– by Andy Pettman, service team secretary
One of the fruits of the Sword of the Spirit’s “widening our tent pegs” priority has been the formation of IPECC. IPECC stands for the International Partnership of Ecumenical Charismatic Communities, and came about initially through the desire of some members the Sword of the Spirit leadership, and the European Network of Communities (ENC) leadership to publicly stand together. In July 2023 representatives of SoS and ENC along with two other smaller communities, The Servants of Jesus in Australia, and the North American Network, came together in London. After three days of meetings all four groups signed the inaugural memorandum of understanding that allows us to work together, particularly under the uniting prophetic image of the “Bulwark”.
The service team of IPECC met again in the Augusta, Georgia, in February 2024, and at that meeting talked about expanding the partnership to include other members. One of the groups we agreed to approach was the Bruderhof, a fully in common Protestant covenant community, with around 3000 members, in 30 locations around the world. The Bruderhof were approached and showed great interest in joining, and so we spoke about them sending representatives to our next service team meeting in 2025 in Sydney where we were to be hosted by the Community of Jesus.
Although each of the established members only has two formal representatives on the service team, it was important for the Bruderhof to able to make a consensus decision if they were to join. To this end, before coming to Sydney their senior leader, from New York state in the USA, had a conference call with all his key leaders around the world, to get their support for the idea of joining IPECC, before committing to come. Then they sent nine people to Sydney to meet with the rest of us. Five of them came for the first two days of meetings but due to flight problems the remaining four were only able to arrive at midday of the third and final day of meetings. By the time the final four arrived however those who had been with us through those days were convinced that it was the right step to join. As a result, just before a Lord’s Day celebration on March 1st, the senior elder of the Bruderhof, Heinrich Arnold, signed the memorandum of understanding to make the Bruderhof the fifth IPECC member.
We feel very privileged to be able to welcome the Bruderhof into our midst. They are disciples to the core, and profoundly committed to the call to covenant community, as a way in this age to be a light on a hill, ambassadors from an embassy, and now part of the Bulwark, the image that inspired IPECC’s inception. Even though they are not active in the use of the charismatic gifts in the way that we are in the Sword of the Spirit, they are deeply Spirit filled people, who look for his word to them as they go about their daily lives. As a result, the four established members of IPECC are delighted to be able to welcome the Bruderhof into our partnership.
Also at our meetings in Sydney was Matteo Calisi representing “The Forum of Covenant Communities in Italy”. Next year the IPECC service team will meet in Italy and our hope is that at that meeting we will be able to welcome the Forum into IPECC.
