This is a very overdue post.

A Personal Vocational Transition

At the end of last December I resigned my position at Northern Seminary in order to begin helping direct the efforts of a new theological initiative. The transition was quite seamless as Northern has actually become an early and major sponsor of this new initiative, the Missio Alliance. In this new role I get to work alongside Chris Backert (serving as Ex. Dir. & Regional Dir. for Eastern US), JR Woodward (serving as Regional Dir. for Western US), and Dave Fitch (serving as Regional Dir. for Central US).

What is the Missio Alliance?

This initiative has grown out of the Ecclesia Network, a group I’ve been privileged to be a part of for the last 5 years or so. Whereas Ecclesia has become a home and source of support, training, and encouragement for missional churches and church planters, the Missio Alliance has more to do with bringing a broader array of practitioner-theologians, missiologists, pastors and other Christian leaders together for dialogue, training, and the creation of resources. Here’s a fuller description of the origins and aims of the Missio Alliance from the initial web page that we have up…

As the Church in North America wrestles with the complex realities of an increasingly Post-Christian cultural context, there’s a need to consider afresh what God is doing and calling us to in His Mission. In recent history we have witnessed increasing fragmentation within evangelical Protestantism and sharp denominational decline. Yet even amidst these challenges, we believe there is a unique opportunity to work toward the renewal of the Church for Mission in North America. 

The Missio Alliance seeks to provide a seeding ground for such renewal. We aim to bring pastors, practitioner-theologians, leaders, and missiologists together from across the spectrum of the North American Church to work for a Kingdom-driven, gospel-centered, biblically grounded theology and ecclesial practice for God’s Mission in North America. We seek to provide a place for theological dialogue, training, and the creation of resources to navigate present and future missional challenges. Grounded in The Capetown Commitment of the Third Lausanne Congress, these endeavors will emerge out of a strong and distinctive theological identity that is rooted in relationships. We will seek to cross cultural and denominational boundaries, creating by the Spirit a gospel dynamic for discerning the challenges of our time. 

Dave Fitch has talked about the need for something like the Missio Alliance to emerge. As he wrote in this post…

As I said previously, and as I have said in my new book The End of Evangelicalism?, evangelicalism is at a tipping point. We are cracking. The emergent conversation started by Brian McLaren et. al. has not produced theological leadership (it seems Love Wins is another case of this).  The herds of disenchanted evangelicals are left to either wander or head for the newer coalitions of the Neo-Reformed. Yet as I’ve said here, this isn’t going to take us into Mission. Based in the impulses in both of these movements, we need an alternative place for the work of theology and mission. Without it – it is questionable whether these much needed conversations can place. Without an alternative coalition (that can bring certain parts of these existing factions together into conversation with the Holiness, Anabaptist Missionals), the aftermath of traditional evangelicalism is going to devolve into defensiveness and fail to produce a missional movement. There’s some of us working toward that end (of nurturing an alternative theological coalition). In the meantime, this for me, is the lesson of the Rob Bell fiasco.

Who’s Involved & How can I Connect?

At present, we are working toward a launch conference in April of 2013. Among those who have already agreed to be a part of that conference are Dallas Willard, Scot McKnight, Roger Olson, Cherith Fee Nordling, Amos Yong, and Jo Saxton among others.

If connecting w/ this sort of community sounds of interest to you, feel free to drop your email over here to stay in the loop, or connect w/ us on Twitter or Facebook.

If you’re out West, we are planning a regional conference on Oct. 19-20 near Los Angeles featuring Alan Hirsch, Dave Fitch, & JR Woodward w/ engagement and responses from 6 local pastors. Stay tuned for more info on that as the date gets closer.

We’ve already begun to establish working partnerships w/ a handful of denominations, seminaries, and leaders of various networks, but if you represent an institution or organization that might be interested in partnering with something like I’ve described above, please be in touch via: connect [@] missioalliance [dot] org.

Related posts:

1. Younger Missional Leaders, the Lausanne Movement, and the Shape/ing of the Church
2. #Occupy Empire: Anabaptism in God’s Mission
3. A Look Back and A Look Ahead

…Lots of JR’s, Amy & Aubrey got to coma along, some good basketball games, lots of time to enjoy friendships and start some new one, we officially announced the Missio Alliance (site, twitter, facebook – all in development), and a group on younger missional theologians (plus Dave Fitch got together to discuss doing some work together.

