This will be the first in a series of articles or maybe we could say conversations. Conversation implies two-way communication, so, we are going to write some short articles about our dreams, our life together, and our moving toward such and would like to hear your responses, insights, comments and questions. Each article will be listed on the sidebar of the VCC web site here http://vineyard-cc.org/# as well as on this blog. You can post any comments here. We hope you will find this a helpful way to dialogue about our community.
To begin, let’s start with some background. The last few years, through circumstances and many influences, we have become convinced that we exist to serve our world in the personal, local and global realm. We believe that followers of Jesus embrace the way of Jesus that lives pursuing their relationship with God and serving this world in tandem. To that end we encourage one another to embrace spiritual practices such as prayer, meditation, fasting, reading, gathering together, hospitality, as well as many others…in the future we will devote some articles to “spiritual practices in community”.
We dream about the myriad of ways we as a community create an environment that sees every person’s journey encouraged to serve in the three realms of mission noted above. To begin with we want to talk about our dreams in the local area.
Next - The birth of 'Turning Point'
3 comments:
Rose asked for responses to the lead thought of what we might “dream” about on the local level for the church today. My thoughts as of late are that I am actually starting to be captivated by the picture of the church rolling up its sleeves along side people from the community to bring about change in the area where we live among those needing it the most– I’m believing we can be the hands and feet of compassion and care for those around us, and that people will see Jesus in the same light.
For every inner city church and para-church organization that has led the charge for decades in reaching out to the poor in our society, there’s likewise been a withdrawal of the Church from the social fabric of our communities. The church instead drew back and fortified its borders thinking its very life depended on such protection from the harmfulness of our decaying culture. In doing so the heart of our culture, I think, became empty.
I think I’m beginning to catch this vision where hands are extended across socio-economic backgrounds to bring about the greater good—that we can identify with each other as humans in need of each other—that we can represent Jesus as compassionate, good, funny, loving and healing…and that will be contagious.
What I’m seeing is that as people capture this vision locally, they are taking it globally…but that comment is for another time…
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