Eph 4:11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers. I want to bring to you guys attention the plight I have seen in regards to what the vast majority of today’s churches have done to the 5 fold ministry. What I mean by this is - WHERE DID IT GO?!?!? It was in place in the book of acts... but I have watched and prayed and I see the following - I see big churches with multiple leaders, and they promote themselves as follows... "the senior pastor, the youth pastor, the worship pastor, the connect group pastor".... etc etc. The Baptist church that I began in years ago had about 7 pastors, and according to them they were all gifted as pastors. I have since visited multitudes of churches and observed the same thing - today’s churches almost never have a PROPHET, a TEACHER, an EVANGELIST! Instead they have 7 different sub categories of PASTORS!! Say it isn’t so??! I visited a friend of mine at one of the biggest churches in Brisbane (glad tidings - Wayne alcorn’s church). My friend is married to one of the pastors their and I said to her "did you ever wonder where all the 5 fold ministry gifts seem to have gone? Churches no longer seem to have a prophet and a teacher and an evangelist, instead they just have about 5 different sub-categories of pastor - do you ever wonder where the other gifts have gone?" She said "no, I don’t think about it". And I explained to her that I’m not talking about people having the gift of prophecy in the sense that they may occasionally have a word of knowledge or they may occasionally interpret tongues - im not talking about the 1 Corinthians ch 12 gifts, which many people do have - im talking about where is the churches PROPHET!!! I.e. where is the one they go to get visions interpreted etc etc??? Also, where is the EVANGELIST in each church? Sure every church has people who witness occasionally, but I’m saying who is that churches EVANGELIST?! And what about the TEACHER?!?! Most pastors take on the teaching role, but ive talked to many and asked them if they are a pastor or a teacher, and they tell me they are a pastor not a teacher (yet amazingly they still act as though they are the teacher by giving the Sunday sermons). Does anyone know a church that instead of having 5 or so full time pastors on staff, does any one know a bible based church that has a full time prophet, a full time evangelist, a full time teacher etc on staff or even just activating properly in those realms? And if anyone does know of one - then where are those gifts in the other churches? And WHY aren’t they in the other churches? I will put forth my own understanding from the bible as to why we see these gifts almost vanished from modern fellowships. I believe it is because of the phenomenon called the falling away (2 Thessalonians ch 2). The traditions of man have been creeping into Christian fellowships and denominations for so long that mans traditions of how a church is to be run have replaced the way that Jesus Christ said a church should be run. It’s like my friend I mentioned above said to me - they just don’t think about it anymore. The 5 fold ministry these days seems to be treated more as a vaguely referred to 'once upon a time' ideal in peoples dusty old bibles, as opposed to the living word of God and the way churches are supposed to be structured. I look at churches and all I see is pastors, pastors, pastors, its no wonder they have so much false teaching in churches these days, because the pastors have replaced teachers, prophets and evangelists. Take a look at the biggest church in Australia - hill songs (with 10,000+ people!). Their teacher is not a teacher - he is a pastor, by his own admission. And in all my observations of them, and within all those 10,000 people ive never heard hillsongs having a (fulltime or otherwise) prophet or evangelist. I hope this topic help's people see how traditions of man have phased out biblically Christianity in this key area. Food for thought indeed!

What, nobody wants to say it? I gotta be the one? There are no modern day apostles, only disciples. Also, I don't think there are modern day prophets (But hey, if there are, where are Jello Biafra and Zack de la Rocha in the lineup? :) )