Ekklesia Lifecycle

Publisher: Global.Church · Created: 2026-04-16 · 6 concepts

https://ontology.global.church/core#EkklesiaLifecycleScheme

Six stages describing where an ekklesia is in its life journey. Each stage transition is authoritative as a dated gc:EkklesiaAttestation; gc:hasEkklesiaLifecycle on the Ekklesia instance is materialized from the latest non-superseded attestation (joint memo Decision 2) — and is OPTIONAL: absence under open-world semantics simply means no attester has produced a stage. Reconstituting and Dissolved are GC additions to honor the full life-arc, including church death and rebirth, which the source frameworks do not address. Enables queries: when did ekklesia X enter Multiplying? How many attested ekklesia in region R are Stalled? Movement M's generational depth via gc:fulfillsCommitment reverse-walk.

Code	Label	Definition
`LCY-DIS`	Dissolved	The ekklesia no longer gathers as a recognizable body. Dated dissolution terminates the active lifecycle chain — no further stage transitions are expected unless a Reconstituting attestation is later recorded. The instance and its full attestation history are preserved; only the materialized gc:hasEkklesiaLifecycle property is updated to Dissolved. Enables honest counting: dashboards distinguish active ekklesia from dissolved ones.
`LCY-EST`	Established	A recognized assembled body with ongoing gatherings, identifiable leaders, and rhythms of worship, teaching, and community life. Self-declared or attested by a sending body or denominational authority. For local expressions, the Established stage typically correlates with gc:hasOrganizationType gc:OrgTypeChurch — both assertions are expected to co-exist when explicitly attested.
`LCY-FRM`	Forming	Pre-declaration coalescence of a single body — leaders identifying, members being incorporated, rhythms of gathering and teaching taking shape, ecclesial functions emerging, but the body has not yet declared itself or been recognized as established by a sending body or denominational authority. A community in this stage may use gc:Team as its primary classification (conservative threshold) or gc:Ekklesia + Forming (functional threshold for traditions where ecclesial life precedes formal declaration, as in DMM and pioneer-field contexts). Forming describes the body's own pre-formation, not the gospel-saturation state of any surrounding people group — see the scheme's scopeNote on the Phases of Engagement Toolkit for the relevant scoping disambiguation. Forming does not require gc:hasEkklesiaForm on the EkklesiaAttestation — the form may not yet be determinate. SHACL exempts Forming from the Form-required constraint that applies to Established, Multiplying, and Reconstituting.
`LCY-MUL`	Multiplying	An Established ekklesia that has generated one or more new ekklesia — through commissioning, direct church planting, or DMM reproduction. The defining mark of the Multiplying stage is the existence of daughter ekklesia that can be linked to this body via gc:fulfillsCommitment or gc:wasSentFrom. Multiplying is computable as a candidate status by walking gc:fulfillsCommitment in reverse (find all ekklesia that reference this body's commitments), but the assertion itself remains a dated gc:EkklesiaAttestation event. Distinct from the Toolkit's Phase 5–6 (Reproducing/Multiplying Church), which describe people-group-level movement properties (multiple generations of self-sending churches across a PG), not the reproductive history of a single body. A future SHACL pass may require at least one non-self corroborating attestation before Multiplying can be asserted — the stage implies verifiable reproduction, not just self-report. Minimum-corroboration rules are deferred.
`LCY-RCN`	Reconstituting	Post-disruption rebuilding state — a formerly Stalled or Dissolved ekklesia is re-forming as a recognizable body under the same identity. Honors the reality of church death and rebirth without losing the history: the ekklesia's URI and attestation chain survive, and the Reconstituting attestation is appended to the chain rather than minting a new instance. Enables queries about revival, restoration, and resilience in hostile contexts. Example: A congregation scattered by persecution that re-forms two years later under the same identity and leadership — a Reconstituting attestation appended to the same body URI and attestation chain, never a new instance.
`LCY-STL`	Stalled	An ekklesia whose lifecycle progression has plateaued — no lifecycle change detected across multiple attestation periods, no evidence of reproduction, and no movement toward the next phase. May still gather; stalling describes trajectory, not extinction. Distinct from the Toolkit's Phase 0-R, which is a people-group-level data-staleness signal ('no incoming PG data in 3 years'), not a per-congregation plateau. Attested explicitly by a data steward, field coordinator, or denominational body with visibility into the ekklesia's life. Example: A plant that reached Established but has recorded no new conversions, baptisms, or daughter plants for three years — attested gc:LifecycleStalled to flag the plateau without dissolving the body.