Every year our Christmas season engages in “Advent Conspiracy” where we focus more on giving time and energy and creativity to one another and focus on worshipping the king. As part of that journey we also take the money that we would otherwise normally use as a gift for someone and donate it in a certain direction. Normally this focus would be on our foster/adopt partner 1Hope4Kids.

This year we went above and beyond, and part of it was out of desperation. As a small church, we aren’t a hub for Christmas Eve and many of our local families travel to see their extended family. I found out very early on that we were not going to have any worship team members present on Christmas Eve, and it was going to be a far cry from a “destination Christmas Eve service” that many churches hope for.

We typically send out 10,000 cards every Christmas season inviting our community to join us for advent and Christmas Eve. This year, knowing that our church service was going to be less than typically spectacular in any musical way (it ended up being very special nevertheless) we decided to use those invitations to invite the community to join us in doing some practical good for the community.

The idea was first introduced to us by the Ann Arbor Vineyard in 2019. We contacted RIP Medical Debt and they let us know that Bexar County (San Antonio) had one of the largest medical debt loads out of any other county in the country. (Almost $350 million)

Our board decided together that in order to be more authentically ourselves as a congregation we wouldn’t invite people to a Christmas spectacular; we would invite them to join us in serving the poor. That’s who we are, so let’s do it publicly.

At the same time, we were watching our Argentinean churches do something called “Un Regalo Mas.” The Cordoba church plant is very small, maybe 5 committed families, but twice a year they have 300 people joining them to give Christmas gifts to Bolivian refugees in barrios all over the city. Through their connections with social workers, they started “Un Regalo Mas” and partnered with their friends and friends of friends to be involved in God’s kingdom work to give Christmas presents, clothes, and other needs to these mostly Bolivian refugees in Cordoba.

From their example, we decided to invite our community to join us in paying off debt, but also joining our elementary/middle school partner Rogers Academy. Rogers had specific families that they knew needed help with Christmas gifts and basic needs. We allowed people to choose their own adventure to help a local family and/or donate towards paying off medical debt.

Our church responded very well!! Our typical response to supporting 1Hope4Kids is $1500 to $2000. They responded this year with over $7000 towards RIP medical debt. The church also decided to send $3000 to 1Hope4Kids to continue our relationship and support of them.

Upon looking at the donor results from the RIP Medical Debt giving site, we did not notice any donors from outside the church. I’m disappointed that we did not have the same community involvement as our friends in Cordoba but nevertheless, I’m very grateful for what God did.

Our goal was to raise $10,000 to pay off $1 million. The typical return is 1:100. There was a temptation to fulfill the last $2900 from our general funds in order to reach our goal. However, in my prayer time, it felt fake to do that so we closed the campaign with the thought that we would not be able to pay off $1,000,000. However, when we finally got the tally we found out that over $1.5 million was paid off. It blew us away. That equates to over 1700 families having their debt paid off, and they are currently receiving letters in the mail that our church paid off their debt.

I hope this story helps to share the unamazingness of our church and the beautiful faithfulness of God.

He is amazing. We don’t know what we are doing.

Zack Rodriguez is the lead pastor at the Lake Charles Vineyard in Louisiana and is an Area Pastor. Zack was a young, out-of-town pastor without Vineyard roots when he took over the church. “It’s probably an understatement to say that church life in 2020 was difficult. At our church, it was no different.”

From 2019 to 2020, not only had COVID begun to reshape their church culture, but they also lost their founding pastor of 20 years suddenly and had four young people pass away tragically. On top of these things, Hurricane Laura decimated their city and church building, causing damage to 95% of the structures in Lake Charles. One month later, Hurricane Delta finished off everything else still standing. Devastation was rampant and hope was lost. Zack says, “Ultimately, the beauty I found in that time was that sometimes being flat on your back is the only way you look up. As weird as it sounds, I often say it was one of the best times of my life because it brought me to total dependence on God. We experienced Matthew 5:3 firsthand.”

Then they began to experience heaven on earth. Zack says, “The great things we witnessed after those trials were too numerous to count. Miraculous provision during the hurricane days, restoration of families, renewed vision of the church, and new salvations. There have been several mind-blowing seasons and I often have difficulty getting people to believe all we experienced.”

Zack shares that the first person they saw healed was named Diane and she was the antithesis of someone who attends church. “One Wednesday night, she came to service with her son after being diagnosed with COPD earlier that week. She was on oxygen and she was having a hard time breathing. As I started preaching, she wasn’t feeling well. Instead of slipping out the back to go home, her son yelled, ‘My mom’s not feeling well, so we’re going to leave!’ We all looked back in disbelief at this disruption, but that was a bold act of Biblical faith. Our entire congregation got up and laid hands on her to pray for healing. Two days later, the doctor told her she had no more need for supplemental oxygen. This showed us we need greater boldness in our prayers.”

