Supernatural Architecture: Building the Church in the 21st Century

Endorsements

The term Apostle is bandied about much these days as the unqualified bestow it upon adherents, many of whom can barely spell Jesus. That said, Dr. Stan DeKoven is a true apostle, bearing the signs of an apostle. Spiritual Architecture should be read as the words of one who has been there, done that and seen the results. You too will see the results when you apply these principles to your life. Spiritual Architecture is a word well written.

Dr. Leon Stutzman, Aspire Church

It has been my pleasure to be associated with Vision International since 1991 and to call Dr. Stan DeKoven my mentor and friend. From 1999 until 2009, the Global 12 Project West Africa Church Planting team used the principles in Dr. DeKoven’s book, Supernatural Architecture, to establish over 6000 villages churches, we saw them grow to be self-supporting within one year. The biblical principles contained in this book can be used in any setting in any nation of the world, the whole word to the whole world.

Steven M Mills, D. Min.

Vice-President of International Outreach

We live in a Kairos time that is very strategic to the Lord’s church in order to fulfill the Lord’s mandate of discipling the nations. Supernatural Architecture is a must read which will heighten your awareness of what the Lord is calling His leaders to embrace. I highly recommend this read and suggest you prayerfully ask for the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him (Ephesians 1:17) for this season and time.

George Runyan,

Presiding Elder, City Church Ministries Network

I’ve been a part of many conversations on church growth that essentially ended with the seeming cliché, that we must get back to the New Testament. While often said, few know what that really means and some wonder how we can advance by looking backwards. In this book, Dr. DeKoven focuses us on Jesus and His goals. He then leads us on a great journey of understanding though the New Testament, showing Jesus’ goals were also followed by the apostles.

I especially enjoyed his take on Barnabas and imagined how that would look today. This book will provide insight and inspiration to reevaluate where we are and why we are doing what we are doing. Methods will always change but the message and heart of God remain the same. Part of God’s blueprint can be seen within these pages. While it will not answer every question, there are more than enough truths here to truly shift our thinking to see the Kingdom of God extended and the Church of Jesus Christ, His sons and daughters, flourish in our time. I highly recommend this book!

Mark McElwee

Pastor / Senior Leader

Heart of God Church

I have known Dr Stan DeKoven since 1996. I have valued his friendship and support over those years. I have always admired his understanding of the Scriptures and how he is able to relate the Scriptures to Christian Leadership; and in particular, Church leadership. Supernatural Architecture has helped me gain a greater understanding of Apostolic Leadership and Ministry as portrayed in the landscape of the New Testament. Dr Stan’s ability to bring clarity to this vital topic is outstanding, practical, and desperately needed today. In the midst of the plethora of erratic interpretations of the Apostolic ministry by many other authors, the 2nd edition of Supernatural Architecture is not only refreshing but timely. I whole heartedly endorse Dr DeKoven’s book to you and I encourage fellow pastors to use it as a handbook when they consider the planting of new churches or relaunching existing churches.

Pastor Mike Groom,

Senior Pastor of Adelaide Christian Center, Adelaide, Australia

Supernatural Architecture: Building the Church in the 21st Century is a must read for everyone who wants to see the Kingdom of God established. Dr, Stan DeKoven does a masterful job of bringing Christ’s plan for building the church to light. He then illustrates the early church’s efforts to follow in Jesus’s way. DeKoven forces us to confront our modern mindsets and reexamine then in the light of a clear scriptural imperative to have His Kingdom come on earth. If you believe in the apostolic commission to build the church and to establish the Kingdom of God, then you will want to keep Supernatural Architecture handy as an essential reference in your library. Thank you, Stan, for this excellent work.

Dr Tim Hamon, CEO Christian International

PhD Organizational Leadership

Over the last many years, I have given away dozens and dozens of the original Supernatural Architecture to my Ministry friends! Now, we have his updated edition for today’s changing needs! To me, Supernatural Architecture is THE premier gold standard for any leader who considers building Christian Ministry.

Dr. Kluane Spake

Kluane.com

One would think that the theme Church Growth would be a clear cut and simple subject; one upon which many articles, sermons and books have been written; primarily with a goal of exploding the numbers in mind. It is this common idea which may draw the reader to Dr. Stan DeKoven’s new book, Supernatural Architecture; conversely to find a spiritually deep perspective in a Kingdom blueprint. This Christ-centered book is impressive! Clever! And a wonderful juxtaposition of the Spirit and intellectual understanding, delightfully marked by the fearless exposure of people’s favorite deceptions. This will be another staple in your library. Happy reading!

