Church Updates

We are proud to welcome the Stepro family and Kairos Antelope Valley into Ecclesia.  They are in the first year of their new congregation and we are excited to see what God is doing.

Here’s their story in Noah’s own words …

I grew up in the Antelope Valley. The Antelope Valley is a weird place and hard to understand if you are not from here. We are number 2 in meth production and number 1 in child abuse in the nation. It is a suburb of LA that popped up in a rather ugly area because of the post-war military-industrial complex of the aerospace industry. So we have a good number of engineers and rocket scientists as well as an agricultural population that has been around for a long time. However, beginning in the 60’s we saw a great growth of commuters, moving up here to get more affordable housing while driving an hour or more to work in LA. This hunger for more in terms of materialism is a good reflection of the values of the AV. Most people here would rather have a new car or jet-ski’s than live and work close to their neighbors or have more time with their children.

Another proclivity about the AV is the growth of gang and urban poverty that we have experienced over the last 20 years. Families from Pacoima and Compton have relocated in mass adding to the social dynamic of a decentralized, scattered place. During the 80s and 90s Palmdale (one of the main cities) was the second fastest growing area in the nation…behind only Las Vegas. This is the placed that shaped me. I grew up in a fairly poor family here. I dropped out of school in the 7th grade and shortly after came to know Christ at a church around the corner from the trailer park I lived in. I had a pretty radical conversion as I encountered a community of friends and leaders that were sharing life together, experiencing the power of the holy spirit and going on mission with each other. I was sold!

Flash forward to adulthood I began to discern “the call” to serve God by entering into “the ministry”. In order to do this I knew returning to school was probably a necessary step. Entering Jr. College with a 7th grade education was challenging to say the least. But at 19 I knew this was a definite step the Lord was directing me to take. I began volunteering heavily at the mega church where I came to faith. Upon completing a bachelor’s degree in history I started working at the church part time as a youth/worship leader and entered Fuller Seminary to earn a MDiv.

I began seminary in 2005 and the next summer I got married to Jamie, a beautiful, wonderful woman I had been dating for 4 years. After getting married I went through a succession of promotions at my home church while attending seminary – full time – college pastor – jr. high pastor. Then after graduating in 2008 from Fuller I became the Student ministries pastor. I was leading a ministry of about 500 students with a staff of 3 employees and an army of volunteers. I was full on in the swing of attractional, programatic church. I was successfully leading a “successful” youth group…that oddly no longer looked like the youth ministry that I had joined as a teenager and had lost the potency of mission and purpose that hooked me in the first place.

Through several years of painful, honest conversations with the sr. leadership I had concluded I would rather work as a barista at the local coffee shop and serve Jesus with community of friends than be in full time ministry…if full time ministry simply meant fueling a machine that wasn’t producing much lasting fruit. God had some interesting plans however…

As I was writing out my letter of resignation I received a call from a small, dying Presbyterian church…they were looking for a youth/associate/turn-around pastor. They hired me and my wife to come to the church with the goal of reaching their changing neighborhood and connecting with younger generations. Well, after an amazing 2 month honeymoon period in which I saw conversions, works of the holy spirit and the bubblings of community in this fledgling church – the senior leadership of the church resigned and the congregation went into a tailspin.

At the same time, God had opened another amazing door for me to come on staff at our local college as an adjunct professor of American history. We left the Presbyterian church as gracefully as possible and gathered a small group of our good friends together.  I remember telling them: “I love Jesus, I need community, but if we cannot start a church that is free of the shackles of what I have experienced – I don’t think I am going to go any more.”  It may not have been the best way to start a new church…but a church planter once told me…”if you don’t have to start a new church…don’t!”

Kairos Community was birthed out of a lot of prayer, pain and desire to meet God in the context of community. We met as a core team for several months on Friday nights developing a common vision, language and mission. We visited churches of all denominations and creeds together on Sundays and finally began worshipping in a living room at the end of 2011.  We quickly out grew the living room and moved to a coffee shop and then a small church building that wasn’t being used on Sundays.  It was at this time that I connected with Ecclesia as well. I began meeting with Greg Larson and the equippers down at Kairos-Hollywood.

With a firm commitment to discipleship and mission as the core of what we are doing, we were very slow to invite others in prematurely or to grow beyond our capacity. The past summer we got the opportunity to meet on the third floor of a downtown Urban Outfitters-ish type store…since then we have had a strong commitment and presence in our city…prayer walking, serving the needy, creating community where ever we can and with consistency.

This fall, at our one year mark, we launched our pilot Missional Community. We had waited to launch this expression of our church until our leadership was developed and discipleship was at the core of our identity…our DNA. We have seen wonderful fruit in the last year as God has preformed miraculous healings, changed lives from darkness to light and spread hope where there was none. We have seen single mothers, homosexuals, drug addicts, empty materialists, fundamentalists and entire families come to faith…I can’t wait to see what God has in store for the next year!

Somewhere in between getting married and church planting, Jaimie and I have been blessed with three beautiful girls: Clover (4), Paisley (2) and Ember (4 months). During the last year, Jaimie…in addition to teaching piano and leading worship at Kairos has begun working as a Compassion Entrepreneur for a new non-profit called Trades of Hope…a company aimed at women helping women all over the world start and maintain sustainable business.

We are excited to be part of the Ecclesia family and thanks to all for welcoming us in.

Welcome Luke and Linda Dalach to the Ecclesia Network!

