FALL 2014 the
EAST COAST COVENANTER A TRIANNUAL PUBLICATION OF THE EAST COAST CONFERENCE OF THE EVANGELICAL COVENANT CHURCH
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SHIP SHAPE "DISCIPLESHAPE" HOWARD K. BURGOYNE SUPERINTENDENT, EAST COAST CONFERENCE
“…They were astonished at what they saw. They still didn’t understand the significance of the miracle of the multiplied loaves, for their hearts were hard and they did not believe.” (Mark 6:51b-52)
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In Mark’s Gospel we see Jesus engaged in making disciples – he cultivated
Knowing the pernicious nature of unbelief, Jesus set stringent ministry
their trust in Him and shaped their lives as a potter works the clay into
conditions for the internships of his apostles. He imposed outward
a specific shape until finished. As Jesus recognized, unbelief is a key
restraints so he could reorient their true beliefs (6:9-11). He constrained
impediment to discipleship. More than a conscious struggle for intellectual
their practices to enlighten their hearts and minds. Practice does not
understanding, unbelief is centered in the subconscious struggle of a
guarantee perfection – but it does reinforce permanence. The back-
divided will. In honesty, our hidden affections, past experiences and secret
to-back miracles of Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000 (6:30f ) and walking on
devotion firmly hold captive our reasoning powers. This is true whether
the water (6:45f ) were focused on overturning the disciples’ ingrown
we are harnessed by light and truth or bound by darkness and futility. Our
unbelief. Under the conditions of gnawing hunger and weary fatigue the
will to believe is always tethered to our deepest allegiance. If I am double-
demonstrations of Jesus’ power upended roots of doubt and removed
minded I can only be half-hearted.
weeds of despair.
The nature of unbelief does not just afflict those who have not (yet) chosen
Confessing “Jesus is Lord!” is the foundation of Christian discipleship (1
to follow Jesus. It persistently afflicts those on the path to follow Jesus too.
Cor. 3:11). Embracing the mystery of the incarnation frames our mission
Deliverance from unbelief is progressive in nature. It dissolves bit by bit
in the world (“as the Father has sent me, so am I sending you”). The shape
as we walk in the ways of Jesus (“I believe Lord – help my unbelief!”).
of discipleship sustains the identity of the Church – we are the body and
Even when we’ve put our trust in Jesus we struggle to embrace the trust of
bride of Christ, and the growing temple of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus – His confidence in God as “Abba - Father.” Jesus, Mark writes, “was amazed at their unbelief ” – both the people Nazareth where he was raised
What’s the shape of your discipleship? Is it ship shape?
and his own conflicted disciples.
On the move,
IN THIS ISSUE:
have a question for howard? Email him at howard@eastcoastconf.org
Ship Shape "Discipleshape" 1
Introducing Mission insite 6
The Shape of Discipleship 2
Dust Covenant Profile 7
Navigate Recap 2
Get to Know: Robert Messore 8
A Conversation with Alan Hirsch 3
Conference Transitions 8
Responses to Alan & Deb Hirsch
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EAST COAST CONFERENCE 52 Missionary Road Cromwell, CT 06416 860.635.2691 www.eastcoastconf.org www.issuu.com/eastcoastcovenanter
t h e
shape
According to Superintendent Howard Burgoyne, the "shape" of discipleship is the particular form it takes in the life of a person and in the community together. While what form that shape takes necessarily will vary based on context and ministry, there must be a focus on the core practices of following Jesus. In other words, it is behavioral in nature. Discipleship should not be focused first and foremost on ideas or information or knowledge - but rather in the adoption of a particular way of life that is in keeping with the practices of Jesus. Indeed, as Howard notes, "Jesus said his disciples should go out and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to 'observe' all that He commanded them; so we are to make people observant of the ways of Jesus." What is the shape of discipleship at your church? For this issue of the Covenanter, three pastors from the Conference described the particulars and practices of discipleship in the context of their congregations. For Pastor Nancy Ebner of Orchard Covenant, the focal point was in personal and individual reckoning of discipleship - stretching beyond levels of comfort or culture. Pastor Drew Hyun of newly planted Hope Midtown Church (NYC) emphasized both environment and commitment as his watchwords. And finally, Pastor Dave Swaim of Highrock Arlington spoke of recognizing and addressing the challenges of discipleship in the context of a large congregation.
