Eikon Church - Little Rock, AR

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Archives > February, 2009

so, what exactly is eikon trying to accomplish? Posted by 02.22.2009 2:17 am

that’s a good question and i want to offer a fairly broad answer (we’ll get to even more specifics in future posts).

any good organization—be it a business or a church—has some sort of statement that expresses what its about and what it’s trying to accomplish. a mission statement serves as a unifying expression that puts everyone on the same page. so, we at eikon have a statement that hopes to do just that. as we certainly don’t want some kind of stuffy formal statement, we think we have a statement that expresses the unique spirit of eikon while creating a common mission for our community. so, here it is:

engaging culture with christ in the context of the city.

with the mission statement, we want to incorporate several key concepts that help to focus and unify our community. first, we want to denote that there’s a distinct culture present within our community. mainly, this culture is a young, emerging, creative community. by using the word culture, we’re also making clear that we don’t view culture—much like the type of thought that has been prevalent in the church for a very long time—as evil or something to stay away from, but rather; it’s something we affirm and utilize. specifically, when we refer to culture, we are including music, art, film, the socially normal mode and rhythm of living, literature, social gathering places and other aspects of social and common culture.

one key distinction, though, is that we don’t simply use culture for culture’s sake. the key comes in the fact that we want to view and engage culture through the a theological lens—through the lens of christ. that doesn’t mean we walk around trying to see images of jesus and mary burned into pieces of toast or smoke clouds :), but it does mean that we see that god is present everywhere and has left his creative mark in all forms of culture—whether it’s the “pretty” or even the “ugly” parts of culture. let me offer an example.

contemporary christian music has done very little—culturally and artistically speaking—to engage me (and many others) in a way that leads to theological growth and discovery. on the other hand, some of the most rich and theological songs i know are “secular” (for lack of a better word) songs. one of my favorites is everclear’s why i don’t believe in god. lyrically, everclear—who certainly don’t profess to be followers of christ—have made such a profound and stark statement about god and religion and the church and culture. by engaging culture with christ, it means hearing a song like this and being able to connect with the ongoing story of god and not just see it as some sort of disconnected and unfortunate commentary by some disaffected rock band. there’s a certain potential redemptive quality in hearing this that helps us to see the reality of the world around us and shows us how we can connect with it.

finally, our mission specifies that our community is conditioned by a specific context. namely, the context is the city. this may seem like a minor or obvious distinction, but it truly focuses and defines our mission. simply put, life in the context of the city is vastly different than the suburbs or small towns. the people and culture and rhythm of the city help to define whom we reach, how we reach them and what style of ministry is effective and relevant. as we’ve stated in a previous post, we love little rock and it’s an important character in our story.

so, as the church starts to take more tangible shape, i want to invite you to be a part of this mission that’s going on here in little rock. stay tuned for more updates as we begin to near the time of actually having gatherings and as more information unfolds.

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Posted in core values, leadership, theology | No Comments »



when & where does eikon meet? Posted by 02.08.2009 11:09 am

no doubt, the #1 question i get asked regarding the beginning phases of eikon church is, “when & where do you meet?”

