Ecclesia People

Ben Sternke is a pastor in Fort Wayne, IN at Christ Church. 

Since the inception of our church plant, we have been part of a remarkable group of people and churches called The Ecclesia Network. This year our national gathering will be held March 5-7, 2012 near Washington, D.C. The focus this time is on how our churches can function as centers of reconciliation, where we learn through the power of the Spirit to live as one reconciled family of God across racial, economic, and generational lines. John Perkins, Ivy Beckwith, AJ Swoboda and others will join us for three days of conversation, learning, discussion, and prayer.

I’ll be attending the gathering again this year (with my 14-year-old son!), but not out of a sense of obligation because we belong to a network. I’ll be going because this isn’t like other conferences I’ve been to. There is a passionate desire among the organizers and attendees to simply equip people to join God in what he’s doing in their respective local contexts, and that comes through every single year.

You can read my reflections from the gatherings in 2010 and 2011 to get a feel for what they’ve been like in the past, but here are a few reasons I’ll be attending again this year:

• There really are no superstars (even when Dallas Willard was there). There is a remarkable lack of insecure posturing on the part of the leaders who attend, and the special speakers we invite in are always very accessible for conversations (which is part of the reason we cap gathering attendance). It always feels like an extended conversation with friends and allies in kingdom mission.
• I always learn something. We’re not simply gathering to affirm what all of us already know. There is in the atmosphere of the gathering a genuine desire to grow and learn.
• It always kind of feels like a family reunion. It’s a relationalnetwork, and this shines through at the national gathering.
• Robust missional ecclesiology is combined with rooted incarnational expression in a way I’ve not seen before. As my friendJR Rozko said, “I’ve never experienced an event or a group of people that is so capable of engaging in serious theological discourse without losing sight of its irrelevance apart from incarnational expression.”
• The value of men and women co-laboring in all aspects of ministry is expressed concretely and consistently. This is one of the things I love most about the Ecclesia Network generally.
• There is a precious openness to the activity of the Holy Spiritthat is starting to bear very good fruit in the network.

So that’s why I’ll be there. Maybe you want to come too! You can register here, and if you plan to come, let me know so I can meet you while we’re there together.

I used to be a conference junkie. Straight out of college and anxious (though I never would have admitted it) to be the next big thing, I though that if I hit enough conferences, rubbed shoulders with big-shot speakers, and played my cards right, I’d be well on my way. What can I say, I was 22 and still naive enough to believe that personal ambition, so long as it was “for God,” was a noble quality as opposed to a liability.

I’m not 22 anymore – I’m 32. And while there are plenty of 32-year-olds out there still nursing a desire for “their time to come,” I am grateful for the people and circumstances God has used over the last 10 years of education and ministry to heal me of the selfish ambition I had previously baptized in my own mind. I’ve simply become much more enthusiastic about the advancement of God’s kingdom than mine – trust me, it’s way less stressful! So now, whenever I am presented with the opportunity to attend or participate in a conference, rather than asking, “Will being there contribute to my own advancement?” I try to ask, “Do I have a passion for how this conference is seeking to contribute to God’s kingdom work in the world?”

This is the central reason that I’ll be at the upcoming Ecclesia National Gathering – because it’s an event that oozes authentic passion for God’s kingdom work rather perpetuates the cult-of-personality tenor of much of current Christian conferencing.

Besides that overarching reason, I’ll be there for a few additional important reasons as well…

I’ll be there because I love the down-to-earth, in-the-trenches, church planters and pastors who attend and focus on encouraging and supporting one another rather than engendering a spirit of competition.

I’ll be there because, in word and action, Ecclesia holds up the value of men and women co-laboring in all aspects of ministry.

I’ll be there because humble submission to God’s mission and not fine doctrinal points is what unites us as a group.

I’ll be there because I’ve never experienced an event or a group of people that is so capable of engaging in serious theological discourse without losing sight of its irrelevance apart from incarnational expression.

In short, I’ll be there because I think God is mightily at work in and through this group of people and this event is central to facilitating and furthering that work. Hope you’ll consider joining us!