ORCHARD COVENANT Located outside of Springfield, MA, Orchard Covenant has seen dramatic changes over the years in terms of demographics and diversity. The church was founded in 1848 (though part of the Covenant since 1997), and that sense of history might seem particularly befitting of Reverend Nancy Ebner - a lifelong Covenanter with Swedish heritage ("I'm a Johnson," she
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reveals with a laugh) - who began here ten years ago as her first pastorate. However, with tough times befalling the region, the neighborhood's demographics have changed dramatically. The current makeup of Ebner's congregation of around 80 demonstrates this. "Most of the older members of our church are white, with most of our children being children of color," she notes. "We've gotten a large influx of immigrants and refugees, primarily from Africa and the Caribbean." The shape of discipleship that resulted from the shifting demographics at Orchard Covenant was one of engagement and welcoming - in Ebner's words, "learning how to be Christ to one another." For Nancy and her husband Wally, this meant moving into the house next door to the church when it came up for sale five years ago. This despite the fact that it was a move from a house with good property values to one with a low value. "I was preaching on real community then driving ten minutes away to our house, which might as well have been in a different world. We had to stop worrying about our middle class values and just be a neighbor of the neighbors of the church." Moreover, when the immigrants and refugees who were being placed in the town because of cheap housing stock started coming, congregation members began to wonder, "what should we do?" Ebner recalls. And she counseled her flock to "learn how to be brothers and sisters in Christ and to be a church together." And now? "I'm so proud of my church members in terms of discipleship," Ebner notes. "They've learned not to just 'be in church together' - but they've learned how to develop relationships and communicate - especially in multi-cultural situations. They're doing it on their own now." "It's been an interesting process in terms of the shape of discipleship. It's people learning new things, reaching out, not staying within our own four walls. Watching our congregation
ď‚ľ Visit Orchard Covenant online: www.orchardcovenant.org
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becoming comfortable going to any neighborhood in our city - not just the 'good' ones has been wonderful. Everyone's been sort of released in a way from fears or from one kind of way of doing things." Ebner concludes, "We're learning that if we can continue to be church together - such a diverse group of people - in a way that our neighborhood can see that, that we could continue to be a witness. Our neighborhood is diverse, but not everyone knows how to be together in their diversity. Our prayer is that we keep on inviting new people to leadership and to discipleship."
HOPE MIDTOWN The primary challenge for Pastor Drew Hyun of Hope Midtown NYC is the culture and environment where his church has just started services in late October. "Part of our strategy," says Hyun, "is that ultimately, if disciple-making is the end goal, and not church planting - the question is, what's the best way to make disciples? It has to be life-on-life. That's why we've gone with an intentional strategy of having small community churches. Because we firmly believe that it's in the context of community and relationships that discipleship happens as opposed to crowds and classrooms."
While it's no surprise then that Hope Midtown's emphasis for discipleship and relationships centers around smaller settings, it's the commitment piece that distinguishes their shape of discipleship from others. In addition to Sunday service, Hope Midtown has three subgroups of community and mission. First, there are missional communities - areas of society where congregants share faith through word or deed. Second, home groups - in essence, a typical church small group.
Visit Hope Midtown online: www.hopemidtown.org
of discipleship
Finally, there are the discipleship groups. The last of these is particularly distinctive of the church's location Midtown New York. "We set out to create a high challenge, high commitment environment with these groups," explains Hyun. These groups are comprised of groups of three, with heavy Scripture study and prayer - with an influence from Pastor Don Schiewer from Dust Covenant (see sidebar on page 7) with "scribing' and asking intentional hard questions. The prerequisites might seem daunting - commitment for six months is total - there can be no missed meetings, there is a mandatory level of preparedness with the week's text, and there is a commitment that at the conclusion of the six months, disciplers have to commit to discipling two other people. "We wanted to set up a system whereby if you're committing to this - you're truly committed. I love the high bar of commitment piece, because it really speaks against the values of this city. In a place like New York City, commitment is harder, especially with the transience of the city." Even in its relative infancy, Pastor Hyun is already seeing fruit from the discipleship groups - with a couple of new believers getting baptized, and a goal to double the number of groups by this time next year.
