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April 8, 2014 by design343

Ecclesia Welcomes Next Gen & Engage Community Church to the Network!!

At the 2014 National Gathering, Ecclesia was excited to welcome two new congregations to our family – Next Gen Church of West Windsor, NJ and Engage Community Church of Carlisle, PA.

Next Gen Church is a multi-cultural fellowship pastored by Mia Chang, Lola Akiwowo, and Jim Butler.  They are the model of a congregation that allows the gospel to break down the walls from where we have come and fuse the people of God into the new community for which we are headed.  They are actively engaged in ministry to their community and support everything they do through the power of prayer and the activity of the Spirit.  You can find out more information about Next Gen Church at www.nextgenministry.net or on the Ecclesia website here.

Engage Community is a 5-year old congregation reaching people beyond the reach of the church outside Harrisburg, PA.  Jon Hand and his wife Aimee planted engage for those who are not into church or are unfamiliar.  They want people to feel safe to be themselves, knowing that God loves us not as we should be but as we are.  They are committed to helping people explore the message of Jesus without fear of being judged or rejected.  Engage believes that as we come to know Jesus we are inspired by the life of God in us.  God lives, breathes, and pulsates through our lives so that we become conduits of God’s love in the places we live, work, and play.  To connect with Engage you can go to www.engagecommunitychurch.com or find them on the Ecclesia website here.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

April 8, 2014 by design343

Ecclesia Welcomes Next Gen & Engage Community Church to the Network!!

At the 2014 National Gathering, Ecclesia was excited to welcome two new congregations to our family – Next Gen Church of West Windsor, NJ and Engage Community Church of Carlisle, PA.

Next Gen Church is a multi-cultural fellowship pastored by Mia Chang, Lola Akiwowo, and Jim Butler.  They are the model of a congregation that allows the gospel to break down the walls from where we have come and fuse the people of God into the new community for which we are headed.  They are actively engaged in ministry to their community and support everything they do through the power of prayer and the activity of the Spirit.  You can find out more information about Next Gen Church at www.nextgenministry.net or on the Ecclesia website here.

Engage Community is a 5-year old congregation reaching people beyond the reach of the church outside Harrisburg, PA.  Jon Hand and his wife Aimee planted engage for those who are not into church or are unfamiliar.  They want people to feel safe to be themselves, knowing that God loves us not as we should be but as we are.  They are committed to helping people explore the message of Jesus without fear of being judged or rejected.  Engage believes that as we come to know Jesus we are inspired by the life of God in us.  God lives, breathes, and pulsates through our lives so that we become conduits of God’s love in the places we live, work, and play.  To connect with Engage you can go to www.engagecommunitychurch.com or find them on the Ecclesia website here.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

December 23, 2013 by design343

December 2013 News

Dates for Church Planters Training Announced & Registration Opened!!

This year’s rendition of Genesis: A Theological & Practical Trajectory for Missional Church Planting, will take place from May 12-16 in Baltimore, MD. Join Bob Hyatt, Cyd Holsclaw, J.R. Briggs, Don Coleman, and many others who share a dream of cultivating a vibrant Christ-centered community among an unreached place or people. This year’s training will take place at Holy Trinity Spiritual Center (www.trinitarians.org) and will provide the important foundation for those in the early stages of the church planting journey. Download the flyer and register here.

Plenary Sessions @ Upcoming National Gathering

You may have missed the early-bird deadline, but there is still plenty of time to join Scot McKnight, Mandy Smith, Al Tizon, and William Webb at this year’s 2014 Ecclesia National Gathering. Our theme this coming February is “Bringing the Word to Life: Reading, Understanding, and Proclaiming the Bible in Changing Times”. You can see a full list of plenary sessions here and a developing list of workshops here. Check back for updates and be sure to register sooner than later as space is limited.

More info and registration for the National Gathering

Welcome New Board Members

Ecclesia is pleased to announce the addition of 3 new board members who are helping to govern our common work. Give them a shout and say hello.

