The Ecclesia Network

a missional church network

Ecclesia Network

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Leader’s Profile- Mandy Smith

Mandy Smith is the lead pastor of University Christian Church in Cincinnati, OH. We had a few questions for her!

How would you describe the area your church is in?

A diverse, walkable urban context by the University of Cincinnati campus and lots of restaurants. Culturally very post- (even anti-) Christian.

How would you describe the journey of pastoring UCC? What have been some of the milestones/different seasons?

The church is 30 years old this year and it feels like we’re going through the same kinds of things we go through as individuals when we reach that stage of life–thinking longer term instead of just getting by. It can feel challenging to pastor in a place that is in so much transition all the time but it’s also exciting.

Looking back, what do you know now you wish you had known when you first started at UCC?

That it was normal for this work to feel impossible.

As you think about what you’ve been able to do so far in ministry there what are some things you have done/tried that have worked well?

1. Praying for everything, all the time! 2. Inviting groups to pray for everything all the time.

What hasn’t worked so well? What have you had to rethink/reimagine/rework?

When we opened our cafe 16 years ago we wanted so much to be hospitable to the neighborhood that we said yes to everyone all the time, even letting people keep tabs without asking them to pay, letting folks misuse the space etc. We’ve had to see that hospitality without boundaries is actually welcoming a few people at the expense of others. We almost had to close the cafe as a result of this misunderstanding of hospitality. How would that have been blessing the neighborhood if we said yes to small, unhelpful things so much that it meant saying no to being here long term?

What is one failure you experienced and what did you learn from it?

I can think of many things I wish I’d/we’d done differently but at the same time I see how powerfully God’s grace was shown in them (to me and to the church) so I genuinely have a hard time thinking of failures.

What is something you’ve been hearing from or learning from God in this last season of leading?

It’s okay to not have a five year plan but to discern the next step ahead and then, after learning from that stage, to discern what’s next. God provides guidance like he provided manna in the desert – a little at a time. I think it’s so we remember we need him every day.

What do you dream/hope/pray UCC looks like in five years?

Sending even more folks out on mission (in the broadest definition of that term), developing more folks for Christian leadership in whatever work they’re doing. Bringing folks into relationship with Jesus for the first time (not only helping folks recover from church baggage)

We also recently featured Mandy on our Ecclesia Podcast- you can listen here

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Our Faith Journeys

This week I had the opportunity to attend a conference with Sharon Daloz Parks, a Christian author and scholar whose field of expertise lies in mentoring emerging adults (18-35 year olds) through life’s big questions. She spoke quite a bit about mentoring, spiritual journey, and the important role we each play in shaping and encouraging each other’s faith journeys, particularly for mature believers to mentor young believers. There are many metaphors and examples for faith journeys, from tilling the soil like the sowing of the seeds, to stages of faith formation by James Fowler, or the story of the Pilgrim’s progress. I will share one with you today that I found insightful.

Richard R. Niebuhr, former theologian from Harvard Divinity School, described faith as a journey that transitions from shipwreck to gladness to amazement. There is something so profound about this image of faith as a shipwreck. When we come against suffering, find that God hasn’t met our expectations, are unsure if we believe Jesus’ claims about himself, or are faced with the harsh realities of the world, we can feel like we’re sinking and that all is lost, and this can devastate us. Yet, as we scoop ourselves out (or better yet, as God scoops us out) of the waves and wreckage of our former faith we are filled with gladness that we survived such loss. We are able to re-order our world with our new knowledge and belief in God, and we can have a more adequate knowing than before. This depth and growth leads to amazement. 

Yet, we don’t do this Christian journey alone. We journey in faith together as the body of Christ, and we are guided in faith by the Holy Spirit of God. In the Church we are able to walk with each other in moments of shipwreck, and we seek those around us with deep faith lives to speak truth into places of hurt, truth about the nature and character of God, his deep love for us, and for an assurance of faith.

This journey is about death and resurrection. A death to self, and our desires and wants, and a new life in Christ. Though we die, yet we live. 

