Blog

GLS 2018

GLS 2018

Register Now

The Global Leadership Summit Announces World-Class Faculty for 2018

CityChurch Network is excited to partner with The Church At Rock Creek to serve as the Central Arkansas host site for this world-class leadership event on August 9-10.

You have influence. Join 445,000 of your peers to learn how to maximize it with two days of world-class leadership training:

  • Get a unique blend of vision, inspiration and practical skills you can immediately apply
  • Leverage the Summit as a resource to transform yourself and your community
  • Join with people from 135 countries and 60 languages who attend the Summit around the world

The Global Leadership Summit is proud to bring you a high-quality local experience at our location simulcast live in HD from the Willow Creek campus on Thursday-Friday, August 9-10, 2018.

The benefits of attending include:

  • Networking with other leaders from our community
  • Reduce cost and time spend on travel for leadership training
  • Grow and learn with your team in a setting close to home

2018 Prayer Summit Reflection

Reflection – 2018 Arkansas Prayer Summit

~Keith Lape – Pastor – River City Church

Having been a Prayer Summit participant for about 18 years, I have come to anticipate this experience as one of the highlights of my year. During this time, my association with the CityChurch Network in general, and the Prayer Summit in particular, has profoundly influenced my approach to prayer, ministry, and life. Largely influenced by this framework, I have woven a variety of prayer practices into the fabric of my life and ministry that have set me on a much healthier, spiritually vital, Christ-dependent, and empowered trajectory.

This year‘s edition of the event has not disappointed. I love the variety of Christian faith traditions represented in this group, particularly because of the unity that we experience based upon our common faith in the person of Jesus. During our time together, earthly walls of race, heritage, culture, class, and age are being broken down, making way for the ministry of reconciliation to be unleashed

A central conviction that we share is that prayer and the Word are essential for any authentic Kingdom advancement. Speaking of the “Kingdom,” this emerged as a significant recurring theme throughout the Summit. It originally surfaced during our first evening together, as we walked through the Lord’s Prayer.

This year, instead of having an outside facilitator, we were served by several of our local men, who shared this role. The Lord used all of them beautifully in our time of scripture fed, spirit led, worship based prayer.

In addition to these rich times in prayer, that made three hours pass in a heartbeat, we shared wonderful fellowship over meals and during break times. As the old proverbial song goes, “make new friends, and keep the old; one is silver, and the other gold.“ The wisdom herein was experienced bountifully this year as always. As an older adult, I forged a friendship with a young man who inspired me with his deep faith, zeal for God’s glory, humble service, teachable spirit, and his consistently encouraging attitude.

One final thing that is noteworthy about this year’s Summit, is that we met at brand new place that, despite some flooding, boasted gorgeous scenery and cozy accommodations. I’m already eagerly looking forward to the next Summit, and I’m hoping then to make even more new friends

NEW: Leader Prayer Groups

The CityChurch Network of Arkansas is excited about expanding our traditional Third Thursday Prayer Luncheons into monthly gatherings of pastors and leaders. Here is a brief overview from Logan Bloom – Prayer Leader at the CityChurch Network of Arkansas:

John 17:22-23 – The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

Leader Prayer Groups – Overview

   ~Logan Bloom – CityChurch Network Prayer Leader

For the last two decades the CityChurch Network of Arkansas, formerly the Nehemiah Network, has existed to unite the church so that the world may know Jesus. We derive this mission from the High Priestly Prayer and from the example of the First Century Church. This is the way that Jesus instructed his disciples and the model that enabled the gospel to spread like wildfire as churches cared for each other and sought the welfare of their cities.

The urgency of this vision is even more critical now than when we began. Our churches can be examples of unity to withstand the divisiveness that is eroding America. Among our increasingly busy schedules, I believe that this vision is worth prioritizing. We must value each other in the same way that Jesus instructed his disciples. God has a storyline for Arkansas, and the task has come to us to unite under His cause.

New for this year the CityChurch Network is seeking to mobilize 100 pastors and ministry leaders into localized Leader Prayer Groups that meet monthly across Central Arkansas. Rather than try to gather everyone to one place at one time, we believe we can include more pastors by facilitating smaller Leader Prayer Groups at a place and time convenient for each group.

The task is simple: commit to gather with 3-4 other pastors and ministry leaders of other churches to pray for each other and for the city. We are also asking each group member to commit to bring ten of their church members to two One Voice regional gatherings per year. The CityChurch Network will provide a helpful monthly prayer guide featuring regional ministry highlights and prayer topics, and we will organize special occasional luncheons to bring our groups together.

If you are interested in helping coordinate a Leader Prayer Group in your area, the responsibility is very light. Please contact lbloom@citychurchar.org to begin. If you are interested in joining a Leader Prayer Group, please complete this connection form or reach out to any of our CityChurch Network leadership team and we will help you locate a group.

New Year, Name and Vision

New Year New Name, New Vision

As the 2018 new year begins, we are excited to announce that the Nehemiah Network is becoming the CityChurch Network of Arkansas.

