E3 Church: Church Gone Wild
“Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” – Helen Keller
Following God is about living a life of spiritual adventure. It isn’t about fitting into a mold, conforming to a set of rules, it’s about encountering God’s value, love and passion for your life. Someone once asked, “has the church done to people, what the zoo does to animals. Do we put them in cages?” That is a good question. If you have ever seen a whale in the ocean in it’s natural beauty, or an eagle soaring in the wide open blue skies this comment makes sense. God created us to spread our wings and soar into the plans and purposes he has for us. God’s desire is that we would quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. He created us to be free from fear, to find every excuse to celebrate everything we can and to quit playing defense and discover his purpose for our lives.
E3 is an honest community of faith. The people are real, and are working hard to live in the light of God’s acceptance, favor and grace. Discovering God’s love and value are a lifelong journey. Church isn’t a what, it’s a who! It’s about you, it’s about me, it’s about us! We are the church. Church can become the most difficult place on earth to be honest, because we have this idea that God loves the perfect version of ourselves. Nothing can be farther from the truth. He loves the real you. E3 Church is one of the best kept secrets in the city of Scottsdale dedicated to discovering our identity in who God has made us to be, developing authentic relationships by doing life together, and opening our eyes to the moral and spiritual dilemmas of our day: poverty, human trafikking, unclean drinking water, unreached areas of the world with the gospel.
Ministries include: men, women, married couples, children, outreach, missions, media, marketplace
E3 Church meets at the Scottsdale Studios near the 101 and Via Linda every Sunday at 10AM.
→ Friendly people
→ Relaxed atmosphere
→ Passionate worship
→ Relevant truth from God’s Word
E3 Church gets it’s name for three “E” words that we are passionate about:
Engage – We are passionate about engaging our world with the unconditional love of God. We want to change the way the world sees God. He isn’t a dictator in the heavens waiting to strike us down with a lightning bolt. He is an amazing father, who believes in us, cares for us and desires for us to discover life beyond our wildest dreams.
Experience – God is not information on a page. He is real and desires to have a relationship with us. He wants us to experience him as we compassionately use our gifts to serve others, build others, and encourage others. He wants us to enjoy fellowship with other people and in so doing experience a real relationship with him.
Elevate – As a result of encountering God’s love for us, we start to become less judgmental of others and we start to be more accepting of our own faults and flaws. We stop living in the past and start moving into the vision that God has for us. We stop attaching significance to the events of the past, and the hurts of others, and we start seeing ourselves the way that God sees us. As a result, our lives get transformed, and things get better.
I have found a home at E3 Scottsdale. I look forward to each week’s worship and message, and to see the “funnest” people in Scottsdale!
E3 has a very strong outreach ministry, with monthly outings to the homeless shelter, several trips a year to Mexico to build houses, and campaigns to send supplies and funds to orphans in Haiti and Africa. Although the church is small in numbers, it is mighty. The people in our church give and serve like we’ve got hundreds!
Most of all, I love that the message of God’s grace is communicated often, in the main service as well as in the children’s ministry. Every week you will be reminded of how much God loves you.
I love that E3 is so connected on Facebook, too. It’s like a community within a community, and we can stay in touch and up to date throughout the week.
E3 Scottsdale is my home church. I have to say that the people here are warm, welcoming and totally real. A variety of ages, and backgrounds, but a caring, accepting group of people.
I’ve been involved in church my whole life, but have to say that the vision of creating a place where people can be real, experience God without masks and develop strong relationships really resonates with my heart.
The music is loud, but good! The band is talented and the messages are really inspiring. I’ve been challenged to live out my faith and truly understand God’s love.
I’m used to a church that’s all about bringing people in and building up from within. On the surface, this can seem ok and these churches can produce alot of good. But they can also be toxic, following the same patterns that the Church has followed since the days of Solomon and slave labor. This sounds extreme, and it is. I believe that the Church is about engaging people and showing them what it means to BE Jesus. Church is not about big buildings and multitudes of programs for every age group that focus on bringing people “into” churches. I want a church that sends their people out into the world and makes a tangible difference. E3 is that church. They say the band is loud, and it is. Their message is real, just like the people.
Having received a flier on my door, I decided to attend the Easter Sunday service.
Wow! I was blown away with the production and the message. Most importantly, it is the first church service that I have been to that engaged me on every level, spiritually, intellectually, emotionally and visually.
Pastor Brad Larson does it right. He has heart and wisdom and also is so accepting of all types of people.
My only challenge is that I love checking out new churches each week. Guess I may need to break that tradition!
Micahel