Related posts:

1. Why I’m Going to the Ecclesia National Gathering
2. The Ecclesia Network: Some Reflections and Resources
3. The GOCN, Ecclesia, and the Missional Church

To point to just a few things that excite me about Ecclesia, consider the following…

A yearly national conference (the next one being just about a month out), that seeks to help church planters and pastors wrestle with some of the most pressing issues of mission and ministry from the perspective of those who take seriously the challenges (perhaps better understood as happy opportunities!) of Post-Christendom.

Over the last 4 years, we’ve brought together leading voices, including those of women and minorities, to help us wrestle with the practical issues of incarnational expressions of ecclesial life.  In each instance, this has been done without pomp and circumstance, opting instead for a subdued environment where the focus is on encouraging one another, building relationships, and giving a good deal of attention to God’s presence and work in our midst.  In this way, our national gathering remains vitally connected to the rest of our lives, relationships, and ministry.

A leadership podcast that offers listeners a window into the lives and thinking of local church planters and pastors who are either in or connected to the Ecclesia Network.  Backed by the genius and savvy of Mr. Todd Hiestand and John Chandler, esquire, this podcast is just getting going, but there’s some good ones in there already.  Check out the latest podcast w/ Chris Backert, who, at long last, is offering to the world (in multiple parts no less!) some blog posts.  In part of the podcast, he talks a bit about Missio Alliance, an initiative I’m privileged to be a part of and will no doubt be writing more extensively in regard to in the future, but the rest of the podcast is a great introduction into the way Ecclesia has come about and what it “feels” like.

Aside from those things, Ecclesia is also involved in church planter training (here’s a bunch of great audio from the most recent training session), coaching, and publishing.  Ecclesia also initiates and sponsors regional events like this one in the Northeast, this one in the Northwest, and the Missional Learning Commons here in the Mid-West.

This is all good stuff.  None of it is completely unique; others seek to offer similar resources and opportunities.  What means the most to me, and what is simultaneously the biggest encouragement to me as something like the Missio Alliance gets underway, is the manner, character, and quality of all this work.  Like I tried to communicate above, as I look around and see so much discord and angling for influence across the evangelical landscape, I’ve just never gotten that taste from the people and work of Ecclesia and I’m grateful for this band of brothers and sisters.

Related posts:

1. 2010 Ecclesia National Gathering Reflections
2. Ecclesia 2012
3. The GOCN, Ecclesia, and the Missional Church

Looking back over what I posted in 2011, I count about 32 posts, not including my weekly auto-posting of “Tweets of the Week” that gives me (and others if they’re interested) an overview of things (thoughts, pictures, links, etc) that seemed worthy of mention.  That doesn’t quite hit the 1/week rhythm I’d like to keep up with, but didn’t fall below 1/every other week either.  Hoping for some more consistency here in 2012.  We’ll see

As I survey what I did post, I spent a lot of time writing about theological education from a missiological perspective (initially in March, April, and May and then in a more focused manner in August, October, November, and December). The bulk those thoughts got encapsulated in a paper and video that I had the opportunity to contribute to that will hopefully continue to spur on some conversation over at thefutureoftheologicaleducation.com.

Theological Education wasn’t the only thing I wrote about however.  Among other things…

• I sketched out the focus of my doctoral research.
• I announced the birth of our daughter, Aubrianna Mae…
• And then offered my conversation with her about why I hope she never goes to Church.
• I talked about my identification with the Anabaptist theological tradition.
• I dove back in to some conversation about the “Missional Movement,” and the “Mega-Problems of Mega-Churches.”

So if that’s a brief look back, what’s in view with a look ahead?  Near as I can tell, 2012 will be punctuated by three major developments.

1. A Major Job Change

As of the first year, I’ve resigned my position at Northern Seminary in order to begin working with a new initiative named the Missio Alliance (no website quite yet, but it’s coming).  The basic purpose of the initiative is to bring together a cadre of theological and missiological voices from various streams of evangelicalism in order to begin to offer training and resources for the theological and pastoral formation of Christian leaders.  I’m excited about this opportunity not just because I’ll find the work personally gratifying, but because I think there is a major need for an initiative like this, one that seeks to be theologically centrist, relationally oriented, and structured around the tight integration of theology and practice.  If this sounds like something you’re interested in knowing more about or participating in, don’t hesitate to drop me a line.

