“… we are committed to being open to change - open to the Spirit as he blows his direction into our sails. Therefore, you’ll find that this is not an exhaustive description nor will it ever be. This exists to simply help negotiate some unfamiliar territory… When it becomes a map then we’ve missed the point.”
- Rick Horton, Matthew’s House

The Ecclesia Collective is a growing relational and ecumenical network of faith communities, church leaders, activists, artists, community leaders and others interested in nurturing grassroots expressions of the Kingdom of God in San Diego. We do this primarily through establishing missional communities, community organizing, spiritual formation, education and training towards a more equitable, sustainable and community-focused way of Christian discipleship in urban San Diego.
ec·cle·si·a (noun): a congregation, church; an assembly, from the Greek word meaning to summon forth or to call out

The church is the people of God not a place or an event. Therefore, believing in both human dignity and God’s redemptive intent for humanity, we believe that the ecclesia should not be commodified by the marketplace, politicized by the nation state, or separated from those most in need of human dignity–the marginalized, the stranger, the sick and the poor.

col·lec·tive (noun): a cooperative unit or organization

Convinced of the above, we have come together–and encourage others to come together–as collections of people intending to dream of and organize our lives around cooperative expressions of the ecclesia.

History
Several years ago, a small of group of people that had previously been pastors and leaders at various churches in Southern California came together to start Matthew’s House, a cluster of faith communities meeting in homes in San Diego County. A few years later, a few of the folks from that initial group moved into the city and started The Ecclesia Collective.

The Ecclesia Collective was founded in late 2003 with the intent to nurture grassroots expressions of the Kingdom of God in the city of San Diego. This site exists to document the on-going evolution of the people and projects of the Collective.

There a few books that have documented our journey:

Emerging Worship by Dan Kimball
Emerging Churches by Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger
Jim and Casper Go To Church by Jim Henderson and Matt Casper
An interview with co-founder, Jason Evans can be found here.

Are You A Church?
Yes and no. We are people that have chosen to follow God through the way of Jesus. We come together as communities. But we are not organized in the standard manner of the Church. Some participants consider this their church, others go to Sunday services somewhere else. Some of us have roots in western Christianity, others do not. We intend to be radically inclusive and ecumenical. We’re okay with the contradictions this may pose for some… Maybe this will help: we are more like a spiritual co-operative than a typical church.

We have found that Elizabeth O’Connor’s books documenting the life of Church of the Savior in Washington D.C. to be helpful in providing a framework for how we approach our spirituality. While some may phrase these in different ways, the spiritual commitments or practices listed are the best we can do to articulate those commitments. This list is adapted from Richard Foster’s book, The Celebration of Discipline and Debra Farrington’s, Living Faith Day by Day:

The Journey Inward

Prayer: commitment to a regular time of prayer
Study: commitment to a regular practice of learning more about God
Health: commitment to caring for one’s body as though it is a temple of the Spirit of God

The Journey Outward

Work: commitment to conducting one’s work no different than their spiritual life
Reaching Out: commitment to discerning God’s specific missional call on one’s life
Hospitality: commitment to practicing invitation and inclusion of the stranger and familiar

The Journey Together

Community: commitment to a spiritual companion and community
Kingdom: commitment to the rule and reign of Jesus as central to all of life
Sustainability: commitment to living within economic margins, moving towards the biblical principles of Sabbath and Jubilee

How Do I Get Involved?
Support the EC

The Collective is a non-profit organization and all financial contributions are tax-deductible.

Come and Join Us

We welcome you to join us whether at one of our weekly gatherings or events. You can visit our our online calendar to see what’s going on. You may also want to visit the blogs of the co-instigators of the Collective, Jason and Brooke Evans.

The Hawthorn House can host small groups for weekend urban experiences/retreats for a reasonable cost that we can negotiate with you based on your interest. And some of us are also available for speaking, teaching, writing and consulting on a variety of topics from church planting to sustainable living. These kinds of events also help support our work. Get in touch with us if you are interested.

Start Your Own!

If you find yourself nodding your head as you’ve read through this page, chances are you should be participating in something like the Collective. But maybe you don’t live in close enough geographic proximity to our community. We’d encourage you to start you own.

No matter what you may have heard, we’re pretty certain that the Church was intended to be a people’s movement and that when two or more are together, the Spirit is with us. So, what’s stopping you? If you’d like help, we’d love to lend a hand in any way we can. Just get in touch with us. You might find some helpful tools here, here and here as well.