What to expect when attending a meeting at “We are the Ekklesia” devotional gatherings
DEVOTION TO SCRIPTURE
We are bible believing followers of Jesus Christ that are devoted to the study of scripture which is a vital part of the discipleship process. Our doctrinal beliefs are rooted in the New Covenant established by the ministry, death & resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We fully understand that the Old Testament along with the Old Covenant between the Israelite people and God are the predecessor which clearly demonstrates the Holiness of God and the wretchedness of man and our inability to keep the whole law of God. We see how the law that God gave to the Israelite people was necessary to convey the condemnation of all sin and the need for atonement and final absolution of sin by the grace of God through faith alone. The Old Testament introduces the promise of God in a coming Messiah that will usher in the New Covenant of God which is foundation on unmerited grace and mercy which comes through Jesus Christ or King of kings and Lord of lords.
We do not encourage a particular version or translation of the Holy Bible because we believe that there are many translations of the Bible that are good for study and reading. The most important thing is that we are reading and studying the Holy Bible on a regular basis. We enjoy an open format of dialogue in our meetings where it is not only ok to ask questions as we read the Bible, but we encourage it. We embrace mutual sharing as appose to the sermon lecture approach which is pretty much become the standard in Ecclesiastes today. We believe that this format will encourage our attendees to dig into the Bible receive revelation from God through the Holy Spirit and in turn come to the gathering to contribute to the study rather then to come to the gathering to get fed. How many times have I heard professing Christians tell me that they need to get to Ekklesia so they can get fed the word of God. This should not be the case. It is not what being a disciple of Jesus Christ is all about. We share what the Lord is revealing, what He is doing in our lives and what we can do for each other as God’s family in Christ Jesus.
We want believers to be followers and lovers of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, but also lovers of the Word of God which is a light for our path in life. Far too often, we can see that people become lovers of ministries, lovers of ministry books, lovers of programs, lovers of Ekklesia leaders and the theatrical sermons they give. But we should be primarily in love with Jesus Christ, our Father God, the Holy Ghost and the Word of God and our brothers and sisters in Christ. A Ekklesia cannot be successful or healthy if the people are not personally meeting with and enjoying God consistently. The greatest command is to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, so this must be our greatest priority as Christians. Of course our second highest priority is to love others as we love ourselves.
We have structured things at “We are the Ekklesia” to build a culture of people spending time with God every single day for health and well-being of themselves. Many Christians look to Sunday morning as the time where they will be “fed” by someone preaching a sermon, but we expect everyone in our Ekklesia to be able to read \ study the word of God on their own with effective understanding. When we gather as a group, rather than having the group Elders preach a sermon, we have a discussion led by the group Elders in which we discuss the passages of scriptures that we are focusing on at that current time frame. We expect all of the group to contribute to the meeting with their feedback and insight on the scriptures in a sharing format so that the believer’s ability to read and comprehend the scriptures can be strengthened. Instead of coming to consume, people have the expectation that they should be bringing insight from their personal time with the Lord throughout the week. This helps build a culture of people taking time in God’s Word seriously and being devoted to the Scriptures.
When everyone is devoted to reading the Bible every day, it also becomes the best guard against heresy. When the masses don’t read the word regularly themselves, but instead come rely on Sunday sermons to listen to someone explain the word of God to them, there is a lot of potential for false teaching to be accepted by the believers and people being. They can be easily led astray from sound doctrinal truth. But when everyone in the Ekklesia is reading through the whole Bible every year, it becomes very difficult for them to be led astray.
SIMPLE GATHERINGS
We follow a simple format that we see mentioned in the Book of Acts and throughout the Epistles of Paul in the New Testament. When things started getting out of control in Corinth, Paul reminded them of how he started the Ekklesia. In 1 Corinthians 2, he states that he intentionally held back from using “eloquence”, “human wisdom”, and “wise and persuasive words” when evangelized the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He didn’t want their walk with Jesus to be built on anything other than the power of the gospel message of Jesus. He then goes on to describe himself in chapter three as a wise, master builder in how he approached building the Ekklesia. Likewise, Jesus was unwilling to draw people with anything other than Himself. In the Gospel of John chapter 6, people are coming after Jesus because He provided them with food. Jesus refuses to give them physical food anymore to make sure that only those who really want to follow Jesus for the right reasons would continue to follow Him. Are we willing to do the same in our Ekklesia gatherings? Are we willing to strip away everything that is not necessary to make sure people are being drawn by Jesus and Jesus alone?
