Note: While this post is based on a Biblical principle that has broad application, I have applied it specifically to the Christian and Missionary Alliance and used relevant illustrations to demonstrate my main point.

For better or worse, local churches gain reputations in their communities. In the city where I have lived and ministered since 2008 I have experienced first hand and observed in other churches the power of reputation - both good and bad.

For instance, during a five year period (2013 - 2018) our congregation rented a building that had a reputation in the community for being haunted. It didn’t matter what the reality was, this reputation prevented us from growing while in that building. On a more positive note, our church has a reputation as a place that believes in the importance of the filling of the Holy Spirit. This has lead to pastors and leaders from other churches visiting our congregation to explore this concept and pursue the deeper life in Christ.

A congregation’s reputation can be complex. Jesus confronted the reputations of several churches in Revelation 2-3. Most notably, He said to the church in Sardis; “I know your deeds, that you have a name [reputation] that you are alive, but you are dead. (Rev. 3.1) Sometimes the way that we perceive a church may not align with the way that Jesus sees things.

Even New Testament churches begin to form reputations as we study them in scripture.

The Corinthian church is often associated with division and immorality, but also with spiritual gifts - based on the content of 1 Corinthians.

The Ephesian church is frequently identified with signs and wonders and the filling of the Holy Spirit (Acts 18-19), but also as the church that had forsaken it’s first love (Rev. 2.4).

The church in Antioch is often associated with missionary work - specifically, the sending of missionaries. This church not only launched Paul’s first missionary journey, but repeatedly received and re-launched him onto his second and third missionary journeys. The church in Antioch was a launch pad and a landing pad for Paul and his associates. We often look to the church in Antioch as a model for missions activity, and rightly so. Antioch earned its reputation as a missionary church.

But that’s not all that there was to the church in Antioch. Did you know that before the church in Antioch was buzzing with mission activity, it was a hub for prophetic activity? In fact, much of the prophetic activity in the book of Acts takes place in or around Antioch. Before Antioch had missionaries, it had prophets. As a family of churches committed to world missions it would be worth our time to explore that connection. Perhaps there are some “deeper life and missions” principles here for us to discover.

The Church in Antioch

The church in Antioch was formed as a result of persecution in Jerusalem - specifically the “persecution that occurred in connection with Stephen.” (Acts 11.19) After Stephen's martyrdom many believers fled Jerusalem in order to avoid persecution. Some of them settled in the city of Antioch, about 300 miles north of Jerusalem.

Church members in Antioch were effective in sharing the gospel to both Jews and Gentiles and “a large number who believed turned to the Lord.” (Acts 11.21) This lead to both Paul and Barnabas spending significant time ministering in Antioch. It was believers from this church that were first referred to as “Christians.” (Acts 11.26)

Despite the great distance, the church in Antioch maintained a relationship with the church in Jerusalem. We see in Acts 11 that a group of prophets from Jerusalem paid a visit to Antioch. While there may be prophetic activity earlier in the book of Acts, this is the first explicit reference to it.

Among this group of prophets was a man named Agabus who foretold of a coming famine and activated a compassionate and merciful response from the church by taking up an offering for those impacted by the famine. The stated purpose of this response is “relief”. This story provides an excellent Biblical precedent for Christian relief and aid ministries, as well as illustrating how such a ministry may be birthed out of the prophetic.

A Prophet-Identifying Church

We see growth in the church in Antioch by Acts 13. The church that was just recently receiving prophets from Jerusalem now had prophets and teachers of its own. In fact, some of those prophets are listed by name!

The church in Antioch knew who it’s prophets were. They knew their names and knew they were called to this type of ministry. Rather than isolating or marginalizing their prophetically gifted people, they recognized and empowered them. In fact, of the dozen or so prophets named in the book of Acts, eight of them spent time ministering in Antioch. Once again, the church in Antioch was not just a hub for missions, it was a hub for the prophetic.

Antioch is an example to us of our need to identify our prophets. I’ve found that many Christians find it easier to identify and then denounce false-prophets rather than identify and affirm real ones.

If you like to denounce false prophets by name, that's fine and biblical. But you should also be able to identify real prophets. At least five times in the book of Acts the church can identify true prophets, most of them by name. If you can identify a false prophet by name, but not name a real one, maybe you don't believe that there are prophets today, or maybe you don't know what a prophet is, or maybe you're not qualified to make that distinction.