Zack recalls a friend of his who was trusting God for a healing miracle. He is an incredibly gifted poet and songwriter and Zack shares that his friend “developed a growth in his eye that became quite painful. With all the miracles happening, he was extremely confident that God would heal him. The pain worsened and the doctors stated it would require continual surgeries. Chris’ faith grew and the more impossible it seemed, the more confident he grew. The growth got larger and he couldn’t shut his eye. After a couple of months of it getting worse, he decided to proceed with the surgery. The night before scheduling the surgery, he prayed, ‘God, I know you can make this fall off like a scale, and I wish you would, but I’m okay either way.’ The next day, the doctor looked at his eye and said, ‘Do you want me to just take this off right now? You don’t need surgery. I can just take it off. If I didn’t it would just fall off like a scale.’ The growth was plucked off, and it hasn’t returned.” Zack also shares that many songs to Jesus were written out of this and that it taught them to be persistent in their prayers.

Zack remembers that the most dramatic healing happened suddenly during one of their church services when they were teaching on Revelation 5. Zack explains that they sang “Worthy Of It All” to close out their service and as soon as they finished, he heard a shriek. “As I walked off the stage, I noticed a lady in a wheelchair near the back that I didn’t recognize at first. Upon getting to her, I knew it was Deborah. Her husband was sobbing on his knees next to her. Her color was gray. People had already called the paramedics stating that someone had passed away. She was ice cold to the touch and looked like she had no life. I heard someone faintly praying for life to come back to her, which encouraged more of us to join. She had no pulse and no respirations. She was too heavy to lift from her wheelchair. We prayed and after some time, her color was restored. Then she had a faint, rapid pulse. Then she took a breath and then her body began to sweat and warm up. Her muscles began to twitch all over. Her pulse stabilized and her respirations improved but were still shallow and infrequent. She was non-responsive to sternum rubs. Prayer was intermittent. We’d pray and something would change and then we’d pray again. Over 35 minutes, she slowly changed; however, she was still not awake. When the EMTs arrived, she suddenly woke right before they touched her. She left the church on her own strength and went to the doctor the next day, and they said she was fine. This happened right before a lot of other miracles, and it raised the faith of many in the church.”

Zack shared that this miracle was amazing to witness and it wasn’t the first time they prayed for the dead to come back to life. “We had some young people tragically pass away in the church. One was in a vehicle accident and she was on life support and declared brain dead. Another pastor and I went to pray for her and we were confident she would live. We thought she was improving while we prayed, but the next day she was removed from life support and died. We were heartbroken. Then a couple of months later, a young man passed away due to an overdose. The night before his funeral, a few of us prayed over his casket for a couple of hours, but nothing happened. When Deborah came back to life, this showed us that we don’t need to develop a theology on things we don’t see; we need to trust Him for the impossible!”

They witnessed several other miracles. People were healed of illnesses or diseases. Some no longer needed recommended surgeries or experienced quick recoveries. Zack says the miracles were not solely physical. They saw people provided for financially and some were provided jobs. Zack has many stories from this incredible season but says that these stories continue. “Christ is King, and He continues to exceed all we can ask or think! We will worship God whether He answers us like we desire or if He goes another route. In triumph or perceived defeat, we will worship because He is Lord! We always, in faith, expect God for great things. I pray that these stories give hope and renew child-like faith again.”

James Moscardini is the Worship Arts Pastor at Vineyard Church North Phoenix. He says that they’ve seen a large number of water baptisms in recent history. “Water baptism is one of the things we really focus on. We do them every six weeks, and recently we had 62 people signed up, which is pretty normal.”

He says the focus on baptism started a while back when their leader pastor Brian Anderson originally felt like his calling was to be the sort of pastor to “equip the saints”, and he felt like God called him to be an evangelist even though he didn’t feel like that was part of his gifting. “We’ve been gearing our Christmas Eve and Easter services in a very evangelistic way, so we do altar calls on those holidays and throughout the year, probably six total, and we see like 100 people come forward each time to accept Jesus.”  

James says that their process after someone raises their hand to accept Jesus is very consistent, starting with a card they’re given with some next steps, including baptism, regular church attendance, prayer, and reading their Bible. After they’ve gotten a handle on those things, people are encouraged to focus on small group attendance, possibly taking some of the classes offered at their church or joining the leadership track, volunteering in some capacity, and giving to God financially through the church. 

“We used to just do a couple of big annual baptisms, and now we do them during worship and it’s a big celebration. It’s always a big attendance weekend because people invite their families. With COVID, we shortened our worship time, and since we’ve had so many people signing up to be baptized, we’ve had to do them more frequently just to fit them into the time. We have three services, so we average about 20 baptisms per service. 

We’ve done everything we can to make it super easy for people to be water baptized. People used to have to attend an in-person class, and now it’s online and about 25 minutes, and really goes into everything someone needs to know about what baptism means before they sign up. We run marketing for baptisms the three weeks preceding every water baptism, so with them being every six weeks, that’s half the year that we’re running a water baptism announcement. Before baptisms start, we have someone explain what it means, and why everyone needs to be baptized.