Aaron Graham
Aaron serves as founder and lead pastor of The District Church in the heart of our nation’s capital. The District Church is a quickly growing church with a heart to grow and multiply leaders who have a heart for the city. Before moving to DC, Aaron started the Quincy Street Missional Church in a low-income neighborhood of Boston where he served for five years. He is a graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School and recently completed his doctorate at Fuller Theological Seminary in missiology. Aaron and his wife Amy are both pastors as well as adoption and foster care advocates. They recently founded DC127 with the mission to unite churches to reverse the foster care wait list in DC. They live in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of D.C. with their two adopted kids Elijah and Natalie.

Keas Keasler
Keas Keasler is a pastor and DJ in Miami, FL. He serves as the teaching pastor of Rhythm Church, works with athletes at the University of Miami, and spins records in various places throughout the city. With degrees from Baylor and Princeton, Keas is currently working on a PhD in theology, but also is helping shape a new model of theological education in Miami to bridge the gaps between the seminary, sanctuary, and street. Ordained as a Baptist minister, Keas’ theology and praxis have been shaped by various streams within the Christian family. He has a deep love for the global church, having traveled and done mission work in over forty countries and preached on six continents.

Jeanette Staats
Jeanette Staats has been on staff with New Life Christian Fellowship since 2000. She received her bachelor’s degree in English from Virginia Tech in 2000 after dabbling in Accounting and Interior Design – three majors that obviously have a lot of commonalities & overlap!

Her role at [nlcf] is called Director of Community Life. She spends time co-overseeing the campus Engage Groups as part of the Spiritual Formation team, developing & leading New Life Kids! ([nlcf]’s kids ministry), and overseeing church-wide events as well as other various administrative tasks.

In her spare time, she enjoys hanging out with family and friends, teaching piano, organizing and decorating her home, being craft, and watching HOKIE sports! She is a foster parent when the need arises. In addition, she is also pursuing a Certificate of Theological Studies from John Leland Seminary.

Her desire is to love God, love the people He places in her life, and live. “The world is full of people who will go their whole lives and not actually live one day. She did not intend on being one of them.” (quote from curlygirl designs)

Filed Under: General

August 21, 2013 by design343

Stories of Ecclesia: It Starts with Lamenting

From Ty Grigg – pastor at Life on the Vine, Long Grove, IL

Angela stood up to the podium and pulled out a piece of paper.  Normally, during our worship liturgy, we watch an “icon,” that is, a short video or projected artwork that reveals something about the way the world is and the ways God reveals his glory in our world.  This Sunday, we would hear a story of lament from Angela:

My cry today, my lament today is for the Church , the bride of Christ to be a voice-a beacon of hope, a light, a refuge in this time. By this time, I mean post Trayvon Martin.

As Angela spoke honestly from her own experience of racism, I felt my heart softening.

This story of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman re-opened wounds in America’s racial history that have not fully healed.  It opened wounds of knowing that when my brother was growing up, one of the lessons he quickly learned was DWB, driving while Black. It opened would of hearing my father, who is a highly respected physician, tell me of people who don’t want to see him as their doctor because of the color of his skin. It is the wound of not being shown homes in particular neighborhood because Black people are not supposed to live in certain communities. It opened the wound of a childhood friend asking me if I wished I were white, as if something were wrong with being Black.

In the act of communal lament, the Spirit was drawing me out of apathy and into conviction, calling me to leave the old ways of denial and minimization of racism behind and to follow the Spirit’s call into listening, lamenting, and engaging.

My brothers and sisters, I bring these wounds with me to Church. I don’t leave the sin of racism at the door. I bring it with me and lament over it. And I should not do this alone.

When Angela finished her story, she walked toward the back of the sanctuary.  As a pastor, I knew what was coming next; Juliet would lead us in a prayer of confession.  But suddenly I heard an older man to my left say loudly:  “Excuse me, but normally we pray for people when they share their story.”  He was referring to the practice of praying for a person when she or he shares a “story of wonder” at the beginning of our service.  This was something different.  Honestly, my first reaction was annoyance.  I was thinking, “No, we have a plan.  We are going to confess now.  We know what we’re doing here, don’t mess it up!”

