Anyone interested in creative and pioneering expressions of church in San Diego – tune in: We are gathering tonight, 6 p.m. at LeStats. Here is tonight’s program and the Facebook page. Whether you are there or not you can follow on Twitter by searching #ec114.

Written by James Pearson
Inspired by Matthew 23:23
You parse ancient scriptures with mathematical meticulousness; but you neglect to practice the Greatest Commandments, which Jesus said sum up the entire Law and Prophets: Love God with all that you are, and love your neighbor as yourself.
You should have committed yourselves wholly to the latter without neglecting the [...]

Through the collective I’ve met some amazing people in the greater San Diego area. I arrived here around 6 months unsure of my future, my relationship with God. I did however have a sincere desire to reconnect with a church that was built out of real relationships regardless of my faults, failures, and personality quarks.
We [...]

3rd Principle: Member Economic Participation
Members contribute equitably to, and democratically control, the capital of their co-operative. At least part of that capital is usually the common property of the co-operative. Members usually receive limited compensation, if any, on capital subscribed as a condition of membership. Members allocate surpluses for any or all of the following [...]

I will start by stating what will be obvious to some: we don’t control the Church. We are co-workers with Christ, but it is not ours, it is God’s. In this way, the 2nd Principle for Co-operatives is not universal for Christian faith communities. But I still believe that these principles are worthy of reflection…
2nd [...]

Jarrod McKenna in Australia, posted a link to a great article by, C. Wess Daniel. His article deals with the Church’s task to evoke “the desires of people for a world different than the one we inhabit.” Here’s a portion of Wess’s piece:
As I see it, (at least some of) the church can be guilty [...]

A while ago, I wrote about looking at the structure of co-operatives as helpful for understanding church. Back then, I wrote:
I have recently been interested in co-operatives as a model for understanding the Church. More specifically, local, geographic expressions of the Church; a congregation. I’ve been reading through the website of the International Co-operative Alliance. [...]

In late 1980, two young men started a record label in Washington DC called Dischord Records. Since that fateful day Dischord Records has released over 150 albums from a variety of Washington DC-based artists. The label has never entered into an agreement with a major record label and has remained fiercely [...]

Imagine.
Imagine what it would would happen if in your community there sprung up 2 or 3 or 6 or 10 or 15 groups of 8 to 15 people who are all committed to being apprentices together of Jesus; to learn what it means to be in accountable community, but saw their roles as representatives of [...]

This last Mother’s Day, I found myself thinking about the profound impact women have had on my life. My mother, my wife, my mother-in-law and my daughter are just some of those that have had the strongest female influence in my life.
While thinking about this, I began to think about something else: we often fail [...]