Define the Territory of Delegated Authority
To have an ekklesia, you first must have a definable domain or dominion where a government rests in and upon viable authority.
Jesus has all authority in Heaven and Earth, but Jesus rules through representative humans organized by the King into identifiable kingdom cultures by regions.
John leaves us the final Biblical picture of Jesus and HIs representative ekklesiae: “To the messenger of the ekklesia write.”
Jesus says something to one regional ekklesia that is specific to that ekklesia. So then, Holy Spirit says something that applies to all kingdom people eternally: “to him who has ears to hear, hear what the Spirit says to the ekklesiae!”
God sets the boundaries of regions and nations, not man. Thus, although we conveniently address manufactured boundaries’ metron or scope of delegated authority, the actual spiritual identities are set by the God-set governmental boundaries.
For example, the boundaries of the seven ekklesiae are not cities but city-states with regional authority. Furthermore, the boundaries of any authorized ekklesia begin with the leaders who represent the King. These identifiable boundaries define the delegated authorization of those kingdom leaders.
Some kingdom leaders can assemble a national ekklesia or even a global ekklesia, as Luke records in Acts 15. In addition, many kingdom leaders have the authorization to assemble at a regional or territorial level.
Ekklesiae assemble to agree with God as the kingdom authorization to represent His authority by releasing His power. The actual context for that summons into assembly, given by kingdom leaders with the appropriate scope of authority, is the kingdom culture.
Limitations of Design and Definition of Ekklesia
Because of faulty design and definition of churchism, w4 now have kingdom ministry erroneously diminished by parachurch designations with an increasingly narrowed definition of “ministry” that leaves most of the life and ministry of Jesus from kingdom culture.
So, when an ekklesia is summoned, the kingdom must assemble the participants prepared and positioned for ekklesia function who have been in operation integrity as a building, body, and bride. That operational integrity is kingdom culture construction, preparation, and relational maturation.
At present, when we discuss the restoration of original design by these identifiable sub-movements of a kingdom movement. Therefore, leaders discuss ekklesia from worship, prayer, prophetic, apostolic, or church growth perspectives. When they do, they exaggerate their authorization or prioritization.
Worship movement people developed a “the battle is the Lord’s and we warship with praise and worship” perspective–which is entirely valid–as if that is all there is. They avoid actual warfare, and some even say there is none because Jesus does all the warring while they worship. The error is evident when you read the Scriptures, and the idea that “we are called to this, and you are called to that” does not even begin to close the gap of this exaggerated error.
Prayer movement people tend to develop a battleplan in which intercessors fall prey to the idea that seeing or hearing the battle means they are generals to implement the battleplans. Their particular group has the structure to accomplish the complete victory through one strategy. They often repeat, “We already dealt with that” about things obviously not dealt with because of a narrow view of ekklesia authority.
Prophetic movement people are all over the place because prophetic people tend to jump to conclusions. Having seen or heard something so clear and emphatically that they become bold in declaration, they jump to the conclusion that prophets are the vanguard of getting it done. While they may have access to blueprints and battleplans if they function appropriately at the foundational level with apostles, prophets are not the end-all of establishing, expanding, and enforcing kingdom culture.
Each has a “move over and allow the real representatives to get’r’done” mentality according to the distinctives of the subculture they create. Each develops its lingo, code words, and perspective that exacerbates the separate strategic response that should be accomplished through apostolic order, putting all these elements into mature operation integrity within the restored kingdom culture.
Put the apostles into this mix, add some church-growthism flavoring, and restore the apostolic in the poorly-designed structure of networks instead of alignments. You get another schism of exaggerated authority.
Kingdom Culture Joins It All Together
Each group–and there are more groups–awaits the day when all the rest finally mature enough to accept that they have the answers. Meanwhile, this lack of kingdom culture and apostolic order limits the effectiveness of the entirely constructed ekklesia as a building, the fully operational ekklesia as a body, and the fully matured relational dynamics of a covenant-keeping, image-of-God-on-earth completing bride.
Conclusion: to reach reformation momentum, we first restore and re-pioneer kingdom culture, and we do have all the pieces available now.
