EBA Origins

Easum, Bandy and Associates was born for the millennium, in January of 2000. Now, the rest is history

Bill Easum and Tom Bandy merged their experience to form a dynamic international mission. Bill brought his gifts as one of the pioneering pastors of the church growth movement and his organization "21st Century Strategies" (founded in 1987) to the merger. Tom brought his gifts as pastor and denominational leader - and his organization "Thriving Church Consulting" (founded in 1995).

• EBA is founded on friendship. Tom and Bill discovered an amazing similarity in their thought and work even though they are such different personalities from such different contexts. When they co-authored the best seller "Growing Spiritual Redwoods" in 1997, the synergy was so incredible that Lyle Schaller described the work as "perhaps the best book about church transformation in this century." Their mutual respect and trust sets the standard for EBA relationships.
• EBA is founded on mission. Bill and Tom share a passion for servant empowering Christian community. They wanted to form an organization that models team-based, high-impact, and cross-denominational Christian mission. They wanted to lead a multi-faceted mission that combined local contextual sensitivity and international networking.

In the first three years of existence, EBA accomplished three North American speaking tours, hundreds of training events, and consultations with churches of every size and culture.

Today more than 100,000 leaders have participated in their events and countless others have been linked through one of the largest religious interactive websites in North America.