let me answer that question in two parts:
  1. never.
  2. nowhere.
does that help? :)
ok, so that may be a bit of an overstatement… let me answer those a little more accurately.
we actually will meet. to a degree, just like any other church meets. in fact, we hope that our gatherings will be incredible times of worship and community-building and a lot of fun. it’s just that they’re a little ways off and not immediately occurring.
right now, eikon church is in the very, very beginning phases of a much bigger process of starting a church. there are definitely churches that just begin by meeting monthly or weekly, but most of the time, there’s a process that begins with disseminating information which then leads to gathering a core group and then moving toward regular gathering times—usually in the form of small groups and eventually big group, sunday worship gatherings.
so obviously, we’re in the very initial phases which, through the temporary website here, we’re trying to get information out about the church, share core values, introduce you to the leadership and offer answers to questions much like this post is doing.
as for down the road, like i said, we hope that our regular sunday worship gatherings will be very important times for our faith community. they will be times of creative worship (music, art, film, poetry, preaching, etc.), connecting with people you know as well as others who are new and we hope to also make our gathering times just a fun and relaxed time.
as details emerge as far as meeting places and times, our website (hopefully the fully realized version very soon) will be the place for definitive announcements. in the meantime, you can help us out in this area.
we have two primary options for our regular gathering place.
1. we can borrow/rent space from an existing establishment. for example, we will look into a bar who is closed on sunday morning or night (we’re open to meeting either sunday morning or sunday night…in other words, we’re not locked into sunday mornings). maybe there’s a concert venue/bar here in town that would let us use their facilities for a few hours each sunday. maybe there’s a coffeehouse who has ample meeting space and would let us borrow/rent it.
2. we can lease a space that is solely ours to use. we are looking in the downtown-ish area. specifically, we’d love to meet in the river market district or maybe a little further southwest in the heart of downtown. midtown is a definite area of interest, as well as the quapaw/governor’s mansion area. keep in mind, we’re a church that is committed to the city, primarily, and don’t really have the desire to meet in west little rock or the outskirts of the city.
so, you can help us out. do you own a facility as described in option 1? do you know someone who owns something like that? do you know of some reasonably priced commercial space in the described area that would fit well for a gathering place of 50-200ish people? we’d love some feedback. any and all ideas are welcome. while our search has been and will continue to be ongoing, we’d love some input. it’s not easy to find an affordable and adequate space in downtown little rock, so all leads are good leads.
so, that gets you caught up to speed. as we near time to begin regular meeting times (first, with small groups and then with big groups), we’ll keep you informed. keep checking back for the latest!

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Posted in gatherings, information | No Comments »



so, who is ryan & why is he starting a church? Posted by 02.03.2009 9:21 pm

so, maybe you’ve been following along on here for the last week or two reading about this thing called eikon church and you’re thinking to yourself, ‘self, who is this guy ryan and why is he starting a church??’
fair question.
here goes.
let’s start with the basics: i’m 28 years old and have been married for about 5 1/2 years to my incredible wife christen. we have two beautiful daughters, lucy (19 months) and olive (2 months) and hope to keep the baby train rolling… (we love and welcome chaos…). :) we live in midtown little rock (capitol view) and love being in the city and the lifestyle that goes with it (we’re not really ‘burbs kind of people…). (apparently i also love using parenthetical statements…) (and ellipses…)

(here’s my “i’m-gonna-try-to-be-cool-and-stand-against-this-graffiti-wall-but-really-just-look-like-a-dork-in-the-end” picture…)
i’m a product of arkansas, spending most of my childhood and beyond in conway. i’m the middle son (yeah…middle child…) of a pastor (yeah…pastor’s kid…), so i grew up seeing the good and bad of pastoring and the church (more on that some other time, i’m sure). as all good little conway boys do, i attended the university of central arkansas, where i met my wife and, as a bonus, actually managed to receive my degree in fine arts, emphasizing in graphic design. my wife and i are both graphic designers, whereas i currently work as an advertising art director at a great little rock-based publishing company and my wife does freelance graphic design and photography (which is her primary gig).
a couple years after college, we decided to ship off to lexington, kentucky to work on my master’s degree at asbury seminary. the three and a half years spent at asbury (completing my 2-year degree…), as cliché as it might sound, were incredible and life-changing years. during that time, i was able to really analyze a lot of the things i believed and re-evaluate a lot of the “status quo” feelings i had about the church and how to “do” church. during that process of reshaping and rethinking my guiding theologies, god began leading me somewhere that i absolutely knew i would never go: home.
so, back we came to little rock to start a church. thus, the birth of the dream of this thing called eikon.
so why are you starting a church? doesn’t little rock have too many churches already? can’t you just go be a pastor at an established church? is it just because you want to be in control and do it your way? isn’t this really a cover-up for a plot for world domination in which you’re going to gather people in some kind of jesus jungle colony where you all wear matching jumpsuits & nikes and eventually drink some tainted grape juice or something?
again, all fair questions.
there’s a couple primary reasons we’re starting a church:
1. we think the quantity of churches in an area isn’t necessarily indicative of the diversity inherent in those churches. don’t get me wrong, we think there are some great churches that are reaching a lot of people in a lot of different ways here in little rock. in fact, we hope to incorporate bits and pieces of several churches into what we do at eikon. we think it’s time for an alternative in little rock. simply put, generally speaking, we think a lot of the existing churches target and reach a large, but somewhat specific segment of little rock. the point is that while there are a lot of churches in little rock reaching a lot of people, we feel like there’s a piece missing in terms of the people being reached. we think that piece is eikon.
by and large, we believe there’s a young, creative, emerging community of people in little rock that don’t really fit in in little rock churches. no doubt, there’s a few churches that are reaching out to this group, but we don’t see a place that is culturally and socially and theologically specific to that group. we’re starting eikon church because we think little rock needs a church that reaches, specifically, this group.
2. we love little rock. and because we love little rock, we want more people to be engaged in a process of learning about and becoming more like christ. in order to do that, specifically, we think the aforementioned group of unreached people need something that looks like them, talks like them, engages culture like them and is for them.
we want eikon to be a community of faith that does church in a way that is specific to the rhythms of the city of little rock. we don’t want to be a church from the ‘burbs that plops down in the middle of the city and tries to be the church from the ‘burbs. we want to engage the culture of the city of little rock with christ in way that leads people into community and relationship with each other and christ. because we love little rock, we want to create a community that honors christ in the rhythm and sensibilities of the city.
so, there ya go. maybe you’ve found out way more than you ever wanted to know about this goofy guy ryan or why he’s starting some goofy thing called eikon. but, i hope this gives you a little more of a personal glimpse into what’s going on with eikon and the heart of the guy who’s getting the ball rolling.
one of the values at eikon is that ryan, as the pastor, isn’t more valued than anyone else, but we thought it would be helpful to get an idea of who’s primarily behind this whole church thing and where he’s coming from.
so, check back soon and often for more updates from the happenings at eikon.

