What if there was a community of entrepreneurial, creative churches and leaders who were on a collective mission to revolutionize the church and to reach our post-Christian culture? What if we had a glocal family of committed friends who were traveling the uncertain path of ministry together? What if that family provided a network of shared resources and ideas for ministry in this new context?



Wouldn’t you at least be intrigued?

What if that network valued risk and innovation? What if that network provided a supportive community for new church starts in various forms and an empowering environment for the renewal of declining churches? What if that network spanned across denominations aligning churches based upon a common mission? What if that network was both rooted in the scriptures, embracing of the past, and engaging with the realities of the future?



This is our dream – welcome to Ecclesia!

The Kingdom of God

The kingdom of God is the over-arching storyline of the Bible and it encompasses God’s ongoing activity, climaxing in Jesus and in partnership with His covenant community, to bring about the renewal of creation as all things inevitably become subjected to His will. Through Christ’s death at the hands of sin, death, and evil and God’s triumph over those powers through Christ’s resurrection, God had accomplished the installation of a new age within His kingdom project, which the church was called to implement even as they lived within it. Within Ecclesia, we believe that the calling and formation of the church came as a means of the advancement of God’s kingdom within the world. Therefore, we believe that as the church is a catalyst for the kingdom, the network should be a catalyst for the church, so that it might be a catalyst for the kingdom.

Rooted in Scripture & History

Within Ecclesia we recognize that our network stands in a stream of faith that started over 3,000 years ago, and within the Universal Church of Jesus Christ itself, has existed for almost 2,000 years. To this wide community of people, God has exercised His authority throughout time in a variety of ways including creation, experience, reason, and tradition. Today, we have a tremendous vantage point from which we can stand upon a long line of men and women who have devoted their lives to following Christ. From them we earn from both their mistakes and their triumphs and we can look to the future by the comprehensive testimony of the past. In addition, we stand with Christians across the ages who have believed that God primarily exercises his authority through the scriptures and they serve as a filter through which we understand the other means by which he exercises his authority.Within Ecclesia we recognize that our network stands in a stream of faith that started over 3,000 years ago, and within the Universal Church of Jesus Christ itself, has existed for almost 2,000 years. To this wide community of people, God has exercised His authority throughout time in a variety of ways including creation, experience, reason, and tradition. Today, we have a tremendous vantage point from which we can stand upon a long line of men and women who have devoted their lives to following Christ. From them we earn from both their mistakes and their triumphs and we can look to the future by the comprehensive testimony of the past. In addition, we stand with Christians across the ages who have believed that God primarily exercises his authority through the scriptures and they serve as a filter through which we understand the other means by which he exercises his authority.

Primacy of the Local Church

We believe that the primary vehicle for God’s work in our world today is through the local congregation. In every context, it is this community of people that must provide a faithful witness to the reality of Christ. Though she is full of people who are far from all they shall be in the future, God works redemptively through these communities of authenticity and transformation. In our network, we believe that every local congregation should be self-governing, though the manner in which they choose to self-govern could be different. We believe that networks and associations of churches exist for the local congregations themselves and that often these roles can become easily reversed. Therefore, within Ecclesia we strive to distribute leadership to local congregations at every feasible opportunity.

Organic Church Collaboration

As a network, we believe that more can be accomplished together than in isolation and that the best means of collaboration is through the natural outpouring of genuine, authentic relationships. In this new day of ministry challenge, we believe that it is local congregations that have the best vantage point to inform other congregations about the practice of ministry, offer the best teaching and information to one another, and support one another in collaborative mission. We spend significant time within the network working towards forming these partnerships and structure ourselves according to this belief.

Congregational Health & Mission

IIn order for life to flourish, health is a necessity. We know too well the long-term effects of congregations that have lost focus on the mission of God and have opted into the purpose of serving themselves. Within Ecclesia, we believe that church health flows out of the natural work of congregational mission. Efforts to renew the church are often misguided because they focus on the same inward issues that enacted decline in the first place. Therefore, we seek health within our congregations by guiding them towards missional engagement that is supported by missional structures and missional theology.

Church & Movement Multiplication

The Church today needs to be made up of missionally responsive, culturally adaptive, organizationally agile movements. These should be movements that mobilize the whole people of God through multiplication. Movements that refuse to remain static. The wide movement of Jesus today needs to see that multiplication is taking place among disciples, from churches, and within movements of churches. Within Ecclesia we place a high value upon the scriptural call of church planting and multiplication and actively seek to encourage and partner churches together in this mission.

Church & Movement Multiplication

Consistent with our values, we believe that multiplying missional congregations is the foremost priority for a church network. Our goal as a network is to support one another in the process of establishing imaginative gospel communities both locally and globally. We work with new churches striving to become established and we work with existing congregations striving to plant fresh expressions. Ecclesia provides training and immersion experiences for new church planters, equipping opportunities for wider church planting launch teams, assessments for prospective planters, and ongoing coaching for new church starts.

