The advisory council is a team of people outside of Ecclesia who have agreed to provide occasional input to the direction and workings of the Network. We are grateful to them and the help they provide us as we move along the journey of living the gospel together as churches. More members will be added as our journey continues.
David Fitch
David Fitch holds the chair of Evangelical Theology at Northern Seminary in Chicago. He also serves as the founding pastor of Life on the Vine Christian Community–an emerging church in the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago. He is the co-founder of Up/Rooted, an emergent cohort that gathers leaders and thinkers to engage issues of the emerging church and the post-modern context. Up/rooted now has chapters all over the Chicago area. He has been a speaker and presenter at “emerging church” gatherings, the Ekklesia Project, as well as academic and denominational gatherings on the issues of church, postmodernity and culture.
He is the author of numerous articles on church , culture and theological ethics in journals as diverse as the Journal of the Academy for Evangelism in Theological Education, Discernment, Pastoral Psychology and the Journal of Christian Education.
He is the author of The Great Giveaway: Reclaiming the Mission of the Church from American Business, Para-Church Organizations, Psychotherapy, Consumer Capitalism and Other Modern Maladies (Baker Books, 2005) and holds a Ph.D with an emphasis in Theological Ethics, Church, and Society from Northwestern University.
Dr. Kurt Frederickson
Kurt Fredrickson is director and theological mentor of the Doctor of Ministry program and assistant professor of pastoral ministry. He has taught both at Fuller’s Pasadena campus and at the Australian College of Ministries (ACoM) in Sydney, Australia, which offers Doctor of Ministry courses in partnership with Fuller.
Prior to coming to Fuller in September 2003, Fredrickson was on the pastoral staff of Simi Covenant Church in Simi Valley, California, for 24 years, 18 of which he served as senior pastor. He is an ordained minister in the Evangelical Covenant Church.
Fredrickson continues to be a member of the Rotary Club of Simi Sunrise; he is involved in a number of local projects and has also traveled with Rotary to Peru and Zambia. He also serves as a supervising chaplain with the Simi Valley Police Department and as a member of the City of Simi Valley Gang Task Force. Previously Fredrickson served as coordinator of the Simi Valley Concerts of Prayer (1989-1997) and coordinator of the Simi Valley Ministers Association (1985-2003). His involvement with the Evangelical Covenant Church has included serving on the Executive Board of the Pacific Southwest Conference (1988-1994), as co-leader of the Church Revitalization Task Force (Pacific Southwest Conference) (1996-98), and as a member of the denomination-wide Board of Church Growth and Evangelism (2000-01) and Task Force on the Ordered Ministry (2000-02).
Dr. Eddie Gibbs
Edmund Gibbs serves as senior professor of church growth in the School of Intercultural Studies and has been on the faculty since 1984. He is also director of the Institute for the Study of Emerging Churches, in the Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts. The author of popular church growth text Church Next, he speaks about evangelism and church growth around the world. Currently, his academic interests include evangelizing nominal Christians, assisting local churches in becoming evangelizing churches, and developing the churches response to modernity and post-modernity as a missionary presence.
Gibbs came to Fuller from England with an extensive interest in mission that included practical experience in Santiago and Quilpue, Chile, with his wife Renee. In the last few years, his teaching has taken him around the U.S. and to such countries as Singapore, Korea, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway and South Africa.
Some of his other publications include LeadershipNext: Changing Leaders in a Changing Culture (2005), Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures (2005) with co-author Ryan Bolger, Way to Serve (2003), Way to Go (2003), In Name Only (1994), I Believe in Church Growth (1981, revised 1985, 1989), and Good News is for Sharing (1993).