Welcome Dalach's and Long's to the Ecclesia
Bob Hyatt
Jul 02, 2012

Welcome Luke and Linda Dalach to the Ecclesia Network!

Hi Ecclesia family. My family and a few friends are at the very beginning stages of starting a network of missional communities in Northwest Indiana. Our little section of Indiana is part of Chicago’s culture….we’re Bears and Sox/Cubs fans and get all Chicago media. Illinois forgets we exist, Indiana would like to send us to Illinois and we’re one of the most racially segregated parts of the country per capita. But God has great plans for our Region!

My wife and I spent 12 years starting commuter college ministries with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in Northwest Indiana. We grew up in the area and have always had a heart to see God’s kingdom come, especially among the next generations and among folks who’d usually not step foot in a church building. After a season on campus, we started to sense that God was calling us to go after the “missing generations” post-college. Last September we moved to Crown Point, the county seat. In December we transitioned off IV staff and now we’re taking baby steps to pursue this next vision.

We believe that Jesus and his good news of the kingdom are too good to sit back and watch as many of the next generation live their lives apart from God’s family. We want to make disciples of Jesus among the “missing generations” who become a network of missional communities. We want to see apprentices of Jesus everywhere.  Almost all of our IVCF supporters were excited about our vision, so we are in a season of rebuilding a support team and taking small steps in gathering a first missional community. This fairly strange, slower season is giving us a chance to really listen to and learn about our new city and network to find the folks God will bring to be a first “missionary community.”

That’s a little about us and our vision. We’re excited to be a part of a group of mission focused churches and leaders like Ecclesia and we’re excited for what the Spirit of God is bubbling up all over in our country.

 

Welcome Bryan and Molly Long to the Ecclesia Network

Hi, I’m Bryan Long and my wife Molly and I live on the North Shore of Boston. Our heads are spinning a bit in the midst of some big changes in our life. I graduated seminary in May and two weeks later our first child, Mia, was born. Then in August we move back to my hometown of Rochester, NY to begin church planting with the Ecclesia Network.

Church planting was not the original plan, but it started with some growing thoughts. I was working as a youth pastor at a large church in suburban Boston and there I witnessed the power and draw of the expressions of that particular local church. But as I continued working with students and young adults, I began asking new questions. Are there people for whom these forms aren’t the way in but are actually obstacles and barriers? What if we could create new environments that were more untreated and organic to reach those who aren’t being reached? Over time these questions became a calling, and this calling became a vision of a new church.

When I got plugged into the Ecclesia Network and Fresh Expressions, I realized that many others were asking these same questions. We desire to create a space for religiously unaffiliated people in our communities to explore Christ. Many are suspicious of established churches and tend to be drawn more to smaller and intimate groups. We are asking how we can incorporate the strengths of both alternative faith-based communities and the existing church. We’re envisioning a network of missional communities that meet regularly, but also join with the rest of the network in regular times of worship. We’re calling it The Agora Community. Agora is the Greek word for marketplace, the public center of first-century cities. We seek to enter agora spaces in our world to bring God’s Kingdom.

We start this new venture in September with a mixture of excitement, fear, thrill, terror and everything in between. But I am reminded of something A.J. Swoboda said at the Ecclesia National Conference: “Jesus invites us to come and die…to go into the grave and die and return again.” Our prayer is that we can sense what that Spirit is doing in Rochester and give up our lives to join in.

How It Is Now Is Not How It Will Always Be

By Bob Hyatt • 20 Mar, 2024
One of the main tricks in life, I believe, is not to extrapolate current conditions and circumstances off into the future. However, that’s exactly the tendency we have as humans, and especially, I’ve discovered, as ministry leaders. We look at things now and think they will always be that way. We long to see landmarks in the road, mileposts that tell us either we have now reached the pinnacle, the place we always dreamed of being (even if that place is only “stability”), or conversely, the bottom has fallen out and now is the time to bail out. But the mileposts are merely markers on the journey, telling us where we are now, promising nothing of the journey ahead. And so, when things are good, we see nothing but success and good times stretching out in front of us. In the depths of despair, during the most challenging times of life and ministry we feel as though the darkness has become the new normal. The reality is much more complex: there are always better times ahead, and worse ones as well. During those dark times, when ministry becomes more of a weight than a joy, I tell myself, “whatever is happening now will not keep happening forever.” Those words have kept me through relational breaks in our staff that seemed unfixable, through budget woes when we didn’t think we were going to meet payroll, even a time when our community lost a third of its members because we had let a beloved pastor go. In this way I have found hope. In the same way, during the successful times when we were growing, budget was bigger than ever, and when new people were engaging with the church seemingly every week I continued to tell myself, “what is happening now will not keep happening forever.” In this way I have found a measure of humility. There’s another way to read this mantra as well, one that encourages us not to miss what is happening right now as we overly focus on where we’d like to be or what we’d like to see happen. The challenge of ministry, like the challenge of life in general, is to be present to what’s happening now . Too many single people miss the joys of singleness longing to be married. Too many young married couples miss the joys of the early years without children because they long to be parents. Too many parents of young children miss the joys of the infant years, longing for the days when their children are more independent, less dependent on them for everything. And on it goes. In the same way we in ministry can miss the joys of a small, close community by looking at larger communities and wishing we had their resources and influence. We can miss the inherent learning and even joy of being shoulder to shoulder in community with others through challenging times because the difficulties and pain we are experiencing mask the ways in which we are being brought together, the ways in which we are being formed and the invaluable things we are learning. In life, and in ministry, remember: How it is now is not how it will always be. Learn to appreciate how things are now, but also take comfort in the fact that if things are difficult, there are better days ahead. Stay humble because no success is forever. Stay hopeful because, in Christ, no failure is permanent.