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Leaders Profile- Ryan Braught

Ryan Braught is the founding pastor/church planter with the Veritas Community in Lancaster, PA. We had a few questions for him!

How would you describe the area your church is in?

Veritas is based in the city of Lancaster, a city that is growing.

How would you describe the journey of pastoring Veritas? What have been some of the milestones/different seasons?

One of biggest milestones over the last almost ten years, both for myself but also for the community was my sabbatical in the summer of 2017. It helped me rest, rejuvenate, and reconnect with God and family. But more than just what it did for me, I believe it truly grew our community- People saying “this is our community,” people taking ownership, stepping into leadership roles, and become active participants in the mission and ministry of Veritas. Another milestone or series of milestones relates to our connection with our denomination (the Church of the Brethren). They have a process of planting where plants start as a project, move to fellowship status, and then become a full congregation. We have been able to walk through this process becoming a fellowship in 2016 and this summer will become a full-fledged congregation within the Church of the Brethren.

Looking back, what do you know now you wish you had known when you first started Veritas?

Just the amount of turnover that happens each year, especially as we have connected with a younger generation. And to look at that turnover as a blessing- that we get to disciple them for a season, then send people to other places around the country and the world, and commission them as missionaries from Veritas. Also something that i wish I had known is just how slow missional church and missional church planting can be. And how much patience I need to trust Jesus, rely on him, and really lean into the belief that He grows the church- and not succumb to the latest church growth fad to try to numerically grow the church.

As you think about what you’ve been able to do so far in ministry there what are some things you have done/tried that have worked well?

I believe there are three different parts to our ministry that have worked well. First, I believe our engagement with the arts community within Lancaster has been going very well. We have been able to connect with many different artists and are building a reputation within Lancaster. We have been doing a lot of social justice/awareness shows and been able to bless many artists and get behind their work. One of the neatest things related to this- is asking the artist that we feature each month to come to our worship gathering for a 5-10 minute Q&A and have them share about their work, and allow them to find a supportive faith community that is interested in their work and wants to encourage and bless them. I believe the second thing that has gone well for Veritas is related to the development of the community within Veritas. We have a tight-knit community and we have built it through many different ways- including our Veritas community What’s App, something called Conversation Project (where we do some intentional relationship building by pairing people from the community together, get them to meet up, and have them talk through questions and get to know each other), and just regular engagement with each other outside the “confines” of Sunday morning. Thirdly, I think our value of participation has been hugely beneficial to our community- in regards to building relationships with each other, but also in relation to discipleship. This value of participation while multifaceted, has led us to have interactive discussion as part of our sermon- where people dialogue around tables during and after the message, and to talk about how they will seek to apply and live out what we are talking about each worship gathering. The value of participation has also led to the creation of a teaching team, which includes myself, but also a few others- who help develop the teaching series, and also take turns in preaching and teaching throughout the year.

What hasn’t worked so well? What have you had to rethink/reimagine/rework?

One of the things we struggle with is the role of Children within the life of the community. Do we provide a nursery and children’s ministry and have the separated from the community for the entire worship time? Do we provide a nursery only? Do we provide a nursery and children’s ministry for part of the worship gathering? Do we act more as family- and assume infants and children will be in the service for the entire time? Or a hybrid of some of these? This is something that we struggle with- especially with not really having any children for children’s ministry (but having a growing number of young babies/infants/toddlers). We are in the process of also rethinking and reworking our leadership structure and how to develop a leadership pipeline, that grows and develops leaders, gives them the permission to begin and develop ministries, and develop leadership team and ministry team structures that fit our community (our vision, values, etc.).

What is one failure you experienced and what did you learn from it?

The day after Easter in 2018 I hurriedly set up a ladder against my garage, and hurried up the ladder to clean out a gutter. The ladder slid out from the garage and I came down with it, landing on my driveway and fracturing my wrist. You might ask what does this have to do with the church and ministry? This failure- 1. to take my time. and 2. Having someone holding the ladder, taught me those 2 valuable lessons in church and ministry.