Rev. Lora Allison, Author, Speaker,

Conference Convener,

www.celebrationministries.com

Supernatural Architecture

Building the Church in the 21st Century

Stan DeKoven

Copyright 1997 by Dr. Stan E. DeKoven

Vision Publishing

P.O. Box 1680

Ramona, CA 92065

760-789-4700

www.booksbyvision.org

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All Scripture references are taken from the New American Standard Version of the Bible, used by permission.

Table of Contents

Foreword to First Edition

Author’s Foreword to the Second Edition

Introduction

Chapter One: Church Growth and the Kingdom of God

Chapter Two: The Church from the Start

Chapter Three: One Under God

Chapter Four: Preparing for the Christ – According to Pattern

Chapter Five: The Jesus Pattern I

Chapter Six: The Jesus Pattern II

Chapter Seven: Jesus Pattern III

Chapter Eight: The Mission Mandate

Chapter Nine: The Down Pour

Chapter Ten: When Heaven Came Down – Crisis One

Chapter Eleven: The Widow’s Way – Crisis Two

Chapter Twelve: The Barnabas Blessing – The Antioch Pattern

Chapter Thirteen: The Ephesus Model – One Step Higher

Chapter Fourteen: The Ephesus Results – A Brief Commentary

Chapter Fifteen: The Church of the 21st Century

Afterword

Appendices

Bibliography

About the Author

Acknowledgments

It is with a heart full of thanksgiving that I gratefully acknowledge and bless the following family, friends and associates who have graciously contributed to my thinking and writing on this topic.

First, my beautiful bride Karen (now in heaven) and wonderful daughters Rebecca and Rachel, and my three grandchildren are a continual source of prayer and support to my work. Without them, life itself would be barely worth living

Second, there are many pastors and teachers carrying an apostolic revelation who have throughout their lives and teachings stretched my understanding. These include Dr. G. Randolph Gurley*, Pastor Lee Speakman*, Dr. Ken Chant, Dr. Joseph Thornton, Dr. Lee Stutzman, Rev. George Runyan, Dr. Kluane Spake, Dr. Jason Guerrero, Dr. Anthony Spero*, and my pastor and friend Dr. Joseph J. Bohac*.

A special thanks to Apostle Dr. C. Peter Wagner* for his friend-ship and kind forward.

Finally, to our wonderful staff at Vision, Dr. Joshua Reichard, Maureen Kelley, Delores Horsman, Rebecca Volosin, David Richardson, Drs. Tal and Dee Klaus, and Dr. Kathy Smith, thank you.

May the Lord help us all to build this Church...until the Kingdoms of this world become the Kingdoms of the Lord and His Christ…and He shall reign for ever and ever.

*All now a part of the great cloud of witnesses in heaven.

Foreword to First Edition

For thirty years I have been a professor of church growth. One of my tasks has been to undertake the necessary research to answer the following four questions:

- Why does the blessing of God rest where it does?

- Since it is obvious that not all churches are equal, why is it that at certain times and in certain places some churches seem to be more blessed than others?

- Can any pattern of divine blessing on churches be discerned?

- If so, what are the salient characteristics of unusually blessed churches?

It has now become clear that at this point of history, the unusual blessing of God is resting on what I like to call churches of The New Apostolic Reformation. This does not mean that God is not blessing some other churches as well. But it does derive from the fact that in virtually every part of the world the fastest growing group of churches are New Apostolic Churches.

Not everybody is aware that these churches even exist. Many who do realize it have discovered no way to infiltrate and understand the New Apostolic Churches. But my friend, Stan DeKoven is one who does. As the President of Vision International University, he has been deeply involved in training cutting-edge leadership for New Apostolic Churches.

Stan’s fingerprints are all over these churches!

Supernatural Architecture is a book that has addressed the questions relating to the pattern of today’s divine blessing, and the salient characteristics of the blessed churches. Stan accurately sees that the Church of the 21st Century will be the Church which exhibits these characteristics.

But he goes beyond that assessment.

Dr. DeKoven probes the reasons why New Apostolic Churches are such a driving force for the Kingdom, showing through careful research that they are, from their roots up, biblical churches. They adhere to the fundamental patterns established by God in the Old Testament and in the intertestamental period, and they also have been molded by the governmental pattern taught by Jesus and practiced by the apostles.