had a very organic system for disciple-making - with people simply in close relationship. But the church and Pastor Dave Swaim started seeing a shift in this: "There's a recognition that this hasn't been an area of strength for us as our congregation has gotten so big," he says. "It's one of those things that as we grew, the connective tissue has not been able to grow as quickly. For us, that has been a disappointment." As a direct result, this fall, Highrock has begun implementing more deliberate and concrete steps towards being a more discipleship-minded community even with the challenges of its size. Focusing on the principles of DiscipleShift, there has bee an implementation of a plan and structure towards making disciples. For Highrock Arlington (which at present also includes the soon-to-belaunched Highrock Acton team and the smaller Harvard Square campus) - 120 people meet each week studying the DiscipleShift material for use in smaller groups. Says Swaim, "We have a more clear plan and some concrete steps towards making disciples, and we're moving along at a reproducible process." He outlined three general guidelines that shape the process of discipleship making: First, there has to be an intentional leader. Second, there has to be a relationship environment, a vehicle through which discipleship can flow. And finally, there has to be a reproducible process - so that the end result is creating more disciplers who then in turn would create more discipleship groups.
HIGHROCK ARLINGTON From its beginnings in 1999 from a home church to the 1,000+ member congregation in Arlington, MA that it is today, Highrock has historically
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Visit Highrock Arlington online: www.highrock.org
NAVIGATE RECAP by kreig gammelgard director of congregational vitality
East Coast Conference representatives at Navigate
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The annual Navigate Conference was wonderful again this year. Three new churches from the East Coast Conference joined with another 24 Covenant churches from around the country to begin the journey of vitality. Each church was able to bring their pastor and three key leaders that will help guide the vitality process in their congregations, and all of this is possible because of the Legacy churches who have completed their ministry and blessed the work of God's Kingdom through their gifts. The East Coast Conference churches that attended Navigate this year are Pilgrim Covenant Church in Lunenburg, MA. with Pastor Ryan Sarenpa; Salem Covenant church in Worcester, MA. with Pastors Mark Frykholm and Austin Eisele; and Cornerstone Covenant church in Boston, MA. with Pastor Bill Johnson. This group is quite unique in that all of them are in a very different place. Pastor Ryan is just beginning his second year in Lunenburg. Pastor Mark will be retiring at the end of the summer, and Pastor Austin will help lead into this transition. Pastor Bill has just started his ministry at Cornerstone, our youngest church (at 10 years old) that has joined the vitality pathway. I am looking forward to the Holy Spirit leading these churches into a new and fresh day of significant ministry in their communities in the months ahead.
www.covchurch.org/vitality/navigate
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What might that look like within our churches?
A CONVERSATION WITH
A LA N
What is important is our practices - which are embodied values, not just core ones. Core
HIRSCH
values causes us to believe with our head. You can affirm it in your mind but it doesn't necessarily change our lives. What if you put core values embodied in behavior. In other words, put those behaviors and practices at the core of the church - then require some level of conformity to those behaviors and embed values to behaving and people creating rhythms of life around those things.
into new ways of thinking, not simply think
There needs to be an active engagement
our ways into new ways of acting - which is
with the world. When you look at Jesus -
what we normally do.
the perfect human being - perfectly holy,
How can we as individuals begin to remedy this problem?
Untamed describes a Jesus-centered, mission-shaped way of discipleship and Christian living. Why do we have this tamed sense of discipleship?
We follow a much more Platonic idea of
holiness looks like, we look at Jesus. And
knowledge - that if you have the idea of
what we see is that he's deeply engaged in
something, then you've got it. Minds change
ordinary life, in the marketplace, in people's
if you read a book or go to a seminar - but it
houses. He's literally in proximity with
doesn't necessarily address our behaviors. In
people. Holiness comes out of God and
the Bible, there is more emphasis in putting
redeems the world. Not extraction from the
things into action.
world, but engagement with it.
Voltaire said, 'God made us in His image and we return the favor.' Indeed, we've domesticated the center of our faith, Jesus. We make Him to be like us because we're rebels. Because it's hard to live under a Lord - it's hard to follow the demands of God. We make him much more domestic and religious than He really is. In Revelation (Rev 3:14-22), the Church in Laodicea is mentioned, with Jesus standing outside ("Here I am! I stand at the door and knock..."). But the question is - why are they singing songs to Jesus from the inside, when He's outside the door? Reading the scriptures, you see Jesus reserving some of his harshest criticism for religious folk - and yet we've become those religious folk. We domesticate and moderate Jesus in order to manage the white-hot nature of His demands.
