It’s not the church’s job to be the source of the five-fold ministry… each mature believer is called to grow up and move on… that’s what I get out of Ephesians 4:11-16
Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.
Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.
in reference to the painting:
This is a painting of the five-fold ministry… Ephesians 4:11-12
Purple on lower right is apostles. Clockwise to red-orange is prophets. Blue is evangelists, greenish is pastors, golden-yellow is teachers and white represents the mature believer.
A mature believer may operate in all areas. And a mature believer must be able to teach on all of the five-fold ministry. Which is why the yellow touches all and is intertwined with the white.