Global Church Partnerships

We believe that one of the primary values of a network in our flat world is to become a conduit for cooperation between churches both locally and globally. Instead of relying upon a denominational entity to orchestrate training, equipping, and mission, we believe that networks provide the forum for churches to coach and support one another. We also believe that collections of churches on a common mission should collaborate amongst one another in areas of church planting, ministry innovation, and missional enterprises (businesses developed for the sake of kingdom work). Our goal as a network is to develop these relationships and partnerships and then move to a supportive role while partnering congregations take the lead.

Congregational Coaching & Assessment

Ecclesia believes that outside input is a necessity for congregational vitality as we walk forward in a new century. Through the network, we seek to provide an array of resources and leaders that are able to help fellow congregations towards missional health. Our role is to create space for churches to access the expertise of a variety of leaders according to their own needs and developmental stages. These leaders should be from a wide variety of congregations and should comprise both generalists and specialists in areas of congregational life and mission.

Trans Local Community

One of the primary reasons that Ecclesia was started was due to the consistent loneliness among those involved in crafting fresh expressions of church. Often, even if a church found itself within a denomination, by and large they were functionally alone. We believe that the leadership challenges of ministry in our shifting world are as daunting as ever – and we need brothers and sisters to journey with us along the way – challenging us in areas of character, theology, and ministry philosophy. Furthermore, we need to develop common networks of ministry philosophy so that churches have greater ease in finding new staff and new planters.

Mutual Equipping

We believe that in this new day of ministry, the answers to the challenges of today and tomorrow will be discovered and developed by practitioners on the experimental frontlines of ministry. In this spirit, Ecclesia attempts to create structures and environments where practitioners can provide the input they are seeking to and from one another. This input should extend beyond advice on ministry philosophy, but also to the areas of spiritual formation and theology. Over time, we envision the development of resources from churches and leaders for use by other churches and leaders and the development of several “teaching” churches that cover the gamut of ministry issues.

Network Expansion

Though young, Ecclesia is a growing network of churches comprised of new church starts and established congregations seeking community along the missional journey. The team focused on network expansion follows-up on inquiries made through the relational web of the network and helps facilitate connections between those seeking to be involved with Ecclesia and those established within the network in order to ensure a consistency of values among those involved. In addition, this team of people functions as a “scout” for churches within the network to identify high-potential leaders outside of local congregational circles.

At first, this dream started out as the hope of relationship with others who were on the “frontlines” of church planting in the Mid-Atlantic states. However, it was not long before other planters began to gather together with them from across the country and from countries throughout North America and the Western Hemisphere. All were interested in starting new communities of faith that effectively engaged the post-Christian west and the new global south. Furthermore, many church leaders were tiring of the distractions from mission that occurred along with being involved in stagnant denominations. Through these and other various factors, the idea of starting a “post-denominational” church network began to emerge. This idea had deep resonance with many leaders in their community of friends and as they began to discuss the concept with their other circles of influence, a greater affinity for this form of collaboration began to reveal itself.



In the Fall of 2006, a small group of six pastors met to discuss the possibility of a network like Ecclesia being formed. The outcome of the meeting was the formation of a board of directors to oversee the development of this new network. In January of 2007, the board of directors met to discuss the mission, vision, values, and functions of the network. The following April, this circle of six pastors and the board of directors expanded to approximately 20 pastors and leaders for further discussion. The outcome of this meeting was an initial group of six churches joining together to become the first churches participating in Ecclesia.

In the summer of 2007, the Ecclesia Network was incorporated and began regular activity in September. Our desire has always been to grow as a networked community according to our ethos of relationship and mission. As new relationships have been formed and new mission has begun, Ecclesia has grown to include a few dozen churches scattered across the United States that have joined the network or have been birthed from another congregation within the network. Various national and regional gatherings have developed to support the work of the network and The Ecclesia Network has been instrumental in helping to form both Fresh Expressions and Missio Alliance. It is with great anticipation that we look toward the future of our shared journey together, knowing that its far from over, that our efforts are far from perfect, and that others like you will help us along the way.

We Value

We value the ancient roots of our faith. Soon after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the church began to develop a clearly articulated expression of what Christians believe. Various creeds and confessions emerged. The church struggled as a community to achieve a communal expression of the faith. This ultimately (but not exclusively) culminated in the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed. We stand together with Christians everywhere across the centuries that have embraced these basic statements of faith. These creeds form the core expression of our faith. In Ecclesia, these creeds are foundational for how we understand and express the truth of God’s story today.

The Apostle's Creed

I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.

He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.

Amen.

The Nicene Creed

We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten from the Father before all ages, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made; of the same essence as the Father.

Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven; he became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, and was made human. He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried. The third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead. His kingdom will never end.

And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life. He proceeds from the Father and the Son, and with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified. He spoke through the prophets. We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church. We affirm one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look forward to the resurrection of the dead, and to life in the world to come.

Amen.

Within Ecclesia, we elevate collaboration on mission above what we would consider to be secondary theological issues. Agreement on the basic creeds as well as a few other issues is essential for partnership. Secondary theological issues (e.g. charismatic gifts, women’s roles, baptismal views) will be discussed for the sharing and the challenging of one another as we strive to express the Christian message in today’s culture, but will not become core issues that will distract from mission. To discuss this further, please contact info@ecclesianet.org.