We try to be very intentional that we aren’t drawing people in with anything other than living for and loving Jesus Christ, and loving and caring for our bothers and sisters in Christ. We don’t have any paid staff, or owned buildings or campuses, social programs or traditional Church events. The main thing you get in attending “We are the Ekklesia” is Jesus and belonging to a community of believers that He has called out for His purpose. If you are looking for traditional Church and all that it has to offer, “We are the Ekklesia” is probably not for you. Where many church conferences are about how to create impressive strategies to draw people into the Church institution and build it numerically, we choose to practice a Christian life \ walk that glorifies the Father and exemplifies Christ likeness. We understand that Jesus will build His Ekklesia. The Holy Ghost will draw each man and woman to Christ and provide the convicting power of God so that they will be added to the Kingdom of God. Jesus knew this. The Apostles knew this. Let’s not do anything differently.
We worship the Lord together. We read and study the scriptures together. We pray together. We conduct life together as we enjoy the company of our brothers and sisters in Christ. We do not do the programs \ ministries like most churches do because we teach each other how to live life as a ministry without the institutionalization with all of it’s programs and traditions.
WE MEET IN HOMES & PUBLIC PLACES
Our gatherings are small groups of no more than 15 per group to provide sufficient access to the Elders of the group and to keep the meetings more intimate (Family like) and manageable. If you had no history or exposure to the Ekklesia at all, other than reading the New Testament, what would you expect to see if someone invited you to a gathering at an Ekklesia? We’ve thought about this question a lot. Based on the more than fifty “one another” commands in the New Testament, we would expect to see a lot of love among Christians when they gather. Based on the way Paul describes the Ekklesia in 1 Corinthians, we would expect to see people contributing their spiritual gifts. We’d picture people living like a true family inside and outside of the gathering. We’d expect to see a lot of smiling, a lot of hugging, a lot of crying together, a lot of meals shared, and a lot of life connection throughout the week. We wouldn’t picture a huge auditorium filled with rows of stadium seats or a stage or alter where a few conduct and lead a traditional service or everyone being quiet while just a few people lead.
In order to help us truly love each other, we have committed to having Group Gatherings of 15 people max per home. We believe that once we get past 15 people and in our gatherings it becomes increasingly more difficult to conduct our groups like a family by truly knowing each other, carry each other’s burdens, and building each other up in our faith. Many Churches emulate this form of group meeting today. But far too often people view a Sunday morning gathering at a traditional Church building as the primary goal and experience of Church, and the community group meeting as optional. We opt into sharing life with each other, and therefore the primary goal of Ekklesia should be a spiritual family of 15 people which know each other personally which they meet with routinely to pray with, study the Word of God with, Worship the Lord with, break bread and eat with, enjoy life with just like a family would.
Another reason we meet in homes is because of the financial implications. Meeting in Church buildings, regardless of whether they are owned or leased, means a big budget is needed in order to have a Church. By meeting in homes and having no Church buildings, we have the option to scale exponentially without needing a big Church budget. We are able to use our financial resources more strategically for assisting those in need and doing the work God the He has called us to do.
EVERYONE IS DISCIPLED TO THEN DISCIPLE OTHERS
Our gatherings are lead by Elders that are focused on strengthening the faith of the believers and their knowledge of the Word of God along with the Principals of the Kingdom of God.Everyone is called to make disciples. We are all called to share the gospel with non-believers in hopes that they would choose to follow Jesus Christ. We are all called to take responsibility for the spiritual care of other believers. But discipleship is hard and can sometimes get messy. It involves intentionally getting to know everyone in your group, being able to have those hard conversations when sin or life trials and challenges are evident, working through conflicts effectively, and spending extra time with our brothers and sisters in Christ to share in life’s ups and downs.
The prevalent temptation in the traditional Church setting is to replace discipleship with various Church programs often referred to as ministries. If there is a married couple struggling, they might often suggest they read a spiritual marriage book, enroll in a marriage counseling classes, or participate in a marriage retreat. But what they need most is the guidance and mentor-ship of couples who are seasoned and mature in their faith and have successfully overcome many of the challenges of marriage to come alongside them and assist with them through the challenges that marriage bring. Though these Church programs and ministries could be helpful, we often hide behind them and ignore our personal responsibility to engage in the discipleship process. It’s not that these programs are totally bad, but they might be undermining what is most important.
