Ben Sternke

Field notes on life and mission with God after Christendom

ecclesia network

2011 Ecclesia National Gathering

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The church we are planting is part of the Ecclesia Network, a relational network of missional churches, leaders, and networks. As in years past, we’re hosting our National Gathering near Washington D.C. Here are my reflections on last year’s gathering.

The theme this year is Spiritual Formation in Missional Congregations. Here are some of the details.

DATES
February 23rd – 25th

FOCUS
A More Missional Approach in our ecclesiology must be intrinsically related to the spiritual formation of our congregations. Forming a group of people into a missionary community requires certain spiritual practices and theological convictions that are distinguishable from other modes of church. In addition, as leaders of these communities, we must have a new vision for our own personal transformation.

This year, we are joined by Dr. Todd Hunter. Todd has years of experience in the area of mission & spiritual formation and is currently a Bishop within the western region of the Anglican Mission in America. We are also delighted to have Dr. Marykate Morse, professor of leadership and spiritual formation at George Fox University with us. Marykate is the author of Making Room for Leadership: Power, Space and Influence, and brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in equipping leaders in the area of spiritual formation. Corey Widmer and Don Coleman, co-pastors of East End Fellowship will also join us. Together, they are pursuing missional formation in an intensely urban, multi-cultural community, within in the context of justice & racial reconciliation.

Finally, there will be substantial opportunity to hear from one another and to learn more about the Ecclesia Network. This gathering is open to all and as always, will be intentionally limited in number, so register now.

UNconference in Denver

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The church I am planting is part of the Ecclesia Network, which is hosting an “unconference” in Denver June 11-12. If you’re able to go, I’m sure it will be a good time. Here are the details.

Denver 2010 Unconference

DATE
Friday, June 11 – 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Saturday, June 12 – 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

PLACE
Bonnie Brae Church, Denver CO

HOST
The Ecclesia Network

COST
Free

RSVP
Please RSVP for this event on Facebook, so we have a sense of who is coming. Invite your friends through facebook and other means, especially those living in the Denver area.

NATURE OF EVENT
We will be thinking imaginatively about the future of the church with others in an open-source gift economy way. The next BIG idea is about giving time to interact about innovative ways to partner with God in the renewal of all things. UNconference is about freely sharing creative ideas with one another without putting anyone on a pedestal. It is more participant oriented than personality driven. You will hear from practitioners who are on the front lines. There is also no cost, because people are sharing their gifts and knowledge freely.

TOPIC
During our short time together, there will be 14 innovative speakers from 14 different churches each sharing for 14-minutes on innovative ways to think and live missionally. More details on the speakers and topics to come!

Ecclesia’s Church Planter Training

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Last year, when I was starting to seriously consider planting a church, I was trying to find a way to get some training for the kind of church I felt I wanted to plant. It seemed to me a lot of church planter training “boot camps” were high on testosterone and bravado, but didn’t have a lot to say to someone like me, who wanted to plant a more “organic” natural-growth kind of church.

Through a friend (Dave Fitch) I found out about the Ecclesia Network, which ended up being a great fit for our church plant to associate with. After a few conversations with Chris Backert and JR Woodward (who mostly coordinate the network), I raised some money and attended their church planter training, which they call ??????? [aggelos – apparently my blogging engine can’t do the Greek letters?], which is a transliterated Greek word, pronounced like “angle awes”, meaning “one who is sent, a messenger from God”. I’m not sure why they actually spell it in Greek, incidentally. Makes it difficult for people to talk and blog about it. Maybe they should “re-brand” next year 😉

Anyway, our worship leader and I went to the training, and found it to be really helpful. Some of the great things about it:

  • A great balance between theological and practical training,
  • Because everyone stays in the same place (including the equippers/teachers), there was plenty of time to talk informally at lunch, in the evenings, etc.
  • Takes place in an ecumenical monastery where you participate in their prayer rhythms during the day.
  • There weren’t hundreds of people there, more like 20.
  • Multiple voices were heard throughout the week. There was no “guru.”

This year’s training takes place May 17-21. Equippers this year include Jon Tyson, Dave Fitch, Bob Hyatt, JR Woodward, JR Briggs, Winn Collier, and Brian Hopper. I’ve met all of them, and I can tell you they are smart and experienced as well as humble and approachable. These are quality people.

If you are interested in church planting or have recently planted a church, I highly recommend it. Download the brochure here, and get all the info on the Ecclesia site here.

Reflections on the Ecclesia National Gathering

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Last week I had the privilege to attend the Ecclesia Network‘s National Gathering near Washington, D.C., along with around 200 others. It was a really rich and meaningful time; so much so that I have had some difficulty putting it into words. I don’t think that I can adequately “summarize” the gathering in one post, and it was so much more than information transfer, so I imagine that the implications of the gathering will continue to percolate and come out later as blog posts in the future.

