The Ecclesia Network

a missional church network

Equipper Blog

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A Community of Refuge

by JR Rozko, reposted with permission from JR’s Blog

Amidst the polarizing, fragmenting, and empire-building forces that seem to be rearing their ugly heads throughout evangelical Protestantism lately, the Ecclesia Network remains for me something of a refuge.  Ecclesia, as both a context and a family, is committed to and united by a modest, yet deliberate and substantive engagement with the various facets and issues of North American Christianity.  It’s this sort of posture that I believe sets Ecclesia apart in terms of its unique contribution to the lives of leaders, churches, and, through various initiatives and resources, the broader evangelical community.

To point to just a few things that excite me about Ecclesia, consider the following…

A yearly national conference (the next one being just about a month out), that seeks to help church planters and pastors wrestle with some of the most pressing issues of mission and ministry from the perspective of those who take seriously the challenges (perhaps better understood as happy opportunities!) of Post-Christendom.

Over the last 4 years, we’ve brought together leading voices, including those of women and minorities, to help us wrestle with the practical issues of incarnational expressions of ecclesial life.  In each instance, this has been done without pomp and circumstance, opting instead for a subdued environment where the focus is on encouraging one another, building relationships, and giving a good deal of attention to God’s presence and work in our midst.  In this way, our national gathering remains vitally connected to the rest of our lives, relationships, and ministry.

A leadership podcast that offers listeners a window into the lives and thinking of local church planters and pastors who are either in or connected to the Ecclesia Network.  Backed by the genius and savvy of Mr. Todd Hiestand and John Chandler, esquire, this podcast is just getting going, but there’s some good ones in there already.  Check out the latest podcast w/ Chris Backert, who, at long last, is offering to the world (in multiple parts no less!) some blog posts.  In part of the podcast, he talks a bit aboutMissio Alliance, an initiative I’m privileged to be a part of and will no doubt be writing more extensively in regard to in the future, but the rest of the podcast is a great introduction into the way Ecclesia has come about and what it “feels” like.

Aside from those things, Ecclesia is also involved in church planter training (here’s a bunch of great audio from the most recent training session), coaching, and publishing.  Ecclesia also initiates and sponsors regional events like this one in the Northeast, thisone in the Northwest, and the Missional Learning Commons here in the Mid-West.

This is all good stuff.  None of it is completely unique; others seek to offer similar resources and opportunities.  What means the most to me, and what is simultaneously the biggest encouragement to me as something like the Missio Alliance gets underway, is the manner, character, and quality of all this work.  Like I tried to communicate above, as I look around and see so much discord and angling for influence across the evangelical landscape, I’ve just never gotten that taste from the people and work of Ecclesia and I’m grateful for this band of brothers and sisters.

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The Shaping of a Network: How A Post-Denominational Connectional Church Is Being Formed (Part II)

The Practices of a Network:  Church Planting – From Centralized Function to Collaborative Mission

One of the primary reasons for any church network to exist is to facilitate the more rapid development of church multiplication.  Almost all of the new forms of church networks have this as their original goal and many of our historical denominations could attribute this kind of work to their original intention in formation.  Indeed, most of those that have developed traction and momentum have kept this as their organizing goal (Acts 29, Redeemer, ARC) and even those that were once stagnant and returned to church multiplication as a collaborative goal, have experienced new life and energy (Baptist General Conference/Converge, The Christian Church)..  Clearly, this focus aligns with the sentness of the church in community with one another. There is no shortage of studies to remind us that the starting of a new community of faith is the greatest evangelistic tool that the church has in its repertoire (even though the forms those new communities should take can morph over time).

In established denominational circles (again, the church “networks” of the past), church planting has been one of several departments housed in the denominational office or hierarchy.  There were professionals assigned to the task of starting a new denominational branch in an area that was lacking one at the time.  In general, the pattern of organizing and developing the church was similar in every circumstance.  Churches within the association understood that it was the central office’s job to start new works.  They may need to act as a sponsor congregation or to send a few people to help initiate the new start, but this was rarely at the initiative of the congregation.