All this is to say that the book you have in your hands can be regarded as a biblical theology of the New Apostolic Reformation. It goes hand in hand with other books describing this dynamic movement from empirical, sociological or methodological perspectives. I will be recommending Stan DeKoven’s book to my students because I know it will build their confidence that the ways that they have come to understand as the Church are ways near to the heart of God.

As you read Supernatural Architecture you will grow in your gratitude to God for the privilege of living in a generation to which God has given so much exciting revelation about the ways and means of advancing His Kingdom.

C. Peter Wagner, Chancellor

Wagner Leadership Institute

Author’s Foreword to the Second Edition

Turkey Time

Being trained as a Marriage and Family Therapist, I have developed some astute observational skills. I see things, hear things, sense things…it is part of my training and perhaps spiritual gifting. I just cannot help myself. Of course, what I see, etc., can be interpreted many ways…critically, cynically, or simply observationally, with a hope to inform but not condemn. Though I can certainly be cynical, as being a Cynical psychologist, as some would say, is natural to me, my hope is to be more of the later…that is, providing observation and commentary, with the desire to inform, encourage and stir fellow leaders to greater heights in God. Since I initially wrote this work, many things have changed in the life of the Western church and the church in general.

For example, the end of time did not happen in either the years 2000 or 2007, much to the dismay of end time speculators. The frenzy and profiteering of those days are gladly past, though the damage in terms of witness and trust in our sacred institutions is yet to be fully determined. We still live in the eschatological hope of Christ’ final appearing, but there is certainly a shift in how the church is relating to the nearness of his return.

Further, against the hope of many, we have yet to see the worldwide revival as prophesied, we have suffered or enjoyed, depending on the political persuasion of the reader, our first African American President, and are struggling (as of this writing) with our newly elected President, and again, depending on your political persuasion, this election (is he a Cyrus or a simpleton) will determine the course of history as we know it. Apocalyptic indeed.

Perhaps the most problematic focus of church life has been the dysfunctional trend to expand ministry influence through title development. One simple illustration comes from watching Christian TV, often an oxymoron, one Sunday morning before I was going to head out and preach at a local congregation. The announcer of the program made this outstanding introduction… now ladies and gentleman, for your pleasure and blessing, here is the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher, the man of faith and power, the Bishop… I thought Jesus was going to show up on TV! Well, perhaps the announcer, no doubt a member of the ministry staff, was simply trying to honor his pastor (who wasn’t a bad speaker but did not seem to breath fire or cast out deacons), but you get the point. Now days, rather than men and women simply being who they are, and being identified for what they do, we have apostles by business card, bishops, archbishops, and even arch apostles! No wonder the charismatic wing of the church is often looked down on. How far have we come from Jesus original intentions? I am not here to judge another man’s servant, but I am concerned that we are building more and more with wood, hay and stubble, rather than gold (not just gold dust), silver and precious stones. God help us.

If there is a primary focus of this book it is to remind us what Jesus stated in Matthew 16: 18…to paraphrase, I will build my church, and hell itself cannot stop it. The church, the ekklesia, the called-out citizens of the Kingdom of God gathered together to rule for Christ in the locality, is ever increasing, from the time of Christ till the time of Christ. The message of Christ was and is the Kingdom of God, and the method of Kingdom advancement is planting churches everywhere.

In light of the obvious disappointment in the predictions of the recent past, many solutions, programs, and prognostications have been made, some ridiculous, some sublime. The most sublime is the relatively new focus on the emergence of apostolic ministry, described aptly by Dr. C. Peter Wagner. This New Apostolic Reformation assumes that we are in the time of the advancement of the church and God’s Kingdom through the establishment of apostolic communities. Based upon Dr. Wagner’s observations, and the emerging of true apostles (gift ministry, part of Jesus gifts, that focuses on foundation building, government, organization development, and entrepreneurship…church and ministry development with a Kingdom focus) this gives us hope of a brighter future. As with every emerging movement in the Kingdom, there have been false starts and predictions, much criticism, much of which is deserved. Some of this is due to overzealous action by apostle wannabes, some to a focus on apostles as being the top of the food chain hierarchy in church life. But in fact, the pronouncement and early days of the New Apostolic Reformation was more prophetic in nature than biblically apostolic. The foundation for this back to the future movement is just being laid, and part of laying that foundation is the realization that what we are about is not building something new, as in different from biblical revelation, but in fact returns us to the core biblical foundations from which we were to be building from in the first place. The New Apostolic Reformation at its best brings the church back to