the 21st Century Church (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2012), 8.
[4] Matsumoto and Juang, Cultural Psychology, 265.
[5] R. A. Power and M. Pluess, “Heritability Estimates of the Big Five Personality Traits Based on Common Genetic Variants,” Translation Psychiatry 5, vol. 7 (2015): 604, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280125157_Heritability_estimates_of_the_Big_Five_personality_traits_based_on_common_genetic_variants.
[6] Hirsch, Alan, Tim Catchim, and Mike Breen, 17.
[7] Hirsch, Alan. 5Q: Reactivating the Original Intelligence and Capacity of the Body of Christ (USA: 100M, 2017), 19.
[8] Hirsch, 74-77.
[9] Hirsch, 256