Where are we going in 2007?

Over the next few weeks we are going to explore some answers to the questions, “who are we and where are we going?” My aim is for us to grow in our understanding of who we are, where we came from and where we are going. I would like us to have a greater sense of identity by the end of February. I want to clarify our vision.

I want you to be able to articulate something with confidence and enthusiasm and feel that you understand who we are and how you belong.

ladder

When you read the “the Church that I see” document we know some of what is described is happening; we have climbed up a step or two. Some of it we can quite easily imagine; the next few steps. Some of it we long for; steps higher up yet to be seen or stepped on.

I believe it gives a good overview of that to which we are called.

Let me explain a little about where Alison, Josh, Sam and I started out on this journey.

In 1997 when we moved back to Leeds we had no great plans and no great vision for anything that might look like what Wharfedale Vineyard is now. Out of desperation really we started a small group (some of the people in that group are still with us) of 4 families – three from London and one from Nottingham.

We met in our home over a couple of years and gradually people began to join us. We had some hard times and some great times. We outgrew venues and moved onto bigger ones. We tried some things that didn’t work and other things that worked really well.

Although we are Vineyard to the core, some of the ways of doing church in which we found comfort were unusual and different. And some of those emphases became characteristics and eventually essential to who we are.

Much as the Vineyard has pursued a radical middle we have found ourselves pursuing another radical middle – mainlining Vineyard but in our own characteristic way.

What further steps are we climbing in 2007?

Well, I don’t really know. I know where I would like to go. I know where we could go. But I don’t know how it is going to turn out.

Primarily I need to see what God is doing and join in.

Overall, we are called to fulfil the great commission. We identify this with the “head” of the Vineyard Person – Jesus.

Colossians 1: 18. When it comes to the church, he organises and holds it together, like a head does a body.

Jesus gives us our aim and focus. He organises us, holds us together.
And he gives us the great commission which is his overarching command to us.

Matthew 28:18-20. Go and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all that I have commanded you.

Most churches require their people to attend services, assent to a creed of some sort, serve somewhere in a voluntary capacity, give some money – gather, believe, serve, give. Those are all good things but they don’t address the main purpose facing us: this is to tell people about Jesus and then train them in how to live and tell others the same thing.

This is where we are going in 2007, to try and fulfil the great commission of Jesus. We aim to draw people; to gather, to believe, to serve and to give but our particular emphasis is to train and equip also.

As we step upward into 2007, what will it look like?

We Will Keep Vineyard Values

Most Vineyard leaders would agree on about half a dozen core values which describe what we are like and why we do what we do (ref. Ventner, Doing Church):

1. Bible
2. Jesus and the Holy Spirit – him and his ministry in the church
3. Relationships – open, integrity, avoiding gossip and politics
4. Individual - dignity
5. Healing
6. Kingdom of God

There are some other Vineyard Values & Priorities with which we would identify ourselves:

1. Worship
2. Reaching out to the poor
3. Everyone gets to play, every member ministry
4. No hype – real and simple
5. Strong servant leadership with integrity, non controlling
6. Non-directive teaching
7. Unity
8. Prayer
9. Culturally accessible
10. Food and drink

We Will Keep Wharfedale Values

There are some additional values and priorities and practices which have emerged as important to us in particular (although in fact many of these would be common to many Vineyards).

The Wharfedaleness of Wharfedale:

(which, by the way, is different from the Wharfedale Vineyard of 2 or 4 or 6 years ago. It has the same name but it is a new generation of this community of faith).

1. The opt out factor
2. Discipline of rest – 5th Sundays etc
3. Celebrating all ages – focus on each age group
4. Transparency and authenticity - self-disclosing leadership
5. Leadership that is empowering not controlling
6. Seeking creativity in everything we do
7. Artistic expression and quality musicianship
8. Café style
9. Participative thinking & learning
10. Doing theology as a communal practice
11. Lifecraft focus, blurring relevance boundaries
12. Innovations – OK to fail
13. Lack of jargon
14. Space to think, not a rigid belief package, party line, read the bible
15. Participative worship
16. Authenticity, self-disclosure
17. Sport
18. Unchurchiness, accessibility, you can come because people would not know you are not a Christian
19. Festivals - Ashburnham

We Will See Growth And Change

I am convinced that if something is alive it must move and change. One of the most obvious changes, especially in a young organism, is growth. Later on it also become reproduction.

