What to expect when attending a meeting at “We are the Ekklesia” devotional gatherings
DEVOTION TO SCRIPTURE
We are born again, 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 understand that the Old Testament with the Old Covenant between the God and Abraham and his descendants (Israel) was the foreshadow of the New and Everlasting Covenant that is in Christ Jesus. It clearly demonstrates the Holiness of God and the wretchedness of man and our inability to keep the whole law of God. We see clearly 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 in Jesus Christ alone. The Old Testament introduces the promise of God in a coming Messiah that will usher in the New Covenant of God which is the foundation of unmerited grace and mercy which comes through Jesus Christ or King of kings and Lord of lords.
We do not demand adherence to any 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. We do caution the group to be careful with their selection of bible versions as there are versions that are dangerous as far as translation goes. 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 okay to ask questions as we read the Bible, but we encourage it. We embrace mutual sharing of the scriptures in a dialogue format that is peer to peer instead of the sermon lecture approach which has become the standard in churches today. We believe that this format will encourage everyone that joins our gatherings to dig into the Bible personally to pursue revelation from God 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 church so they can get spiritually fed. This should not be the case at all. That is not what being a disciple of Jesus Christ is about. Having Elders in the body of Christ is for the purpose of teaching and training disciples to increase in the understanding of God’s word so that the body of Christ is edified and the disciples mature in their walk with Christ and become elders to repeat the cycle of multiplying the Ekklesia. The leadership understands that their mission is to teach the scriptures in a way that promotes eventual independence, and to train disciples how to read the word of God, utilizing study tools and helps that they can work through without reliance on another person so that they will grow stronger in their understanding of Kingdom principles. This will cause them to mature as Christians to be able to repeat the training model with new disciples just as they were trained.
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. The Ekklesia cannot be successful or healthy if the people are not personally walking 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 the framework of our gatherings to build a culture and mindset of people spending time with God every single day for their spiritual health and well-being walking out our salvation daily with trembling and fear.
Many Christians look to Sunday morning as the time where they will be “fed” by someone preaching a sermon, but we expect everyone in the Ekklesia to be able to read \ study the word of God on their own with effective understanding eventually. 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 relying on a Sunday sermon to listen to someone explain the word of God to them, there is a lot of potential for false teaching to be accepted by a people who are mistaking their understanding of blind faith for something more on the line of blind obedience. They can be easily led astray from sound doctrinal truths by a dynamic teacher that has put their own twist on the scriptures and is preaching a warped truth that is enticing and attractive to those who are not grounded in the truth of God’s word. But when everyone in the Ekklesia is reading through the whole Bible together and sharing their perception and understand of the scriptures in a dialogue, it becomes very difficult for them to be led astray. Many Christians would identify our gatherings as a bible study because it will not resemble a Sunday Service, but look more like an intimate small gathering bible study group that is usually done on a weeknight within a larger church. The difference is that we believe that this smaller intimate group setting is what our gatherings should always be like to ensure balance, inclusion and protection against all-star behaviors and keeping the body focused on Jesus instead of leadership personalities.
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 he 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 which is very simple. 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 physical food. But then Jesus refuses to give them any more physical food anymore to make sure that only those who want to follow Him for the right reasons (Spiritual Food) would continue to follow after Him. Are we willing to do the same thing in our Ekklesia gatherings? Are we willing to strip away everything that is not spiritually necessary to make sure people are being drawn by Jesus and Jesus alone?
We try to be very intentional, so that we aren’t drawing people in with anything other than living for and loving Jesus Christ, and loving and caring for our brothers and sisters in Christ. We don’t have any paid staff, or own any buildings or campuses. The main thing you get in attending a “We are the Ekklesia” gathering is the love of Jesus and belonging to a community of believers that are called out for His purpose in sharing the Gospel message to world that is perishing. If you are looking for traditional Church with the typical programs and social offerings, “We are the Ekklesia” is probably not going to fulfill that need. We are not focused on how to create impressive strategies that entail marketing schemes that cater to the seeker mindsets to draw people into a Church institution to grow membership number quotas. We choose to practice a Christian life \ walk that glorifies the Father and exemplifies Christ likeness in public spaces without shame or fear. We share our faith and the truth of the Gospel without political correctness. We understand that Jesus will build His Ekklesia. The Holy Spirit will draw each and every man, woman and child to Jesus Christ and provide the convicting power of God to those who hear and believe so that they will be added to the Kingdom of God. Jesus knew this. The Apostles knew this. Let’s not do anything differently today.
