Welcome to the newest ministry of the Pentecostal Church of Creve Coeur, MO! This ministry is designed to provide an avenue within the church to train local members who have been called to leadership ministries within the Church.
Which leads us to the name of this venture: "The Barnabas Project." Barnabas is a key figure in the Book of Acts--he gave a significant financial contribution to the struggling Jerusalem church (Acts 4:36-37) and led the first missionary journey of the early church, followed by a greenhorn preacher named Paul.
But what is often forgotten is that Barnabas first invited Paul to come be part of the exciting new ministry to Hellenistic Jews in Antioch (Acts 11:19-26). Paul had already attempted an evangelistic effort which ended badly; he literally ended up a "basket-case" (Acts 9:20-25) and eventually made his way back home to Tarsus. Now, the Bible doesn't explicitly says this, but I would imagine that Paul was pretty hurt and discouraged about how his preaching in Damascus had been received. It would have been very easy at this point for Paul to "hang up" on the call of God, to look at the results of his ministry and conclude that God really didn't have anything special in mind for him.
But then here comes this well-known leader Barnabas whose name, not coincidentally, means "Son of Encouragement" (Acts 4:36). He had been comissioned by the Jerusalem church to check out the missionary efforts of the Syrian Antioch Christians. When he had arrived there and seen what wonderful things the Lord was doing, he "departed for Tarsus to seek Saul." Barnabas thought, "Here's a perfect place of ministry for Saul! He'd do really well!" And, of course, we know that Paul did really well. In fact, that first missionary journey in Acts 13 begins with Barnabas in the lead (references early in the chapater are to "Barnabas and Paul") but by the end of the journey, Paul seems to have taken over the reins of authority (references later in the chapter are to "Paul and Barnabas"). Paul went on to become the single greatest missionary of the early church plus author of almost half of the entire New Testament!
Now, what if Barnabas hadn't invited Paul to Antioch? What if he hadn't recognized God's ministry gifting to Paul or hadn't been willing to give Paul a second chance and help him polish his ministry skills?
Barnabas was gifted with recognizing the ministry potential in others (I haven't even bothered to tell the story of John Mark) and developing that potential. And that's precisely what this project is about: recognizing and developing ministry potential and potential ministries. So, won't you join us as we try together to "cultivate our callings"?
