The Ecclesia Network

a missional church network

Ecclesia Network

by

Ecclesia National Gathering ’18 Workshops

Here’s a preview of the workshops we’ll be offering at the National Gathering!

  • Communicating the Gospel in An Age of Skepticism – Josh Crain

The place of religion in society has changed profoundly in the last few centuries, particularly in the West. What do these changes mean, and what, precisely, happens when a society becomes one in which faith is only one human possibility among others? Borrowing from experts such as Charles Taylor, James K.A. Smith, Don Beck, and Stanley Grenz, Josh Crain walks us through the cultural shifts that define 21st century Western society and how the church might continue to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus in this evolving context.

  • Contextual Apologetics – Lisa Fields

Historically, apologetics in America has been framed by white evangelicals.  While important work has been done in this area, challenges exist because the dominant culture is often disconnected from the needs and the nuances of other cultures that they are seeking to engage.  Therefore, a contextualized approach to apologetics is helpful in this endeavor. In this session we will seek to help the participants defend their faith in every cultural context.

  • Before the Bridge – Cyd & Geoff Holsclaw

When it comes to explaining salvation, many of us know the bridge illustration. But what if, instead of us crossing the bridge over to God’s side, it was God who came over to our side and built a house for us to live together with him? How might this house depict the reunion of heaven and earth (God’s side and ours), and even the reunion of God’s presence and our purpose in the world? Can we use the image of a house to quickly communicate the whole narrative of scripture and make it possible to proclaim good news answers to life’s really big questions? In this session, help us ‘beta test’ a new illustration for the gospel that we hope can be shared with people of all ages and faith backgrounds.

  • Proclaiming the Good News to Children/Youth – Juliet Liu

There are loads of curricula, books, and websites geared to share the gospel with children and youth. It can be overwhelming and exhausting to try to sort through all the possibilities. But how is everything we decide to read / say / do with kids shaped by who we are with kids? This session will be part theological foundations and part collaborative conversation / brainstorming. Bring your celebratory stories and your challenging struggles. All are welcome, whether you work with kids or not.

 

  • It Doesn’t All Point to Jesus: Preaching the Gospel Without Preaching the Gospel™ – Norton Herbst

Preaching is hard. Preachers have to be engaging, biblical, helpful, and above all, gospel-focused. Every week. But what does it mean to preach the gospel? How do you preach gospel sermons from the Old Testament without simply saying “it all points to Jesus”? And how do we avoid the tendency to develop a packaged summary of the gospel message—the Gospel™—that we simply append to every sermon? In this breakout, we’ll explore these questions about preaching philosophy, style, and methods as it relates to gospel themes. Norton Herbst will suggest some practical ways we can take more risks, incorporate creativity, and bring a holistic approach to preaching that can engage diverse audiences with the life-changing message of the gospel.  

  • The Gospel in the Life of the Pastor – Mandy Smith & J.R. Briggs

As church leaders our job is to proclaim the gospel to others, but we often forget that the gospel applies to us as well.  In the midst of the busyness and demands of ministry, it is too easy to lose track of the significance of the gospel in our own lives.  In this workshop, Mandy Smith and J.R. Briggs want to help create a safe space to share the challenges of ministry, apply the truth of the gospel to those challenges, and to pray with and for one another.

 

  • Incarnational Apologetics – Lisa Fields

Classical apologetics focuses on giving intellectual arguments for the hope that we have, while incarnational apologetics focuses on giving a defense for our faith through the way we live our lives. These two must work together in tandem for an effective defense of the Christian faith. The goal in this session is to highlight the importance and means of incarnational apologetic to the Christian walk.

  • The Power of the Gospel Across Cultures – Mia Chang & Danny Prada

One of the uniquenesses of the gospel of Jesus Christ is how it is has inhabited and transformed hundreds, if not thousands, of cultures and people groups around the globe throughout history.  For many years, those cultures were relatively isolated from one another. Today though, a wide range of ethnicities and cultures are in many of the communities that we are seeking to engage with the gospel.  As local churches, how can we proclaim this same good news, contextually and appropriately, across many cultures in our singular local churches. Further, how does the gospel help us live together amidst our differences in heritage and perspective.  Join Danny and Mia as they share the story of how diverse communities of biblical faith have developed in their congregations and how their learnings can apply to yours.

by

2017 Ecclesia Network Annual Report

Below you will find a link to Ecclesia’s Annual Report.  It is our prayer that you will find this encouraging as it gives a glimpse into how God has moved within and throughout the network this past year.

We encourage you to share this with your congregations as well as anyone you might be in contact with looking to connect with a network.

We look forward to seeing you in April!

 

2017_Ecclesia_Annual_Report

by

Spiritual Parenting

by Aaron Graham, Lead Pastor at The District Church (Washington, D.C.)

Originally Posted on November 16, 2017.

This last Sunday we had the privilege of hearing from Pastor Don Coleman from East End Fellowship and Pastor Stuart Royall from 180 Degrees Church. We had a conversation about discipleship and what it means
to be a spiritual mother or father to a younger son or daughter in the faith.

Our Scripture was 2 Timothy 2:2 “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.”

We were highlighting our value of being a multiplying church that develops leaders and churches in DC and beyond and how this all starts through the process of multiplying disciples.