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a theology of art and creation with rob bell Posted by 02.01.2009 5:21 pm

beyond the saints in scripture, there are quite a few theologians, pastors, artists and thinkers that have shaped the guiding theologies of eikon. one of those people—who could be described by all those words—is rob bell. if you aren’t familiar with bell, he is the pastor and founder of mars hill church in grand rapids, michigan. he is also a very notable speaker and author and the main face of nooma, a series of incredible spiritual short films. he is at the same time the admired/despised/loved/hated/prophet/false prophet/messiah/antichrist voice of an emerging generation of leaders and christians.

bell sat down with patrol magazine for a conversation about faith and art. as always, bell has some deeply insightful and introspective commentary concerning these issues (particularly the brief discussion of the controversial sculpture my sweet lord by new york artist cosimo cavallaro).
at eikon, we hope to make art a central part of our expression of faith and worship. we believe, much bell expresses in the interview, that we’re all creators and there’s a sense of co-creation with god. that doesn’t mean we’re all amazing painters or sculptors, but we are all inherently creators who desire a sense of beauty and truth.
so, you can read it in its entirety here, but here’s a segment that i thought was particularly salient:

(in response to the question, what is art?)
I would begin with the understanding that God has left the world unfinished, and so, in Genesis chapter 1, this creation poem is about trees that are created to have the ability to create more trees. So, to me an authentic spirituality begins with the premise that we co-create the world with God. The world is not done, and that all of action is essentially rooted in creativity. Any way in which you contribute to the ongoing creation of the world you are in fact, in some form or another being creative and so then I think the question from there becomes “what is art?”
And I would argue that art is simply the creating within the particular medium, free of any utilitarianism. So a business person creates for the purpose of making profit, a product, providing goods and services. Art, specifically like the fine arts, music, sculpture, dance, spoken word, is the manifestation of that creativity in a form that is free from any pragmatic needs. So this painting just exists, beauty is its highest goal, as opposed to food that actually feeds us. A degree of art and creativity is in food, but it has a larger function. To which song is just a song. It may convey truth, it may have lyrics that are rooted in some particular world-view a person is trying to further express.
I think we must have art because it reminds us that God is not always a pragmatist. Because our world wants to turn us into slaves, everything is about how hard you work so you can create something so you can buy something so you can make something, so you’re back in Egypt. That’s the defining story of the Bible: people who are enslaved in Egypt, and their whole use is that they are a machine and they’re used by pharaoh to build stuff. So to me we need the artist to remind ourselves that God is not always a pragmatist. I love this passage in Job where God is like, “HAVE YOU CONSIDERED THE STORK?” It’s beautiful poetry about a God who gets off on things just cause they are and that to me is central to any sort of living, breathing spirituality is going to be plenty of room for things that don’t have any purpose other than their own beauty, design and order.
good stuff.

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Posted in art, core values, theology | No Comments »