One of the most precious aspects of being at this gathering was connecting and re-connecting with amazing, beautiful people who are proclaiming the gospel, making disciples of Jesus, and planting churches all over. Since we got connected with the network nine months ago, many of these people are becoming great friends and mentors in ministry for me. I count it an honor and privilege to be on this journey with the others in Ecclesia. These are quality people who are living it out. If you’re a church planter (or thinking about planting a church), consider Ecclesia. Contact me and I can get you connected with the right people.

So… a little bit about the gathering itself.

The main presenters were Dallas Willard and Bob and Mary Hopkins (Todd Hunter was unable to come for understandable reasons). Willard’s writing and speaking have been a huge influence on me. His book The Divine Conspiracy literally changed everything for me when I read it in 1998, so it was a tremendous privilege to be able to hear from him “up close” and be able to engage in some dialogue (one of the advantages of keeping the size of the conference under 200 people). I had never heard of Bob and Mary Hopkins, but apparently they have been on the cutting edge of missional church and European church planting for over 30 years. The Willard/Hopkins combo brought a unique convergence of the theological and the practical that reflects one of my favorite values of the Ecclesia Network as a whole.

I will offer three very general themes that impacted me at this gathering, and will likely expand on these and tease out implications in future posts.

1. Making disciples of Jesus is the key to everything

At one point Dallas said, “The only hope for the world is that Christians become disciples of Jesus Christ.” This is one of the main themes of everything Dallas says, and it’s not really “new” for me, but it is amazing how easy it is to get distracted from it when working in and with the church. “We fuss over so many things in the church that just don’t matter,” Dallas said. I have found that to be sadly true for me, and I am repenting.

You can have the most brilliant programs/classes/liturgy, but if people are participating in those things as consumers, they are completely useless. The means of discipleship only make a difference if they are engaged in by people who have a compelling vision of what it looks like to follow Jesus and an adequate intention to actually learn to do the things Jesus said to do. I realized I need to spend less time crafting the means of discipleship and more time casting a compelling vision of life in the kingdom and calling people to an intentional life of following Jesus, not just attending services, participating in programs, and attending classes.

2. The power of the Spirit is not optional

Of course it’s not, most Christians would say. But I think it’s mostly lip-service. We do so much “risk management” in the Christian life, engaging in only what we think we can accomplish in our own strength. What’s scary is that there’s plenty of good, religious activity we can engage in without needing to depend on the Spirit at all. The only way to learn to rely on the Spirit in the kingdom is by doing something you cannot do in your own strength. “Stretch out your hand,” Jesus said. “Take up your mat and walk.” Impossible! Yet they did it through the power of the Spirit. “Do what you can’t do,” Dallas said, “and you’ll find you can, because God was with you.”

I am learning to depend less on my preparation, my natural gifts and abilities, and more on the Spirit, who alone can accomplish the really good stuff. He’s the one who saves, transforms, heals, teaches, guides, blesses. I am learning how to leave room for the Spirit in ministry, which is a scary and exhilarating experience. I also believe that living in the power of the Spirit will look a lot different than it has in the recent past.

3. God moves outside the boundaries of the expected

Bob and Mary Hopkins shared story after story of God moving in such unexpected and surprising ways that I almost laughed out loud several times. Through the work of grassroots missional communities in Europe, they are seeing the gospel reach into very “difficult” places. There were stories of all kinds of people starting to follow Jesus, from Iranian Muslims to Slovakian gypsies.

I have been asking God to expand my missional imagination, to pray and work toward the good news of Jesus running amok in my context, outside the “boundaries” I typically (unknowingly) put on the Spirit.

There were also many presentations given by people within Ecclesia that were marvelously helpful and formative. I loved that we got to hear from so many thoughtful and faithful practitioners (men and women – another aspect of Ecclesia I love, that I’ll need to blog on later).

Also, here are a few others who have posted reflections from the gathering:

A Practical and Responsible Way to Help Haiti

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Ever since the earthquake in Haiti, we’ve been trying to discern how our little community can help. Tragedies like this bring out the best in people, but they also provide fertile ground for scam artists to capitalize on people’s sympathy and desire to help. Fear of being taken advantage of can cause inaction.

So it’s great to be networked with others who are in uniquely strategic positions to get on-the-ground information and be of real help. Through JR Woodward, I found out about that Cornerstone Community Church is in such a position. They’re part of the Ecclesia Network, and have been working in the Dominican Republic for many years (which shares the island with Haiti). Through their organization Del Camino Connection, they’ve established a two-phase plan to provide cost-effective and responsible assistance and relief to Haiti.

Phase one involves funneling locally purchased relief supplies through churches, ministry partners and community-based organizations connected to the coalition in Haiti.  The immediate request from our partners is cash donations so that we can purchase supplies in Dominican cities along the border with Haiti.  From previous experience, we have learned that containers sent from abroad take up precious time in transport, customs processing, and transport to the emergency site.

Phase two of the plan will draw from the assessment and mapping currently happening in Haiti.  Once emergency processes are met and condition are stabilized, we will be requesting in-kind contributions.

We are encouraging our community to give to their Haiti Disaster Relief Fund, knowing that it is going to meet needs wisely. You can give online right now, or bring a special offering to our worship gathering tonight which will go directly to this fund.