Go Fishing | A Story From Pathway Vineyard
“As much as culture changes, I think the broken condition of the heart remains the same – as does the radical, pursuing, gracious nature of God. He’s going after human beings. He’s knocking on their hearts. I think he is continuing to ask us to play our part in this – to go fishing once […]
COVID Church Check-In: Mission Vineyard Church
Our church was feeling distanced. Our community and our neighbors were experiencing a sense of isolation. In April we realized that the circumstances surrounding this virus were not going away. Mother’s Day was usually a fun day of celebration for us at the Mission Vineyard, but we were now asking, “what would it look like […]
COVID-19 Church Check-In: La Viña Burnsville
Greetings! I would like to share with all of you what we have recently been doing at La Viña Burnsville. We could not have imagined all the changes that would take place as the pandemic struck. We thank God that for more than three years we have our services online, and because of this we […]
Serving A Food Desert During COVID-19
La Viña Saint Paul was established to not only serve the spiritual needs of our communities in Saint Paul, Minnesota, but also the physical needs of our at-risk neighbors. In fact, we started a food shelf prior to opening our church plant! In 2017 our location had the highest poverty and lowest income levels in […]
Being The Church Without A Building
These last months have been a wild ride for all of us! We have had to wrestle with questions we never anticipated we would need to wrestle with. “Should we shut down? When do we open? How do we “be the church” without access to our building?” At the Syracuse Vineyard we made the decision […]
Being A Reconciling Community: One Church’s Story
When I think about what it means to be a reconciling community, a few things come to mind. There is so much good material available on the topic that I don’t want to just state the obvious, but hopefully can add a little context from our experience in this arena. First, as obvious as it […]
Making The Most Of An UN-Ideal Set Of Circumstances
If you are anything like me, you have been considering, contemplating, conversing and creating scenarios over and over and over again, trying to crack the COVID Era ministry challenge. The thing that has been super clear to me all along is that nothing about this moment feels ideal. In fact, everything feels un-ideal. As our […]
Responding To Racism From An Asian American Perspective
After 42 years on this earth, I have been asked many times in my life, “Where are you from?” It’s a very natural and common question that we ask each other as we meet and engage. When I am asked this question, my answer is, “I’m from New Jersey.” My answer is often met with […]
When We Gather: Public Health Considerations For Reopening
Dr. Danielle and Joey Walker grew up in the Vineyard family and are members at Vineyard Anaheim. Dr. Walker is a professor of public health and health science and Director of Lifetime Wellness at Biola University. She is also a certified Health Education Specialist (CHES), and recently certified in COVID-19 Emergency Response. Prior to being […]
Code Yellow: Thinking Through When & How Churches Should Reopen
[Original Publication By The Project On Rural Ministry] On Friday, May 8 much of Northwestern and North Central Pennsylvania will move out of the red phase and into the more permissive yellow phase of Governor Wolf’s plan to reopen the commonwealth. In addition to feeling a bit like a game of Red Light, Green Light […]