By Mercedes Thomas

This past September, LMC hosted a special, four-day Fall Leadership Assembly to commemorate 500 years of Anabaptism. In addition to our normal gathering, we also had two days of training and resourcing around APEST, the fullness of Christ (apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers; Eph. 4). Leaders from all around our LMC community had the opportunity to learn from Simon and Ceri Harris, the leaders of 5Q in Europe.

Their time with our LMC family was profound. Simon and Ceri spoke of the five APEST functions as “graces,” a word that deeply resonated with us. Strategically, LMC leadership has been asking the question: What is LMC’s love language? Meaning, the words, phrases, ideas, and concepts our people best understand. 

Simon and Ceri’s use of “graces” to describe APEST seemed to be a word that began to reveal this love language to us. As LMC leadership reflected on why this word struck such a deep chord, we began to find ourselves capable of articulating some of the other language that is understandable and powerful to our community.

Not only did the Harris’ help train and equip our leaders to better understand and implement APEST in their leadership, they were also instrumental in helping us find our LMC love language. We are so grateful for our brother and sister, Simon and Ceri, and their willingness to travel and spend several days with us!