2. Giving Ourselves to God’s Work in Elgin

For over a year now we’ve had the sense that God might be calling us to give more of our attention and energy to the people and needs of Elgin.  We are just as enamored with our church community, Life on the Vine, as we have ever been.  But, a huge part of what it means to be committed to the vision of Life on the Vine is maintaining a sense of openness to God’s leading for mission and this is what we feel like we’re responding to in faith.  While what this might mean is still very much up for discernment with others (including the pastors of LOV, our close friends, and those we feel like God has brought into our lives as friends and partners here in Elgin), our sense is that God is leading us to begin cultivating what we would call a “missional community” – a group of 20-50 others who identify with a common sense of mission and seek to invest in one another through common rhythms and practices around that mission.

3. Prayerfully Moving Forward with Adoption

Amy and I have talked about adoption for several years now, since before we were married as a matter of fact.  The big questions for us have been, “when will be a good time?” “and “where might we adopt from?”  We are still talking, praying, and asking questions about the various factors to consider in terms of domestic vs. international adoption, but at this point it’s fair to say that this is something we feel committed to and will perhaps formally begin the process of here in 2012.  Potentially, this could even mean moving to another home in Elgin that offers the kind of space that we might need as we consider getting a home study done.
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I’m sure that I’ll be posting much more about all of these things through this next year, but for those of you beautiful people that regularly ask what’s going on and how you might pray for us, near as I can tell, these are the things that will factor most substantively into the shape of life for the Rozko’s for the next 12 months.

Related posts:

1. Missio Alliance: Discerning the Shape of Theology & Practice for Mission
2. The Missiological Future of Theological Education – Introduction
3. The Missiological Future of Theological Education – Training Missionary Leaders

Shaping Students w/ the Character and Competency of Jesus (lifeasmission | Patheos)

Missionary Pastors for a Missionary God (lifeasmission | Patheos)

Again, this is some edited content from a more comprehensive white paper that I worked on.  You can find the whole paper here as a resource at thefutureoftheologicaleducation.com.  Hope to see some helpful conversation emerge there, here, and over at Patheos as well.

In terms of our particular contribution to this forum, we began by suggesting that while we passionately affirm the important role that seminaries play educationally, from a Kingdom perspective, the more important ‘accrediting factor’ is their ability to graduate students who have increasingly taken on both the character and competency of Jesus.   Given those aims and the ways in which our systems of theological education have been corrupted by the (non-missional) assumptions and characteristics of Christendom, we suggested that the central task before us is identifying educational principles guided by a theological vision of the missio Dei as it relates to both the Gospel and the Church that can help us re-imagine and re-shape our processes of theological formation.

In our second post we sought to outline the central features of the first of three of these educational principles, that of being praxeological.   This praxeological orientation to theological education would result in the cultivation of reflective practitioners – leaders for whom the practice of mission and ministry and critical theological and missiological reflection always go hand-in-hand.

Here, we’d like to provide a sketch of a second educational principle, again drawn from the life and ministry of Jesus, that we feel must inform our processes of theological formation, that of being mobilizational – geared toward the training of missionary leaders.

One of the most disastrous effects of Christendom upon our systems of theological education has been the unhelpful assumption that the Church does and should exist at the center of our society.   Under this vision, seminaries have equipped leaders who would excel at managing and maintaining this system.   However, as the missio Dei and its implications for the Gospel and the Church come back into focus in Post-Christendom, we submit that our systems of theological education must be re-imagined for the purposes of training missionary leaders.  These will be leaders whose concern and skill-set revolve not around managing churches as part of a culture believed to be “Christian,” or even further, around church growth, but around mobilizing the people of God for participation in God’s mission in the world.  We submit that a truly mobilizational system of theological education will be, among other things, affordable, accessible, designed to prepare leaders as cultural pioneers, and judged on its ability to cultivate leaders who are competent to make disciples and mobilize others for faithful participation in God’s mission in the world.

