Group starts ‘Ecclesia’ alternative worship after leaders leave Hollywood Presbyterian
By Craig M. Kibler, The Layman Online, May 27, 2005
A worship service for seekers, skeptics and mostly young people has begun after its leaders decided to leave Hollywood Presbyterian Church in the aftermath of the Presbytery of the Pacific’s decision to have an administrative commission run the congregation.
Karen Schumacher, a former member of the Hollywood church and the prayer team leader for the new congregation says the new church is called “Ecclesia: The Gathering Field.”
The old service, titled Community Urban Experience (CUE), had grown from a start-up with about 100 people to nearly 400 at the time of the presbytery’s action. That service is continuing.
The former leaders of CUE posted a letter May 15 on the group’s Web site announcing their plans to leave the presbytery, the Presbyterian Church (USA) and Hollywood Presbyterian, where they met in warehouse that once served as a nightclub.
“We, the leadership of CUE, feel called and committed to love one another as Christ loves us and to proclaim the inerrant Word of God,” they said. “We feel called and committed to worship God through artistic interaction, and to provide community through the cue crew teams in the areas of discipleship, prayer, outreach, events, welcome, and cue vision. And finally, we feel called and committed to continue the heart, style, and integrity of what we’ve been doing each week here in Hollywood.
“We believe this will happen best if we are not connected to the Presbytery of the Pacific and the PCUSA. Our desire to continue the CUE service apart from the Presbytery of the Pacific is not a spiteful or hasty reaction. We’ve spent many hours in prayer and discussion and stand unified in this decision to preserve the ministry of CUE.”
Schumacher, in a letter to The Layman Online, cited Isaiah 43:18-19 “as an anthem for our new church.” That verse reads:
“Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”
The leadership, Schumacher wrote, “responded to a call from God. It was no mistake that all the leadership in CUE came to agreement and decided to leave and form this new church. It was nothing other than a divine appointment! We rejoice in that.”
“God is moving and forming us into the church he wants us to be. We had about 150 people attend this first service and over 20 volunteers to make sure the service ran smoothly. Christ dwells with us in this new community and I think we all have a real, and personal, involvement in its success. ‘In fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be,'” (1Co 12:18).
“Brandon Dickerson, former leader for CUE who delivered the sermon, said it best: When he was younger, he was lost and walking in the dark in the middle of the moors of England and he came to a fork in the road. A stranger was on the road and Brandon asked, ‘Which way should I go?’ The stranger replied, ‘Take the narrow road, and go towards the light.'”
“We are walking with Christ now and we continue to pray for FPCH. As the prayer team leader for Ecclesia, I feel enabled to meet the challenge of helping the birth of a new church, only because God is equipping me to do so. God calls on us to humble ourselves and pray and seek his face. In this, we have an earnest relationship, his guidance, his clarity of purpose, because we actively seek his truth, his burning righteousness, and acknowledge in obedience that we are not in control. Too often we pray without looking, without preparation and as a last resort, but Christ compels us to align ourselves with him, always,” she wrote.
“May both Ecclesia and the new CUE find their way along the narrow path, not be steeped in confusion or fear, but know that God has not sent us into battle defenseless. He arms us with the truth he has given us. It is up to us to respond.”