🎙️ Apostles: Generals, Gardeners…or Something Else?

In this bonus conversation, I'm here with Alan Hirsch and Brian Johnson. We gathered over pizza to explore why apostolic leadership has become a crossroads moment for the Church. Alan, set the stage for us.

We're at a fork in the road. There are two radically different visions of what apostolic leadership means, and the church is going to have to choose. On one side, you have apostles as empire-building generals — leaders who accumulate power, build hierarchies, and seek to dominate culture. On the other side, you have apostles as humble architects — people who cultivate gospel ecosystems, plant seeds, and create environments where others can flourish.

Can you share that story about being recruited?

Yes. Some years ago I was invited to a gathering that turned out to be a kind of secret dominionist cabal. Very powerful people in the room. And their vision of apostolic ministry was essentially about power — controlling the seven mountains of culture, building personal empires, accumulating authority. I walked out. It was deeply disturbing.

The Seven Mountains Mandate has become the theological engine behind a lot of what we see in the New Apostolic Reformation. And I want to be very clear: this is a distortion of what the New Testament means by apostleship. Jesus explicitly rejected this model. "The rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them... but it shall not be so among you."

So what's the alternative?

The alternative is what I call the Pauline and Petrine model. Paul was a pioneering apostle — he went into new territory, planted churches, and then moved on. He didn't build a personal empire. He built a network of autonomous communities. Peter was what I call a "remissionalizing" apostle — he helped existing communities recover their missional edge.

Both types share something in common: they work themselves out of a job. The mark of a genuine apostle is not how many people follow them, but how many leaders they raise up who no longer need them.

What do we do with this tension practically?

First, we need accountability. Apostolic gifts without accountability become toxic. Every apostolic leader needs a community of peers who can speak truth to them. Second, we need to decentralize. The whole point of apostolic ministry is to distribute the movement, not consolidate it. Third, we need to recover the cruciform nature of leadership — leadership shaped by the cross, not the crown.

Leadership shaped by the cross, not the crown. That's the word. Thank you, Alan and Brian.