For more than 20 years the Nehemiah Network has been uniting Central Arkansas’ churches. During this time:

    • Hundreds of pastors and thousands of people have participated in united prayer opportunities through our monthly leader’s prayer gatherings, the 20 annual prayer summits, and quarterly citywide evenings of prayer and worship.
    • Thousands have been mobilized to respond to some of the deepest needs in our community through ShareFest, CityFest with Luis Palau, church-school partnerships, and other key initiatives in areas such as literacy, marriage, and racial unity.
    • We have served as the Central Arkansas host for the Global Leadership Summit and through our partnership with the Antioch School for Church Planting and Leadership Development are providing quality leadership training and accredited church-based theological education for a growing movement of leaders.

With this history, you might ask “Why change our name?” It’s a great question. Those who been a part of this growing movement from its beginning love the story of Nehemiah and how it pictures our core values of prayer, leadership, and transformation. Nehemiah was a great leader who served in the city of Jerusalem around 445 B.C. in a time of great human need and spiritual crisis. He not only prayed, but united his people in a strategic work which transformed the wellbeing of their city.

As much as we value our history and the story that inspired our name, for those not as familiar with Nehemiah,  it does not communicate immediately who we are.  We believe  “CityChurch Network” describes more clearly who we are and our mission to unite churches as “one Church” in a city. The “of Arkansas” communicates an expanded vision to see “citychurch networks” develop and connect in cities all across our State and beyond.

For all who have participated, partnered, or been blessed by the Nehemiah Network, be encouraged that we are more committed than ever to our mission to unite the church that the world may know Jesus.  For those who are new to our movement, we are excited to introduce you to the CityChurch Network of Arkansas. For all, we invite you to unite together as we pray, grow, and serve for the glory of God.

~Ray Williams

Bill Elliff – On United Prayer

Why we Must UNITE in Prayer ~ Bill Elliff – The Summit Church…

These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer” (Acts 1:14)

Ask anyone who knows you well and they will easily be able to tell about your ways. “Well, he always does (this).” “If you approach him this way, it will be better because …” There are certain things about how you function—your operating systems!

Just as you have your ways, God has his. And they are easily recognizable. Earlier believers often spoke of the “means of grace.” These are the things He has set in motion for us to utilize that would accomplish His desired ends and give His children what they need for life and godliness. The means by which we access the grace of God. The Word of God, preaching, worship, communion, etc. are all in this category. These are beautifully catalogued for us in the closing verses of Acts, Chapter 2.

We don’t invent these, we cooperate with God in humility, using His means. And, if we do, He will graciously respond, giving us, and those with us, more than we can think or imagine.

THE FOUNDATIONAL MEANS…..
… of God’s grace is prayer. We often view prayer as a side-room, but it is the foundation. We have no real relationship with God unless we pray. (How would a marriage be described if husband and wife never talked with each other, communicated needs, hurts, desires and daily business?)

Our life begins with prayer (“Whoever CALLS on the name of the Lord will be saved”) and is developed and sustained by prayer.

If Christ is the Head of the church, how can we possibly say that we are a church if we do not let Him speak to us and spend large amounts of time communing with Him?

THE EARLY CHURCH…..
… understood this. In Acts 1:14 you find them doing exactly what Christ told them to do and what would bring about all the desired results they longed for. They were learning, just as they had seen for three years as they walked with Jesus, that the primary means of moving forward in God was to commune with the Father. And, notice each phrase:
“these all” (no one was absent, for this was the highest priority)
“with one mind” (prayer led them to perfect unity, for in prayer, you are humbled before God)
“were continually” (there was no thought of anything else—it was their habitual practice)
“devoting themselves” (to be devoted means to “be strong towards” and they were, Individually, making the choice to pray together)
“to prayer” (the primary, foundational means of getting God’s work one)

OUR PRAYER SUMMIT…..
… has been a humble, 25-year attempt to do the same. We have sought to come together, continually, with one mind to pray. Each year that this happens, amazing results occur. There is always an increase in unity, connection, and instruction and direction from God about our city. And spiritual momentum occurs.

The sad reality is that many don’t view this moment as foundational. But those of us who have attended have experienced it and believe.

What would happen if every pastor in the city joined together, for two days every year, in prayer?

Before you brush aside the idea, read the rest of Acts, Chapter 1 and 2 and see the explosion of God’s grace when His leaders “all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer.”

There is more at stake than any of us realize. United prayer is uniquely irresistible to God, and Central Arkansas needs the spiritual awakening that could occur when God’s leaders pray together!

Bill Elliff is the founder and Senior Teaching Pastor of The Summit Church in North Little Rock, Arkansas. His passion is to see both genuine revival and methodological renewal in the church—both new wine and new wineskins. He is a frequent conference speaker, writer, and consultant to churches drawing from his 47+ years of pastoring and revival ministry. Author of 11 books, Bill is also the Pastor/Church Director for OneCry! A Nationwide Call for Spiritual Awakening.