June 2014 News
Bob Hyatt
June 19, 2014

 

Mark Moore Joins Ecclesia Staff as Director of Coaching & Missional Formation!

Mark_Headshot I am excited to share with all of you that Mark Moore, founding pastor of Providence Community Church ( providencecommunity.com ) in Dallas, TX will join the staff of the Ecclesia beginning May 1st.  Mark will be assuming a newly created role as Director of Coaching & Missional Formation. In this role Mark will be responsible for helping to oversee the process of coaching within the network.  He will also be working to strengthen the path that new planters move through when they want to start a new congregation within our network.  In addition, he will work with our overall team to care for all the leaders within our family while giving particular attention to networking and developing Ecclesia in the western half of the US.

In addition to his role at Providence, Mark also serves on the faculty of The Leadership Institute ( spiritualleadership.com ), where he is involved in training leaders through the integration of spiritual formation and leadership development.  His greatest passion is the intersection of spiritual formation, New Testament scholarship, and on the ground missional practice. Some of his favorite authors are N.T. Wright, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Greg Boyd, Robert Webber, and Henri Nouwen.

An important part of Mark’s story is that he served on the board of Acts 29 in another life. In that role he helped oversee Acts 29 Europe, worked with training coaches and assessors, and helped to guide several new church starts.  While Mark’s theoloical dispositions have changed since those days, he brings this experience into his work with Ecclesia.

Cyd Holsclaw, one of the pastors at Life on the Vine in Chicago and an Ecclesia board member, had this to say, “ I appreciate the way Mark thinks and talks about spiritual formation being the foundation of any church planting training, assessment, or coaching.  He is a humble, strategic, and extremely motivated leader and I think he would be a fantastic addition to the Ecclesia team.”

Mark and his wife, Lezlie, have a nineteen year old daughter (Logan), and two sons ages sixteen and ten (Cole and Carson).

Fall Coaches Training Dates Announced

September 30 & October 1 @ Princeton Seminary

Coaching is a significant tool for pastors and Christian leaders that enables conversations to be focused, effective and fruitful for the benefit of the kingdom of God. Coaching can make all the difference for leaders and churches desiring to be on mission together.

The Ecclesia Network is hosting a Coach Training Event for missional leaders desiring to grow in the heart and skill of coaching.

If you have questions or need additional information contact Bob Hyatt at bob.hyatt@ecclesianet.org or J.R. Briggs at  jrbriggs@ecclesianet.org .

Cost:

  • Ecclesia Coaching Registration w/out Lodging ($199.00) – Includes Lunch on Tuesday and Breakfast and Lunch on Wednesday
  • Ecclesia Registration w/ Lodging ($249.00) – Includes Lunch on Tuesday and Breakfast and Lunch on Wednesday
  • Non-Ecclesia Registration w/out Lodging ($249.00) – Includes Lunch on Tuesday and Breakfast and Lunch on Wednesday
  • Non Ecclesia Registration w/ Lodging ($329.00) – Includes Lunch on Tuesday and Breakfast and Lunch on Wednesday

*cost includes lunch on Tuesday and breakfast and lunch on Wednesday

– See more at:  https://ecclesianet.org/event/ecclesia-coaches-training/

Welcome to The Table – A New Online Resource For Ecclesia Churches & Leaders

The Ecclesia Network has recently rolled out an online platform called The Table that we hope will help facilitate connection and the sharing of resources amongst our Ecclesia churches.

You can find it/log on at http://ecclesianet.tableproject.org .

Jump on, join or start some groups and let the sharing begin! A good place to start might be the general resources group where you will find others posting the resources they have developed in their communities and where you can do the same. Also- encourage the rest of your staff to join in as well!

A Lenten Tale from Worth & Beth Wheeler @ Boise Mustard Seed

Mary is a newcomer to our group as of last late-October. She’s a recent widow (about 2-3 years ago) who spent all of last year looking for a church community that she could call home. She’s one of the few people who found us online. As she gradually grafted into our community, she told me she felt like we were calling her to do things that were hard, but that she felt like part of the family immediately and really enjoyed and looked forward to spending time with us. However, she was also looking for a community with more people her age. We’re fairly diverse age-wise, with people in our crew that are in their 40s, 50s and 60s, but the numbers of those people aren’t the largest. We sat down for coffee in January and she told me a lot more about her life story and why she felt like she wanted to look at some other churches. After listening to her for quite some time, I asked her only a few questions of challenge and discipleship, and about how she felt like part of the family at Boise Mustard Seed. She took those questions seriously. A few days later I received an emotional email from her telling me about the significance of our conversation, a few other conversations with other friends and personal meditation readings over the interim days and how through all of this she perceived God speaking to her. She ended the letter by saying: “I’m all in!” And she has been. As we’ve continued the journey, she was able to bring particular insight, as a former Catholic, to our church family’s emphasis on spiritual formation during Lent. She is preaching this Sunday at our worship gathering about personal reflections and lessons learned during Lent this year, and how her understanding of Lent has changed over the years. We are extremely blessed to have Mary join the church family.

