Church Updates

We are excited to have the Evergreen Community as a part of the Ecclesia Network. They are a young church, with multiple congregations around Portland, OR. Evergreen is pastored by Bob Hyatt, Chris Leonardo, and Dustin Bagby. We are excited to join with them in multiplying gospel communities throughout the Mid-West. If you’ve got some extra time – check out Bob (bobhyatt.typepad.com) and Dustin’s blog (dustball.blogspot.com).

“R” church is a new congregation comprised of developing missional communities on the Southside of Richmond, VA.  “R” church is being sponsored by Imago Dei and is led by Matt and Amy Senger.  We are excited to have them part of our growing family and look forward to see what God is going to do through this new expression.  Matt and Amy are two of the most gifted leaders you could meet and we are honored to have them part of Ecclesia.

Here’s a brief description of “R” Church

R church is a newly forming church in the suburbs of Richmond, Virginia.  We find ourselves creating spaces for people in a variety of settings that serve to create community and show people who Jesus is. Seeing people form into disciples of Jesus is what we aim for in all we do.  As we take on the posture of a missionary our hope is to create communities that make disciples.

Also, check out this interview with Matt about “R” Church:

Matt, tell us a bit about what has influenced the beginnings of “R” church?

As a newly forming church, recently named Rchurch, we are excited about what we have been experiencing together.  In starting we have placed a big emphasis on discipleship and maintaining a healthy rhythm as a church.  In this we created a discipleship environment that lends itself to offering a lot of support and accountability with a high degree of challenge.  From this we have seen significant growth from those that are involved in this relational form of discipleship.  We are already seeing how this growth is forming us as missionaries in our context.

R church is planting and establishing multiple mid-sized missional communities, tell us a little bit about that process?

As a church we have found focus in one particular suburban neighborhood outside of Richmond.  We have spent several months together creating what we call a missional community there.  A missional community is basically a small church, big enough to carry out its mission, but not so big that relationships become lost.  One distinguishing factor in this community is that it is driven by its mission.  For the past few months forming this community has been about building trust and relationships through consistency in serving and providing space for the neighborhood to come together.  We have done this by serving the neighborhood through several large and small community events and dinners.  We have introduced spiritual content along the way by explaining what we are doing with those involved. It is hoped that this Fall we will enter into a new phase with this community.  We are hoping to establish more of a spiritual influence within the trust and relationships that we have created.  Part of this will include developing smaller sub-groups within the larger community that create room for spiritual conversation.  In addition to this there are also two other groups that are newly forming, but do not yet have the momentum of the neighborhood missional community.  These groups are split between kayakers and triathletes.

What principles have you been using to guide the development of these missional communities?

We have defined our schedule and practice in the language of UP, IN, and OUT.  Basically doing things that are focused on God, building relationships within the church, and serving those we are trying to reach.    We are hoping to one day establish these rhythms within each missional community that is being developed.  In all we do we are keeping disciple making at the front of what we are doing as we take on the posture of missionaries in our context.

Lastly, tell us a little about your progress?

Over the past few months we have interacted with those that are currently not in the church that once were, and those that have never had any part of church.  We have had spiritual conversations with those that know Jesus and those that have no clear idea of what the gospel is.  What can be said is that in the first few months our team of believers has grown spiritually while laying the groundwork for disciple making within their own lives.  We have also seen a new church community forming in a suburb outside of Richmond that is made up of people seeking God while experiencing something they are unfamiliar with, the Church.

“R” church is a new congregation comprised of developing missional communities on the Southside of Richmond, VA.  “R” church is being sponsored by Imago Dei and is led by Matt and Amy Senger.  We are excited to have them part of our growing family and look forward to see what God is going to do through this new expression.  Matt and Amy are two of the most gifted leaders you could meet and we are honored to have them part of Ecclesia.

Here’s a brief description of “R” Church

R church is a newly forming church in the suburbs of Richmond, Virginia.  We find ourselves creating spaces for people in a variety of settings that serve to create community and show people who Jesus is. Seeing people form into disciples of Jesus is what we aim for in all we do.  As we take on the posture of a missionary our hope is to create communities that make disciples.

Also, check out this interview with Matt about “R” Church:

Matt, tell us a bit about what has influenced the beginnings of “R” church?

