THE APOSTOLIC HEAD

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THE APOSTOLIC HEAD

1. The Apostolic Head leads the ministry and is contemporary with the Apostles and their teachings in the Holy Scripture.
2. The Apostolic Head relates to the teachings or practice of the Apostles and is the enforcer and chief disciplinary teacher.
3. The Apostolic Head of the church is responsible for pushing forward the mission of God and designing the way the church carries that out. These are our primary catalysts, visionaries and risk takers in the body when it comes to advancing the mission of God. We need them and we need them fully empowered!
4. Govern and influence everything from doctrinal questions to the practical issues of living for God.
5. Establish doctrinal harmony in God’s word and unity amongst themselves.
6. Make decrees
7. Ordain deacons and elders into their offices
8. Delegate authority to other leaders under him with consent of the Chief Apostle or Presiding Prelate
9. He is to ensure the structure is very stable and discipline, character, respectability, integrity of the ministers and members are upheld to a very high standard.
10. It relates to the holder of the office and is regarded the successor to the Archbishop.
11. The succession may have been apostolic, but it carried from the inception of martyrdom for the successor
12. The office speaks as one taken up in the apostolic labours of the ministry.
13. The office refers to the early Christian church fathers whose lives overlapped those of any of the apostles, and it continues in the Mystical Church.

• Impart core values to empower the movement – Acts 2-:17-32
• Inspire a common vision – 1 Corinthians 3:5-17
• Model what they believe – 1 Thessalonians 1:5-16, 1 Corinthians 4:16
• Equip and empower others for ministry – 2 Timothy 2:2, Ephesians 4
• Guard against compromise – 1 Timothy 6:20
• Strengthen people’s hearts as they live radically for God – Philippians 4:2, 6-7
• Cultivate a culture transparency and accountability – Philippians 2:1-11
• Facilitate hearing God in His word – 2 Timothy 3:16
• Listen to the spirit together – Acts 13:1-3
• Learn and grow together – Luke 10:17-20

APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION

1. The uninterrupted transmission of spiritual authority from the Apostles through successive Archbishops, Cardinals and bishops, taught by The Mystical Order of Spiritual Baptist. Simple the smooth transferring of office to another.
2. Apostolic succession is the method whereby the ministry of the Christian Church is held to be derived from the apostles by a continuous succession, which has usually been associated with a claim that the succession is through a series of bishops. This series was seen originally as that of the bishops of a particular see founded by one or more of the apostles, but it is generally understood today as meaning a series of bishops, regardless of see, each consecrated by other bishops themselves consecrated similarly in a succession going back to the apostles. “The traditions maintain that “a bishop cannot have regular or valid orders unless he has been consecrated in this apostolic succession.”
3. Apostolic succession “may also be understood as continuity in doctrinal teaching from the time of the apostles to the present.” The continuity of Christian experience, the fellowship in the gift of the one Spirit; in the continuity in the allegiance to one Lord, the continued proclamation of the message; the continued acceptance of the mission. Those who hold for the importance of apostolic succession by laying on of hands appeal to the New Testament, which, implies a personal apostolic succession from Paul to Timothy and Titus.
4. One bishop succeeding another in the same structure meant that there was a continuity of teaching: “while the Church as a whole is the vessel into which the truth is poured, the Bishops are an important organ in carrying out this task”.
5. The bishops were also successors of the apostles in that “the functions they performed of preaching, governing and ordaining were the same as the Apostles had performed”.
6. It is also used to signify that “grace is transmitted from the Apostles by each generation of bishops through the imposition of hands”.
7. Bishops have succeeded the apostles, not only because they come after them, but also because they have inherited apostolic power. … “To fulfil this apostolic mission, Christ … promised the Holy Spirit to the apostles…”. [These were] “enriched by Christ the Lord with a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit … This spiritual gift has been transmitted down to us by episcopal consecration”.