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The Community I’ve Found

This post is from a man who identifies himself with NW Ekklesia. We are blessed to know what has transpired in his life.

Lew Curtiss / 03.23.2016

I want to tell you about a Community of Faith that I’ve found. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that they found me. It’s interesting how Father God lovingly invites us down special paths of life designed specifically to meet our needs. I think some really brief backstory is important or the significance of this Community will not be fully appreciated.

All my life I’ve gone to church, the institutional church. I’ve sat and listened to the sermons. I’ve stood and sung hymns. I’ve always believed that this was the Church, the Body of Christ, where I’d encounter Father God. But it wasn’t, and I didn’t. Something, … something that I couldn’t put my finger on, was somehow missing. Now, you need to know that in no way am I criticizing that centuries old institution of church. This is my story of my journey, and that is all it is; nothing more.

At some point, after marriage, and raising our children, I didn’t attend church much. I just slipped away and was open to whatever else Father might have for me and my life. To cut a long story short, it was through one friend after another that Father lead me to a vibrant Spirit-filled Community of the Body of Christ. This is Church without the building, without all of the trappings of mere religion, without the hierarchy, without the idolatry of mere theology. I found God outside of the covers of the Bible; intimately, personally, face to face. And I wasn’t alone … there was a Community. This Community I’ve found has three powerful aspects to it that I wouldn’t trade for anything. They are a movement (not an institution); they are organic in nature, and they are entirely relational.

In it’s organic nature, this community is Community. The famous story of Stone Soup comes to mind. People round about had little or nothing to eat. Then a clever man brings a stone with which to make a soup. He begins to boils it in water. After a while he invites the people each to bring what they have to add to the soup; vegetables, salt, meat, broth, whatever they had. Each put into the soup what they had. After a while the soup was done and everyone had soup. Everyone ate their fill of what had begun so simply as a stone boiling in water. Now they were a Community, sharing what they had and who they were with one another. That’s the Community I’ve found.

This Community is part of God’s global movement, His Body. There are no preachers, although there are ordained clergy among us. There is no hierarchy, no pecking order, no formal documents to tell us who’s who and how we’re all supposed to behave. We’re a movement created, governed and, fully lead by Father God. It reminds me of Israel’s days of The Judges. God was their King … not a man. It was God who lead and “ruled” the people. So it is with our Community.

This Community is fully relational. Everything about it is relationship based, meaning we begin, each of us, with a deep, personal, intimate relationship with Father God. He is the unifying force and power of this Community. He is what makes us a Community. He is our spine and our glue. Having begun in our relationship with Father, we extend that relationship to one another. As a movement, and not an institution, the organic nature of the Body of Christ is fully manifest. When someone needs healing, like white blood cells, a number of us gravitate toward that need and pray it away in healing. When someone celebrates, we all celebrate. We bear one another’s burdens and share one another’s joys. All of this, absolutely all of this is joy and not obligation. It’s fully Love and not duty.

In this Community I have never experienced so much joy and excitement with Father God and with one another in all my life. This is a priceless Community wherein I find the God of the heart, the God of relationship, the God of love. This is what / Who I’ve been looking for, and I’ve found Him.

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A Model Coming Out of the Pacific North West

This blog post is from a dear friend and someone we consider a part of NW Ekklesia. Yes! It’s a new template for worship, intercession, and intimacy with God that will go around the world. He doesn’t say it in the post, but, our leadership and his worship team have been asked to go to India next year to teach the leaders of spirit filled churches. By the way it’s a network of 4,500 churches. To read more of his posts please go to: http://ecclecticecclesia.blogspot.com/2016/03/a-model-coming-out-of-pacific-north-west.html

So you hang around with the “prophetic” crowd and you hear all kinds of things. You SEE all kinds of things.  And you pray that you might get to be involved in what’s coming…
Nearing 20 years ago I heard someone say that there was going to be a movement that would originate in the PNW and go around the world.
I got excited.
Then I got involved in worship, each team showing a higher skill level as well as a higher tolerance for…  the out of the ordinary, which was good for me, because I detest the ordinary.
Even in high school, if my choir director handed us a sheet of music that wasn’t hand written I was kind of miffed.
Through the years I began to find myself in positions where I was invited as a guest, of sorts, to play at a few native american reconciliation events, a party  collecting bicycles to give to a village in Africa so that the kids could get to school safer and quicker.
I began to see the value of rhythmic intercession and was mc at a few drum circles that gathered folks together for purposes of intercession for unity in our city, evangelism, some were initiated to explore the possibilities.
We started a circle of musicians, meeting in a barn for the express purpose of stretching ourselves into playing for an audience of one, although we all played together and fought to protect the sanctity of our offering. (It’s hard to get people on board with “No Agenda” when they have always been part of the machine and can’t find the clasps holding their garments on)
Now let me tell you about this region- hang onto your hats…
New Age. Not just New Age, but a 300 year old warrior spirit who channeled (until recently) through a woman in a small town that had the world come to visit… and just New Age.  Mountains will do that to you.Buddhism- Buddhist monks aren’t all sunshine and goodness, nor do they all respect YOUR belief systems when they are engaging in their own satisfactions.
Islam- They aren’t militant, but they are represented.
Progressives- they don’t do anything remarkable except fix things that aren’t broken… and sometimes break things so they have something to fix.
Wicca, Pagan, Animism- Hindu’s, well, why not, everyone else is here.
All that to say that all the world is here.
And why does that make a difference?
How else do you reach every tribe and tongue- you must become relevant to them. You make room for the sound of their voices.
I have not learned to play tabla with any skill whatsoever, but I am ready for someone who has- I have room for them.
I HAVE learned to play a native american flute on a very basic level.
I am LEARNING to throat sing.
I have some proficiency on a djembe
I keep a watchful eye out for those who are proficient where I lack, and I make room for those whose sounds are beyond my scope.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE to hear mixtures of cultural melodies, rhythms and instruments that are proving unity in the earth, making room for a unity that goes beyond doctrines and fears.
This region begat Jimi Hendrix, Quincy Jones and Nirvana, it is fraught with diversity (there is actually a band from Vancouver Canada called Delhi to Dublin- can you guess what they are mixing?)
Why would it not come from here?
Why would just such a movement be born here?
And why would it not be borne from where ever you are sitting?
Let’s DO this!!!!!!!!