Antioch Network Foundational Documents

A Word to the Antioch Network Board

by George Miley

During a retreat with the Antioch Network Board, before we became the “Council”, early in the morning of our second day I felt the Lord speaking this word to us. I committed it to writing and shared it with the group.
–George Miley

A Word to the Antioch Network Board
January 12, 2005

Dear Friends,

I am pleased with you. It was a fruitful day yesterday. You are doing well. Keep going.

Do not spend too much time trying to define Antioch Network. You are drawing on your present understandings and concepts and trying to make Antioch Network fit one of them. But what I am doing among you is something beyond—outside of—your present understandings. You will only understand what it is after it fully unfolds. It will require new understandings and new terminology.

Accept uncertainty and paradox. The walk in the Spirit is a walk in uncertainty and paradox. I am your certainty, not your understandings or definitions. Walk with me step by step through the uncertainties. Remember the pattern of Acts: I led local churches and apostolic teams by my Spirit, one step at a time. I gave a step. They obeyed. Then I gave the next step. They obeyed. etc.

Spend your time in the coming season on seeking a greater understanding of apostolic ministry. This is foundational in understanding what I am doing in Antioch Network. It is key to understanding the future church. I am restoring apostles to the church. I am bringing forth a new church order and a new form of church government which is really not new at all, but very old. It has just been largely “forgotten.”

My church is to be led by apostles, functioning in the context of teams of five-fold ministers.

Balance 1 Corinthians 12:28 with 1 Corinthians 4:9ff. I am calling Antioch Network to humility but also to courage. I am calling you to the gentleness of love but also to a radical faith.