THE VOICE interviews Dr. Barry Cook

Dr. Barry Cook answers your questions about apostolic leadership.

Barry Cook has a passion for evangelism. He has a passion to raise up leaders. And he has a passion to see the apostolic fully restored in the Church of Jesus Christ. As senior pastor of Oceanside, Calif.-based Ambassador Family Church, a multi-racial congregation with members from more than 22 nations, Dr. Cook is also passionate about equipping others to pursue their God-given passions.

Dr. Cook’s ministry has a strong focus on raising up strong leaders and building effective teams. As founder and president of Ambassador Bible College, a fully accredited apostolic-prophetic school, he is helping students develop character and integrity and offering hands-on ministry experiences designed to prepare believers to press toward the high call of God. Together, Dr. Cook and his growing army of disciples are making major impacts on San Diego County as they invade the kingdoms of this world with the Gospel.

THE VOICE magazine caught up with Dr. Cook to talk about passion, leadership and how the apostolic reformation is challenging old mindsets in the Church of Jesus Christ.

THE VOICE: What is your passion right now and how does it differ from two years ago? How has it changed?

DR. COOK: We have always had a mandate to build leaders. I am identifying my primary target now. We have a saying: “Don’t run at the fire but at the mission.” I don’t run by any fire. If we maintain the mission the fire takes care of itself. We have learned to become more strategic in our training, in our feedback, in our follow up, in our qualification, in discerning gifts and callings, and all of those things.

THE VOICE: Your church is multi-racial with over 22 nations represented. Tell us about the opportunities and challenges this has presented in the local body.

DR. COOK: The base of ministry is diversified. We train our leaders for cross-cultural expressions. Of course, this provides a visible picture of the Antioch pattern. Racism and religion seems to be held at bay by the multi-cultural expressions. Having a multi-racial church also makes it a whole lot easier to break down all of our cultural limitations.

In order for all of us to function together we have to be willing to accept and work with all of our differences and appreciate each other for who we are. It gives the local body a greater momentum to be a New Testament witness. It fires the people up to know that they belong to a church that’s filled with many different streams.

Having a multi-national church also challenges us to understand, accept and learn to flow and lead with more diversity, accepting and understanding of diverse anointing and revelations. I noticed that some nations seem to carry various revelations better than other nations. All of them bring something to the table that helps emphasize various anointings.

THE VOICE: Can you give our readers an example of how some nations carry certain revelations better than other nations?

DR. COOK: Our North African brothers and sisters show tremendous understanding of miracles, faith and submission to authority. It is innate within their being when they come. But we do have to help them out of a caste mentality. They are expecting you to be dominating and sometimes consider leadership weak if you are not domineering.

THE VOICE: With 22 nations does it give an eclectic dimension to the praise and worship? Do you have music, for instance, from 22 nations?

DR. COOK: Our music is totally diverse. I love to have flares of all types of music. I try to maintain the origins of the songs even though we might translate them to English. We try to maintain all the cultural sounds and emphasis within the music.

THE VOICE: How does the apostolic-prophetic restoration bring hope to believers and even to society?

DR. COOK: No more victim mentality. That is the bottom line. It teaches people to teach and lead themselves and to produce a generational exchange.

THE VOICE: Entrepreneurship and the apostolic seem to go hand in hand. Is there a biblical pattern for this trend?

DR. COOK: Yes. One of the primary things is the understanding in the apostolic that defies the spirit of dualism. Mainly, the view that secular society (the world) belongs to the world and the spirit realm belongs to religious things. It seems to me that the apostolic spirit itself does away with and challenges the spirit of dualism. This is our earth. This is our business. That’s our school. That’s our city hall. All of it belongs to us and we are going to fight for it.

Jesus took over Joseph’s ministry. Here we see entrepreneurship and the apostolic working together. When Jesus took over Joseph’s business he managed projects, people, deadlines, and all the elements that took place with ministry. History shows us that Joseph had contracts with kings and palaces. Jesus took over all of that. Paul even set up his tents – not that he had to. He did it to affect the core economy and to influence his territory. He did that by getting right in the middle of the commerce and finding out what the strongholds were and what the culture of the people was and building disciples from that group. Paul was very strategic in his approach.

THE VOICE: You are a leader of leaders, imparting leadership skills and truths to the Body of Christ. The Church has some strong leaders, but not enough of them. Why is the church suffering a lack of leaders?

DR. COOK: In my opinion it’s the difference in Western teaching and Eastern teaching. In the Western world our teaching basically consists of the teacher talking and the disciple listening and thinking it through. In the Eastern culture, training involves coaching to see and to alter. So the teacher talks and the disciple listens. Then the teacher demonstrates and illustrates. Then the teacher watches the disciple do it and corrects him in areas he has gone wrong. Then we practice again the next day until it become a reflex.

In our Western world students take some classes, but there is little activation or application of anything that was taught. That’s one of the main reasons for a lack of leadership.