In “We are the Ekklesia”, the Group Elders are not responsible for Discipling everyone in their group all the time. Instead of that approach, they will engage the discipleship process with all of the believers in their group. But they will spend more time with the more seasoned \ experienced believers from the group in hope to teach and mentor them on how to disciple others. This will ensure that the more mature disciples are growing in their leadership ability by Discipling the less seasoned \experienced believers in the group fostering a solid methodology of maturing the group as a whole in discipleship. For those who are new to the faith will be encouraged to be actively engaging in evangelistic efforts and being trained to learn how to disciple others.
We want “We are Ekklesia” meetings to be a small intimate group of believers so that there is no ability for attendees to hide or get lost in the folds of the group. Each person’s is more transparent and visible to the group. It is essential to the health and well being of a Christian walk to be able to see when a brother or sister in Christ needs prayer and assistance when they are struggling with life’s challenges in both a carnal and spiritual sense. There should never be any room for believers to just “attend Church” when everyone is being Discipled for life and ministry because this is not what our Lord and Savior has called us out for.
EVERYONE EXERCISES THE 5-FOLD MINISTRY GIFTS & THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT
We encourage the practice of the 5 -fold ministry gifts and the fruits of the Spirit by all who attend our gatherings. We believe that these gifts were not intended for just a few, but for all that believe. Paul said “to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good” (1 Cor 12:7). He goes on to list many different types of gifts that the Spirit gives to believers for the sake of the body. Then he explains how every part of the body is needed, and how we must be careful not start to develop a mindset that some gifts are more important than others. We want every believer in the Ekklesia to realize that they are just as needed and important as anyone else in the Ekklesia. We have intentionally structured things to create space for everyone in the body to contribute in the gatherings and in everyday life. The Group Elders have an important calling to lead, but it doesn’t mean that they are the only voice that needs to be heard. We don’t have long monologue sermons in our house gatherings because we don’t want any one person to dominate the gatherings.
The Group Elders will be looking out for evident spiritual gifts that the people in the gatherings possess, to give them opportunities to lead and grow in those gifts. For example, if a person in the gathering might be under spiritual attack, a person that has the gift of discernment of spirits can invite that person to pray for that need with the Group Elders. If someone has the gift of hospitality, they would encourage them to invite some of the group over to their home for fellowship. Someone might have the gift of encouragement and so they would ask them to support someone who is struggling in the group. If someone has the ability to teach the Bible well, then we would ask them to to present a scripture passage that the Lord has given them insight on.
MULTIPLICATION CONCEPT OF THE MEETING GROUP
Our Group Elders focus on raising up disciples to become Group Elders who can start new gatherings of their own and multiply the body of Jesus Christ one community at a time. So many traditional Churches begin small and relational with discipleship in-focus, but are not able to maintain those characteristics because Church member growth soon becomes the primary focus of the Church. Before they know it, they have become more and more of traditional Church institution rather than a healthy family of God.
Meeting in homes sounds great, but what happens as the Ekklesia grows? How does a Ekklesia adapt as the Lord adds to their numbers? The answer in one word: Multiplication. Just like the beginning of life itself which starts out with the spiting of cells to create new cells until the organism is fully grown. Or like the concept of fruit trees that grow from a single seed that has come from the fruit of the tree. The true fruit of an apple tree isn’t the apples, but rather seeds found in the apples it produced. The true fruit of a strong leader is not the followers of that leader, but more strong leaders that are raised up from the followers of that leader. The true fruit of a healthy Ekklesia is not the attendants of the Ekklesia, but more the health and strength of each attendant of the Ekklesia which will mature and grow in Christ to become a leader and repeat the process. God has designed the world to have one basic principle that is a requirement for sustainability and that is reproduction! The fruit trees that cannot multiply through reproduction are ones that are genetically modified to have no seeds. Yes it is wonderful to eat a piece of fruit that we do not have to worry about seeds to pick out as we eat it. But if we have no seeds to replant new trees, we will find out that our pleasure in eating seedless fruit is short lived and not worth the effort of modifying the DNA of the fruit to become seedless after all. The traditional Ekklesia model has this problem and we have only begun to see the dangers of it. The principal of multiplication is essential to reproducing healthy and strong believers and gatherings that they belong to. We have too many GMO Churches that are over-sized and bloated with no strong seed production. We need to get back to conducting our worship the way Jesus Christ has intended it to be.