We worship the Lord together, read and study the scriptures together, pray together, share meals and practice communion in the remembrance of what Jesus has done for us together. We conduct life together as we enjoy the company of our brothers and sisters in Christ. We do not do the programs \ service ministries like most churches do in their professional format because we teach each other how to live life as a living ministry without the institutionalization with all of it’s programs and traditions.
WE MEET IN HOMES & PUBLIC PLACES
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 Ekklesia gathering? We’ve thought about this question, and based on the the fifty “one another” commands found in the New Testament, we would expect to see a lot of love demonstrated by Christians when they gather. Based on the way Paul describes the Ekklesia in 1 Corinthians, we would expect to see people contributing to gatherings with 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 that face a stage or alter where a few paid professionals conduct a program and lead a traditional service while everyone who attends is expected to remain quiet while just a few people lead.
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.
In order to help us to be able to learn how to 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 in a gathering, it becomes increasingly difficult to conduct the group gatherings like a family get together. It impedes our ability to be able to truly know each other on a more intimate level, carrying each other’s burdens, and be able to build each other up in our faith. Many Churches emulate this form of group meetings today and refer to them as home group or study groups while viewing Sunday gatherings at a traditional Church building as the primary focus and the intended experience of Church. The community home group meeting as optional and not emphasized. We are the opposite of this mentality as 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. A group of believers that meet routinely to pray, study the Word of God, Worship the Lord, break bread and share meals, but also enjoy life with each other outside of the meetings 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 that Church building or campus. By meeting in homes and having no Church buildings, we have the ability 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 by multiplying the small groups that are more in alignment with the original body of Christ instead of growing mega churches.
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 any and all who will listen in hope 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 as mentors. Although some 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 the discipleship process and being a part of God’s family, the Ekklesia..
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.
We want “We are Ekklesia” gatherings 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 of the group is encouraged to be 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 edifying the body of Christ. Then he explains how every part of the body is needed, and how we must be careful not start developing a mindset that promotes some spiritual gifts to be more important than others. We want every believer in the Ekklesia to realize that they are just as needed and important in the body of Christ 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 the groups, but it doesn’t mean that they are the only ones actively sharing in the groups. We do not do long monologue sermons or teachings in our house gatherings because we don’t want any one person to dominate the gathering. We share the topic \ scripture reading to all in the group for the focus of the week to come and then we read through the scriptures on our own prior to the next gathering so that we will have the ability to share our thoughts and revelations in the group and be able to ask questions.
The Group Elders will be looking out for evident spiritual gifts that the people in the group possess, to give them opportunities to lead and grow in those gifts. For an example, if a person in the group is under spiritual attack in their daily lives and a person that has the gift of discernment is able to identify this attack, they can invite that person to pray for that need. If someone has the gift of hospitality and they enjoy blessing others, they would be encourage to invite some of the group over to their home for fellowship and a nice meal or coffee and desert. Someone might have the gift of encouragement and so they would be encouraged to provide emotional and spiritual support to someone who is struggling in the group. If someone has the ability to teach the scriptures, then they would encouraged to to present a teaching on 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 group that exemplifies the family of God.
Meeting in homes sounds great, but what happens as the Ekklesia grows? How does the 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 splitting 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 found in the followers of that leader, but more so the strong leaders that are raised up from the followers of that leader. The true fruit of a healthy Ekklesia is not the attendants of a group gathering, but more the health and strength of each attendee of the group that matures and grows in Christ to become a leader and repeat the discipleship process.
God has designed the world to have one basic principle that is the 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 church model has this problem and we have only begun to see the dangers of it. The principal of multiplication is essential to reproducing spiritually healthy and strong believers which in turn create strong groups that follow that standard. We have too many GMO type Churches that are over-sized and bloated with no strong seed production. We need to get back to conducting our worship and Kingdom life 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 always developing Group Elders-in-training. Not Seminary-trained professional business clergy. Not institutional focused ministry staff. Just discipled believers that are grounded in their faith, understanding the principles of the Kingdom of God and know how to disciple others to become just as spiritually strong and useful as they are.
When multiplication happens, each group multiplies by splitting in half. The criteria includes whether the Group Elders-in-training are 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 and love leave their group to start a new group somewhere else? I would imagine that the group will feel this pain and will not like it. But if we do not learn the importance of this growth principle and practice it with determination, there will be no growth.
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 give a brief teaching (10 to 15 minutes) 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 that will transfer to the next group when we multiply and then we begin to replicate the traditional Church format. The role of the Group Elders is to ask really good questions to stimulate the group to get the group thinking about the Scriptures as well as being a point of oversight and guidance for the group to make sure that the gathering stays on strack and that the group remains productive. 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 steer clear from creating a strict format for prayer gatherings so that they are more spirit lead than program lead. 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.