THE VOICE: What are the biggest mistakes developing leaders make in your opinion?

DR. COOK: There doesn’t seem to be a real understanding of the role of resistance and perseverance. We face some resistance and we want to bail out of the project because we don’t have a feeling. You don’t read that in the Scripture. If I did that I would get nothing done.

THE VOICE: What is the biggest opposition to leadership development in a person’s life?

DR. COOK: Not understanding the role of spiritual coaching is the biggest opposition to the leadership development in a person’s life. I firmly believe the apostolic comes as a coach. Everyone says they want a coach and that they want to be mentored and they want a father, but when it comes down to it they are not really looking for a coach. They don’t want to accomplish any of the objectives or have a right spirit. But they want you to tell them they are doing a good job. They don’t want to hear that they gave it a nice shot, but their right elbow was too far to the right, their left foot was at the wrong position.

I am not talking about the discipleship movement in which people have to ask their leaders when to go wipe their nose and what color shirt to wear. I am talking about basic spiritual development and learning how to flow in spiritual gifts, and discern spiritual atmospheres, and understand what anointing you are sensing and how to respond to it in the right time and with the right manner according to the atmosphere you are in and the authority you are under.

THE VOICE: How should believers prepare themselves to become servant leaders?

DR. COOK: It’s understanding the shift the apostolic is bringing to the Church. We don’t work from the earth up. We work from the Kingdom down. It puts a different perspective on us to understand Kingdom priorities and then learn to stick with the mission regardless. We must work with others to accomplish the end results regardless of what is going on. If I am in a pit in the middle of a battle I don’t care if you are black, white, red or blue. Just help me. The fact is that a lot of times we are not prepared to become servant leaders because we haven’t learned how to get in a pit in the middle of a fire and stick it out and get someone’s back.

THE VOICE: What are the similarities and differences between spiritual leadership and natural leadership?

DR. COOK: The similarities are the need for project management, systems checklists, procedures, evaluations, ongoing feedback and strategic planning. The Church doesn’t see those things as spiritual and therefore we get hardly anything done. When we do it’s like being in the Beverly Hillbillies car driving down the road. In the spiritual realm the similarities are discerning spiritual giftings, and developing the character with a gift, and keeping Christology in everything; teaching the doctrine of Christ and the flow of Christ in everything that you are doing.

THE VOICE: How can parents, youth pastors and other role models best communicate the apostolic mandate to the next generation? Is it a matter of modeling the way, preaching the truth, casting the vision, all of the above?

DR. COOK: You answered it yourself. We have to model the way, preach the truth, cast the vision. All of those are very critical and must be done. The only thing that I would add to that list is releasing the anointing so that the people are familiar with the feel, the taste, the smell and the flow of the diversity of apostolic expression – and I don’t just mean randomly.

THE VOICE: How is the apostolic restoration challenging old mindsets when it comes to leadership strategies?

DR. COOK: First, it’s the Jerusalem vs. Antioch concept. It’s the team vs. the one-man show. The apostolic consists of teams that are developed to function in all capacities. I definitely think that challenges old mindsets. Lastly, understanding that is a must – it is not an option – to pass it on to the next generation. You have to understand that the patterns of God are built on each successive element.

THE VOICE: How does leadership translate into effective evangelism?

DR. COOK: In general apostolic leaders know that evangelism is their primary purpose. It’s the primary purpose of all things. There are days I come into my office and ask my staff to tell me about a soul-winning experience they had on their day off. If they can’t tell me I dismiss them and tell them not to come back until they have witnessed to three people. If they are going to come in here and work in the office and they aren’t about the Father’s business in their own personal lives then they might be in the wrong location. In doing that as a leader it, in turn, puts that at in them. I wouldn’t be telling them to do that unless I was doing it.

THE VOICE: What is the Spirit of God saying about where the Church of Jesus Christ is headed?

DR. COOK: Two Scriptures come to mind when I hear that question. The first one is “The is earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” The second one is “Thy Kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” We need to prepare people to get into every facet of life and influence without a dualistic theology – and without this escapism mentality. The Church has to take responsibility. We need to make altar calls for raising up and funding schoolteachers and raising up people to get into political arenas and science arenas and everywhere else.

We have to teach them how to not just be some obnoxious evangelical but to get inside and show Christ in that particular field. For instance, if I am going to witness to a real estate man, then I want to show him God’s worldview on land ownership. When I want to get into science, then I want to make sure that individual gets ingrained in the view of God’s cosmology and the operation of all things in the universe and time space relations.

I don’t care what anybody’s end time eschatology is. We are not trying to get out of here. We are trying to serve our next generation by the will of God. What the Spirit of Lord is saying is, “Take over. Get out there. Expect it. Believe it. Quit hiding out and quit surrendering your territory.” It may look bad on some days, but we are still outnumbering any other religion on a daily basis. There are people being saved overnight while you sleep at a faster rate than ever in history. The Lord’s purposes are coming to pass and the best thing we can do is work while it is still day.

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