In “A.B. Simpson, His Life and Work”, A.E. Thompson dedicates an entire chapter to identifying the prophetic ministry and role of A.B. Simpson in the early Alliance. The chapter is titled, “A Modern Prophet” and in it Thompson states; “Dr. Simpson was a prophet to the prophets.” (pg. 199) If you really want to see what Thompson thought of Dr. Simpson, keep reading! Only a few pages later Thompson says; “A.B. Simpson was an apostle.” (pg. 204)

A.W. Tozer is another great Alliance voice that was referred to as a “Twentieth Century Prophet” even while he was still alive (see David J. Fant’s biography of Tozer; “Twentieth Century Prophet”). It appears that Tozer humbly accepted this responsibility, as he entitled the prayer that he offered at his ordination; “The Prayer of a Minor Prophet”. (A Passion for God: The Spiritual Journey of A. W. Tozer by Lyle Dorsett pgs. 65-68)

A Strengthened Church

Not only did the church in Antioch have prophets before it had missionaries, you could argue that it had missionaries because it had prophets! It was their prophets and teachers that discerned from the Holy Spirit whom to lay hands on and commission from Antioch when they originally sent out Barnabas and Paul (Acts 13.1-3). Furthermore, this commissioning took place in the context of prayer, fasting and worship - a far cry from a typical church board meeting!

Of course, not everyone in Antioch was sent out internationally to spread the gospel. Many were called to stay and impact their local community for Christ. Those who remained in Antioch would need encouragement from time to time and it was often the prophets in the church that were called upon to provide that encouragement.

Immediately after the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, the ruling of the apostles and elders began to be distributed among the churches. When the conclusion of the council had been shared with the church in Antioch, two prophets named Judas and Silas took the opportunity to “encourage and strengthen the brethren with a lengthy message.” (Acts 15.32)

The practice of prophetically gifted people edifying and encouraging the church is not only demonstrated in Acts 15, it is established as the norm for New Testament prophetic ministry in 1 Corinthians 14. Could it be that one of the reasons that so many churches appear weak and discouraged is that we have silenced the voices that were meant to strengthen and encourage?

The Prophetic and Missions

The connection between the prophetic and missions was established before the church in Antioch was born and has continued in many forms since. Was it not the Prophet Isiaiah, who, after an encounter with the Lord made the famous missionary proclamation, “Here am I, send me”? (Isa. 6.1-8) The same conviction that fuels the prophetic also fuels the missionary work of the church - that is, the revelation of God’s heart toward humanity.

While staying in Chicago in 1876, A.B. Simpson was awakened in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. He had just had what many would call a prophetic dream. Simpson recalls the content of the dream:

I was awakened one night from sleep, trembling with a strange and solemn sense of God’s overshadowing power, and on my soul was burning the remembrance of a strange dream through which I had at that moment come. It seemed to me that I was sitting in a vast auditorium, and millions of people were there sitting around me. All the Christians in the world seemed to be there, and on the platform was a great multitude of faces and forms. They seemed to be mostly Chinese. They were not speaking, but in mute anguish were wringing their hands, and their faces wore an expression that I can never forget...As I awoke with that vision on my mind, I did tremble with the Holy Spirit, and I threw myself on my knees, and every fiber of my being answered, ‘Yes, Lord, I will go.’ (Thompson, pg. 120)

This encounter with God was a significant turning point in the life of the 33 year old pastor. He tried, at first, to go to the mission field himself. Upon realizing that this was not feasible, he set out to respond to God’s prophetic-missionary call by other means. Within 10 years of his dream Simpson moved to New York City, launched a cutting edge missionary magazine, planted a local church, started a missionary training institute and founded the “Evangelical Missionary Alliance” - a movement whose primary objective was to “carry the gospel to all nations with special reference to the needs of the destitute and unoccupied fields of the heathen world.” (Constitution of the Evangelical Missionary Alliance, 1887)

A.B. Simpson would have fit right in at Antioch. His prophetic encounter with God led to his missionary zeal. Before he was a missionary statesman he was a prophetic dreamer. While those before him and beside him knew that world evangelization was a necessary mandate to the church, Simpson was propelled by a unique vision to give his entire life to fulfilling the great commission.

Simpson recognized the relationship between the deep prophetic impulse and the natural overflow of missions work:

And so in our day God has been raising up his Antiochs again. The deep spiritual movements of our time all form a sort of Antioch from which are going forth the most vital missionary agencies of our time. It was this church that sent forth the early missionaries. Let us, therefore, not forget that it is God’s plan to send forth the missionary from a warm home center. The idea of independent missions apart from that supporting center is not scriptural. There must be two ends to the work, the home and the foreign, both equally responsive and helping. (Christ in the Bible, Vol. IV, pg. 583)

The driving force between the prophetic is the same as the driving force behind missions - the revelation of God’s heart for humanity. Any church that’s truly prophetic will also be a missionary church. Any church that’s a missionary church will also be prophetic. These two concepts hold each other in balance and keep a church from unhealthy imbalance.

In order to fully understand the proto-typical missionary church in Antioch we must also understand what it’s congregational life was like. It’s clear from Acts that the congregational life in Antioch was one that acknowledged, valued and empowered prophetic ministry not just on the mission field, but at home as well.