2024 Election Resources
Election Resources for Serving Our King in Turbulent Times
Like other issues, politics are a hot button issue in our culture and churches. Knowing this, Vineyard USA understands that pastors are in need of resources to help lead their congregations. We also understand that the way forward is not uniform, based on a variety of factors and context. Vineyard churches are located across the country and in all sorts of places – coastal cities, rural small towns, college towns and urban centers. As such, there is no singular approach that will fit all churches. Contributors on this site were encouraged to share their personal insights and experiences, which may vary widely. As such, the opinions presented here are solely those of the individual contributors and do not represent any official stance of Vineyard USA.
- Allegiance sermons and bible studies based on Matthew Bates' Salvation by Allegiance Alone
- God & Politics sermon transcripts and bible studies
- Ten Commitments for a Divisive Election Year from Eric Pickerill
- We Are Vineyard podcast episodes
- The In Between podcast Charismatic Revival Fury Part 1, with Dr Matt Taylor
- The In Between podcast Charismatic Revival Fury Part 2: Unpacked, with Dr Caleb Maskell
- The After Party: reframing our political identity as followers of Jesus
Election Mini-Podcast Series
Paths and Considerations
We want to offer several paths for you to consider as a Vineyard pastor or leader approaching the upcoming election. Each path has a resource attached. Most of these resources are discussed or unpacked in our Election Resources mini-podcast series.
1. Consider whether you have what you need to lead in these challenging times
Consider a spiritual check-up this summer and fall through spiritual direction, coaching, training, and retreat. Don’t wait until a conflict boils over in your community to get care; prepare for what you know will be a difficult season by getting support now.
Since the pandemic, we’ve had more awareness of the cost pastors pay to continue the day-to-day, week-to-week grind of leading a church while dealing with national crises. More than that, our congregants sometimes expect us to address these crises perfectly. This is hard stuff! This election season, consider a soul check-up as you gird yourself for a potentially challenging season.
Try a few sessions with a spiritual director. Or how about a coach to help you through the fall and winter as you ramp up and recover? Learn more and find a coach or spiritual director here.
Lastly, consider a daylong or overnight retreat. Here’s a guide for how to prepare for something like that.
All these are ways to invest in your own spiritual formation and get grounded in God and His Word when so much else is noisy and competes for our attention.
2. Reflect on how we prioritize Jesus’ leadership over earthly political leadership and consider sharing that Kingdom message with your congregants
More than the flag or a party, do you and your church practice allegiance to Jesus?
This short three-part teaching series and these Bible studies (adapted from Matthew Bates’ Salvation by Allegiance Alone) are a perfect resource to develop a deeper theological foundation for why we cannot put our trust in the left or the right. Instead, we need to deepen our allegiance to Jesus as our primary message, knowing it will have an impact on every area of our life, including our politics.
3. We know some churches will want to dive in practically with this election through congregational leadership and powerful preaching
This resource adapts a sermon series from a local Vineyard church in 2020 that aims to thread the needle of faithfulness in light of our American reality and the political choices at hand. While this series could be too “on the nose” for some, it might speak very practically to hungry congregants who want practical and common sense discipleship in these challenging times.
Pledging allegiance to Jesus does not mean retreating from the public square. In fact, as Kingdom ambassadors, we may want to speak to the current political moment in a winsome and wise way directly addressing what our congregants might be facing day in and day out. In 2020, a local church in the Vineyard took on that challenge.
Those four sermons (three given before the election, one after) have been replicated here for 2024. Explore these resources to see if they’re right for you.
4. The Vineyard has had a reputation for gathering red and blue parishioners and making a diverse Body led by the work of the Spirit
You’ve probably heard the expression: talk is cheap. In 2024, talking across differences is not cheap…it is precious and increasingly rare. The Vineyard has a reputation for holding Kingdom tensions that allow multiple people to focus on Jesus even if they start from different points of view. Jesus did this by enlisting, as his followers, a tax collector (someone who got rich off of the Roman occupation of Israel) and a zealot (someone who wanted to see Israel restored). However unlikely it may seem, this can also happen in our churches.
As we seek to be on mission this election season, dialogue is a great way to help our people be less polarized and more together. Increasingly, it’s a resource for the Vineyard to adopt these strategies in a way that is evangelistic as we become people proclaiming peace and bringing people together in a time of division.
Here is a resource from The After Party that walks you through how to do this over six sessions.
5. There are a few practical ways that we’d recommend to get churches involved out in the community
The first is joining organizations registering voters in a non-partisan way in order to meet and engage our neighbors whether or not they’ll vote. It’s another way to meet people and have Kingdom encounters.
These opportunities often happen locally or can be found through non-partisan groups like vote.org. Just be sure to find a non-partisan organization and then get out in your community. Be warned that non-partisan does not mean non-political. There will likely be things in any organization that don’t align with your perspective or values. Yet, it could still be a great way to meet your neighbors, share your faith, and see Jesus move amidst these tensions. Pray, weigh the risk, and use creativity to engage neighbors and strangers this election season.
The second is to join efforts to provide poll chaplains, rooted in their own faith tradition, to be a presence of peace on a day when some are worried about political violence. For congregations itching to mobilize and make a practical difference as they neighbor and love their community, these options can move the fruitfulness from the pulpit to the streets. This is available in ten states where there are fears of conflict at the voting booth. Consider being an on-site agent of peace pursuing the peace of your city or town.
We hope and pray that one of these five resources equips you to be an outpost for the Kingdom in a season more known for the highs and lows of political parties and candidates. At Vineyard USA, we pledge allegiance to King Jesus and we stay engaged with how we can serve God and serve people – even in the mess. Lead on, King Jesus!
Are you ready to partner with your community in the fall, specifically on election day, as a way to be active in a non-partisan way? While this will not be every church or leader’s next step, we wanted to provide tangible ways a pastor or leader could get out into their community to register voters, be a poll chaplain, or engage in “civic evangelism” using open doors and community needs as a way to serve your community in Jesus’ name. Here are some of those opportunities:
Additional Resources
- Ten Commitments for a Divisive Election Year from Eric Pickerill
- The In Between podcast Charismatic Revival Fury Part 1, with Dr Matt Taylor
- The In Between podcast Charismatic Revival Fury Part 2: Unpacked, with Dr Caleb Maskell
- The After Party: reframing our political identity as followers of Jesus
