Pioneers and Forerunners #2 – Graces of Vision

In my last blog, I spoke of the difference between pioneers and forerunners. Again, I received several good responses. I want to expand that blog since it has helped many people to understand what they are going through. It has also shown me the need to gather the pioneers to get mutual encouragement. I believe most of our conferences are for the forerunners.
Now looking again at pioneers and forerunners, we see that the pioneer is a visionary. They must see afar off and have a sense of direction. The apostolic and prophet graces fall directly into the category of pioneer. They are both visionary and bring new concepts of the future and new paths of spiritual travel. This is not to say there aren’t some pioneers in the other graces of pastor, teacher, and evangelist moving as well. It is just their numbers are very few.
Both apostles and prophets pioneer through the second heavens and make a new path to experience God in the throne room. They confront powers, principalities and oppositions of both demonic and men as they open new ways of seeing and strategy. They have an expectation after all the investment and spiritual work, that the forerunners and settlers will maintain the path and engage into the new discoveries. Both gifts are experiencing frustrations in this hour as they are not fully received nor are the pathways they have opened being received. Mainly pioneers are receiving the revelation from other pioneers. A secondary frustration is what has been opened in the purest form is then shifted or changed by man’s opinions or for man’s own gain. The capitalization of building a person’s own ministry on another’s revelation is doing much damage to many in the Body of Christ. It’s taking advantage of those who have labored in secret and giving them no honor, recognition, or placement in the Body of Christ.
Today we have seen new concepts of the truth being taught by very gifted teachers. These revelatory teachers are not gathering large followings nor settling as teaching centers, but are more transient teachers who are seeding the Body of Christ with revelatory truth. These teachers hang out with apostles and prophets and engage in conversations that are both revelatory and doctrinally sound. They are mature teachers and have deepened their teaching gift with ever increasing revelation.
But primarily, the teaching gift is in the forerunner ministry. They are stationary to grow and establish the Body of Christ. This type of teacher is not so much pursuing revelation to add to their teaching arsenal but is teaching more of the foundations to firmly settle the Body of Christ. They work with Pastors who are in the forerunner category settling people in faith. For the pastor who is frustrated with the constant need to settle people but wants to bring new revelation, they should probably look at their other graces and see if they might be more prophetic and need to shift into the area of pioneering.
It is very easy to see the pastoral grace is a forerunner or a settler type of ministry. The evangelist is there as well building the base of people by expanding the ministry with new converts to the Kingdom. Most pastors are forever consumed with the personal problems and life journeys that people are going through. But the gifting of the prophet and apostle can benefit them greatly. They bring vision and strategy to the people of God pulling them out of their focus on their problems and onto a Kingdom destiny. People who engage in a vision higher than themselves generally see their problems as small and allow them to fade away in their importance. Pastors are in more need of true apostles to give them strategy and bring the Kingdom. True apostles come to partner with and not take over or have them join a network. The days of networks are coming to an end and the time of divine alignments by relationships is upon us. Since I dissolved the network I had years ago, (I had about 80 ministers in it) it became very freeing to not build a structure but to build leaders. I know a lot of people but not everyone I know has been integrated into my network because it does not exist!
So, the understanding of pioneers and forerunners is critical to understand how to function and how to place and value certain things. Take prophecy: there are varying degrees of prophecy. Some is very directive and others are encouraging. The most important words to shift direction on are the prophetic words of prophets and apostles. Other words may be more for the forerunners of places that are establishing the Body of Christ and encourages many. Teaching can be both foundational and revelatory. Revelatory teaching opens vast areas to expand as foundations. Assignments. Many new territories take both apostolic and prophet grace to open while at other times, it’s simply taking what is already established and adding to it.
If we look at the book of Acts, we see the both the pioneering spirit and the forerunner spirit. The first 11 chapters are about the Church in Jerusalem and how it functioned as a forerunner. There were new concepts of taking care of social injustice and new ways of living life in relationship with God. Healing, miracles, and the supernatural are all shown as different from the religious structures. Foundations were laid to build a future upon, based on the fresh revelation of Christ. Acts 12 unfolds as the transitional chapter. Its prophetic symbolism is vast. Peter is locked in prison. Look at it like this; Peter is not locked in prison but the revelation that Peter carried is imprisoned. The Church is praying and crying out for Peter to be released. They are praying for what Peter is carrying to be released. A cry for more revelation. Revelation is released and revelation comes out of prison. Revelation enters a city and it finds a praying Ecclesia! Remember, Peter played a key role of saying Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God. Peter spoke after Pentecost and explained what was happening. Acts 13 onward is about the pioneers and the expansion of the Kingdom. We see the revelation they received dictated the course they were to go. New territories and new revelation came. Yes, we need the forerunners establishing, but we also need them connected to the pioneers to sustain the new territories they are attaining.

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