“In ECO polity, the role of the presbytery is to support, encourage, and be a resource for local congregations. ECO presbyteries are designed to be flexible and to cultivate connection and community among member churches.” -Intro to ECO Presbyteries
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I love being an elder! Along with being a husband and father, it’s a calling that’s given my life purpose and definition. This is even more true as I seek to glorify and follow Jesus in this new role of Moderator of the Presbytery of Florida.
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Easter Sunday worship may be one of the most predictable services in the year. We know the story. We know the songs. We know that egg hunts and families meals are par for the course.
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Rivers of Life Presbytery sits in the wooded country side of Western Pennsylvania, and is home to a hard working, fun loving group of men and women. It is an area that is filled with congregations that desire the opportunity to grow and teach discipleship. Through this new presbytery, it is my hope that we can create an environment that empowers as well as guides these congregations in the way of the early church, and to a movement of disciple builders.
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As I begin my new role and ministry at ECO, I am excited and hopeful for what God will do in and through the individuals and churches of this denomination. I love the fact that so many ECO churches and pastors have a heart to see new churches started and their neighborhood, towns, and cities transformed by the Gospel. I also love the de-centralized emphasis where congregations have the primary ownership and responsibility to plant churches versus the denomination. This vision will not only empower local churches to have more “skin in the game,” but will also foster a greater culture of multiplication.
The role of church elder has changed substantially during the last century. Following the Civil War, gaining momentum well into the 20th century, elders moved from a primary role as a shepherd of people alongside the pastors, to become the superintendent of a program or ministry. To put it simply, for nearly four millenia, elders oversaw people. For a hundred years up and until today, Presbyterian elders focus nearly all their time upon the things of the church—bricks, money, programs, and pew pencils—at the expense of the people.
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It has only been 4 years since ECO was launched (in January of 2012) and it took another 5 months before any congregations were actually able to join ECO. At the time of our 2016 gathering in Newport Beach, ECO was made up of 252 congregations that represent over 100,000 covenant partners.
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They say that necessity is the mother of invention. The economic realities of the church and church planting today are necessitating bi-vocational church planting. The Apostle Paul, of course, was the original tentmaker! In many ethnic churches and smaller churches, bi-vocational ministry has always been the norm rather than the exception. Today, there are even conferences for bivocational planters and pastors.
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Hope. That is how I characterize STRIVE. Coming from snow-bound West Virginia, it seemed to metaphorically represent the spiritual binding of Presbyterians here who feel trapped without options, but the joy and passion of the commissioners and guests affirmed that God is doing a new thing. There is an open door – if we will just walk through it.
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After the ECO gathering ended, I drove over to the back bay (I called the back bay, a native friend of mine instructed me facetiously, “because there’s no such thing as canals or ditches in southern California.”) from St. Andrew's and took a run along the trails. It was a gorgeous, sunny day, and I felt simulatenously drained (from the long days and lots of time with my “extrovert” hat on) and energized by the week together with the ECO family.
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We are so grateful for the many powerful and exciting ways in which God was at work at ECO's STRIVE national gathering in January! We had a wonderful time together in worship, connecting with friends and colleagues from across the country, and learning from so many effective ministry leaders from both within and outside of our tribe.
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After our staff devotional on Tuesday, I polled the group about their favorite and least favorite Super Bowl commercials. The favorite was a mixed bag, but least favorite, overwhelmingly, was the infamous “Puppy Monkey Baby” commercial. It generated a nearly visceral reaction among the staff.
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It was wonderful to be with many of you at the “Strive” National Convention in Newport Beach. I was so encouraged and inspired by the gathering of the body of Christ to worship and the excellent teaching we received. Dana’s words: “We’ve built a denomination, now let’s start a movement” have been echoing in my ears since the Gathering. So many of you travelled long journeys to become a part of ECO. You might be weary and the temptation is to say “We’ve arrived.” But becoming a part of ECO means that your new journey has just begun!
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Six years ago I had a conversation that profoundly impacted me and my understanding of calling. The context: I had been studying the Bible with a college student for a few weeks. She did not identify as a Christian but was eager to learn more about Jesus. We were looking at the story of Jesus’ death on the cross in Luke 23. As we read through the passage, I watched her body language change. She sank back in her chair; shoulders turned in and head down. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “If Jesus really is God and he died, what good is it for us? That’s a terrible end to the story.” A light bulb came on for me. It was an aha! moment. I realized that she had never heard the end of the story. She didn’t know that Jesus was raised from the dead! She didn’t know the Good News of Easter. And how could she unless someone told her?
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As I begin my new role and ministry at ECO, I am excited and hopeful for what God will do in and through the individuals and churches of this denomination. I love the fact that so many ECO churches and pastors have a heart to see new churches started and their neighborhood, towns, and cities transformed by the Gospel. I also love the de-centralized emphasis where congregations have the primary ownership and responsibility to plant churches versus the denomination. This vision will not only empower local churches to have more “skin in the game,” but will also foster a greater culture of multiplication.
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On October 18, 2015, the congregation of United Presbyterian Church in Canon City, Colorado made the momentous decision to continue its story by planting a seed: a church plant!
