What Is Ekklesia Design?
A professional planning & design firm? Yes. A ministry? Also, yes.
Ekklesia Design is a full-service, professional practice firm, operating in the economic market industry of real estate development, landscape architecture, land planning, and community design. However, at the core of this missionally-minded endeavor (as is the foundation for any good & worthy work) is a robust theology which seeks to glorify God in every area of life. Providing extraordinary quality to our value-aligned clients is the company's goal, while the overarching vision is to build a multi-disciplinary venture which expands Christ's Kingdom (& advocates for truth, beauty, and goodness in this world) one property at a time.
Meet Our Founder
Connor Neville is a licensed landscape architect and cartographic map-maker, by trade. As a confessionally-reformed Christian, husband, father of 3, churchman, and missional entrepreneur, Connor founded Ekklesia Design LLC as a way to dovetail his call to ministry pursuits with a vocational craft (from the Latin, vocatio, meaning to call/one's calling). Connor and his wife & kids (and dog) live in rural middle TN between Franklin and Columbia, through which he has developed a heart for the Appalachian/Southeastern US region and a zeal for its future development. However, Connor is passionate about helping build-up local communities and meeting their contextualized needs, wherever that may be.
Our Founding
It all started out back in a beloved garden, when the founder, Connor Neville, was a young boy in his Grandpa's back yard. Many spring days were well-spent laboring alongside his father (a landscape architect by trade, himself) with an end goal of planting that year's rendition of a beautiful, "theme-garden" of colorful annuals and refreshed perennials. Little did young Connor know at the time, this creative outlet would in-part become his lifelong calling; to work with the beautiful forms of nature in order to create places for human flourishing & social interactions.
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Ekklesia Design originated as a capstone project, titled "Redemption of Place", during Connor's tenure of earning his master's of landscape architecture (MLA) degree. The capstone's thesis was to design a consultancy model which would enable a landscape architecture firm to work with Christian clients & churches on the missiological strategy of cultural engagement through community development. To put this thesis to the test upon graduation, Connor created Ekklesia Design in 2020, which initially functioned as a social media and content-based ministry, with the occasional design project outside of full-time employment at the time. After various guest appearances on numerous podcasts & presence at various conferences, Connor was led to consider pursuing this venture full-time in providential timing.
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Connor eventually went on to employ and sharpen his skills at a premiere & boutique firm based out of Franklin, TN (Gamble Design Collaborative, www.gdc-tn.com). First-class mentorship, friendship, and a breadth of experience & expertise were all gained while at GDC, for which, Connor & Ekklesia Design will remain publicly thankful for life. Much of the project work that is displayed on Ekklesia Design's website (to-date) draws upon graphics and client work which were produced by Connor & his collaborators while at GDC.
Upon becoming professionally licensed to practice landscape architecture on his own, Connor founded Ekklesia Design LLC and launched the venture full-time in 2024. It is now a fully-licensed and insured consultancy firm operating in the field of landscape architecture & land planning. From start to finish, conceptual strategizing to construction administration, Ekklesia Design now exists to serve its amazing clients & craft their vision into reality. Our founding is truly a vision which providentially turned into a reality. Partner with us today!
Ekklesia Design's mission is, "to exhort and equip Christians to redeem the place where they have been called & to take dominion."
It's that simple, but there is a lot there to unpack.
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Exhorting is the side of Ekklesia Design which advocates for a deepened thoughtfulness in the areas of localism, faithful dominion over land/place, and the means by which we can achieve those noble ends. Exhortation means a compelling call to action, and we employ that language, not-surprisingly, as a client pipeline for our business: to call Christians to do the work we have been called to (& to choose Ekklesia Design as your trusted partner in the process!).
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Equipping is the professional practice side of Ekklesia Design which produces products & services to consult our clients in their projects of redemptive placemaking. The skills and tools available to a land planner/landscape architect are often underappreciated or underutilized, but Ekklesia Design seeks to change that. One of our major goals is to equip our clients with the right principles, strategies, plans, design drawings, and construction documents (& much more) to best steward their properties, ultimately for the glory of God and for the good of our enjoyment.
To achieve that chief end, as a professional landscape architecture firm, the means by which we are incentivized to engage this work is a factor of profit within the industries that seek a return on investment from developing a piece of land. An ideal client may include Christians who are real-estate developers, classical school administrators/board members, ministry CEOs/CDOs, officers in local churches, business executives and directors of development, homesteaders and residential home owners, community leaders and parks departments, non-profits, and so on.
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"For as the Earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations." Isaiah 61:11
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Ekklesia Design's ultimate vision is to take part in the work of seeing the Earth become re-Eden-ified & to enable Christians to steward their local resources and take dominion over their local lands, Soli Deo Gloria. This is promised to take place through equipped & engaged local churches (Ephesians 3:10), and we believe, it will incrementally occur by means of planned & designed places which have been redeemed by Christ (Ps 2:8, Ps 110:1, Col 1:19-20, Rev 22:2).
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This anti-gnostic vision requires real financial investment and physical work to take place - and that is where a professional land planning & landscape architecture firm such as Ekklesia Design comes in to serve. Get in touch to partner together, today!
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MISSION & VISION
Contact
Wanting to find out more? Looking to connect?
Reach out today!
410-430-0760