A Good Friday Story From Geoff Holsclaw @ Life on the Vine 

“I’m digging this God stuff”, is a comment I (Geoff) often hear from my friend.  He’s been sober for 30 years, but only when we started hanging out last year did he start learning that God wanted to be a part of his entire life, not just his sobriety.  Now he’s praying for more than staying dry, but for a job, for the people in his life that drive him crazy, and for peace.  His AA friends  have noticed that he is a lot calmer and less angry.  My friend and I get together and talk about God and life and his relationships.  In typical church talk, I would say he is “On fire”.  He has started reading his Bible and is becoming more familiar with Jesus and everything he did.

Most amazing of all, during our Good Friday service (which for us goes through the last 7 statements of Jesus from the Mount of Olives to his death on the Cross), my friend said, “At the beginning of the service I just felt something come into me. It was good.”  Yes, it was a Good Friday, that by His wounds we have been healed.

Easter Soul by Bob Hyatt @ Evergreen Community 

This past Easter at Evergreen Community in Portland we had the privilege of holding our first ever Easter Baptism!  We borrowed a baptismal from another local community and set it up on the sidewalk outside of the Pub in which we meet.

We baptized Devin, a young woman who came to our community with no church background to speak of. It’s been wonderful to see her journey from someone who was interested to someone who is committed to following Jesus with her whole life.

Evergreen has a special niche in connecting with people who have left church or faith and are just now coming back, but as joyful as that is for us, one of the things we love most in community is seeing the lives of those who know nothing of Jesus transformed as they encounter Him in our community!

 

By Bob Hyatt September 15, 2025
A New Ecclesia Network Benefit! 
By By Jim Pace September 15, 2025
In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s shooting, social media has been filled with perspectives, as is typically the case. I am reluctant to add mine as there seems to be no lack one way or the other. To be clear, this is not just about Charlie Kirk, this is about violence across the board. I did not feel led to write this because it was Charlie Kirk specifically, but rather another in a long and winding line of acts of violence, that my ministering at Va. Tech gives me a bit of personal experience with. But as I have just finished teaching two classes on Christian Ethics, and as I was encountering again the spread of responses from my Christian sisters and brothers, I felt led to look at this event through that lens. Ethics, at its base, seeks to answer the question, “What is better or worse? Good or bad?” As a follower of Jesus, this is what seems right to me… 1. We never celebrate harm. Whatever our disagreements, rejoicing at a shooting violates the bedrock claim that every person bears the imago Dei (Gen 1:27). Scripture is explicit: “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls” (Prov 24:17); “Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:44); “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom 12:21). I don’t love blasting verses like this, but you cannot get away from them if you are reading the scriptures. 2. Moral responsibility sits with the shooter—full stop . Saying “his rhetoric got him shot” smuggles in a just-world logic that excuses violence. As a contextual theologian, I have an enormous amount of respect for the impact our various narratives have in shaping our understandings of the world around us. They are inescapable. But that is not what I am talking about here. Ideas can be wrong, harmful, or worth opposing vigorously, but vigilante ‘payback’ is never a Christian category. My primary gig is that of a consultant for churches and non-profits. Today, in my meetings and among friends, I have heard some variation of “He got what he deserved,” and “I vote for some very public justice for the shooter.” Both of these views speak of revenge; the follower of Jesus is called to lay these down as our Messiah did. Not asked to, told to. 3. Grief and outrage about gun violence are legitimate; schadenfreude is not . Channel the pain toward nonviolent, concrete action (policy advocacy, community intervention, survivor support), not dehumanization. Here are four thinkers who have had a profound impact on the Christian ethic I try to work out in this world. As I share them, three things are worthy of mention. One, I certainly do not claim to follow their guidance perfectly, and at times I do not even do it well, but they have all given me what seems like a Jesus-centered and faith-filled direction to move in. Second, I do not claim to speak for them in this particular matter; I am merely showing how my ethical lens has been formed. Third, clearly I am not dealing with all the components of our response to these types of violence, this is not a comprehensive treatment, merely the reflections in the moment. Stanley Hauerwas : “Christian nonviolence is not a strategy to rid the world of violence.” It’s part of following Jesus, not a tactic we drop when it’s inconvenient. Stanley Hauerwas, Walking with God in a Fragile World, by James Langford, editor, Leroy S. Rouner, editor N. T. Wright : “The call of the gospel is for the church to implement the victory of God in the world through suffering love.” Simply Good News: Why the Gospel Is News and What Makes It Good. In other words, we answer evil without mirroring it. David Fitch : Our culture runs on an “enemy-making” dynamic; even “the political rally… depends on the making of an enemy. Don’t let that train your soul.” The Church of Us vs. Them. Sarah Coakley : Contemplation forms resistance, not passivity. For Coakley, sustained prayer trains perception and courage so Christians can resist abuse and give voice against violence (it’s not quietism). “Contemplation, if it is working aright, is precisely that which gives courage to resist abuse, to give voice against violence.” Sarah Coakley, God, Sexuality, and the Self. Coakley would say that far too often we react before we reflect. This is the problem that Fitch is getting at in much of his writing, that our culture actually runs on antagonisms, the conflict between us. We need to find a better way.