As a newly forming church, recently named Rchurch, we are excited about what we have been experiencing together.  In starting we have placed a big emphasis on discipleship and maintaining a healthy rhythm as a church.  In this we created a discipleship environment that lends itself to offering a lot of support and accountability with a high degree of challenge.  From this we have seen significant growth from those that are involved in this relational form of discipleship.  We are already seeing how this growth is forming us as missionaries in our context.

R church is planting and establishing multiple mid-sized missional communities, tell us a little bit about that process?

As a church we have found focus in one particular suburban neighborhood outside of Richmond.  We have spent several months together creating what we call a missional community there.  A missional community is basically a small church, big enough to carry out its mission, but not so big that relationships become lost.  One distinguishing factor in this community is that it is driven by its mission.  For the past few months forming this community has been about building trust and relationships through consistency in serving and providing space for the neighborhood to come together.  We have done this by serving the neighborhood through several large and small community events and dinners.  We have introduced spiritual content along the way by explaining what we are doing with those involved. It is hoped that this Fall we will enter into a new phase with this community.  We are hoping to establish more of a spiritual influence within the trust and relationships that we have created.  Part of this will include developing smaller sub-groups within the larger community that create room for spiritual conversation.  In addition to this there are also two other groups that are newly forming, but do not yet have the momentum of the neighborhood missional community.  These groups are split between kayakers and triathletes.

What principles have you been using to guide the development of these missional communities?

We have defined our schedule and practice in the language of UP, IN, and OUT.  Basically doing things that are focused on God, building relationships within the church, and serving those we are trying to reach.    We are hoping to one day establish these rhythms within each missional community that is being developed.  In all we do we are keeping disciple making at the front of what we are doing as we take on the posture of missionaries in our context.

Lastly, tell us a little about your progress?

Over the past few months we have interacted with those that are currently not in the church that once were, and those that have never had any part of church.  We have had spiritual conversations with those that know Jesus and those that have no clear idea of what the gospel is.  What can be said is that in the first few months our team of believers has grown spiritually while laying the groundwork for disciple making within their own lives.  We have also seen a new church community forming in a suburb outside of Richmond that is made up of people seeking God while experiencing something they are unfamiliar with, the Church.

We are excited to welcome another new church plant to our growing community. New Denver Church began as a dream in the hearts of three families in late 2008. In early 2009, these families moved from Atlanta, Georgia, to Denver, Colorado, to begin a community of faith in the city. New Denver is co-pastored by Norton Herbst, Jason Malec, and Stephen Redden. All three served together on the staff of Northpoint Church in Alpharetta before moving to plant in Denver.

The mission of New Denver Church is simple: to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. And our strategy for accomplishing this is to create environments where people are encouraged and equipped to pursue restored relationships with God, themselves, others, and the world. In the past year, we have seen this mission come alive as people have connected with God in deep and transforming ways.

Ecclesia Stockton was a church birthed in March of 2009. It began with 11 friends in a living room with a desire to be a community that embodied the kingdom of Jesus. Our hope has been to deeply root our hearts within the gospel and root our hands and feet into the background of downtown Stockton.

They have recently join the Ecclesia Network so we thought we would take this opportunity to let them tell you a bit about themselves…

You can check read more about them on their website and on Facebook.

Why did you guys decide to plant in Stockton, CA?
Stockton is a city with a reputation. In 2009 when we planted our church the city of Stockton was rated as the most depressing city in America to live in according to Forbes magazine. The ratings are determined by violence, drugs, unemployment and that Stockton was the foreclosure capital of America during our latest economic pitfall. Our move to the downtown area was very intentional and had to do with the fact that most churches left this area because many of those factors are centralized in the downtown area.

However, our city counsel has made clear moves and decisions to pour resources into this area of our city and we wanted to be there when it happened. With these new found resources put into this area of our city has now created an amazingly diverse group of people who are part of the scene. Some addicted to drugs and part of cycles of abuse while others are addicted to money and the pursuit of the American dream. Both need the kingdom of Jesus to be made tangible and present.

How did you get your start?
In June of 2009 we moved out of our living room and began meeting in a room at the local university. This wasn’t in a geographical location in downtown Stockton but it allowed some of our friends who were interested in being the church differently then what they had experienced could join in on since we were out of space in my living room.

How did you get from the university to downtown?
We knew that because we didn’t live in downtown Stockton that just getting food downtown after service wasn’t enough. Somehow we needed to make downtown our home. Shortly after we decided that we must make it our number one priority to be downtown I ran into an Anglican Rector with a generous heart. We talked about downtown and he was excited that there were other people passionate about downtown. He said several times, “whatever is ours is yours.” We took him up on that offer and asked for use of their building for our Sunday gatherings. He said yes and wouldn’t accept a penny from us.

