Alan Hirsch
Alan Hirsch (born 24 October 1959) is an Australian author and thought leader in the missional church movement. Life. Early life. Hirsch was born into a Jewish family in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1959. He moved to Cape Town, in 1963 where he spent most of his childhood and adolescence. Then, he went to university in Cape Town where he studied business and marketing and moved to Australia in 1983 with his family. Although his family was not particularly religious, he was very much influenced by his Jewish heritage. He emphasizes Jesus as the Jewish Messiah and makes  distinctions between Hebraic and Hellenistic thought. He served a two-year compulsory call-up in the South African military. After having moved to Australia, he had a life-changing experience with the Holy Spirit that deeply affected him. Soon after moving, he married Debra. They have been married and in Christian ministry together for over twenty years. Education and ministry. During his first year of seminary at the Bible College of Victoria he led a small group of newly converted Christians from various sub-cultures in inner city Melbourne" He maintained involvement with this group throughout his Seminary education. After  graduating, he and his wife were called to go to South Melbourne Church of Christ in 1989. This church was later renamed "South Melbourne Restoration Community". Hirsch spent the next fifteen years leading this community (with wife Debra). Five years after having begun ministry at SMRC, he became the director of the "Department of Mission, Education and Development" for the Churches of Christ Victoria and Tasmania Conference. During these years, he and his wife planted two churches on the edges of society for the marginalized and urban poor in Melbourne, Australia. Neither church is in existence today. During this time  Hirsch pioneered the missional training system called "Forge Mission Training Network". "Forge" became a strong voice and agency for training younger people in missional thinking in Australia, although is now closed. Hirsch has now moved to North America (where there are active networks in Canada and the United States). Alan and Debra maintain that the church in North America will be a major determinant for the continued sustenance and future vitality of the church in the West. Organizational involvement. Hirsch has been directly involved in four organizations in various countries around the world and has spoken at five colleges. He  is: Key thoughts. Section::::"Apostolic Genius". Probably Hirsch’s most distinctive contribution was to articulate what can be called a phenomenology of apostolic movements. By probing the question of what comes together to create exponential, high impact and multiplication movements, he came up with the concept he calls "Apostolic Genius", which is defined as "a unique energy and force saturating phenomenal Jesus movements." Hirsch defines it elsewhere as "the built-in life force and guiding mechanism of God’s people." As to its phenomenology, it is made up of the symphonious interplay among six core elements, or "mDNA". These six are  explained as follows: Hirsch maintains that all six elements are needed to create highly transformative, exponentially growing, missional movements. In his book, he displays that it is critical to think in a systemic way about Apostolic Genius and not see each mDNA as a silver bullet. Rather it takes the whole (Apostolic Genius) to create the kind of movement he is describing. mDNA. "mDNA" stands for "missional DNA". This is the name he gives to the six components of Apostolic Genius as mentioned above. APEPT (or APEST). APEPT or APEST is an acronym for the five ministry vocations described in  Ephesians 4:11: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors/shepherds and teachers. Hirsch has initiated and developed a profiling instrument to help people find their gifting using these five terms. Following his teaching that Jesus has designed the church in such a way that every church (indeed every believer) has everything necessary to get the job done, he maintains that every Christian has all the five ministries latent in them although they will generally only operate from the primary and secondary ones. Hirsch believes that each believer is made up of a complex of APEPT/APEST callings or ministry, and therefore a profile  is never simply one-dimensional, but rather is somewhat nuanced. Nonetheless (and not without disagreement) they can each be described in such a way: