LEAD October 2022 | Page 58

the Body of Christ has seen the progressive restoration of the ministry gifts that God gave His people to operate in . Bishop Bill Hamon teaches in his eye-opening book The Day of the Saints that God has been restoring the full operation of the fivefold ministry .
In the late 1940s and early 1950s , I believe God restored the office of evangelist in the Church . In the fall of 1949 , the young evangelist Billy Graham scheduled a three-week crusade in Los Angeles that ended up lasting a total of eight weeks . Over 350,000 people attended the meetings and upwards of 3,000 got saved . In 1951 , Bill Bright founded what would later become the world ’ s largest international Christian organization , Campus Crusade for Christ , on the campus of UCLA .
Then came the charismatic pastors . From the year 1958 flowing into the 1960s , the Charismatic Renewal gave rise to many amazing pastors from various movements . Larry Christenson , of the Lutheran charismatic movement , and Gerald Derstine , a Charismatic Mennonite , are just two examples .
Next in line was the office of teacher . Chuck Smith and the Calvary Chapel movement played a large part in the Jesus People movement that emerged in 1967 . Smith and other ministers , like Jack Hayford , systematically went through the Bible as they taught their churches from the Word of God .
In the 1980s , the office of prophet emerged . A key component was John Wimber and the Vineyard church movement . A diverse array of significant prophetic voices arose in the 80s , including Rick Joyner , Cindy Jacobs , Chuck Pierce , and Lou Engle , who has been and still is a prophet in my life .
Then in the 1990s , with the outpourings in Toronto and Brownsville , the office of apostle was starting to be recognized — the modernday apostle . This includes the emergence of apostolic networks and what Peter Wagner called “ Microsoft apostles .”
A New Wineskin for Revival So , where does that leave us now ? As Bill Hamon ’ s book so accurately proclaims , we are in “ the day of the saints .” We are in a time where we are witnessing the move of the Holy Spirit equipping the saints to be ministers . Only a small percentage of the Body of Christ is called to full-time ministry , but I believe that every follower of Jesus is called to be a minister of the gospel , an ambassador for Christ who will transform the world .
What we are seeing today is the progressive restoration of apostles and prophets for the Body of Christ to move forward with this fresh move of God . A lot of people may say this teaching is only confined to a small sect of Christians who are willing to embrace the apostolic and prophetic ministries . On the contrary , I believe a new “ apostolic reformation ” is taking place .
In his book Apostles Today , Peter Wagner presented the convincing argument that we are in the second apostolic age , and he described this reformation as a fresh implementation of biblically based church government . This is not about denominational
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