Hi Ecclesia family. My family and a few friends are at the very beginning stages of starting a network of missional communities in Northwest Indiana. Our little section of Indiana is part of Chicago’s culture….we’re Bears and Sox/Cubs fans and get all Chicago media. Illinois forgets we exist, Indiana would like to send us to Illinois and we’re one of the most racially segregated parts of the country per capita. But God has great plans for our Region!

My wife and I spent 12 years starting commuter college ministries with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in Northwest Indiana. We grew up in the area and have always had a heart to see God’s kingdom come, especially among the next generations and among folks who’d usually not step foot in a church building. After a season on campus, we started to sense that God was calling us to go after the “missing generations” post-college. Last September we moved to Crown Point, the county seat. In December we transitioned off IV staff and now we’re taking baby steps to pursue this next vision.

We believe that Jesus and his good news of the kingdom are too good to sit back and watch as many of the next generation live their lives apart from God’s family. We want to make disciples of Jesus among the “missing generations” who become a network of missional communities. We want to see apprentices of Jesus everywhere.  Almost all of our IVCF supporters were excited about our vision, so we are in a season of rebuilding a support team and taking small steps in gathering a first missional community. This fairly strange, slower season is giving us a chance to really listen to and learn about our new city and network to find the folks God will bring to be a first “missionary community.”

That’s a little about us and our vision. We’re excited to be a part of a group of mission focused churches and leaders like Ecclesia and we’re excited for what the Spirit of God is bubbling up all over in our country.

Welcome Bryan and Molly Long to the Ecclesia Network

Hi, I’m Bryan Long and my wife Molly and I live on the North Shore of Boston. Our heads are spinning a bit in the midst of some big changes in our life. I graduated seminary in May and two weeks later our first child, Mia, was born. Then in August we move back to my hometown of Rochester, NY to begin church planting with the Ecclesia Network.

Church planting was not the original plan, but it started with some growing thoughts. I was working as a youth pastor at a large church in suburban Boston and there I witnessed the power and draw of the expressions of that particular local church. But as I continued working with students and young adults, I began asking new questions. Are there people for whom these forms aren’t the way in but are actually obstacles and barriers? What if we could create new environments that were more untreated and organic to reach those who aren’t being reached? Over time these questions became a calling, and this calling became a vision of a new church.

When I got plugged into the Ecclesia Network and Fresh Expressions, I realized that many others were asking these same questions. We desire to create a space for religiously unaffiliated people in our communities to explore Christ. Many are suspicious of established churches and tend to be drawn more to smaller and intimate groups. We are asking how we can incorporate the strengths of both alternative faith-based communities and the existing church. We’re envisioning a network of missional communities that meet regularly, but also join with the rest of the network in regular times of worship. We’re calling it The Agora Community. Agora is the Greek word for marketplace, the public center of first-century cities. We seek to enter agora spaces in our world to bring God’s Kingdom.

We start this new venture in September with a mixture of excitement, fear, thrill, terror and everything in between. But I am reminded of something A.J. Swoboda said at the Ecclesia National Conference: “Jesus invites us to come and die…to go into the grave and die and return again.” Our prayer is that we can sense what that Spirit is doing in Rochester and give up our lives to join in.

The Bridge is a new community of faith being developed in Easton, PA under the guidance of Mike & Judy Hollenbach.  They had previously been a part of New Life Church in Dresher, PA since 1998 where Mike served as associate pastor.   Their hometown is nearby Perkasie, PA – a small town about 30 minutes south of Easton/Coopersburg.

Boise Mustard Seed is a newly forming church community of Jesus followers who have their hearts set on living out the grace and peace of Christ in the city of Boise and the Greater Boise Metro Area.

“We endeavor to live out the Way of Jesus in innovative forms through an incarnational approach within our context. As such, we are learning to live like Jesus individually and together – amongst friends, neighbors, and future friends – in a way that expresses God’s Kingdom more fully. In this way, we hope to cultivate the formation of more missional communities in our neighborhoods of Boise, and to seed other missional communities around the city, throughout the Northwest, and the world.”

Boise Mustard Seed is a newly forming church community of Jesus followers who have their hearts set on living out the grace and peace of Christ in the city of Boise and the Greater Boise Metro Area.

“We endeavor to live out the Way of Jesus in innovative forms through an incarnational approach within our context. As such, we are learning to live like Jesus individually and together – amongst friends, neighbors, and future friends – in a way that expresses God’s Kingdom more fully. In this way, we hope to cultivate the formation of more missional communities in our neighborhoods of Boise, and to seed other missional communities around the city, throughout the Northwest, and the world.”

Rhythm Church began brewing about three years before it was actually planted. That’s when a circle of friends in Miami began feeling that God was calling us to give birth to a fresh expression of the church in the future. The simple question we began with was, “What does it look like tof ollow Jesus in the place and time?”

“As one of our leaders headed off to seminary, we decided to meet up every six months or so for a retreat. We shared meals, laughed, caught up on stories, and pressed into God seeking vision about the future. When our church officially went “public” we met in a home for four months before moving into a church building next to the University of Miami. A handful of families within the community are in the process of relocating to this neighborhood. We want to commit to a people and a place. It seems everybody is into upward-mobility these days but we feel Jesus calling us to practice downward mobility; to live close enough to share possessions, have common prayer times, and help raise one another’s kids. We like the idea of a network of neighborhood churches working together – so once we have enough people coming to our church from another part of the city we’ll look at starting a neighborhood church there.

We chose the name Rhythm because that single word describes the sort of common life we’re seeking. Through daily and weekly practices we’re trying to align our lives to a common rhythm – a rhythm that’s in tune with God’s kingdom, that revolves around worship and mission, loving God and loving others. Rhythm is co-pastored by Keas Keasler and Matt Alexander.”