In the network philosophy, church planting will occur as the leaders of various churches in the network collaborate with one another, both in leadership and finances, to initiate new communities of faith. The post-denominational network will equip and facilitate church-planting and church-planting partnerships between churches.  While there could be avenues and possibilities of funding for church-plants coming through the centralized network, the majority of resources for church planting in the post-denominational network will be derived from church partnerships and relationships. Just like dax realtime it will also lead to greater investment in the project and relationship on behalf of both the church plant and the sponsoring church.  The network could provide leadership to recruiting, assessing, and training potential church planters as well as providing ongoing coaching and skill development during the planting process.  Yet, the majority of this work will be accomplished by pastors and church planters within the network.

In general, this is how the Ecclesia Network has developed in relationship to church planting.  Unlike many denominations, there is no centralized pot of money from which a project can draw support or a salary.  Funds generally come from partner churches within the network, from funds raised by the planters themselves, from a core team, or from some form of bi-vocational work by those planting the new community.  Often, all of these avenues are necessary in putting together a viable financial plan for planting.

Through Ecclesia, a number of the critical components of planting new communities are offered.  Each year we sponsor our church planters training.  We have always offered coaching in Ecclesia, but now coaching for church planters is becoming more organized and required if planting with Ecclesia.  In many places, regional meet ups are available to connect with other ministry leaders and when they are not we are working strengthening relationships and connectedness through phone and Skype.  Practitioners are the ones involved in developing and guiding all of this and we are constantly seeking to bring more recent church planters into the church multiplication work of Ecclesia because they offer a critical perspective along with those who have involved in planting work for or 10 or 20 years.  In addition, because there are no one (or even two or three) models of church planting within Ecclesia, it is even more critical to show a varied approach.

Our next steps in this realm could be summed up in two phrases – more new communities of faith and better new communities of faith.  I use the phrase “communities of faith” because I expect (along with several others) that the shape of new churches in the future may look less and less like “church planting” as we’ve known it in the past.  Or, at least it will take longer for these new communities to look like a “church plant” that we are used to.  Our increasingly post-Christian culture in many places is a primary factor in that development – calling for more and time needed to cultivate a new community in context.

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The Shaping of a Network: How A Post-Denominational Connectional Church Is Being Formed (Part 1)

Introducing Our Direction

Along the way of developing Ecclesia I’ve had several people ask me in one way or another “Didn’t you spend 5 years doing research on networks before Ecclesia started?”  This is then usually followed by a next obvious question, “When are you going to share what you discovered?”

While, it is true that I spent 5 years researching how God was moving in the development of a new kind of connectional church, it is a bit off the mark that I did this before Ecclesia began.  I had done a great of research and interviewing before we officially began Ecclesia and those early discoveries were extremely helpful in the initial formation of our network.  However, a great deal of the investigation has continued over the last several years and though less intense than it once was, still continues today.  I’ve not tried to share before what I discovered (except for the few people that were willing to read my long doctoral dissertation), but now seems like a good time to do so (mostly so that people will get off my back about my lack of blogging/writing ).

So, over the next year I’ll try to lay out a number of the things I discovered during those five years (and some subsequent observations and conclusions as well).  While Ecclesia has certainly not delved into all these waters, in some way they have formed who we are becoming today.  I’m going to start by doing a series of posts on the Core Practices of new church networks and for the purposes of our own network, this most easily translates into the “work” that we do.

What is essential to understand in these series of posts is that often I will alternate back and forth between talking about a “network” and “denomination”.  While you could press down on the differences between these two things (and there are certainly some) – what they both have at their core is the essential DNA of being a trans-local, covenanted community focused on collaborative gospel work together.  The ways and patterns of organization, the type of hierarchy, the theological dispositions, etc certainly all change, and in different seasons of history, some have made greater sense than others (and the lack of change could be part of their struggles today).In the wider scope of “ecclesiology” they belong in the same family.