First, in ministry I need to take time and not hurry though things. Planning events, preaching, visiting people, etc… takes time and I need to not hurry through those things and move on, “to more important things”. In planning events, I need to be diligent about the details (something that I struggle with), writing out the to-do list, and steps to making the event a “success”.

Secondly, I can’t do it alone. If I try, I will experience a fall. I desperately need others- both within my church and outside my church. I need a team of leaders within my church- those having different gifts and passions than I do- in order to make the church function as it is supposed to- as a body. If I try to function alone- the body is broken (just like my wrist was). I also need others outside my community who can pray with me, walk with me, and support me (as I also support, pray, and walk with them).

What is something you’ve been hearing from or learning from God in this last season of leading?

I feel that God is speaking to me about what leadership-like-Jesus truly looks like: a dying to the self, washing the feet of others, servant leadership. This is not an easy process- and I have to continually ask God to help me lead like Jesus- which means not always going in the direction that I think we should go in, not making all the decisions, trusting the leadership of others, and seeking to build consensus.

What do you dream/hope/pray Veritas looks like in five years?

My hope and dream for Veritas is that in five years we will be looking at planting a church out of Veritas. I also hope and dream that our church would be a strong family who are pursuing Jesus together, and following Him into the world and being about His mission.






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10 Practical Ways to Cultivate Trust With Your Leadership Team

The fundamental role of a leader is to build trust, bear pain and give hope.

Ultimately, all leadership flows from these three streams.

This week I was reminded once again of the crucial and irreplaceable stream of trust. It is the least common denominator in all leadership contexts, the fuel by which the leadership car moves. It is impossible to lead effectively over the long haul absent of trust. In Patrick Lencioni’s helpful book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, he lists the major destructive factors among team dynamics: fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability and inattention to results. But the keystone trait that undergirds all the others is the absence of trust. As one of my doctoral professors recently said, “The absence of trust is ultimately the absence of grace.” Conversely speaking then, building and deepening trust is the single greatest thing leaders must cultivate within and among their team in order to be healthy, fruitful and effective.

Albert Winseman, in his book Growing An Engaged Church, wrote that every person who walks into your church is asking two questions: Am I valued? and Do I have something to contribute? These questions get to the heart of the matter. Yet, I would offer that these are not just questions asked by churchgoers; they are also asked by any person who serves on any team in any capacity.

I don’t think anyone would argue with what I’ve offered thus far. Every well-meaning leader I’ve met believes trust is important. And every leader I’ve talked to wants people to feel valued and to allow space for collaboration, participation and contribution with their team. However, you may be thinking: Yes but how? Practically speaking, how am I to go about deepening trust with my team?

With Lencioni’s book in one hand and Winseman’s book in the other, it’s important for leaders to drill down further and consider how we can cultivate health in specific and practical ways, first by self-assessment. I offer the following ten elements – and questions – for self-evaluation.  

  • Value and love: how do I treat the people on my team (i.e. my words, posture, presence, tone, affirmation, etc.)? Is it a judgement-free zone? Which is more important to me: healthy relationships or accomplishing more? Are our team meetings and interactions safe spaces for people to really share what they are thinking and feeling?
  • Participation: how much do I actually empower and include our team on decisions being made? Am I collaborating or simply informing them of decisions already made?  
  • Congruence: how much do my words match my actions? Where might I be out of alignment? How would I even know?
  • Consistency: is there evidence of results in my leadership over an extended period of time? Do people have confidence in my ability to lead?
  • Self-differentiation: How much of my identity is wrapped up in me being the leader? Being a “successful” leader? Ultimately, which direction are the arrows pointing: toward me, toward our team or toward our mission?
  • Vulnerability: how vulnerable have I been (and how vulnerable am I willing to be) in order to model what a safe space looks like on the team? When others are vulnerable how have I responded? Am I capable of readily admitting “I don’t know” and verbalizing phrases such as “I’m sorry”?
  • Failure: How do I respond to risks and failures, individually and as a team? How much does it define who I am as a leader or who we are as a team?
  • Truth-telling: How am I at telling the truth – and embracing it – even if it stings? Am I actually telling the whole truth or am I telling the truth, plus or minus ten percent?
  • Unity: how much are we pursuing unity (not uniformity) as a team? Am I willing to let go of my personal preference(s) if it means we will be better off as a team in the long run? Do dissenting voices have a valued role among our team or are they hushed, ignored or swept aside?
  • Clarity: How clear and compelling is our vision, priorities, what we care about? How do we know if we are being clear in our communication?