The heart of Ecclesia is, of course, the people of Ecclesia. Here are some of the Ecclesia Network bloggers. If we missed you or someone you know, leave a comment and a link and we’ll add it to the list.

• Ben Sternke
• Bob Hyatt
• David Fitch
• Doug Paul
• Dustin Bagby
• Gary Alloway
• Jim Pace
• J.R. Briggs
• J.R. Rozko
• JR Woodward
• John Chandler
• Matt Tebbe
• Todd Hiestand
• Winn Collier
• Geoff Holsclaw

Again, we know we are probably missing some people. Who are they?

by Tracy Commons

Currently, I am working full-time and finishing up my last semester at Temple University. It’s been stressful trying to balance everything, trying to have it “together” – and continuing to build relationships with others. Even though I know this is my last semester and graduation is so near- I still get “ants in my pants” and sometimes feel like life is moving so quickly and there is so much to do…

So, the messages on the Kingdom have been inspiring to me and have really encouraged me! But even though I feel encouraged – I also feel frustrated and doubtful at times, like there is so much on my plate for this season – and thinking “how am I living out the Kingdom in my everyday busy/rushed life? Especially when the people I work with can be so moody, discouraging and frustrating – and school/work life is so stressful?”

I was really encouraged as God spoke through J.R. Briggs this week and reminded me that “everyday life is the place where the kingdom is most powerful and has the most potential. Every day of the week matters.” So, I wrote that down in my journal and tucked it away for further thought – along with other notes..

Well, this past week I had to write a post for one of my online nursing courses – and it was about “What is the human role on this earth? Who am I? What is my purpose, my function, and my destiny? What imprints would I like to set for humanity?”

As I wrote the post – my first thought was “give the easiest comment and be done” but the other part of me said “this is a great opportunity to share Jesus.” So of course I had to share. I was not sure how people would respond or if anyone would respond. But there were three responses which led to ongoing conversations with other nursing students that felt as though they were lacking something in their lives and looking for more.

Needless to say, this opened up a beautiful opportunity to share the Lord and at the same time God humbled and reminded me that His Kingdom is at work – even in our busy lives – even though sometimes we don’t realize it. Sometimes I think my online classes are pointless – Jesus showed me wrong – and I was brought to my knees.  So, even in my doubt Jesus still made it known that He is in charge and working in the mist of it all!

Tracy Commons is a pastor at the Renew Community in Lansdale, PA

by Eric Phillips

“The true Christian leader is one who walks with others, leading them to a place where he himself has already been.”

This is an idea that recently has been on the forefront of my mind. Recently I have wrestled with the fact that there seems to be so little power in my ministry, very little true and lasting transformation within our church, and that there seems to be more and more information available yet with such little evidence of the transformative power of the Holy Spirit.

These questions that have passed through my mind for years have become more of a pressing reality, or crisis as you will, as I seek to establish East End Ecclesia. On a daily basis I encounter individuals wrestling with crack addiction, beat down by the cycle of poverty and violence, people who are at the edge of suicide. I face individuals that have been abused and called a F*&% up since they were children, unable to believe that God loves and accepts them. Worst of all I face arrogant young hipsters that in their “self justification through relevance and selective justice”, have no interest in a just God unless His justice remains confined within their superior moral definition.

So in other words I have found myself trying to convey information while realizing that information alone could never free an addict from addiction, convince an abused child that they are loved, or convince a self righteous hipster of their need for forgiveness from a righteous and just God. Within this personal struggle I’ve been continually reminded of passages that I so regularly dance around, passages concerning the our dependence upon the power of the Holy Spirit, passages in calling us to not seek to build the church by words alone, but by the power of God. I have spent much time wrestling with the fact that no matter how great my ability to convey information might be, man cannot be saved by information alone.

Yet in the midst of my intellectual wrestling God has opened my eyes to a reality that I have so greatly neglected. I have been studying many of the great men of faith from times past, some of authentic moves of God that brought true transformation within the society at large, and the first great move of God through the church which was recorded within the book of Acts.

