What does it mean to be Apostolic?

I was in Denmark last week meeting with Apostolic Church leaders from across Europe and then up on the Firth of Forth with people from Apostolic churches across Scotland. So that has got me thinking. What is it that unites Apostolics in Rome and Riga, in Bo'ness and Brussels, in Palermo and Paris, or in Sofia and Swansea? Or beyond this continent, what unites us in Accra and Adelaide? As a nearly 120 year old global movement, our cultures and ways of working can vary immensely. And yet despite those differences, we still very much feel like a family all around the world. 

Older Apostolics always spoke of a vision of God's Eternal Purpose for Christ and His Church as the heart of what it means to be Apostolic. About a decade ago Tim Jack summed that up at our international convention in 5 Apostolic principles. Tim spoke about those 5 principles again on Saturday at the Scottish gathering in probably in a different way, but probably an even more powerful way than I've heard before. (So if anyone noted that down in Bo'ness on Saturday, you've got some notes that are well worth continuing to think and pray over.)

If you want to read the five principles, you can read the post from 2015 here. But, for a new decade and a new generation, here's a brief explanation in video form, with Pastor Dan explaining what it means to be Apostolic — not just what it means to be part of the Apostolic Church in the UK, or Nigeria, or Bulgaria, or Canada, or any other country, but what unites us all together as Apostolic people.

(Oh, and for anyone who has qualms, like me, about putting words into the mouth of a real person, I can assure you — as the only living person who has written a couple of dissertations on D.P. Williams and his theology — that, though the words may not be his, the theology very definitely is.)