Category Archives: Vineyard Movement

Payette River Vineyard, Vineyard Movement

First Couples Group

Last night marks the beginning of a six week couples groups based on the Fireproof movie.

Yelp – leave it to the Baptists to not only make a great movie, but to provide the rest of us with a step-by-step guide on leading a marriage group.

Shoot, if it was up to me – we would be sitting around in a circle with guitars singing kumbia, drinking tea and cluttering the room with theological sound waves.

Let us say that the 11 folks who showed up last night are busying thanking the Good Lord for logical people who create Bible studies. Tongue out

Vineyard Movement

Church Review: Northgate Vineyard (Tennessee)

Wow!

Talk about a friendly bunch of people.

Sunday morning a few of us soul journers decided to check out the Northgate Vineyard in Gallatin, Tennessee.

Pulling up to a small middle school off the beaten path, we entered in the building not sure what we would find. About a fourth of the way across the gym floor, we were intercepted by a huge smile and a friendly handshake.

Our greeter (who literally came from across the room to meet us!!) went above and beyond himself to make us feel welcome – even to the point of telling us where to sit, get coffee and use the restrooms.

Liking the sound of coffee – I decided to walk over and get a cup. The only problem was I couldn't get back to my seat due to all the folks talking to me!!![@more@]

Shoot – even the pastor intercepted me!!

Oh – I guess I should mention that there were only about twenty folks in the church…

After the service (which included some great worship), we were invited to join the congregation for soup and dessert (we picked the right day to visited!!!)

Not knowing anyone, we sat down at an empty table to enjoy our meal. Within five minutes, we had three folks sitting down with us and another standing next to us talking!!  I have NEVER seen such friendly people!!!

The experience was made even more dramatic by our visit to Grace Church the day before. The folks at Grace Church, while decent folks, did not embrace us or greet us beyond a simply "hi" at the front door….

Lesson:

When ever you see someone new at church, go out of your way to engage them. Not in an "I have to because it's my job" way – but in a "I really care about you" way.

The difference is….well, simply breathtaking.

Theology Thoughts, Vineyard Movement

Sex Trade and Human Trafficking

Last night was powerful! A few of us gathered in our basement to watch some videos about human trafficking and the churches response.

Wow… talk about a deep evening.

The speaker was Rob Morri of Love 146 (a Christian organization working to end child sex slavery and exploitation) – and was given at the Vineyard Boise’s Re:Form conference in Sept 2008 (Em was there…but I was at a missions conference so I missed the “live” event) Frown

Back to last night..

Two couples from church joined us in this event to learn more about human trafficking – plus we had a very special guest!  This guest was a young lady who just returned from five weeks in Southeast Asia working among the prostitutes…[@more@]

Speaking of this guest… God is so good! Over the last two years, I had a deep desire to remodel the basement – sooner versus later. Now, as soon as we completed the remodel, God has been sending us young ladies to stay with us…

It’s like we have become a retreat center for those looking to get away from the busyness of life and re-center on God. Talk about a God thing! Laughing

Sigh… the videos….how can one describe the emotions and thoughts associated with such a topic?

The crazy thing is that this topic isn’t just a “topic” – it’s real life. I personally know people who have been trafficked across national borders against their will. It is a very real threat – one that is happening here in the USA.

Believers need to open their eyes and quite trying to sweep the “bad stuff” under the rug where they can pretend it’s not there. We need to turn the lifeboat around and go back to the sinking ship – go back with goal of transforming lives (spiritually, emotionally, and physically).

oh- by the way, you can buy the Re:Form videos online at VineyardMusic.com. Laughing

Payette River Vineyard, Vineyard Movement, World Missions

Telecommuting, Flight Plans and the Kingdom of God

Saturday was the first day of my telecommuting career. Yelp I am now working Tuesday through Saturday with Sunday and Monday off.

It was a bit strange at first working from home. But I liked it.

Telecommuting is peaceful, more productive (in some cases), saves money, and where else can you work in your undies? Tongue out

There are lots of things you have to get in place to be able to successful work from home, but it doesn’t take too much setting up.

Obviously, you need somewhere to work from, so a desk or table is essential as working with a laptop on your lap just isn’t sustainable for every day. You’ll also want to make sure that you have other essential office equipment at home, such as a good filing cabinet like the ones found at Office Monster, as this will help you when it comes to your working day.

Also, you still need to be able to collaborate with colleagues and access shared documents as you would if you were still in the office, but using something like Sharepoint makes this possible. If you aren’t familiar with Sharepoint, it might be worth seeking some Sharepoint consulting services – click here to continue to a website which could help.

But that’s about it. It takes some getting used to, but I personally think the pros far outweigh the cons.