The thing that I found in common within all that I have studied is that God has worked in mighty ways through men and women who have been consumed with a deep, passionate, obsessive, pursuit of true communion with their God. God seems to mightily use those who proclaim not what they have heard about but what they have encountered, lived, and experienced. I’m so challenged as I read what was stated concerning Peter and John as they were before the Jewish leaders “they were common uneducated men, but it was apparent that these men had been with Jesus.”

I believe this is important for us today; it is not our superior education, our relevance, our charisma, or anything else that will have the greatest impact on those around us. It is the intangible reality that the outside world may not be able to pinpoint. It is the man or woman who had clearly “been with Jesus”.

So, closing up the thought I began with: The true Christian leader leads others to a place he himself has already been.

As communicators we are to speak to the church that which we have first heard from our God, as shepherds we disciple as ones who have walked with Christ, and as evangelists we proclaim a loving, powerful, awesome God that we have not just heard about but deeply know. For too long the role of the pastor has been as one giving directions from a map to a location he has not yet been, instead of acting as a guide to a mountain top that he himself has frequently visited.

But on a very real and personal level, I have for too long been consumed with a desire to learn about God, teach about God, and be on mission for Him without first and foremost being one obsessed with spending time with my God, Hearing from my God, and allowing my God to first do within me that which He desires to do within my world.

Eric Phillips is the lead pastor at East End Ecclesia in Pittsburgh, PA.

Lindsey Sullivan.

Junior at Lynchburg College. [lcf] leader.

Though the attractive colors may lure you to this visual metaphor of Excavation, I thought it best to further explain why I am digging deeper.  Reading the picture left to right, our eye rests on the giant volcano first.  We see lava spewing from the top and cascading downward.  We must experience a lava-spewing moment before we are able to get to the X, the Excavation.  So, “What is a lava-spewing moment?”

Symbolically the lava is the Holy Spirit.  As Christ-followers we often have moments in our walk where something happens and we are doused in the Holy Spirit.  Moments such as conferences, one’s day of salvation, or the end of a persevering trial are great examples of spewing lava.  Hopefully, each of you have had a moment where you are standing beside a volcano of God and the eruption of the Holy Spirit in your life is melting everything else away.

These lava-spewing moments at a point in time are called kairos.  As Mike Breen and Steve Cockram of 3DM put it: “a kairos moment is when the eternal God breaks into your circumstances with an event that gathers some loose ends of your life and knots them together in his hands.”

What next? As we don’t remain in kairos time, we then enter into the new part of our walk.  Referring to the picture, this section of our walk looks like the middle dip.  This is where we are presented with the choice to continue in the ways of the Lord post kairos-moment. When we reach the dips in our walk, we have to press into God. Discipline is strengthened, knowledge is acquired, and lessons are learned all in the name of Christ.  Periodically we may have other kairos moments, and then the cycle of eruption to reclaiming the day-to-day begins.

Excavation occurs when a Christ-follower wants more than the kairos moments and yearns for a challenge greater than the day-to-day disciplines.  The letter X conveniently marks the position of the symbolic map of a Christian walk where one asks more of God. The goal of this great shift into God is to reach new heights in one’s relationship with God; a point in which the union between man and Maker is closer than ever before.

Though I am only at the beginning of this journey, I am taking steps toward the Holy Spirit.  And with each forward moving foot, I lean, press, and shove myself into the hands of the Holy Spirit, begging for more of God.  I have learned that even in the moments when God is spewing lava around me, He is alluring me into the woods of my heart (Hosea 2:14).  I have taken it as my mission to find out what God can show me through his Word.  I would love to say that in three months I will have tapped into the endless supply of God’s wisdom and knowledge, but the process of Excavation is not timed.  Yet, it is a journey measured in perseverance and pursuit.

[lcf] or Lynchburg Christian Fellowship is a college church based on the campus of Lynchburg College in Lynchburg, Virginia. Choosing to express church in multiple ways like missional communities, small groups, and a Sunday Gathering is what allows our community to create a discipleship culture as well as reach people with the love of Jesus. Engage the culture. Embrace everyone. Endure the cross. www.lcfva.com