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We have to learn how we can act our ways
You address the "Untamed Culture" in Part Two of your book. In what ways does culture and discipleship relate - and what are the pitfalls?
Alan and Debra Hirsch were the featured speakers at the recent East Coast Conference Ashram at Pilgrim Pines. Alan shared some of his thoughts with the Covenanter on being "untamed" as it pertains to discipleship in individuals, the church, and for the Conference.
perfectly human. If we want to look at what
Indeed, this is how
human beings learn how to walk and talk in the first place - we don't read book about
If the church vacates society as the primary
walking and talking - we actually did it. I
provider of meaning and religious identity,
would suggest that theological knowledge is
then what will happen is that the gap will
best gained by those means.
be filled by the market. Manipulation of the sense of self. We have to walk a different
For example, often we would substitute
pathway. But do it in the context of life.
prayer with reading a book about prayer. We believe in belief about God. But God does
Moreover, if the church doesn't very
shake us up. We have to learn to practice
deliberately prioritize discipleship - then
intimacy with God and let Him in our
the cultural forces around and about us
hearts - as frightening as that might seem
will effectively disciple us. Every day we're
to be to our sense of safety and lifestyle.
being shaped by messages and rewards for
I think that's what discipleship is about.
certain behaviors that cultivate a deep sense
Otherwise, I don't know what Christianity
of consumerism (not just buying goods that
is about if it's not that. You can't just be all
we need - but how meaning, purpose, and
about theology. As Dallas Willard said, "We
belonging are being sought in the purchase
educated beyond our capacity to obey."
of products).
So a central question is - where do you get your primary definitions from? If our primary sense of self, meaning and purpose are defined by the culture, then we're in big trouble. It creates a definite kind of unhappiness. Idolatry is always a false quest. They can promise, but they can't deliver.
What role can churches and our Conference play in discipleship?
It all goes to the priority of Jesus in everything. Not just taking the doctrine of Christ - but rather, what does it mean to live while taking the lordship of Jesus very seriously. We do "strange" stuff in our churches. For example the order of service. It's not written in the Bible that a church service starts with three songs, which is then followed by announcements, etc., etc. And yet nearly every church slavishly follows this - we never forget to "practice" this aspect. And yet, of all the things we've chosen to forget in our practice in our churches,
CONFERENCE PASTORS' RESPONSES TO ALAN & DEB HIRSCH AT ASHRAM 2014 IN PILGRIM PINES I'm very new to the Covenant. This was only my third Ashram, but it's retreats and gatherings like these ones that have helped me feel at home in this community. This year at Ashram, I realized that I no longer felt like a freshman navigating a new world and trying to establish new relationships. Instead, it was refreshing to reconnect with other Covenanters outside of my church context who now feel like friends and ministry partners. I was thankful for the presentations and conversations led by the Hirsches about how to care well for the LGBTQ community, as well as our whole churches as we navigate through often confusing challenges that come with sexuality. I thought Deb and Alan's perspectives were fresh, respectful, loving, and insightful, while also being challenging and convicting - they felt like a true balance of grace and truth. I was thankful for the opportunity to hear from and wrestle with some of these questions with the other pastors at the retreat.
BRYNN HARRINGTON Salem, MA
we forget to do discipleship - which is so central to Jesus' ministry and teachings and commands and commissioning of the church. So how then does a church or conference or denomination engender right practice? It's a good challenge. In meeting with many people from the East Coast Conference during Ashram, I was very much encouraged by their servant-like, non-sectarian way of going about things. So I suppose the questions that need to always be on your minds as a conference: how does the ECC keep discipleship as an agenda? And how do we make discipleship better? That would be a good vision no? Churches or a conference known as a Jesus-centered, discipleship-based movement. It doesn't get more central than that.
Alan & Debra Hirsch's book "Untamed" casts a dynamic vision of mission-shaped discipleship, exposing the idolatrous clutter filling our lives, and seeking to recapture what it means to be authentic followers of Jesus.
I had a wonderful experience at Ashram. As a first timer, I felt instantly welcomed into the fold of the East Coast Conference. I really appreciated that fellowship was a main focus and there was plenty of time and freedom to simply invest in fellow pastors. It was so good to see friends that I hadn't seen in a long time, and even make some new ones. The teaching was challenging, the whiffle ball was exciting, and the hours and hours of good conversation was nourishing. Even just 6 months in to my ministry, going to Ashram helped me to feel at home.
