The Ecclesia Network

a missional church network

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Ecclesia Gathering 2016 Dates & New Location Announced

Ecclesia Gathering 2016
Dates & New Location Announced

After a significant time together a few weeks ago, we are eager to gather the Ecclesia family and friends together again! It’s still a long way away, but it won’t be a whole year!

Our next network-wide gathering will take place from March 9-11th at Eastpoint Church in Newark, Delaware. Eastpoint is conveniently located just of I-95 and nearby the University of Delaware. It is also only a few miles of the metro line from the Philadelphia International Airport (we will work to arrange pick-ups).

This new location represents an important “change of seasons” within Ecclesia. We are moving from a fledgling network of start-up congregations that need to rent space from retreat centers to a maturing network with a strong mixture of new congregations and increasingly seasoned churches. Not only does this give us some additional freedom in what we can do during our time together, but it also will help reduce the costs of meeting with one another. Lock the dates on your calendar today!

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Ecclesia Gathering 2016 Dates & New Location Announced

Ecclesia Gathering 2016
Dates & New Location Announced

After a significant time together a few weeks ago, we are eager to gather the Ecclesia family and friends together again! It’s still a long way away, but it won’t be a whole year!

Our next network-wide gathering will take place from March 9-11th at Eastpoint Church in Newark, Delaware. Eastpoint is conveniently located just of I-95 and nearby the University of Delaware. It is also only a few miles of the metro line from the Philadelphia International Airport (we will work to arrange pick-ups).

This new location represents an important “change of seasons” within Ecclesia. We are moving from a fledgling network of start-up congregations that need to rent space from retreat centers to a maturing network with a strong mixture of new congregations and increasingly seasoned churches. Not only does this give us some additional freedom in what we can do during our time together, but it also will help reduce the costs of meeting with one another. Lock the dates on your calendar today!

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Reflections on the Missio/Ecclesia Gathering from J.R. Briggs

Over the past few weeks many people have asked me, “So, how was Missio Alliance and your time with the Ecclesia Network in Alexandria?” Before I can respond, I always catch myself smiling. Immediately I am filled with gratitude for the relationships, the support structure, the stories, the prayers and the laughter with friends new and old. 

And then I tell people about it…

I tell people that I love being with others where we’re absolutely sure that we are not competitors but teammates in kingdom mission in various contexts and expressions around the country. 

I tell people that it’s one of the only places in my life where I can hang out with pastors for three full days and nobody is trying to impress me and where nobody asks about congregation size even though we have small churches and large churches.

I tell people that I learned, laughed, cried, met God, listened to – and was listened to – by other kingdom leaders – and how affirming that is for me and my soul. I tell them it feels like a family reunion of sorts. (It’s not just talking about being #TrulyHuman – it’s actually experiencing it firsthand). 

I tell people that I love bringing leaders from our church with us to experience this tribe together – and for them to say, “Wow, I’m so glad we are a part of this network.” 

I tell people that the network is far from perfect and full of imperfections, shortcomings and areas of significant improvement – which makes it all the more relatable to me, my leadership and our church context. 

I tell people about the conversations with other pastors marked me in indelible ways – conversations late at night back at the hotel or walking around town or early the next morning over bacon, eggs and toast. 

I tell people that Ecclesia started a new award this year, the Perseverance Award, not to reward the largest, the most successful or fastest growing church in our network, but to honor planters and pastors who have been faithful, stuck with it and continued to serve Jesus in their context when things we lonely and scary and uncertain and difficult. Then I tell them about the standing ovation and the hugs that followed each recipient being announced. 

I tell people about those leaders who joined us for the first time to learn about and observe who we are – and how many of them told me it felt refreshing and like it felt “like home” to them. 

I tell people it’s the high water mark of the year for me relationally and emotionally with kindred spirits. 

And I tell people that I always drive home reflecting and thinking, This is just another reminder why I am so thankful that our church is a part of the Ecclesia Network.

– J.R. Briggs, Director of Leadership and Congregational Formation

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June Update from Director Chris Backert

From the Director…

Sometimes I have heard people ask “what is Ecclesia?”  When some of my friends around the room are in a sarcastic mode (which is so rare),  I’ve heard them say – “We are Chris’s experiment for his doctoral dissertation”.  There is some truth to that, but there are certainly things in that dissertation that I still haven’t been able to convince people to do yet!  I’m not giving up though.

The truth is, I had Ecclesia in my mind when I started working on my dissertation, but like many who have tread those waters, I was struggling to figure out a way to frame my intentions.  Then, during a Sabbath sort of day, I decided to read through the Acts of the Apostles in one sitting – something I haven’t done before or since.  As I read, what became clear to me was that the narrative of acts was a story about the birth of a network or a story about the birth of a fellowship of churches.  That revelation became even more clear to me once I began to delve deeper into the dynamics of how those first churches understood themselves, especially in relationship to the wider church and its’ leaders.
Now, I had never read Acts this way before.  I had always read it (as a modern, western, individual) as a story about the birth of multiple, independent churches (after all, I was raised a Baptist) or the birth of the BIG C “church” universal (after all, I was first baptized a Catholic).  I had not seen it as the development of a fellowship or network of churches.  Yet, if someone was to take those early churches – change their name to Antioch Community Church or the City Church of Rome or New Ephesus Church or Lycus Valley Church – and then described the things they did together – the ways they related to each other – how some of them got started – the ways they shared leadership among each other – we would look at them and call them a network or association.
The bigger question as I have camped in this framework for several years, both theologically and practically, is this “What was Jesus doing through that network or fellowship of churches?”
There are many answers that we could likely give because Jesus intends to do a lot through the church.   Yet, there is a particular angle that I’ve been thinking about for the last several months because I think it’s a timely parallel to our day.  One of the narratives I believe you can trace through the book of Acts would be a storyline like this …. it is a story about a fellowship of churches that are being used (and surprised) by the power of the in-breaking Spirit – to give witness to the kingdom of the resurrected Christ – so that the door could be opened to a new era of mission. This was the purpose of this new fellowship then, and possibly, of fellowships like ours today.
-Chris Backert
(Look for the August Ecclesia Update for Part II)