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John 1:14 says "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Now, take a deep breath and go back and read it again. Whether that was the first or the hundredth time you have read that verse, take a second to think about how huge that is. It is the good news. Jesus, who was with the Father, saw value in us and chose to make his dwelling among us. Wow. If we believe that to be true, then it stands to reason that our lives should point others to his glory, grace, and truth. The light that we shine must ultimately point to the source that is Christ. So, what does it look like to take the posture of Jesus in the workplace? I am no expert on the topic, but I am very humbled to be able to share my story.
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I often wrestle with communicating ECO's vision, culture, ethos, and DNA to the average covenant partner (member) in our congregations. Members will hear about ECO when their churches are considering affiliating with ECO, and during that time they have specific questions that need to be addressed. Yet in other circumstances it seems that our message doesn’t filter to the congregation.
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Over a century ago, a young leader of the Church in India, the Rev. V. S. Azariah, addressed the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland. He asked for a new form of mission partnership between East and West: “Give us friends.”
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This last year, my wife Leslie and I moved to Austin, Texas to plant an incarnational church using the missional community model. We want to experiment with new ways of doing church and discipleship in order to reach young people. We’ve had some early progress making friends and sharing our vision, but we are a long way away from knowing if we’ve succeeded. We’re investing a lot of time and energy and – as I’m sure you can imagine – we really want it to work out.
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I believe all of our values are incredibly important to the future of the ECO movement. I do think, however, that there are a few values that are foundational to the success of the rest of them. Leadership Velocity is one of those foundational values that determines our ability to live out the rest of the values. Leadership Velocity states, “We believe identifying and developing gospel-centered leaders is critical for the church, and a great leadership culture is risk-taking, innovative, and organic.”
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Throughout the Gospels, Jesus often uses questions to engage those around Him. As someone who truly delights in questions, it is encouraging to see that Jesus values them as well. Intentional questions have a way of gently unearthing that which is settled beneath the surface, creating connections, and developing great purpose. Additionally, when questions are coupled with prayer as a way of understanding God’s plan for our lives, the outcome can be of cosmic proportions. This process has engendered a love of coaching in me. Coaching, in a Christian setting, creates space to ask questions like Jesus did, to pray with another, to demonstrate the love of Jesus, and to glorify Him in the process.
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Early in 2009, I was introduced to coaching through Dana Allin as he brought CoachNet (then under the direction of Bob Logan) into our presbytery as a way of transforming culture, deepening discipleship, and ultimately helping people reach their goals. I started training immediately and have continued with my own development as well as developing others. Dana clearly defined what coaching is in his recent blog on the subject.
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My first understanding of a coach brought to mind a swim workout on the whiteboard of a pool deck: 200 free, 200 kick, 200 pull, 10 x 100s free on 1:30, 5 x 200s IM on 3:30. This was the athletic language I spoke as a young swimmer and learned to speak fluently as a swim coach in my early twenties. But a decade later in 2013, through a leadership initiative with ECO, I was introduced to coaching in the context of ministry. This form of coaching has helped me make a few language adjustments and see the incredible value of the coaching relationship. And along the way, I found my sweet spot in ministry.
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Coaching has been one of the most valuable skills that I have gained in the last 15 years since I graduated from seminary. I was first exposed to coaching during my Doctorate of Ministry course work at Fuller Seminary. Bob Logan, then the head of CoachNet International Ministries, was the instructor for a course called “Raising and Multiplying Leaders in your Ministry.” In this course, we got a brief exposure to the art of coaching and how to use the skill when working with emerging leaders, staff, committees/teams, and even family members. I was convinced at that point that coaching was was extremely powerful in almost any situation where people want to increase in their effectiveness and vitality. Since that time, I have been increasing my skills and training to become more effective. When I was called to the Synod Executive role with ECO, I knew coaching was something that could have a profound effect in the life of our movement. If we could create a coaching culture, I knew we could grow in effectiveness. To that end, John Terech and I recently received additional accreditation through the International Coach Federation (ICF) which is the primarily regulating group for coaching.
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I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel – which is really no gospel at all. (Galatians 1:6-7a)
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As we continue through the blogs of our values we will take the next several weeks to look at the 7th value “Center-Focused Spirituality”. This value says “We believe in calling people to the core of what it means to be followers of Jesus – what “mere Christianity” is and does, and not fixate on the boundaries.”
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I’m not sure if there is anyone in the church world who hasn’t heard the word missional. Maybe like you, I have read a lot of books about missional church. I understood what they were saying. I agreed that in some circumstances the church had lost its focus; that sometimes we are more concerned about attracting people to worship services than anything else.
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I recently heard a preacher quote Paul’s injunction to Timothy, “...and what you have heard from me through many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will be able to teach others as well” (II Timothy 2:2). Among other things the preacher was supporting the idea that discipling is all about one person giving something to another person which the latter does not possess. Right. People don’t know what they don’t know. Core aspects of acquiring a Christian faith and identity involve one person receiving something from another – from outside oneself. This is a central dimension of Christianity as a “revealed” religion, and a central dimension of discipling relationships - but there is more to be said.
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We haven’t figured it out yet. This shift from being an established, primarily attractional church to one that lives as a missional church. We are still in process. I think that is actually okay. The danger is actually in thinking we have arrived, that we have somehow checked all the boxes and figured it all out. I was reminded recently that the missional movement is not simply about “doing” something (although action is of course imperative!), but to live as a missional church is primarily about “being.”
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