CHRISTOPHER WALL Attleboro, MA I really enjoyed our two speakers: Alan & Debra Hirsch. I had read their co-authored book Untamed prior to the retreat so I went into the first session with Alan very intrigued to hear what he'd have to say in person. Alan talked a lot about the "domains of life" – you've got your family life, your professional life, your finances, sexuality, etc. All of these different domains need to come under the lordship of Jesus if you're going to be a serious disciple. Otherwise, these different facets of life become little idols; you end up worshiping your career track and bank account, just to name two potential idols. Alan said that monotheism is fundamentally about renouncing idolatry whereby all the dominions of life come under the reign of God. Alan is very Jewish in his thinking about discipleship. He starts with the Shema ("hear O Israel..."), explains how Leviticus shows us that God cares about all spheres of life, and talks a lot about idolatry and how radical it was that Israel worshiped just one God. Among other things, Debra presented on the idea of pre-conversion discipleship as revealing peoples' imago dei (Image of God). She said that often times we want to focus on sinful behavior rather than the ways in which we reflect God's original intent for human life. This was a new way of thinking for me because usually in the church we think of discipleship as a post-conversion activity. But for Deb discipleship is something that should happen prior to a conversation experience and afterwards as well. In addition to interacting with Alan and Deb, I got to be a part of two very intentional conversations with colleagues around the topics of race and ethnicity and human sexuality. I also got to talk to Don Schiewer down in Blacksburg, Va, who has a very formal discipleship process for those that participate in his church plant. I felt like my conversation with Don gave me some good ideas about how I can promote a stronger culture of discipleship within my own ministry setting.
RIC WILD Riverside, RI
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an introduction to
How well do you know your church community? How do you define the contours of your ministry parish? As churches, our buildings sit on street corners or in neighborhoods and our people come from all ends of town and beyond, but what about the people in our neighborhoods that we don’t know? What bridge can we find that can connect our churches to the community and neighbors around us?
This easy to use system also provides the ability for local churches to locate their church members and others affiliated with their church on your regional or community map. Imagine the ministry opportunities that could arise by gaining access to this information within your church leadership! MissionInsite is designed to help your church to:
MissionInsite is a new and remarkable online tool available as a benefit of your church’s East Coast Conference membership that will give you a deeper understanding of the communities your church serves - and seeks to serve. MissionInsite provides instant access to community information for your church via the online MissionInsite System.
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Determine your best ministry opportunities
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Answer strategic ministry questions by neighborhood
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Understand population trends BEFORE they happen
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Make informed ministry decisions based upon local preferences
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Accurately identify and thoughtfully reach households in your ministry area
The MI System provides you with a new way to access current and comprehensive demographic information. It moves beyond static reports to provide a powerful discovery tool for exploration and “out of the box” thinking to support a wide variety of church related and community outreach ministries. It can be invaluable for launching new ministries, planting small groups and missional communities, adding church campuses, or starting new congregations. It can help established ministries to evaluate and align their long standing ministries by comparing them with the current needs, trends, preferences and interests of the many people that surround your church.
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Help you focus on specific demographic groups you want to connect with
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Plot future small groups, missional communities, and satellite ministry opportunities
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Create neighborhood thematic maps that display the reality of your mission field
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Create customizable reports in seconds with a Report Wizard
To find out more, go to www.missioninsite.com. To access MissionInsite, contact Alicia Sturdy in the East Coast Conference office by calling her at (860) 635-2691 or via email at office@ eastcoastconf.org, to receive login credentials for your congregation. Churches can have unlimited numbers of users who can login independently to research a wide variety of ministry areas.
"MissionInsite does much more than provide demographic information. The mosaic study gives very helpful snapshots of the various segments of a community's population. And then offers keen cultural and spiritual analysis that can increase our missional impact. I already knew we were planting our church in a family-centric town. MissionInsite confirmed this and deepened my understanding of this demographic. Even more, MissionInsite helped me identify a prominent, but much less visible demographic in our community - that of success-driven singles - that we had completely overlooked. This has helped me rethink the makeup of our launch team and some of our mission priorities."