Affordable

Unless you happen to live in a certain place, going to seminary requires the time and expense of uprooting your life and moving to another location.  In addition, the vast majority of seminary students are completely on their own to figure out how to pay for a seminary education.  A staggering number of students carry an enormous amount of debt for years, if not decades, following the completion of their program.   Not only is this problematic because of the current costs of seminary education, but increasingly, attaining a seminary degree does not translate into a proportional ability to get any job, let alone one that will alleviate students of their debt.   Moreover, because seminary degree programs remain, in large part, shaped by the assumptions of Christendom, students may quickly discover they are ill equipped to faithfully engage with the practical realities of ministry in Post-Christendom.  In order to be truly mobilizational, it is incumbent on us to re-imagine systems of theological education that are vastly more financially sustainable.

Accessible

Lack of proximity to the kinds of formational education that we are talking about isn’t just an affordability problem; it’s also an accessibility problem.  While we applaud the efforts of the increasing number of seminaries that value distance and
distributed learning opportunities, we would suggest much more innovation is required.  Increasingly, seminaries need to embody in themselves the kind of character they should be instilling in their students.  In other words, just as we need to mobilize leaders, we also need to imagine what it might mean to mobilize theological education itself.  Institutions of theological education that are truly mobilizational will happily release power and control as they give their time and energy to initiatives that make quality theological education more accessible even if they don’t directly benefit.  The future of theological education belongs to those groups and institutions who care more for the work of God’s Kingdom than they do their own.

Prepare Cultural Pioneers

The ecclesial vision of Christendom provided for a system of theological education that mainly had in view the creation of Christian leaders who might well be described as managers or custodians of the church at the center of culture.  But, with the significant shaking occurring as we move from Christendom to Post-Christendom, the maps we previously used for theological education prove unhelpful and misleading.  In direct juxtaposition to a Christendom-shaped reality, a missional understanding of God and the Church compel us to give our time and attention to the equipping of missionary leaders capable of pioneering in a world without maps.  This will require the re-imagining of structures and programs that are designed to impart to students, missionary, as opposed to managerial, skill-sets.

Cultivate Disciple-Makers and Mobilizers

A final aspect of theological education that is mobilizational is the central importance of equipping leaders to be disciple-makers and mobilizers of God’s people for mission.  However, a particular person might be individually gifted, their ability to leverage that giftedness in concert with the biblically unifying commission to “go and make disciples of all nations,” is a fundamental marker of their fit for Kingdom ministry.  Said another way, we suggest that a profound understanding of one’s giftedness and a correspondingly profound track record of the exercise of that giftedness as a means of making disciples and mobilizing people and communities for mission ought to be seen as a basic requirement for the completion of any seminary program.

In short, as the Church is increasingly pushed to the margins of society, it has (we have!) the opportunity to rediscover the missional nature of God, the Gospel, and the Church that was eclipsed within Christendom.   Among other things called for by this rediscovery is the complete restructuring of our systems of theological education as we seek to equip leaders who can serve the Church out of missionary rather than managerial perspectives and skill-sets.   We offer additional thoughts along these lines in the full paper, available here and check out the video and other resources at thefutureoftheologicaleducation.com.

Related posts:

1. The Missiological Future of Theological Education – Training Reflective Practitioners
2. The Missiological Future of Theological Education – Training Kingdom Citizens
3. The Missiological Future of Theological Education – Introduction

I’m not 22 anymore – I’m 32.  And while there are plenty of 32-year-olds out there still nursing a desire for “their time to come,” I am grateful for the people and circumstances God has used over the last 10 years of education and ministry to heal me of the selfish ambition I had previously baptized in my own mind.  I’ve simply become much more enthusiastic about the advancement of God’s kingdom than mine – trust me, it’s way less stressful!  So now, whenever I am presented with the opportunity to attend or participate in a conference, rather than asking, “Will being there contribute to my own advancement?” I try to ask, “Do I have a passion for how this conference is seeking to contribute to God’s kingdom work in the world?”

This is the central reason that I’ll be at the upcoming Ecclesia National Gathering – because it’s an event that oozes authentic passion for God’s kingdom work rather perpetuates the cult-of-personality tenor of much of current Christian conferencing.

