How we got here

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 The vision for “Ekklesia Unleashed” was birthed in 2019. 

At that time, we (Oliver and Sylvia) had been attending a variety of churches for many years. We will be forever grateful to the faithful servants of God who were our shepherds during this period and transformed our lives by encouraging us to fix our eyes on Jesus and dig into the fullness of the Bible as the living Word of God. We also have nothing but gratitude for all the special times that we had during this period with our treasured brother and sisters in Christ.

Despite this positive experience we were increasingly frustrated in three main areas:

1. The extent to which church organizations were compromising the Word of God to gain the approval of man. We found it increasingly hypocritical to be associated with church organizations that remained silent on issues in the world that so clearly contradict foundational Biblical principles. 
2. The lack of impact that we, as born-again believers in Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit, were having on our local communities for the glory of God. In the Word of God, we are told that Jesus expects us to be the “salt and light” of the world. Given that God placed us in a specific residential location to be the “salt and light” in our part of the world, we increasingly believed that this is where the primary focus of church meetings should be. The Word of God tells us that, as children of God through our faith in Jesus Christ, the same power of the Holy Spirit that was evident in daily lives in homes and on the streets during the ministry of Jesus and in the Book of Acts is available to us today. 
3. The extent to which we were experiencing all the signs and spiritual gifts that Jesus promised would follow us as born-again believers in Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit. As people who are not overly self-confident, we typically found ourselves in “observer” roles in large church service ministry situations. This was an increasing source of frustration given the Word of God where Jesus promised that all the signs listed in Mark 16:17-18 would follow all those who believed in Him. We realized that it was up to us to find situations where we could make ourselves more available to be used by God, in the authority that we all have as children of God, based on His Word and through our faith in Jesus Christ.  

Not wanting to move out of God’s will we spent time examining ourselves and the source of our frustration to determine how we could best serve our God moving forward. At the same time, we believe that the Holy Spirit was prompting us to move out of the traditional Church structure and align more closely with the Acts operating model.

We took the step of faith to make our home available for fellow likeminded believers to gather early in 2020. It has been a life changing experience for us. 

We are excited for what God has planned for “Ekklesia Unleashed” moving forward and, in faith, we expect to do just as Jesus did (and more through the power of the Holy Spirit within us!).

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,

Because He anointed Me to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent Me to proclaim release to captives,

And recovery of sight to the blind,

To set free those who are oppressed,

To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”

Oliver and Sylvia Hickman