Exciting Announcement- Ecclesia is Joining Ascent!

By Chris Backert • 19 Feb, 2024
I’m writing to share some exciting and important news with you that we believe will be significant for Ecclesia in the days ahead! For the last few years, I have been engaged with other church and network leaders across the US and Canada about forming a new “connection” for the church in North America. The heart of the effort is around unifying, amplifying, and multiplying the kind of Christian witness that Ecclesia represents, for the sake of the gospel, over the next few decades. This new effort is called The Ascent Movement, and within the last 12 months, its momentum has picked up increasing speed. A few months ago, I was asked by the council of Ascent if I would help spearhead the development of the network in its next phase. I agreed to accept that task. One of the core goals of Ascent is to connect, coordinate, and collaborate with groups like Ecclesia so that we can do more together than we could in isolation. In many ways, it will function as a “network of networks” like Ecclesia functions as a “network of churches”. In addition to ministries like Ecclesia, there are also seminaries, mission agencies, and other ministry support organizations that are joining Ascent in these early days. For the last several months the Ecclesia board has been discerning whether or not Ecclesia would officially enter into a partnership affiliation with Ascent. We unanimously affirmed that decision at our recent board meeting. Since Ascent is in its early phases of formation, more information on the benefits and opportunities of this new partnership will be ongoing. However, we are happy to share some of the aspects of this new affiliation that we find compelling and will not only bless Ecclesia, but also all of the churches within Ecclesia. First, given the size of Ecclesia, there have always been areas of ministry that we believe are important, but toward which we have not had the scale to accomplish or contribute. Among these are concrete efforts around - increasing the witness of the Hispanic church in North America - supporting mission expansion to less-resourced parts of North America - increasing opportunities for disaster relief and response - and mobilizing prayer networks. Further, there are also specific and tangible benefits that are made possible through this partnership for any Ecclesia Churches. Some of these include things like - discounted tuition costs to Truett Seminary for any Ecclesia leader or member serving an Ecclesia Church. - discounted rate in utilizing the services of Chemistry Staffing for future hiring - access to a church-based missionary sending ministry for those Ecclesia Churches engaged globally, and more! Lastly, there is a specific aspect to this partnership affiliation that is particularly helpful to Ecclesia. Ascent has agreed to partner with Ecclesia over the next year to expand our church planting and multiplication reach in a way that benefits both Ecclesia and Ascent. Practically, this looks like Ascent investing a little over $1,000/month into Ecclesia over this next year and together working toward a set of mutually beneficial goals. As I think about this opportunity within the current moment of our network, it seems right for multiple reasons beyond the purely practical. At our Ecclesia board meeting in late 2022, we established a path for individual affiliation within Ecclesia to make concrete space for leaders who are outside ministry contexts that allow for our core congregational affiliation. The heart of this decision was a desire to increase the kinds of relationships that Ecclesia has within our scope of ministry. The decision to affiliate with Ascent is similar. Also, as I shared at our Ecclesia Gathering in January, this decision fits within the Core DNA of Ecclesia. When I look back at the founding of our network, three aspects were central then and have carried forward. First, our desire to extend the gospel to increasingly post-Christian, or more challenging, settings and groups of people. Second, a desire to exemplify a Christian witness aligned with the theological and missiological direction of affirmations like the Capetown Commitment. Third, our desire to provide a relationally rich journey of friendship for the churches and leaders who are part of our family. When I consider the affiliation with Ascent, we share in common those first two Core DNA. As for the 3rd foundational aspect of our network, I believe the time has come where Ecclesia itself needs “friends for the journey” in the same way that Ecclesia has provided a context of friendship for those within our community. On the other side of COVID, it’s clear that ministry in the days ahead is more exciting, while also more challenging and complex. We believe we need a greater community to be the most faithful to the gospel that we can. You can go to www.ascentmovement.org to get a quick glimpse of its vision. The current website is a placeholder for a more thorough site coming later this Spring. Ecclesia, of course, will have a seat at the table in its formation. We have also provided a one-page overview of Ascent on the attached document. We will keep you updated on this exciting development. Please feel free to reach out with any questions. - Chris
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