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Christianity Today recently published an article about the Vineyard Columbus’ (VC) heart to love people of all ethnicity and backgrounds:
“…(senior pastor Rich Nathan) has pushed to make sure VC’s ethnic makeup matches that of Columbus: currently 64 percent white, 28 percent African American, and 4 percent Latino. Since 2001, VC has gone from 10 percent to 28 percent non-majority persons, and each Sunday attracts people from 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties.
“There’s been a serious tipping point,” says Andy Saperstein, VC’s small groups pastor, noting that for over a decade now the church has prioritized reaching international communities and modeling racial diversity. Pastor (Bill) Christensen says outreach to African Americans began in 2000, and to immigrants and refugees in 2006. Now people from 104 of the world’s 196 nations attend weekend services, whose total attendance tops 9,000.”
The cool part about the article was the recognition of the tensions that exists whenever two or more cultures overlap:
“Is there tension? Absolutely,” says Christensen. “What do you do when a subcommittee has a highly organized American, a very organized Kenyan woman, and a Hispanic woman from Colombia who says, ‘I want to make sure we just feel really loose and let this thing happen’?”
A lot of times churches tend to either ignore these culture tensions or, sadly more common, force those of the minority culture to either leave or conform to the majority. From what I can tell (having never visited the church personally), it seems that the VC is doing what it can to try to blend multiple cultures and ethnic groups into one body of Christ.
Continue reading The Kingdom in Columbus (Ohio)
As a Society of Vineyard Scholars member, I am pleased to highlight this new video with clips from the recent February 2011 SVS conference.
Note that if you look close you will see yours truly sitting in the front row at 20 seconds and then the back of my head at 22 seconds.
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The Society of Vineyard Scholars 2011 plenary talks are now online for your viewing pleasure.
Click here to see the videos.
Last week I mentioned James K.A. Smith’s keynote talk at the Society of Vineyard Scholars conference…well, my friend and fellow church planter, Steve Schenk, has been posting some very interesting thoughts and conclusions based upon this talk.
To help stimulate some interest in this topic, I have posted a few sample statements from Steve’s [...]
My recent journey to the Society of Vineyard Scholars conference was also my first time visiting Seattle, Washington. Flying from Boise, I arrived a few hours before the conference started, so Roy Conwell, a great friend and the pastor of the Mountain Vineyard in Kent, WA, volunteered to show me around the city. The below pictures are from this quick tour.
 Metro Seattle: Home to 3.4 million people  Looking West across the Puget Sound at the Olympic Mountains Continue reading Seattle: A Photo Journey
One of the best papers at the Society of Vineyard Scholars meeting last week was given by Harvey Kwiyani, the pastor of the Saint Paul Vineyard (St. Paul, MN).
Harvey is the son of a rural pastor in Malawi, Africa, who spent seven years as a missionary in Europe before coming to Luther Seminary [...]
Last night I was approached by a couple in the church asking if we could start giving testimonies ever week. Unknown to them, this concept of testimonies or storytelling has been a crucial concept in the marketplace of ideas within Christianity over the last few years.
Proponents are claiming that the church needs to [...]
 If you have been wondering about my silence, it is because I was enjoying the company of friends at the annual Society of Vineyard Scholars (SVS) conference in Seattle.
In typical Vineyard fashion, the conference was a wonderful blend of “spirit and scholarship” with 46 academic papers and times of worship and prophetic ministry. To show this blend, the Lord gave a local artist at the Vineyard Community Church (Shoreline), who hosted the event, a vision of two waves crashing into each other. This painting (show to the right) was prominently displayed throughout the event at the front of the church as a reminder to everyone present of the need for both spirit and truth.
Another reminder of this blend of spirit and scholarship was James K.A. Smith’s plenary session outlining a “Charismatic Epistemology” (i.e. a spirit led way of understanding knowledge). As a Pentecostal Philosopher, James Smith challenged the SVS scholars to two ways:
- To drink deep from the well of the Vineyard – Allow the values and Kingdom Theology of the Vineyard to impact and guide the academic nature of the Society. Don’t just parrot the theology and discussions of everyone else.
- Embrace a Narrative Epistemology (i.e. a story focused understanding of knowledge) moved by the Holy Spirit – Don’t allow the intellectual focus of Western enlightenment culture overrule ones embracement of emotions and experiences that God has given humanity.
My first thought when I heard this was, “I’ve been duped! I came to a scholars meeting to escape my emotions only to have God tell me to trust them!”
Continue reading Society of Vineyard Scholars: Review
Just found out that the Vineyard Movement is gathering the “thinkers and scholars” of the movement. The newly formed Society of Vineyard Scholars (SVS) is going to be launched next Tuesday at the National Conference in Galveston.
The cool part – I’m going to be there!!
The purpose of the group is [...]
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Who Writes This Mess? My name is Joshua Hopping and I am a Son of the Most High journeying through a foreign land following the Wild Goose (i.e. the Holy Spirit) one step at a time.
As I journey along the Way, I have the privilege of serving as the bi-vocational pastor of the Payette River Vineyard Christian Fellowship. I am also a voracious reader who loves studying church history, theology, and world missions.
This blog, "Requisite Danger", is a record of what God is teaching and showing me as I try to follow Him wherever He leads as well as occasional random thoughts. I pray that you will join me in this journey through online/offline interaction as this life is lived in community.
May His grace and peace be upon you.
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