Equipper Blog
From Somewhere To Everywhere And Back Again: An Advent – Pentecost Reflection
by: Chris Backert, Ecclesia Network Director Many of my friends within Ecclesia would know that, at best, I am a “low-church” liturgist. A few years ago, most of the rigidity of the liturgical calendar was more binding than loosing to me – both as a pastor and as a Christian. While I certainly still lean [...]
Posted in Equipper Blog → Missional
God is Still Redeeming My Life
This post was written by a member of Life on the Vine, an Ecclesia congregation in suburban Chicago. On October 30, 2004, I found out that my mom had died earlier that morning. At seven years old that put me into a pit of grief; which I’ve struggled with for the past eight years. I [...]
Posted in Ecclesia People → Equipper Blog
Ecclesia Thinks and Links: Issue 2
Issue #2 Ecclesia Thinks and Links is a monthly publication of The Ecclesia Network that highlights articles, blog posts and publications from members and friends of the Network. A Model for Discernment in the Missional Church Context Part I, Part II and Part III by Bob Hyatt In this three-part article Bob lays out a model for discernment. In [...]
Posted in Equipper Blog → Thinks and Links
Ecclesia Thinks and Links: Issue 1
Welcome to a new publication of the Ecclesia Network: Ecclesia Thinks & Links. What follows is a collection of some recent articles, blog posts and news from people within and outside the network. As I’ve been collecting links over the past few weeks, I was reminded that we have some amazing voices that are part of our community. [...]
Posted in Equipper Blog → Thinks and Links
Leadership Development: From Program to People
By Chris Backert; Ecclesia Director & Organizational Architect The Changing Nature of Leadership Development in Emerging Networks In many established associations, there have been programs put in place for leadership development among both congregations and clergy. As with several of these other practices, leadership development was carried out through the centralized office of the denomination, [...]
Posted in Equipper Blog → Leadership
Church Coaching: From Expert to Co-Laborer
By Chris Backert; Ecclesia Director & Organizational Architect Within established church associations, the trans-local leadership has historically been viewed as experts in their particular areas of ministry. Whether it was music, Christian education, or family ministry, those who ended up in denominational (i.e. network) work were staff that had excelled in their area of ministry [...]
Posted in Equipper Blog → Leadership
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 [...]
Posted in Equipper Blog
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 [...]
Posted in Equipper Blog
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 [...]
Posted in Equipper Blog
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 [...]
Posted in Equipper Blog → Leadership