THE TWO-WINGED CHURCH … WITH TAIL-FEATHERS

Almost everyone involved in the modern cell-church movement has heard of the analogy of the “two-winged” church. As the analogy goes, the traditional church only has large-group or “corporate” meetings, typically seen in the Sunday morning service (and perhaps midweek), and so operates like a bird with one wing. The cell-based church values the “corporate” meetings, but also has purposeful small group meetings known as cell groups, which are the other wing of the bird analogy. The verse used most often to support this analogy is Acts 5:42, NIV, “Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ.”

Recently, I attended the Dove Christian Fellowship Canada 2003 National Leadership Conference. In one of the workshops, Ed Peng, senior elder of the Kitchener Dove Christian Fellowship, was talking about “fathering the five-fold ministry”. He shared that the “two-winged” church concept was great for building New Testament community and raising up servants in the church, but it was inadequate for effectively raising up five-fold leaders. He reminded us that a bird flies effectively, not because it has two wings, but because it has two wings plus tail-feathers. Tail-feathers give a bird stability. They also work as a rudder, and give the bird finely-controlled direction.

In the same way, in order to raise up balanced, purpose-driven, focused five-fold leaders, we need more than to give people opportunities to sit in and serve in the corporate gatherings and cell groups. We need to invest quality, intentional, one-on-one time with those we discern have a five-fold calling on their lives. We need to open our hearts to them in intimate, self-revealing conversations. We need to lovingly and compassionately uncover their secret fears and inadequacies, and speak hope, faith, purpose and destiny into their lives. We need to build safe, secure and confidential relationships with them, where they feel completely free and empowered to be transparent with us, knowing that we truly love them and want to build them up into their destinies.

There are a large number of skills that can be adequately taught and modeled in the corporate gatherings and cell groups. However, there are just as many things that can only be imparted one-on-one, through intimate, quality times of father-son interaction. Perhaps one of the reasons why God is bringing so much spiritual fathering revelation to the church today, is because this is God’s season of re-establishing the five-fold ministry, and He knows that it can only be accomplished through father-son, one-on-one relationships.

Yes, one-on-one fathering takes TIME … valuable time … time we often think, and can easily argue, that we don’t have. However, even a cursory reading of the accounts of Elijah/Elisha, Barnabas/Saul, and Paul/Timothy, not to mention Jesus/John, will prove that the rewards far outweigh the sacrifice. As you attempt to raise up five-fold leaders, who would “soar on wings like eagles …” (Isaiah 40:31, NIV), don’t forget to give them tail-feathers.

David Hibbert – October 2003