We multiply to preserve the healthy number of 15 people per gathering, and to prioritize the mission of God over our own comfort. In order to be able to multiply effectively, we must structure our groups in a way that is reproducible. We place a high premium on leadership development because we are preparing to multiply as soon as a group reaches it’s capacity and begins to go over the limit and new leadership is ready to step into their role as Group Elders. Our Group Elders, while trying to lead well, also have to be mindful to not make people too dependent on them, so that when it comes time to multiply, people have no problem going with a different leader. Effective leadership always involves allowing others to have the opportunity to lead, and it is imperative in the multiplication process.
Our Group Elders are developing Group Elders-in-training. When multiplication happens, each group multiplies by splitting in half. The criteria includes whether we have Group Elders-in-training ready to start taking the lead in the new group that will split from the original group. We want a healthy critical mass of at least 7 or 10 people including the leaders to start a new Ekklesia. It’s helpful to be this size to have a community to bring people into.
Multiplication is not something that will happen easily. Rarely does a group say, “we want to multiply and we’re ready!” Almost everyone says, “We don’t want to multiply yet.” Who’s going to want to see half the people that they have gotten to know leave their group? I would imagine that the group will feel this pain and will not like it much. But if we don’t anticipate the need to multiply regularly, it will make the process difficult.
Regular Gatherings
We want people to study the focus Scriptures for the that week before coming to the routine regular gathering. In a traditional Church, you get a sermon on Sunday, and then you get into small groups to discuss it during the week. For us, we do not want want to devote ourselves to thinking deeply about the Group Elders’ words but instead the inspired word of God that we read for our selves at home. We don’t want the believers in our groups to become dependent on how we preach the Scriptures. Rather, we believe that if you have the Spirit of God in you, you are able to read Scripture yourself, and as a body we can wrestle with the meaning of Scripture together to develop a better understanding of God’s Word in agreement.
Group Elders don’t preach sermons at our gatherings. If Group Elders feel very strongly about a particular focus scripture and want to bring a message about it to the Regular Gathering, they can teach teach on the focus scriptures for that week. But the teachings will be timed so that they do not take all of the meeting time up. Group Elders shouldn’t be the ones speaking the majority of the time in our gatherings. If they do, it subconsciously teaches people that they don’t have as much to offer to the group and we then begin to replicate the traditional Church format. The role of the Group Elders is to ask really good questions to stimulate the group to thinking about the Scriptures as well as teach one another throughout the discussion. We really want to get the body involved in being able to bring something to contribute in our Ekklesia gatherings. Make sure each person in your group understands this. If you’ve spent time with the Lord all week, meditating on His Word, you should have something to offer that would be beneficial to the body.
Prayer Gatherings
The same principle applies in our times of corporate prayer. We want to see people come into prayer gatherings desiring to see God use them to build up the body and bless the others in the meeting. We recommend trying to hold back from creating a strict format for prayer gatherings. We want to allow the Holy Spirit the ability to direct the meeting by using anyone in the meeting as He sees fit. In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul talks about someone having a hymn, another a tongue, and another having a prophecy, and all these should be done in proper order in the gatherings. Biblical gatherings have the element of different people participating and God speaking through different people. In typical Church meetings, leaders often feel like they need to control or dictate every minute of a gathering. Our Group Elders need to create space for the Spirit of the Lord to move, while not letting things get out of control or unbalanced and chaotic.
The leaders should guide and direct, but not control the prayer meeting which could stifle the Holy Spirit from moving the group in the direction that the Lord wants it to go in. The Ekklesia is not waiting for the Group Elders to discern what the Holy Spirit is saying or doing. Rather, everyone is discerning, looking to build up the body. Paul writes in Ephesians 4 that the body “grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work”. Our growth is connected to everyone working to build each other up. Since that is true, we believe it is important to focus on creating that sort of culture in our gatherings.