Then I realized that he was right.  We needed to pray for Angela.  I found myself getting up from my chair and slowly walking to the back where Angela was standing.  My pace was deliberate and slow.  I felt the eyes of the room on me.  Reflecting later, it seemed significant that I was going to Angela, not calling her back up to the lectern – a grace.  The whole action seemed directed by God, I was merely caught up in it.

As I got closer, I felt my heart fill with deep love and sadness intermixed.  Angela stood up and walked toward me.  I gave her a hug and the only thing I could say was, “I am so thankful.”  She hugged me back.  I started to pull away after a few seconds but Angela didn’t let go – again, a grace.  I sensed a powerful movement of the Spirit.  It wasn’t just me hugging Angela, but I was hugging Angela as a proxy for the whole church.  A few others came and joined the hug.  When I replay this moment in my mind, the word that comes to me is simply ‘glory.’  God’s glory was breaking through in the midst of Angela’s vulnerable lament and our embrace of her lament.

When Juliet finally began to lead us into a prayer of confession, she began to openly weep.  Angela’s lament opened all of us up to a new depth of reality, a new depth of relationship with one another, and a new sensitivity to what God is inviting us into.  We are just at the beginning, but I hope we can look back on Angela’s story of lament and our response as a watershed moment of conversion for our church.

It is because the love of Christ compels me to speak up. Church, we can do better at standing against racism and fighting for justice.  The change that we desire to see in the world starts with us-it starts with us lamenting with one another, and praying with one another, and praying for one another.  True reconciliation happens between us when we listen to the pain of one another, when we are vulnerable with one another—when we start seeing Christ in one another.  And the walls that divide us will fall down.

It starts with lamenting.

 

Filed Under: Church Updates, Stories of Ecclesia

August 21, 2013 by design343

Church Update: The Bridge Community – Easton, PA

danceFrom Mike Hollenbach, pastor at The Bridge Community

Our little community hosted its 4th annual kids-in-motion sports and arts camp the week of July 21 -27!

Here are some of the highlights…

The camp that began 4 years ago with 30 1st thru 5th grade campers has grown to bless over 150 campers from a low income area of Easton!

Over 55 Jr. and Sr. Highers came from 3 different churches!  The youth stayed all week serving as camp counselors by day and having a blast at night!  (Our motto is “lots of fun… lots of service… and lots of wrestling with Jesus!”)

The theme for the camp this year was “JESUS – more than a hero!”

The people of the West Ward community we live in… the gatekeepers of our city (Easton)… and the secular agencies who serve the poor sand oppressed of our city (Weed and Seed, West Ward Neighborhood Partnerships and Easton Area Community Center)… have taken note… are partnering with us… and are thankful for our presence!

Ironically and of note is that we have not seen a lot of families who we bless join in the journey our church community, but we do see God using it to encourage others who want to be a part of a church community on mission to join with us!  I think the lesson in that is that we do not have to, not maybe should we seek to be a blessing merely to grow our communities, but that we bless for blessings sake and leave those who journey with us in the hands of God!

 

Filed Under: Church Updates

August 21, 2013 by design343

Ecclesia Network Northeast Regional Gathering – September 2013

Next month, the Ecclesia Network is hosting our Fall Mid-Atlantic and Northeast Regional Gathering on Tuesday September 24 near Harrisburg, PA. The day will focus on “Shaping the Church for God’s Mission in a Post-Christian Culture” and feature Dr. David Fitch – author, theologian, professor at Northern Seminary and one of the pastors of Life on the Vine (an Ecclesia church in the Chicago area). This event is hosted in conjunction with our friends at the Brethren in Christ (BIC) Susquehanna Conference .

The purpose is to invite church planters, pastors and church leaders (paid and non-paid) to a day of discussion and theological interaction around God’s mission and the Church in North America.

Cost is $10 (lunch included). Payment is due on the day of the event. Consider bringing other pastors, friends, elders and leaders. Register by September 17 here:

We hope to see you there in September.

J.R. Briggs

Northeast Regional Coordinator

Filed Under: Uncategorized

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