I certainly consider Ecclesia more of a network than a denomination, though we would share much of the same DNA has some denominations (particularly those that are congregationally focused and are more accurately an “association” of churches instead of a “denomination).  Another way of saying this is that for some churches in Ecclesia, our network connects to their congregational life just as a denomination would for some other church.  For others, Ecclesia is really a network they are part of in addition to a denomination and they connect to Ecclesia for some slightly different reasons.  Of course, if we currently have 30 churches involved and another 10 in process they are all somewhere slightly different on that spectrum and THAT is one of the marks of what makes us a network and not a denomination.

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The Death of Leadership: Christ, Co-Leading, and Missional Living

by Geoff Holsclaw / Read Geoff’s blog / Follow Geoff on Twitter

In these postmodern times we are used to hearing of the death of the author, the death of the text, and even the death of the book (unless you have a Kindle).  Well, today, it is the death of leadership, for Christ our leader is the Crucified One, and what servant is greater that his master?  But many have not heard of this death.  It has been drowned out by the dearth of leadership books, even Christian leadership books, and I’m sure many of us, and myself included, have read them.  But while these leadership books, and conferences, and seminars tell of many helpful things, but they do not know of the Crucified Christ.  And this makes all the difference.  They lack a leadership that lives through the cross.  According to the pattern of the Crucified Christ I believe missional leadership must nurture new structures, new processes, and new people who will lead through living and dying in Christ.

Philippians Hymn

Few turn to the hymn of Philippians 2 as a leadership model, so hopefully we are on the verge of something indeed.  Here we find a pattern, or model of Christian leadership and community.  It is the narrative of Christ, of the incarnation, of the gospel.  And if leaders do not practice it, then the community will not follow it, and then the lost will not see it, and they will not get it even when they hear it.

Philippians 2:5-11

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had:

6 Who, although being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a human being, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest placeand gave him the name that is above every name,10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,in heaven and on earth and under the earth,11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

There is a three part pattern to this passage.  It is the pattern of although—did not—but. Although. Christ has the very status, or being, of God, he did not take advantage of his status and use it selfishly.  But rather humbled himself in his incarnation (“being made in human likeness”) and crucifixion (“by becoming obedient to death–even death on a cross”).  And the result is that God works, God exalts, God saves in Christ.  This hymn to Christ reveals the pattern of our lives, the pattern by which we related with one another.  It is the pattern by which we learn the death of leadership.

Indeed, the apostle Paul who uses this hymn to exhort the Philippians to Christ-likeness.  But Paul did not leave them without an example, but rather understood and practiced his own apostolic ministry according to this same narrative pattern.  In 1 Corinthians 9 Paul speaks about the rights of an apostle to receive funds for their ministries.  But Paul did not exercise this right, but worked to pay his own way.  And he also claims that while he has the right of freedom in all things, he does not exercise this right selfishly, but rather became a slave of all for the sake of the gospel.  What does that sound like?  It sounds exactly like Christ in the Philippians Hymn.  And even within the very contentious issue of slavery Paul did not lay down the apostolic hammer on Philemon so that he would release Onesimus.  But instead he acted in love toward Philemon, seeking his consent on the matter.  This, then, is the death of leadership that Paul points us toward when he speaks of Christ, a cruciform leadership that lays down it rights and its status in love and becomes a servant to all.

At Life on the Vine

Because of this pattern in Christ I believe missional leadership must nurture new structures, new processes, and new people who will lead according to Christ’s example.  At Life on the Vine we try to live this out.

For us, leadership at the highest level is structured as a co-pastorate.  There is no ‘senior’ or ‘lead’ pastor where the buck finally stops, where the decisions are finally made, where final authority resides.  While our community was planted by one person, David Fitch, he very quickly brought me on as a co-pastor.  And then later we brought on a third co-pastor to balance out the giftings among us.  We did this in order to spread out the ministry, offer opportunities for younger leaders to grow, but most importantly, as a structured model of shared leadership.  As co-pastors we had to practice the pattern of although—did not—but.  Although we were called as pastors and therefore elevated by a certain authority, we did not, we could not practice unilateral power, but mutually submitted to one another as we lead the community.  This was embedded in our pastor structure because Christ-like leadership is not merely servant leadership.  It does not function on top but then not act like it.  Rather we have given up having a ‘lead’ anything at all by creating an alternative structure.