Baptisms are really in the culture of our church now. When people are baptized they get a t-shirt and they wear them proudly! And we really celebrate baptism: we do a “win video”, and our bulletin has a baptism focus, so there’s a lot we do to communicate that it’s a big deal.”

James says that one of the most recent developments now that they have an online presence is that people sometimes fly in from out of state to be baptized. “They watch our online services and decide they want to be a part of it, so they fly in or drive hours to be baptized, and it’s often the first time they’ve ever been to our church in person. They just feel like they’re a part of our church community through our online church. I know a lot of people are starting to make the argument for shutting down online church, but I don’t know how we can while seeing this kind of fruit.”

James said the joy of getting to witness baptisms never really wears off. “I get to water baptize two people this Sunday, which I’ve never done before because I’m usually leading worship, and I’m really excited!”

Chris Schlotterbeck is the Lead Pastor at Hub City Vineyard in Maryland, a church that saw incredible growth during COVID that has stuck. 

Chris says, “In 2018 we lost the building that we had been renting for 8 years so we quickly pivoted and rented a large auditorium at a high school, which then opened a door for us to buy a property. We bought an old United Church of Christ building that was about to go under and paid cash. It wasn’t big enough for us, but we planned to add a 2.2 million dollar addition for a main gathering space.”

They had all the plans done and were ready to break ground in December 2019 when Chris got a phone call from the bank saying, “We’re not going to release your building funds because there’s this thing called COVID, and you may not be a church in 6 months. To continue, we’ll need your giving statements from January to May 2020, and if your giving stays the same or goes up, we’ll release your building fund money.” Chris was heartbroken, but he understood.

“I quickly went to my administrator and said, ‘We need $40,000 to spend on lights, cameras, and switchers. Either we go virtual or we sink.’ We spent the money and did the whole COVID livestream gig, and our giving doubled from January to May 2020, so we were able to break ground on our addition at the height of COVID. We couldn’t meet, couldn’t do anything, and I had pastors, family members, and friends saying, ‘What are you doing? It’s a dumb move.’ And I said, ‘Well, God told us to build it so we’re building it.’

Chris says that they completed the addition and held their first in-person meeting on Easter Sunday 2021. “We had two services with 1,000 people. In 2022 we had 1,200 people, and last year we added 3 services and had 1,600. We average about a thousand people a weekend now.”

When asked about a growth model, Chris said, “We’ve always been intentional about growth, and we specifically reach people that don’t go to church because I was one of them. I didn’t give my life to Jesus til I was 22, and I know what it’s like to be lost, to live a pointless life. I’ve read all of Steve Sjogren’s books, and we do servant evangelism every month. We serve our community and we give away more than we take in because I believe we’re called to do that. 

We’re very intentional about challenging people to grow in their relationship with Jesus, and last year we felt like our calling was to reach people who are forgotten. So we started a Wednesday church service at a state-run nursing home that houses the elderly, addicts, and young disabled people. We also built a bridge with the ARC of Washington County, which is for people who are mentally challenged and handicapped, so they bring busses of people to our church for Bible study. 

Our little rural county has the largest addiction crisis in Maryland; we lead the state in overdose deaths. So we intentionally reach out to the addicted: we have Celebrate Recovery and host the largest AA meeting in the county, and we use those meetings as a way to build bridges to those addicted. We’re intentional about getting people plugged into Growth Groups so they’re actually discipled. We don’t just look to get them saved; we want them to be a part of our church, and we do whatever is necessary to get them in our church on a weekly basis, because we know that their track record of showing up and getting in a group is where the change happens. But it can also be messy. When we do our Sunday and midweek gatherings, we also have kids and youth programs and we hire security to be on-premise because we know the people we attract can get a little rowdy. It lets everyone know what to expect and that it’s a safe environment.” 

Hub City Vineyard has baptized over a hundred people every year since moving into their new location, and last year baptized 128 people. 

“I don’t mean this in a bad way, but religious people don’t really stay in our church. We’re very upfront about the fact that we know who we’re called to reach and what we’re called to do, and if someone doesn’t fit here, there are a lot of churches around where they will fit. Every month I do “Start With Why” which is our first step, and I tell people what our mission is. This year our big focus is human trafficking. We’re known as the “hippie church”, so this Fall we’re hosting the first annual tie-dye 5k “Run for Freedom” with all the proceeds going to A21 and Tim Tebow’s organization to end human trafficking. 

Last year I felt like God challenged me to send our Christmas offering to an organization called Blood Water Mission that builds wells in Africa. I cast vision for it in January and we were able to raise $60,000, and they built 5 clean drinking water wells with it. My wife and I are going to Kenya in May and we’re going to try to visit some of the sites and get pictures to show our church. 

I don’t consider myself a preacher, I’m more of a coach. And I rally the team to go and do the stuff. My best advice for other pastors is to just do something! If you don’t do anything, you’re not going to reach anybody.”