Will Barnett, Highrock Covenant Church, Acton, MA
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Look into MissionInsite online: www.missioninsite.com
An ALTERNATE MODEL FOR
CHURCH PLANTING at dust covenant
Even from the name and tagline of Pastor Don Schiewer's Blacksburg, VA church, it is readily apparent that he has a different take on church planting is. For Dust Covenant Church - so named because of the Jewish concept of discipleship (disciples followed so closely to their rabbis that they would be literally covered in the dust kicked up by their teachers) - the tagline of "Discipleship First. Church Second." belies a very different model of doing church. "Growing up in the church, discipleship has always been something that everyone strives for but can't get a hold of," recalls Don. "Moreover, seeing that people's comfort zone was equating discipleship with the Great Commission - but that 'making disciples' became 'making converts' evangelism trumped discipleship." The model he's started in Virginia is a "flipped" model of church planting. For Dust Covenant did not get its start with large Sunday gatherings, but rather with discipleship at the center - with one-to-one discipleship relationships. "What I try to communicate to people is that they've never experienced someone in the church investing so much time in them," notes Schiewer. "I think they notice the reciprocal nature of it - that it works both ways." The conversation begins with the notion that the person being discipled is going to become a discipler. Discipleship time starts out with story sharing to build trust in one another; then room is given for a chosen areas of questioning or study - be it from scripture or a book. It's open to the person and what s/he is wanting to pursue. Finally, it's made clear that there's a clear
intentionality with regard to time and energy - that Schiewer as a discipler will be available - he will answer the phone if called. "My life is available to them," he says. "When you do so with an intentionality, there's a danger to make people look like you, versus helping people to look like Christ. The goal isn't to make a disciples into 'mini-Dons,' but to help them to understand and articulate their own faith." "I spend about one-and-a-half to two-anda-half hours a week with each of the people I'm discipling (what he terms intimate space)," Schiewer adds. "It's a very intensive time of study - striving to keep our 'believe' and 'behave' aligned. For us it's a lot of very intentional time studying the text together, having them understand why they believe what they belief rather than just spouting off doctrine." In addition, Dust Covenant holds a bible study once a week with all those being discipled (personal space), along with a Sunday gathering time (social space). "People who are part of our Sunday gathering at what we call our 'House of Study' recognize that it's discipleship first," adds Schiewer. As a result, Sundays are very "laid back" - featuring what he terms, "inquiry-based, choose your own adventure" sermons. Congregants in the 20-25 member church know ahead of time what the passage will be for the week, and come with questions to interact with it during service. As Schiewer notes, "Collective wisdom is so much better than individual wisdom." And while Dust Covenant has the privilege of being small in a very fluctuating college town community, Schiewer recognizes that
Visit Dust Covenant online: www.dustchurch.com
their trajectory is heading towards having public gathering spaces later this year - once a month services of over 70 people. Notes Schiewer, "The question then becomes, how do we live in such a way that our focus remains on the intimate space - which serves and cares for that personal space - which serves and cares for our social space - which then serves and cares for our public space." Schiewer adds, "The typical four stage launch large church plant model will wrestle with how do we plug people into discipleship and intimate space? Now that people have developed these deep intimate relationships at Dust Covenant, are we going to them struggle in welcoming people in a large public setting? We're still finding that out." What lies in store for this flipped model of church planting? "There's already a discipleship model church being planted in both New York City and Boston and I'm excited to see how they take this model to the next level," notes Schiewer.
Don Schiewer is the pastor of Dust Covenant Church in Blacksburg, Virginia - a church built on the idea that discipleship should be the church body's primary focus. Don believes that deep study of scripture is an often overlooked part of the church experience, and dedicates himself to teaching others how to study the Bible. Don's careful study of scripture has also led him to believe that service to others is a cornerstone of good Christian faith, a belief that led him to found the nonprofit Food for Thought Toledo, as well as become the recipient of the Servant Leadership Center’s “Justice Minister” Award in 2009, and the ECC's Dave and Beth Chilcoat Award in Church Outreach in 2010.
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distributor. He currently attends Christ Church in East Greenwich, RI.
