This morning I was listening to a recording of David Ruis at the recent Vineyard Canada National Enlive Conference when he said something that just jumped out at me. He starts off by quoting Lloyd Rankin (the National Director of the Vineyard New Zealand) in saying:

“We’re called as a Vineyard community; we are NOT a network. We are a clan…we are a tribe…we are a family.”

This is sounds good and all… but it wasn’t the language of family that David used that jumped out at me (as I’ve heard similar language before). The part that jumped out at me was when he starts to define and look at what it means to be a part of a family rather than a network.  Here, read the words David spoke:

“We’re called as a Vineyard community; we are NOT a network. We are a clan…we are a tribe…we are a family. The different between a network and a tribe is this: in a network, you are in it for what you can get out of it.  Right? Yeah, I’ll show up at that meeting if the speaker is good. I’ll show up at that little area gathering…and this again, is not a….a judgment… it is all an invitation…all in the spirit of invitation…we just have so much space to work this through.

“But in the guts of who we are we are not a network. And I say this was kindness…and in the magnanimous posture that Jesus is the head of the church…he sorts it all. There are many systems and structures around us within the Body of Christ that function much more as networks. We haven’t given ourselves to a network; we have given ourselves to a family.

“The challenge of clan…the challenge of family…the challenge of tribe is this…is that…sometimes the giving up of our autonomy in the mix of that thing is actually the step that God is asking us to take was we serve each other. Does that make sense? Now practically that is challenging…and we are trying to figure out systems and structures that will serve that type of relational working together. But you haven’t plugged into a network…you are part of a family. And we want to call us to be family.”

Wow! Did you get all that?

Joining a network is about getting something out of it…about only going to those meetings which are profitable for yourself….or only engaging when it is convenient… and I do get this mentality as it is hard to budget money for trips or to take off from church leadership to go and hang out with folks…  Yet if we are a clan or a family, then there is a sense that we are to gather together with no other purpose than to hang out with each other. It is a different mentality…a different mindset.

In the years that I have been a part of the Vineyard I can truly say that for the most part the Vineyard is a family. Perhaps a bit dysfunctional at times…but what family doesn’t have problems?!  😛  We also have our crazy aunts and uncles who are a bit strange…and those cousins who we love hanging out with.  Its been said many times before, but there is something about the greater Vineyard family in that you don’t really join as much as you find out that you are part of the clan.

Hopefully this concepts will help those of you out there know why I talk so much about the Vineyard. It is not because the Vineyard has everything set up correctly – or that they have a corner on the God-market… the cool-aid is pretty good though… No, truth be told I simply talk about the Vineyard because it is my clan. There is just something about this group of people that is different than other groups I have met… and like any good family member, I tend to talk about my family a lot. 😀