How have you developed this early group?
At this point our community began to grow. We quickly realized that we needed something to initiate these new people to church and keep gospel community as our focus and not a program or service that we offer to people. So for those who were knew to our community and the way we are church we lead them through an eight week Journaling Community that lead them through what we believed were core to being a missional church. We also found that being Missional meant that small groups as we knew them weren’t in our future. With the help within those of the Ecclesia Network we stumbled onto Missional Communities, which have felt like the missing piece of how a missional church does community.

At this point two thirds of the people who come on Sunday’s are in our Missional Communities. In fact we hold them so central to who we are that if someone does press for numbers in regards to the size of our church I tell them the number in our Missional Communites because it is this place that we believe we have created a pathway to discipleship and a pathway into our city.

What Missional Communities have done for us that I could never do is put power and imagination into the hands of our community. Instead of only a couple leaders saying “outreach” we have found that Missional Communities have empowered our people for mission and have changed their imagination in regards to what they think the church is.

What are a couple key ideas you use as you interact with the downtown community?

Proximity – We think of proximity as just being part of the backdrop of our downtown community. We make it a regular practice to read the local Downtowner paper monthly that talks about what is happening. We often read through it together and highlight and circle things that would be fun to do together. We encourage people to have their accountability groups, community groups and meals downtown as much as possible combined with prayer walks.

We have seen time and time again how just being downtown with no agenda, no strategic plans has opened doors. It has given us eyes to see and understand our community and on several occasions has allowed us to bump into a person of peace to make connections with different people groups within the neighborhood.

Presence – When we think of presence we think of presence as a very focused activity in which we desire to embody the kingdom. On a monthly basis we try to do something with our Missional Community to bless the neighborhood. We ask ourselves 5 filtering questions 1) Where is the shalom/peace broken? 2) What can we do to restore it? 3) Are there any groups in our city whether they have a church background or not that would like to join us? 4) Is it unarguably, unambiguously good? 5) Does it cause us to be known not just by the locals but as the locals?

How have you seen these two values lived out successfully?
These two things, proximity and presence, have combined to let us do several tangible things to connect with our city. We regularly have pizza and ice cream events with ice creams and school supplies during the summer and other needs throughout the year. We’ve had a Style Your Sole Party with TOMS Shoes, that benefited the local Rescue Mission where we offered manicures and pedicures and free TOMS Shoes to the women, that TOMS highlighted on their website. Recently we just had a Casino night for our local Child Abuse Prevention Center.

Recently, one of the greatest compliment our community has received was when the Downtowner paper asked us to let them know whenever we are doing something downtown because they wanted to highlight it and make sure it was in their paper. That meant so much to our community because the Downtowner was the first resource we went to in trying to figure out this area of our city and now they were inviting us to be a part of it.

How “successful” have you been? How do you define “success”?
Kind of an odd question but people who know me often ask if the church is doing good. I’ve struggled with how to answer that question because I know that they are looking for a number to quantify what is good. I could tell them that we have grown by 350% but I don’t because a follow up question will reveal that we grew from 10-35 people, which has been great, but doesn’t quite sound as revivalistic as 350%. The number I have settled on is 2. The number is 2 because Forbes magazine in 2010 ranked Stockton as the second most depressed city in America. We beat Cleveland this year! How successful have we been as a church plant? You tell me, I think the numbers speak for themselves.

Pathways is a missional community learning to follow Jesus in the northern suburbs of Baltimore. Loving God, loving others and making lovers, Pathways seeks to reveal the Kingdom through every day life and in every context it finds itself. “Doing life with God and others in public,” Pathways works to change the very nature of the conversations, actions and attitudes in homes, neighborhoods, employment centers and third places throughout Harford County.

Lately, God has opened the door to begin what we hope will be a new mid-sized community based out of Hanley’s Gym in Forest Hill, MD. The new congregation (as yet unnamed), along with Pathways will become the first two mid-sized groups in a larger, regional gathering not unlike that found in the Fresh Expression movement in the UK. We’ve also been blessed to see an increase in local interest in our ongoing work in West Africa. Two local businesses have recently partnered with Pathways to provide support to the local schools and small businesses in Tionk-Essil, Senegal.