Read the Arise Article...
An Article by John Thuringer in Arise Magazine (Summer, 2000) describes David Cannistraci’s ministry and his views on the current Apostolic Movement.
If anyone has experienced the fruit of apostolic fathering, David Cannistraci certainly has. For twenty-five years, he has practiced the art of being a spiritual son. Today, Cannistraci is the pastor of GateWay City Church (formerly Evangel Christian Fellowship) the same church he received Christ through earlier in his life.
"My uncle is Emanuele Cannistraci, a tremendous prophet of the Lord over the past fifty-two years who functions with a strong apostolic ministry," Cannistraci explains. "Over the years I have been trained by him in our local church as a minister."
Although he was raised in a Christian home, he did not make a strong commitment to Christ until he was fourteen. It was during the Jesus Movement that he had a real power encounter with the Holy Spirit and immediately wanted to be used in ministry. Four years after this experience, he enrolled in Bible school and later went on to earn both a Master's degree and doctorate.
"I began when I was nineteen as an all around helper in the church office," recalls Cannistraci. "Later I got into radio and television production on behalf of the church and started leading cell groups. As the cell groups started multiplying rather rapidly, the elders discerned a call on my life. I was then ordained and began to preach and teach."
Cannistraci continued to faithfully serve in his local church from 1979 until 1987. It was at this point that he had a profound experience with God who was calling he and his wife, Kathy, along with their two sons, to go to the Philippines as missionaries.
"We made a one year commitment, but really believed we would spend the rest of our lives there," Cannistraci remembers. "The harvest was so ripe there, the ease of evangelism was such a dynamic attraction to us."
However, it wasn't long after they arrived that their home church called, saying that they wanted Cannistraci to return and co-pastor the church with his uncle.
"After the healing crusades and church planting in the Philippines, it was kind of a culture shock for me to come back to the U.S.," says Cannistraci.
"But we really thought it was the Lord calling us, so we returned to build the church up and establish new ministries. Since returning in 1989, we have also planted four other churches as well."
Although there is a great deal more discussion about apostles today than there has been previously, Cannistraci says that growing up in the kind of church that he did, apostles and prophets are all he has ever known.
"Our church from its inception was apostolic and prophetic," he explains.
"As long as I could remember, we were involved with planting churches. The great privilege of my life has not been to study this topic, but experience it as a son. To be raised up within the context of loving and confronting relationships is a tremendous thing. I am the product of fathering much more than I am a product of my education."
Cannistraci's first book, "Apostles and the Emerging Apostolic Movement" (Regal, 1996), has received wide acclaim internationally, and was the first major work available on apostolic ministry. It has since been translated into several foreign languages.
"Apostles are those that are called and supernaturally empowered by Christ to go into the world with Divine authority to win and establish the lost in Kingdom order and truth, especially through the planting of new churches," says Cannistraci. "They have the heart of fathers. They are progenitors, like the patriarchs of the Old Testament. They are those who have inherited Abraham's call, the original apostolic figure in Scripture. Abraham went forth from his homeland to a place where God called Him to establish a family that would bless the nations of the earth. Apostles are fruitful men who raise up a family of churches to release believers into the earth to populate the kingdom of God."
Cannistraci sees apostles as equippers, training and nurturing the body of Christ to be apostolic, much like an evangelist causes the Church to be evangelistic.
"For years we have called apostles missionaries. But the thing that this term has often left out is the dynamic concept of raising up an apostolic people who are fully activated saints, mobilized for the work of the Great Commission," Cannistraci explains.
"As well as being fathers, with a nurturing, loving and reproductive side, I would also see them as generals in an army," he continues. "They have tremendous, broad powers of authority and are able to influence and mobilize people for specific Kingdom goals."
Cannistraci doesn't think you have to be famous to be an apostle. In fact, he thinks that most of the great apostles in the earth are unknown, quietly doing their job in the backwoods of Africa, China, and Latin America.
"I was just in Guatemala a few weeks ago and sat in a very humble office with a man who oversees eight hundred churches," relates Cannistraci. "He's a beautiful man, but no one has ever heard of him."
In addition, he sees apostles as reformers, calling the church to the standard of God and bringing correction when people get off track.
"We see Paul the apostle correcting the church and bringing reformation," Cannistraci says. "A lot of guys today are calling themselves apostles, it seems to be the designer label of the day. But when I think of apostles, I think of those that are truly expanding the boundaries of the Kingdom, growing it and making it larger. In this sense, men like Luther and Wesley were apostolic because they brought reformation."
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