GET TO KNOW
robert messore CONFERENCE BOARD CHAIR Robert Messore, the newly elected Board Chair of the East Coast Conference, is looking forward to his three-year term - full of both aspirations for the Conference during his tenure, along with a real handle on what the potential challenges will be in his new role. A resident of Exeter, RI, with his wife, daughter, and grandson (they have two other grown children), Robert works as the Director of Sales at Hubbard-Hall, Inc., a chemical
"My role as board chair is to assist the Superintendent in running the Conference's annual meeting, while also attending the annual meeting of conference chairs to discuss best practices," he noted. But apart from his spelled-out duties as chair, Messore is looking forward to several initiatives in the next few years. "I would like for each board member to have a sense of their calling to the role. I think it is important to clarify the roles of the board members - so that each has a sense of responsibility and ownership," he noted. "Moreover," he continued, "I would like to create opportunities for lay leadership. The life of a church now tends to rely on lay leadership more than in the past. So I think it's valuable to develop strong lay leadership throughout the conference.
Transitions
In terms of challenges, Messore mentioned that one piece he wanted to be more well-connected to those churches and congregations that are more outside the central area of the wide-ranging East Coast Conference. He asked, "Do the people in those areas have the sense of support that the Conference can offer to them?" If not, I want to make sure there is an awareness towards supporting the conference toward the entirety of the region. As for prayer requests, Messore asked that each of the fourteen Conference board members be lifted up in prayer as they meet quarterly to discuss how best to marshall resources for the kingdom. And for himself, he asked "that I continue to seek God's voice in prayer, and that I'm available and open to suggestions from people within the conference."
COMINGS & GOINGS WITHIN THE CONFERENCE
Dan Sadlier from Hope/Astoria, NY (Residency) to Hope/Roosevelt Island, NY (Church Planter); Will & Becky Barnett from Highrock/Arlington, MA (Staff) to Highrock/Acton, MA (Church Planter/Staff); David Capozzi to E. Bridgewater, MA (Young Adults & Youth); Johnny Agurkis, from N. Easton, MA to Brewster, MA (Co-Pastor) Jeff OLSON from E. Greenwich, RI (Worship) to NWC Church Planting
Paul W. Kahn EDITOR / GRAPHIC DESIGN & LAYOUT / WRITER Alicia Sturdy EDITOR Howard Burgoyne PUBLISHER
eastcoastcovenanter@gmail.com
52 Missionary Road, Cromwell, CT 06416 (860) 635-2691 FAX: (860) 398-5071 www.eastcoastconf.org
MINISTERIAL ASSOCIATION SCHEDULE Thursday, April 9. 2015 Continuing Education Day
8:30 AM Coffee & Registration 9:00 AM Business Meeting 12:00 Noon Lunch
Joshua Danielson to E. Greenwich, RI (Worship Pastor)
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Our new schedule concept is laid out below. Pastors, please take notice and notify your delegates as you plan to attend this year.
Friday, April 10, 2015 Ministerial Association Business Meeting
David Hosang to Englewood, NJ (Teaching Pastor)
EAST COAST CONFERENCE
The 125th Annual Meeting is scheduled for April 10-11, 2015. The schedule will be shifted so that the business meeting will be divided into two sessions over two days for the Conference Annual Meeting; to allow this, the Ministerial Association meeting will end at noon on Friday.
8:30 AM Coffee & Registration 9:00 AM Continuing Education 10:15 AM Break 10:45 AM Continuing Education 12:00 Noon Lunch 1:00 PM Continuing Education 2:15 PM Break 2:45 PM Continuing Education 4:00 PM Adjournment/Dinner 7:00 PM Worship Service
Joshua Olivero to Englewood, NJ (Young Adults)
the EAST COAST COVENANTER
Annual Meeting Schedule Change April 10-11, 2015
Friday, April 10, 2015 East Coast Conference 125th Annual Meeting 1:30 PM Registration Opens 3:00 PM Annual Meeting, Session 1 5:00 PM Adjournment 5:30 PM Dinner 7:00 PM Conference Worship Celebration
Saturday, April 11, 2015 East Coast Conference 125th Annual Meeting 8:00 AM Leadership Round Tables & Networking Breakfast 9:30 AM Communion Service 10:15 AM Annual Meeting, Session 2 12:30 PM Adjournment followed by Lunch
www.issuu.com/eastcoastcovenanter
SUPERINTENDENT:
Howard K. Burgoyne
DIR. OF CHURCH PLANTING:
Jason Condon
DIR. OF CONGREGATIONAL VITALITY:
Kreig Gammelgard
OFFICE MANAGER:
Alicia Sturdy
FINANCE MANAGER:
Robin Jones