They let me speak on Sunday.

Yelp it was quite amazing. No tomatoes, boos or otherwise un-ethical behavior. What did happen was the Spirit of the Lord descended upon the Church service that evening in an amazing way. It was… how do you say, beautiful? [@more@]

There were not fallen bodies or people jumping up and down it was a sweet, sweet spirit that descended at the end of the service that just touched hearts. It was fun standing up front watching people react some with crying, some with stone faces, still others with a sweet smile upon their face.

Ah. God is good.

Oh I must mention that Sunday was also the first time the Pastor and I team taught. As in, he started the service off with a 10 minute intro and then passed it of to me to flesh out the details. This allows us both to play to our strengths me with the historical background, and him with the personal impact and call to action. We are going to try it a few more times and see how it works. Undecided

Flight plans are tough to make.

Too many choices. However, I may have found the perfect flight or flights. =)

I am going to Colorado Springs in two weeks for the Vineyard National Missions Meeting on behalf of the Paraguay Partnership. Lord willing I will met some folks who want to join with us on supporting the work of the Kingdom in this country.

Theology Thoughts, Vineyard Movement

Is the Church To Police Society? Part 7

Bert Waggoner had an insightful answer when asked about church vs state:

We are not called to police society. We are called to be a people who genuinely, authentically love and display the gospel in order to be salt and light and bring transformation.

Here’s the thing:

The Church should not be frightened at the downward spiral of society’s morality. If anything, we should be cheering as now the Light of the Gospel can burn brighter in the darkness around us.

Christians in the West have relied on the government’s control of morality for far too long. We have gotten complacent knowing that we could send our children to the public school and they would be taught under a Judeo-Christian worldview. We like the fact that the government controlled how much sex or cursing we (and our children) saw on TV. It was nice knowing that we could stop sinful behaviors by simply voting.

We liked it that way because it meant that we did not have think about it or deal with it. Out of sight and out of mind.[@more@]

To me, this is the reason a lot of the church is fighting to save Christendom. They want the government to regulate their morality, instead of by the body of Christ. 

IT MAKES ME SICK!!!

Just like in the Judges, God wants to be King in each of our lives – individually and corporately. He does not want us relying on a human government to regulated morality. If He wanted to do that, He would of done that at the very beginning when He made us.

We, the Church, need to be different – to live different, to act different – to engage our culture, while being different. We need not be afraid of sin or the sin around us. We serve the One True God – the One who made the Universe. Nothing can take us from His hand.

Let us stop trying to police society and live for God.

Theology Thoughts, Vineyard Movement

The Vineyard Legacy by Bert Waggoner

I discovered a lecture by Bert Waggoner, the US AVC National Director, entitled "The Vineyard Legacy" – given at the 2008 Northwest Leaders Gathering – Vancouver, WA. In this session, Waggoner pretty covers everything we have been discussing in this thread!! If you the time, I would highly recommend downloading and listening to it!!

Here are a few highlights from Waggoner's lecture:

  • The Kingdom of God is our legacy. It is who we are and it is the mark we must leave behind for the church and the world.
  • Waggoner commented on his concerns that the Vineyard movement is losing it's focus on the Kingdom of God. These concerns came out of three experiences:[@more@]

1) He was recently in India speaking to the Vineyard pastors about the Kingdom. During this time, five pastors came up and asked what was the Kingdom of God as they had never heard about it…..

2) When he sign a document promoting a two state solution to the Israel / Palestine issue, several Vineyard leaders/pastors came to him disagreeing based upon a dispensational theology.

3) The Vineyard Movement is a center set where people are "judged" (my word) on if they are moving towards to center (ie. Jesus and the Kingdom), not on where they are currently located. This is different from a bounded set where folks are judged on being "in" or "out".

Being a center set, the Vineyard makes room for different people, ideas, and cultures. However, more and more leaders are coming to Waggoner wanting him to set more rules on what's a Vineyard and what's not. Meaning that folks are wanting to go from a Kingdom center set to a bounded set….

  • In discussing his concerns about losing the legacy of the Kingdom of God, Waggoner spoke about the danger of losing the Kingdom. He did this by walking through the Parable of the Sower – mainly that if we fail to understand the Kingdom, satan will take it away.  We have to fully understand the Kingdom so it can be applied to one's life.

Three ways the Kingdom can be taken away:

  1. A hard heart; allowing satan to steals it away. This can be a theological hard heart. (on the path)
  2. Surface emotion responses based upon experience but no theological framework rocky ground)
  3. We can get caught up in life and forget about the Kingdom (thorns)
  • Waggoner ended this selection with the comment that "practice without theology goes bad; theology without practice is dry…and is usually destructive."
  • Why is it such a big deal?  Because it was and is the central message of Jesus. After Jesus rose from the grave, he spent 40 days teaching the disciples about the Kingdom of God. This was his LAST days on earth and he spent it teaching on the Kingdom!

