lifeasmission

2010 Ecclesia National Gathering Reflections

February 20, 2010

UPDATE: Be sure to check out what other bloggers are saying about their experience at this gathering.

Dave Fitch here and here, Ben Sternke, J.R. Briggs, Todd Hiestand, Drew Hart, and Geoff Holsclaw (not quite real).  I’ll add more as I become aware of them.

John Chandler is in.

Here’s Geoff Holsclaw’s real one.

Bob Hyatt provides his reflections here.

Jason Salamun, new to Eclclesia, reviews his time here.

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The missional community Amy and I are a part of, Life on the Vine, is a part of Ecclesia,

a relational network of churches, leaders and movements that seek to equip, partner and multiply missional churches and movements.

Before I offer some reflections on the national gathering that just concluded, I wanted to mention a few of the unique features of Ecclesia that compel me to appreciate this network more than others.

The Kingdom of God.  As opposed to one particular understanding of the gospel, Eccelsia finds unity in Jesus’ message of the Kingdom thus making room for those who articulate the good news in different ways.

Relationships/Partnerships.  Through and through, Ecclesia is relationally driven. They exhibit no desire for the network to be central, but rather labor to facilitate relationships and partnerships between leaders and churches.

Affirmation of Women.  We still have work to do in this area, but especially at this years gathering which featured a husband wife team as keynote presenters, we put on display what I hope continues to emerge as as a stated value for the importance of men and women partnering in ministry.

I could probably add more, but on to the reflections I go.

Dallas Willard and Bob & Mary Hopkins were the speakers for the main sessions. Todd Hunter was supposed to be there as well, but needed to cancel for personal and understandable reasons.

Dallas was brilliant.  Wisdom seemed to pour out of this man as he spoke.  His main theme through the week was “knowledge.”  He wasn’t speaking of the intellectual/factual sort of knowledge, but the relational/experiential sort. His aim seemed to be that we would be known not just for what we do, but what we deeply, personally, and powerfully know to be true about God and life in God’s Kingdom.

One of the topics Dallas took up in a break out session was that of religious pluralism.  Central to that conversation was the issue of homosexuality.  As he so often does Dallas reframed the trajectory of the conversation by commenting,

I think homosexuality is a disastrous lifestyle, but heterosexuality ain’t doing so good either. And if it weren’t for the failings of heterosexuality, homosexuality may not be such a huge issue.

This is what Dallas does best.  He brings a frame of reference that just isn’t on the radar for so many people.  For Dallas, the main issue is always is our nuanced journey into Christlike character as opposed to simple doctrinal statements or moral judgments.

Bob & Mary Hopkins were equally excellent. Mainly they talked about the functioning of teams and incarnational/contextual issues of church planting and ministry.

They shared from their years of experience with church planting and equipping church leaders and teams in the UK.

Everything that Willard and the Hopkins’ had to say was insightful and helpful, but I don’t think it was my favorite part of the week.  My favorite part of the week was the consistency and pervasiveness of voices from within the network.  A big part of this was the size of the gathering – capped at 200.  But more than that, the structure of the gathering featured panel sessions, extended Q&A sessions, and specific opportunities for us to hear, both as a large group and via breakout sessions, from those who are leading local churches within the network.

I may have some more thoughts that surface later, but for now, here’s the twitter stream (#eng2010) from the conference as well as the live blog we used.  The audio from the conference should be available soon and I’ll be sure to let you know when it is.

Posted in: LOV, church planting, conference, ecclesia, kingdom, leadership