In closing, I submit these additional questions worthy of reflection for leaders when it comes to deepening trust among our teams:

  • Why should people follow me? What gives me the right to lead others?
  • Because I have power, who, in turn, is flourishing?

It takes courage to ask these questions of ourselves about our own leadership; and it requires even more courage to ask others these questions about our leadership. But because trust is so crucial to the process, we can’t afford not to ask them. Ironically, we may find that if we ask these questions of ourselves and others with a humble, inquisitive and courageous tone and posture on a consistent basis, trust among our team will deepen.  

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One Bi-Vocational Pastor’s Story… and how it could help YOU.

Note: We LOVE to highlight some of the wonderful things that come out of our Network from both pastors and the people in Ecclesia communities. Do you have something you’d like to share with the rest of the Network? Let us know!

Like many of you, I’m a bi-vocational pastor. I have a love/hate relationship with being bi-vocational but we continue to sense that God has called us at New Denver Church to live out our bi-vocational callings. To that point, I’ve been serving at New Denver Church since 2010 in a variety of roles and am the operations and community pastor. I had a great part-time gig at the Denver Art Museum until they laid off staff, me included, due to a three-year renovation. That left me questioning the whole concept of bi-vocationalism in a booming housing market like Denver. How could God call us to live in an expensive city (Kairos Hollywood eye roll here) and be bi-vocational?

I could sit around all day pondering bi-vocationalism but that wasn’t gonna put groceries on the table, so I started a small woodworking business out of my garage workshop that sold several products in the first week. And then, no joke, didn’t sell another single thing for months. So I shut it down. Went back to the drawing board.

In late 2018 I started sensing a need in our local network of churches for an honest, affordable, and hardworking company that would provide business and administrative services for churches and nonprofits. I kept seeing leaders trying to do it all – things they don’t enjoy – and let’s be honest most people don’t enjoy administration!

I started Hopewell and have developed a small team where our mission is to empower church and nonprofit leaders to thrive by providing exceptional business and administrative services. That’s it. It’s nothing fancy. It’s nothing new.

Hopewell is here to serve leaders who are getting eaten up by the administrative side of ministry.

We feel called to do the behind-the-scenes administrative and operations work that you dread. We wake up excited about it. We love systems, spreadsheets, HTML, and emails. We love empowering leaders to thrive.

I still haven’t resolved the bi-vocational tension (personally or organizationally) but the “gig economy” forced me to get creative. And I’m grateful because I think I’ve found a really healthy combination of doing something I love while helping others. (go Google Ikigai sometime)

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Meditations on the Ecclesia National Gathering ’19

We recently asked some folks to reflect and finish the sentence “I left the Ecclesia National Gathering this year feeling ___________.”

Here’s what they said!

I left the Ecclesia National Gathering this year feeling a lot of respect for some leaders who have endured through some hard seasons!

– Bob

Grateful to be in a community that has walked through and adjusted to a lot of challenging circumstances. It encourages me as a future church-planter that our leadership team will have so much collective wisdom and experience to lean on.

– Curtis

Encouraged by what God is doing through the church.

– Jon

Heard, seen and loved by God.

– Jim

I left encouraged for the future, thanks to the gracious support of my brothers and sisters in Ecclesia.

– Wendy

Feeling grateful the two awards our network gives out each year are for (1) Perseverance and (2) Servanthood (and not Fastest Growing Church or Most “Successful” Church).

I was reminded once again why I love our network so much.

-J.R.

Feeling overwhelmingly confirmed in our vocation, gratitude for the support and experiences of those in the network, and happy to have even more new friends!

– Robbie

Even more thankful to be in the network!

-Mandy