As such, we must:

1) We must go through a theological conversion and fully understand the Kingdom of God

2) We must make time to understand the Kingdom. If we don't constantly seek to understand and teach the Kingdom of God, we will be overcome by the cares of this world (ie. work, family, ministry, ect)

3) We need to embrace the full message of the Kingdom and how it transforms society, creation, hearts of men, ect

Current Events, Vineyard Movement

Brandi Swindell – Follow Up

Brandi SwindelAs report here last week, a follow Believer and friend journeyed to Asia to protest China’s human rights policies. This friend, Brandi Swindell, was arrested twice for 1) unfolding a banner in Tiananmen Square that read “Jesus Christ is King” and 2) for holding a prayer / news conference in said square. Brandi and two other teammates where held for 10 hours by the Chinese police before being returned to Los Angeles.

Mahoney (Editor: one of Brandi's teamates) said uniformed Chinese officers confiscated the banner and escorted them out of the square.

"I asked, 'Are we under arrest?"' Mahoney said. "They said, 'No.' I asked, 'Can we leave?' They said, 'No."'  (source: AP)

The full follow up story can be read here.

Vineyard Movement

Boise Vineyard Highlighted on the 700 Club

A few weeks ago the 700 Club came to Boise and interviewed some of the folks at our church about our community garden, the Garden o' Feedin'. I would enbed the video, but for some reason I can’t get that part to wok.. sigh…  so you will have to follow this link to watch the clip.  Laughing

Mean while – here’s some written info on what the Garden o' Feedin' is about:

The Garden – O – Feed'in is Part of the Vineyard Boise’s benevolence ministry and is located on the north east corner of the 22 acre campus. The Garden-O-Feed'in began as the vision of Rick and Diane Roberson in 1998 with just six raised beds. Due to their hard work and the perseverance of many volunteers we are presently farming one third of an acre and this fall developed another one third acre for farming in the spring. [@more@]

The vision of the garden is to supplement, with healthy organically grown vegetables, the pantries of those in need. Two benevolent farmers markets are held each week, Wednesdays and Saturdays under the garden arbor.

In 2007 the garden produced and gave away over 20,000 lbs. of produce, feeding approximately 1281 families, representing around 4108 individuals.

Not only does the garden feed those in need, this year we've started holding classes to educate it's volunteers and the community about gardening’s value to the environment and the many different ways to enjoy meals with garden produce. Wise water usage, organic methods of soil and crop development, pest control, composting and the benefits of mulching are some of the classes planned for next season.

It took 3782 volunteer hours and 115 volunteers to make it all happen this year. But there are still plenty of opportunities available to help out and to learn and grow. For more information about the Vineyard Boise Benevolence Ministries can be found here.

Disclaimer: the above pic is not from Idaho..it's actually from Paraguay..but it seem to fit so well… Undecided

Current Events, Vineyard Movement

Three American Christian and Pro-Life Leaders Arrested in Beijing

Brandi SwindelThe radio is an amazing invention. It brings the joy of music into our lives, homes and cars. And, sometimes, it brings the deep voice of an NPR news broadcaster to the forefront of one’s mind:

Brandi Swindell of Generation Life in Boise, Idaho arrested in Beijing.

That’s what my ears heard as I was hurling through the air in a metal box. Trust me, those simple words where enough to make me sit up and take notice.  Why?  Because Brandi is a friend.

Granted, I really shouldn’t be and in reality, I am not THAT surprised. Brandi has a HUGE heart and passion for the unborn, women, children or anyone who is the victim of abuse. Going to China to protest the human rights abuses – ie forced abortion, religious persecution of Christians, etc – is just classic Brandi. [@more@]

And I praise God for her passion to serve Him, no matter where it takes her or what happens – trust me, she one tough gal. Shoot, I don’t know if I could go to Beijing, stand in Tiananmen Square and start protesting the entire nation of China.. that takes some major guts!!!

I end with this statement from a Daughter of the Kingdom:

There is a spiritual dimension and release of God's power when people actually go to a location and pray. God honors simple acts of obedience and sacrifice.

That is why I traveled to Beijing, China, August 1, 2008, to stand in solidarity with persecuted Christians, Falun Gong, Tibetan Monks, victims of forced abortion and human trafficking, and all whose human rights have been violated.

The spiritual encouragement it brings to those in China, who are in jail for their faith, cannot be measured. They are uplifted beyond compare, knowing those in the West have not forgotten them and are willing to stand in solidarity. That alone is worth the trip.

–Brandi Swindel