Besides that overarching reason, I’ll be there for a few additional important reasons as well…

I’ll be there because I love the down-to-earth, in-the-trenches, church planters and pastors who attend and focus on encouraging and supporting one another rather than engendering a spirit of competition.

I’ll be there because, in word and action, Ecclesia holds up the value of men and women co-laboring in all aspects of ministry.

I’ll be there because humble submission to God’s mission and not fine doctrinal points is what unites us as a group.

I’ll be there because I’ve never experienced an event or a group of people that is so capable of engaging in serious theological discourse without losing sight of its irrelevance apart from incarnational expression.

In short, I’ll be there because I think God is mightily at work in and through this group of people and this event is central to facilitating and furthering that work.  Hope you’ll consider joining us.

Related posts:

1. 2010 Ecclesia National Gathering Reflections
2. Ecclesia 2012
3. The GOCN, Ecclesia, and the Missional Church

He suggests that there are,

…two movements of people within American Protestantism who claim the term ‘missional.’

Specifically, he mentions The Gospel and Our Culture Network and the Ecclesia Network, two organizations that I have meaningful relational connections to and interest in.

Tony describes the GOCN like this:

These thought-leaders come from a mainline context, but they have evangelical leanings. They feel that the church has lost its missional impulse as the mainline church has been ultimately absorbed by American culture.  And they found a theological patron saint in Lesslie Newbigin, a twentieth century missionary to India who retired to his native England to find that Christianity was no longer a prophetic force.  Newbigin’s books, and those of missiologist David Bosch have guided thinking of this group.  Newbigin and Bosch, as well as the books and newsletters of the GOCN, were all highly influential on the genesis of the emerging church movement and of Emergent Village in particular.

And Ecclesia like this:

These are primarily evangelicals with moderate to liberal leanings. They agree with the ECM’s critique of evangelicalism: that the evangelical church in America has been corrupted by culture, is too consumeristic, and has lost the radical, prophetic nature of the gospel.  They are most influenced by the anabaptist theologies of John Howard Yoder and Stanley Hauerwas.

While their are certainly theologians sympathetic to them, this missional movement is largely populated by pastors, church planters, and consultants: David Fitch, Alan Hirsch, Bob Hyatt, and Ed Stetzer among them.  The organization most closely aligned with this missional is the Ecclesia Network, begun in the mid-2000s.

There’s already some good discussion happening over on Tony’s blog and I don’t want to take away from it so please head over there and join in if you are so inclined, but I also wanted to springboard off of this post in terms of some of my own interests.

In a forthcoming (next?) post, I want to share more about the research project that is taking shape through the DMiss cohort I am a part of.  It will become ever clearer then, just how timely and poignant Tony’s post is.  For now, I’d like to make some observations about the commonalities of these two expressions of the missional conversation and see what thoughts others might have. Specifically, I see commonalities with regard to a cultural emphasis, a theological vision, and missional implications.

Cultural Emphasis

1) Post-Christendom. Both groups are seeking to engage a culture and context in which the Church no longer exists at the center of society and Christianity is forced to grapple with the advent of religious pluralism.

Theological Vision

2) Missional Theology. Both groups are trafficking in the world of missional theology – a way of knowing God, reading Scripture, and being the Church that is firmly rooted in the missio Dei.  I should add here that for this reason among others, I simply do not get how and why some (as Tony does in his post) draw a line between the theology of Barth and Yoder/Hauerwas which seems quite united at this point (see this new article by Stanley Hauerwas, ht: Andy Rowell, and this unpublished PDF by Yoder about Barth’s theology)

Missional Implications

3) Missiology & The Local Church. Both groups are wrestling with the missiological implications of a post-Christendom culture/context and a theological vision rooted in the missio Dei as they intersect at the level of the local church.  While the GOCN may have been (may continue to be?) focused on research and writing, if you take a look at their publications, in large measure they emerge from and seek to address life at the congregational level.  Ecclesia, likewise, exists as a network of missionally-minded church planters, pastors, and leaders.

Wondering what others people see or have to say here.  Next time around, I’ll dig into some aspects of the research I hope to do and how it might contribute to the common aims of these groups and the spheres of influence they represent.