In addition to having a structure of co-leadership, we practice various processes of communal discernment that hand leadership to the entire community, or parts of the community.  For example, according to the same pattern, although all the pastors were in complete agreement regarding how we should move forward concern the issue of women in church leadership, and we had the authority of make a decision, we did not lead from position and privilege.  But instead we submitted to a year long process where different members of the community presented biblical perspectives on the issue, culminating in a 2-month long council to discern the issue.  In another case, an issue with someone on our shepherd board, the pastors were again in complete agreement in how to proceed, but the person involved was not receiving things particularly well.  So we brought the whole issue to our shepherd for their discernment, trusting that Christ would lead through this process and that all involved would both be formed into Christ-like character and that the issue would be resolved not through the imposition of a position, but through the constant relational work of the Spirit opened by practicing the death of leadership.

And while these types of processes are bolstered by a structure of co-leadership, it really comes down practicing the death of leadership on a personal level.  This is living without having to justify yourself, without having to constantly defend yourself to others.  It means not needing everyone to always understand you.  In the midst of arguments it means just sticking to the issues without getting personal or taking things personally.  It involves actively creating spaces for other to flourish while not receiving any credit and minimal appreciation.  It means giving over tasks and responsibilities that you really enjoy to someone else so they can grow.  It means submitting to others in the little things even when you have a sense they are wrong, and then only forcing issues when it is essential for the group to move forward.  In all these ways following Christ through the death of leadership entails overcoming personal insecurity and immaturity, so that one can rest in the work of Christ in the community rather than seeking to manage and control everything that is going on.

Now, you might be thinking that every Christian leader should exhibit these characteristics, the characteristics of the fruit of the Spirit.  Of course!  But it is much easier to hide immaturity and insecurity, to mask a lack of the Spirit’s work in your life in a hierarchical leadership structure which does not demand processes of communal discernment.  When someone knows exactly who is their superior and who is under them, then they know exactly how to get whatever “ego” fix they need, whether it is seeking approval or asserting authority, even while masking it as servant leadership, even while they excelling in various ministry results.  It is for these reasons that missional leadership, under the sign of the Cross, must nurture new structures, new processes, and new people who live, lead, and die, laying down their rights and status in love and becoming a servants to all.

Missional Leadership

So, then, how is the death of leadership also missional leadership?  First, the structure of co-leadership, the processes of communal discernment, and the practice of personal cruciformity are all ways of saying the same thing, namely, that this community is marked by the gospel, by Christ-likeness.  As I said before, if leaders do not it, then the community will not do it, and then the lost will not see it, and they will not get it even when they hear it.  Second, communities marked by the death of leadership will always be marked my brokenness growing into life.  When you lead this way it is impossible to put leaders on a pedestal, which opens the door for everyone to lead out of brokenness and into life.  When everyone is emptying themselves as Christ did, it has the strange effect of raising everyone up as they are deployed in creative expressions of the gospel.  Lastly, this is missional leadership, at least for us, because God moves in mysterious ways.  It is funny.  There are people in our congregation who literally say time and again to me, “I don’t know why I stay at Life on the Vine.  I don’t fit here, I’m not even sure that I like it hear, and I don’t like they way you do things.”  But it is those exact people whom God has used to bring others to Christ, and those people feel at home with us.  Isn’t that weird?  One man told me two years ago that he was discerning leaving our community.  But he had started a letter writing friendship with a man who was in prison for breaking into our sanctuary.  He eventually received Christ and was baptized on Easter Sunday.  There are at least two other stories I could share about people who really are upset with the leaders at Life on the Vine, but God is using them to bring people to Christ and then those people are finding a place among us.  I believe it is because the leaders at Life on the Vine have embraced a missional leadership of the cross, and out of that death the Father is exalting Christ and bringing others to life.

