New Sermon Series

“Just follow Jesus and love one another.” It sounds so simple, so obvious. But life tends to be more complicated. Lots of sermons convey the beautiful truth that God wants a relationship with us and the power of Jesus’s incarnation, death, and resurrection to transform our lives. It’s a compelling message, yet it leaves many of us asking the question: “but how?” How can we practically respond to Jesus’s invitation to follow him, grow to become like him, and do the things that he does? How can we live free in his grace while we allow the Spirit to transform us?

Fortunately, for thousands of years, Christians around the world have found God in various common practices giving us a heritage of wisdom and examples to draw from. These practices are not a set of rules to follow or the secret to pleasing God. They don’t win us brownie points or gold stars. They are simply ways that we can respond to Jesus’s invitation to us. It is not necessary to do every practice all of the time, but if we allow it, Jesus will lead us to the things that will bring us closer to him in the season we are in.

Mark Comer writes in “Practicing the Way” that following Jesus involves three steps: being with Jesus, becoming like him, and doing what he does. There are many ways to be with Jesus: rest, solitude, prayer. Each one helps us to get out of our own way and hear from him. Other practices help us to become like Jesus such as discernment, community, fasting, and scripture. Each one can be challenging and can be done in many ways. We can also practice doing the things Jesus did in ways like service, generosity, and hospitality. In each practice, the accountability and support of community makes a huge difference in our ability to follow through and figure out how to do each practice in a way that works for us.

Join us as we learn about and experiment with ways to experience more of God’s presence.

Tension. Just the word itself evokes the physical reaction of our muscles tensing. We avoid tense situations and try not to be too uptight. It would be nice to live by some simple principles that would allow us to live tension-free lives. But Jesus tends to challenge an oversimplified view of the world. He announces the arrival of his Kingdom on Earth but then enters on a donkey and dies on a cross. He teaches the disciples not to be “of the world” but says he does not ask for them to be taken “out” of it. He commands us to be perfect, like our heavenly father, and then turns around and says no one is good but God. Following Jesus seems to involve a lot of paradox, but if we are able to hold his teachings in tension, we can find a new path, what we call in the Vineyard, “the radical middle”.

400 years ago, Ignatius of Loyola crafted a genius way of prayer. His method, called The Daily Examen, helped a person reflect back upon their day and their life in terms of how one experienced God. It is both a challenging and comforting way to trace the movement of God in one’s life. This Great Annual Examen is based on Ignatius’ way of reflection and prayer.

So instead of making New Year Resolutions, join us for this simple journal exercise where you work through some questions to help you reflect on the past year and anticipate the next year to come. It’s called the “examen” because in this exercise we take an examination of how we’ve “done” in life—on the journey and in different aspects. In some ways, many of us will admit that this past year has “undone” us—we’ve felt spent, done or only surviving and perhaps barely surviving at that! However you reflect upon this past year, it’s our hope that you’ll have a GPS—a sort of marker that will help you discern where you are and how you are and where you want to go this next year.

Annual Examen Workbook

Join us and Vineyards around the nation for our Advent Series: The Bright Valley.

Join us for our fall sermon series: Tell Your Story where we will get to hear from members of our church and community about what God has done and is doing in their lives.

There are things that we know in our heads– things that we understand logically and theoretically; and then there are things that we know in our hearts, that move past the cerebral and change the way we understand the world and ourselves on deeper level. Everyone has a unique story made up of their own unique struggles and triumphs. We all have revelations from God that help us move from our heads to our hearts, that we are now uniquely qualified to speak about. There is power in speaking life and encouragement into one another through our stories. Despite living different lives, when we come together and share our stories we will quickly find that we aren’t alone, that we often have similar fears and struggles and that we can learn from each other’s triumphs. We are all also a part of the greatest story of all. The Bible is a compilation of many individual’s stories, knit together to form the beautiful overarching story of God’s love and desire for reconciliation with us through Jesus. You are invited to participate in God’s great story. Step out in boldness, inspire and encourage others, by telling your story. 

The Bible has been called the most remarkable book ever written. It has instructed, encouraged, and inspired hundreds of generations. But if you’ve ever tried to read it from cover to cover, you probably came across some parts that were strange or confusing. You might have even given up when you got to the “begats” in Numbers or glazed over when reading about the precise dimensions of the Tabernacle. This summer, lets go on a little “road trip” and take the road less traveled to really get to know the scriptures. We’ll get a sense for the lay of the land–the different sections, genres, and overall themes–and discover some hidden gems nestled in some of the more out-of-the-way chapters.

If you asked a random person what they thought about religion they would probably say something about a bunch of rules or a moral code. They might associate it with judgement and shame and fear. Or they might feel it’s a really good idea, if only they could get their life together first. It’s no wonder that more and more people are walking away from any religious affiliation altogether and don’t feel like it’s worth their time. When Jesus stepped on the scene, the situation wasn’t so different. People claimed to be the messiah all the time but most people didn’t seem to care. But there was something different about Jesus. All kinds of people flocked to him from tax collectors to Roman centurions to woman of low social standing to fishermen. And somehow this became a movement that would change the world forever. What made Jesus so irresistible and how can we as his church share it with the world?

You can check out past sermons in this series using the links below

1. Have You Met Someone Who Knows the Father?
2. Have You Met a Mentor?
3. Have You Met a Servant?
4. Have You Met a Listener?
5. Have You Met an Influencer?
6. Have You Met a Guide?
7. Have You Met Someone Who Lives With Purpose?