Related posts:

1. The Place of Salvation in the Missional (Church) Conversation
2. The Missiological Future of Theological Education – Training Missionary Leaders
3. Reviewing Deep Church by Jim Belcher

No related posts.

Jim Belcher, the author of Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional, and I have much in common.

We both did masters degrees at Fuller Theological Seminary.

We both have a heart for church planting.

I teach a class on the Emerging Church based on the intensive that he references in his book. (35)

We get frustrated when people talk past one another, defaulting to caricatured stereotypes rather than embracing a posture of openness.

And we both value looking for a “third way” to approach dichotomistic thinking.

He is right when he says,

It seems that every time someone criticizes the emerging church, they pick the worst-case scenario or the most extreme statements. (49)

He is also correct in noting,

It seems the emerging church, for rhetorical purposes, uses sweeping generalizations about the traditional church that are unfair. (76)

The larger Body of Christ would indeed be served well by discourse that is deeper, more specific, and marked by a sense of humble openness.  Belcher’s chapters on Deep: Truth, Evangelism, Gospel, Worship, Preaching, Ecclesiology, and Culture, are essentially his attempts  to facilitate just that – a worthwhile enterprise in my opinion.

While Belcher’s book is truly helpful in this regard, I’m not sure he really hits the mark in terms of articulating a true “third way” as a means of engaging these topics.  Very often, his conclusions in these chapters are a combination of a chastened version of the EC position he articulates and an expanded version of the traditional position he articulates (usually w/ reference to Tim Keller and his church!).  I suppose this is a kind of “third way,” maybe even precisely the one Belcher desires, but I’m not certain it’s the most helpful kind of third way for the Church to pursue.

The mistake, I believe, comes in the assumption that one can simply pit the positions of the EC against the positions of the traditional church.  The main problem here is that many in the EC camp are themselves trying to articulate and maneuver a “third way” between the modern categories of conservatism and liberalism, a feature that Belcher seems to either overlook or discount w/o comment.  An indication of this is his quick dismissal of the Anabaptist tradition from which many in the EC draw as one which is able to circumvent many of the dichotomies addressed in this book on account of its fundamentally, Christendom-rejecting, stance.  Belcher never seems to ask, “How might people in the EC camp already be searching for a third way in response to classic approaches to these issues?,” but assumes that their positions are simply reactions against the positions of traditional churches.

Belcher sets himself on this course in stating,

We need to define it [the emerging church] as a movement, particularly its theology.  The best way to do this is to look at what the emerging church movement is against – the things they are protesting and the rasons why they are calling for change. (38)

For the life of me, I can’t grasp why someone would want to define a movement by what they are against (even it it is a protest movement) rather than what they are for.  We certainly regard what the classic reformers were for as far more more important than what they were against!  But more than this, Belcher fails to identify missiology as a core motif for the EC.  For many, if not most, in the global EC movement, it is an attempt to participate with God and God’s mission in the world that is reshaping how they understand the sorts of topics that Belcher raises in his book, not vice versa.

These criticisms notwithstanding, I am glad that Jim wrote this book and don’t doubt for a second that it has an will continue to help many.

**Jim has recently decided to resign from his position as lead pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, CA.  You can read a letter he wrote to the congregation regarding this transition here and some additional discussion about this sort of trend here.

Related posts:

1. The GOCN, Ecclesia, and the Missional Church
2. What is the Emergent Church?
3. The Missiological Future of Theological Education – Training Kingdom Citizens

Ecclesia is a relational network of church planters and leaders.  Once a year they host an event for those those who are considering church planting.  There are lots of options out there for asipiring church planters, but I’d suggest that you’d be hard pressed to find one that will be as relational, encouraging, balanced, and missionally minded.

If you come to this, you’ll get not just quality training, but friends for the journey.

Details are here and there’s also a (PDF) brochure.

Related posts:

1. The GOCN, Ecclesia, and the Missional Church
2. Why I’m Going to the Ecclesia National Gathering
3. The Ecclesia Network: Some Reflections and Resources

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.

Related posts:

1. Why I’m Going to the Ecclesia National Gathering
2. The Ecclesia Network: Some Reflections and Resources
3. Reflections on the Missional Learning Commons