During my freshman year at the University of Richmond almost twenty years ago I met both Stuart and Don. Don was discipling Stuart as they ministered in a under-resourced community in the East End of Richmond and then Stuart started meeting with me to disciple me weekly.

The Apostle Paul says in I Corinthians 4:15 that you may have many teachers, but you do not have many fathers. Having a spiritual mother or father in your life is a rare gift and something to be cherished.

Spiritual mothering and fathering is a great goal to reach toward in discipleship, yet the reality is that most discipleship relationships occur on the counseling and mentoring level. But we must start somewhere and the reality is that spiritual fathering relationships always start off on the teacher or mentor level. But the key is that they progress toward a deeper level of trust and maturity.

Here is a helpful framework that I’ve used when it comes to thinking about discipleship in a 1:1 context. There is:

  1. Counseling – this is when you meet with someone to work through a specific challenge you are facing in your life.
  2. Mentoring – this is when you meet with someone to learn how you can grow in a specific area of your life.
  3. Spiritual Parenting – this is when a relationship moves beyond just mentoring to a life-long relationship because of trust and spiritual authority the person has been given.

One of the ways you know if you have a spiritual mother or father in your life is when that person delights in your success as a son or daughter more than their own. Spiritual fathers are willing to lay down their life for their sons.

We have many teachers in life that help us learn. We have many counselors who give us advice. We have many mentors who helps us grow to reach our goals in life. But there are few spiritual mothers and fathers.

My prayer for our churches is that God would raise up men and women of God right here to help mother and father the next generation of disciples.

The huge prayer response from Sunday gave me the sense that there is a real hunger for this.

To God by the glory!

by

An Honest Look at Being White

Cyd Holsclaw, Ecclesia Board Member and Life on the Vine Member (Chicago, Illinois), shares her reflection 

Let me start by saying how unqualified I feel to write anything at all about cultural identity and race… and yet, I’m also about as white as white comes. I was born and raised in western Michigan, attended schools where all of my classmates were white, went to college in Minnesota where whites of northern European heritage were the dominant culture on campus, got a masters in environmental education where I was surrounded by crunchy white folks, moved to Santa Cruz California where those crunchy folks were just the ‘normal’ folks, married a white guy, and now I live in the suburbs of Chicago in a solidly middle / upper class community where most of the minorities are doing their best to assimilate to the dominant white culture. Although I have never consciously bought into any racist ideologies, I confess I spent most of my life believing that colorblindness was the right approach, the Christ-like approach.

A few years ago, through listening to some powerful voices, I learned that colorblindness is, in reality, a blind spot. Since then, I’ve been trying to be honest about my lack of awareness of cultural identities – both my own and those of my brothers and sisters of color. I’ve been trying to educate myself about the histories I was never taught, listening to sermons / podcasts from people of color, watching documentaries, and reading fiction by non-white authors. But the feeling that I’m not doing enough has often frustrated me. I’ve been overwhelmed by the nagging question of “what am I supposed to do?” Maybe some of you can resonate with that question, with that tension.

So when I saw Daniel Hill’s book, White Awake, and the subtitle read, “An honest look at what it means to be white,” I knew I had to read this book. What I found was a graciously urgent call from a white brother to all his white sisters and brothers to “let go of preconceived notions of expertise or understanding that you feel you might be bringing to this… pray like the blind man: ‘Lord, help me to see.’” Throughout the book, Hill is honest and authentic about his own misshapen theology, his misguided motivations, his failed attempts, and his weariness. By his admissions of weakness, he invites all white people to journey with him through the stages of waking up to cultural identity. He urges us to ask the question “can I see?” before we ask what to do. We can only actively participate in the kingdom calling to considering all of humanity as image bearers when we learn to see and dismantle the ways our culture perpetuates broken ways of naming humanity.

If you are a white person, know any white people, pastor any white people, or live with any white people, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Language shapes our understanding of our experience, and Hill gives concrete language for white people to understand what’s happening when they are first coming to terms with privilege. He begins with the first ‘encounter’ with race and white supremacy, concisely unpacking American history in such a way that anyone who has not yet encountered white privilege will be faced with some new realities. He lends grace for the ‘denial’ that usually follows this encounter and urges us to face the trauma we feel in discovering our complicity. Helpful metaphors / parables help us explore the resulting ‘disorientation’ and lead us into unpacking our ‘shame’ reactions that push us into ‘self-righteousness’. Along the way, he lays out spiritual practices to move us out of each stage and into the next: confronting narratives, facing trauma, deepening theology, lamenting, repenting. He provides some markers of what it might look like to be more culturally ‘awake’ and offers suggestions for possible ways to move from contemplation to ‘active participation’ in change.

As a board, we have had conversations about building cultural awareness within our network. We want to be honest about the ways in which the evil behind systems of racism have influenced our structures, our communication, and our inclusion (or lack thereof) of our sisters and brothers of color. I’m asking my white family, will you join us in taking an honest look at what it means to be white? This book is a great first step, and I would love to talk more with anyone who reads it at our national gathering in the spring.

And to my brothers and sisters of color, thank you so much for your perseverance. We don’t even know all the ways we have unintentionally made you feel unwelcome. You have been patient with us, showed us grace in our blindness, spoken into our lives, shared your stories with us, and longed with us for a community where all will be seen, heard, understood, and celebrated. Thank you. Let’s continue, together, to imagine a network that more fully anticipates the Revelation vision of a great multitude of culturally diverse people worshiping Christ together.