Conclusion

Some much more could be said, but my hope is that the next big thing the church is on the verge of will be the death of leadership as an expression of the gospel, as living in Christ-likeness, as a bearing the cross, not only personally, but structurally and procedurally.

This kind of leadership is certainly not from the top-down as in a hierarchy, nor is it merely from the bottom up, as some form of leaderless organization, nor is it a leading from the front as those who have gone before, as some missional books describe it.  But it is leading from below while running forward, as if one were trying to fly a kite when there is just not enough wind.  You are down on the ground, down below, yet moving forward, for the whole purpose of the church rising up on the breath of the Spirit, roaring high.  And people don’t watch the person holding the string, they watch the kite in its glory, rising to new life and love, and at the center of its frame it bears the sign of the cross.

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Why I'm Going Back to the Ecclesia National Gathering / Bill Cummings

Bill Cummings is the director of Lemonade International, a nonprofit organization based in Raleigh, NC. Educating and empowering people in the largest urban slum in Central America – La Limonada in Guatemala City. http://www.lemonadeinternational.org

Last year (2010) was my first Ecclesia Network National Gathering. It was different than any other church/ministry/leadership conference I had ever been to. In a good way.I couldn’t begin to count or even recall all the conferences I have been to over the years. It’s almost embarrassing to think of all the money spent on sitting among hundreds (and in many cases thousands) of peers from all over the country who gathered in mostly non-relational settings to listen to elite-level leaders who had achieved more “success” in ministry than most in the room could ever imagine.

I know a lot of pastors who attend 3-4 of these conferences a year. They are so engaged in leading their local churches and attending conferences to learn to lead better that I often wonder if they understand much of real life outside of the context of leading a local church.

After years of doing that myself I was “conferenced out”. It had been a few years since I attended a conference. But at the invitation of Todd Hiestand, I decided to give the Ecclesia Network National Gathering a shot. Todd told me it was different. He said it was real, relational and relevant (he sounded like Rick Warren when he said it though… using the three “Rs” and all).

Even after Todd’s invitation I was reluctant to attend because I’m not currently local church leader nor a church planter. That was my past life. I now lead a nonprofit organization called Lemonade International (@lemonadeintl on twitter) that serves people living in an urban slum community in Guatemala City. I wasn’t sure how the Ecclesia Network gathering would fit in the context of what I do. But Todd assured me that it would be a great fit. He was right. And I wasn’t disappointed.

Here are some things that stood out to me:

  • The setting for the conference was so casual and the facilitators and speakers were regular people, who shared rich insights and honest challenges from their life and ministry journey.
  • There was a deep sense of community among the attendees. So many spoke of it feeling like a family reunion. For me it felt like a new family I was in the process of being adopted into.
  • Every speaker shared about challenges they had experienced or were experiencing at the time. None of them came across as self-proclaimed experts who had it all figured out and were there so we could figure it out too.
  • The conversations and connections made outside of the official sessions were just as meaningful, if not more at times, than what happened during the scheduled time.
  • The attendees and speakers were passionate about following Jesus and leading others to follow him in the context of community.
  • It was clear that there were very different theological positions represented by the members of the network, but it was also clear that the relationships the members have and their commitment to live and lead as followers of Jesus run much deeper than those positions.

Now don’t get me wrong. I am really excited that John Perkins will be a featured speaker at this year’s National Gathering, but I had made my decision to return long before I learned that. I am returning this year because I am looking forward to strengthening relationships, learning from peers and from those who’ve walked this path longer than I have, and sharing in the passion of God’s call for the church to function as centers of reconciliation.I hope to see you at the gathering.

You can find more information and register for the national gathering here.

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Why I'm Going to the National Gathering – Ben Sternke

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.