So for the foreseeable future I expect to see growth and change.

We will see change:
• because we are growing, but we will also see change;
• because we are growing up, (becoming more mature – beginning to make independent decisions) and;
• because of opportunity (to do different things, take risks).

Most of us have favoured memories of stages in our life which we look back to with rose tinted glasses, “the good old days”. In fact that the good old days weren’t quite as good as our memory tells us. Nevertheless it often means that when the present and when what is emerging as the future is different, change has happened and the old feels good and it is a perfectly natural response to resist it.

“This” may be different from what felt good “then” - in our memory.

But something has changed and so we will have to change.

Those of you who have had kids. Remember when they first started to walk? Not only were they changing, but you had to change too. Things had to change around your house. Stair gates, child locks on doors, Band-Aids for grazed knees, breakables moved up a shelf or two, slowing down to walk at their pace.

jesus first steps

Which is all by way of saying that whatever your fond memories of the past are, whatever you have grown to love and enjoy in the present, where we are going will mean some things will change.

That means that I will have to change and you will have to change.
And it will be OK. In fact it could even be great.

A New View From A Higher Step

Let me illustrate what this may feel like:
Please stand up. Please observe the view ahead of you. Fortunately for you, you get to look at me, and the screen, and the drapes, the PA speakers, and, in the case of the people further back, you get to look at the back of other’s heads. Out of the corner of your eyes you see the window onto the upstairs corridor and on the other side the long glass windows out onto the back car park.

Now please turn right round. 180%. In many ways nothing much has changed, you can still hear me clearly and I haven’t moved, you are still standing within centimetres of where you were and near the people you were near. But the view is completely different.

Out of the corner of your eyes you see a similar view to before – but the other way around. You are looking at the back of different people’s heads. Those of you who couldn’t see the PA desk can, those who could, can’t. The stacked up chairs, the control room up there, the doors out of the room in the corners.

As we step upward in 2007 the view may sometimes look very different. But that does not mean that very much has changed – you will still be where you always were, near the people you were near before – and you will probably still be hearing my voice!

Familiar Steps - ways in which the view will not change:

1. The Vine will continue 5 or 6 times a year for the foreseeable future in much the same way as it does now. We have spent 3 years working on it and have settled to a reasonable form which works well.

2. I don’t foresee moving away from Carr Manor & Leeds Grammar Schools as venues for sometime yet unless we are forced to.

3. The current programme seems to work well too:
a. Week 1 at Carr Manor or The Vine
b. Week 2 at Carr Manor
c. Week 3 weekly worship, minicabs and the Gathering
d. Week 4 weekly worship with communion
e. Week 5 nothing

4. We will continue to invest in Reach Out, Vineyard Kids, T4:12, men and women’s ministries, Alpha, etc. The budget won’t see any major cuts to what we have spent our money on in the past.

5. We will continue, to seek to serve regionally, not just North Leeds.

6. I don’t foresee any major staff changes – i.e. appointments of new people to the team – in the near future.

7. Alison and I will still be leading, if you will be following.

New steps upwards - ways in which the view will change:

1. New housegroups in new places. We have 14 now I think. I expect some of those to close and others to start. I expect to end the year with several more.

2. This will lead to more effective activity and ministry in new areas. Particularly in South Leeds, Harrogate, Boroughbridge and York. Probably also in Whitley Bay.

3. There are space challenges at Carr Manor. Growth in numbers will mean that we will have to think creatively about how to use this facility. Maybe a different order of service.

4. Some friends will leave to move elsewhere in the country perhaps, new people will come. In a year’s time there will be a whole bunch of people sitting around you who are not here now – some will have moved here, some will be people who had given up on God and the church and are coming back, others will be people who don’t know Jesus today but will decide to follow him this year.

5. A major change I expect to see is that we will buy a property.

Property

Why are we going down this route? What sort of property will we buy? Why don’t we rent? What is wrong with what we have got? Can we afford to do this?

You may well be asking these questions and I will seek to answer them in some detail over the coming weeks.

To go back to the change analogies: many of you are homeowners. But you probably started out renting. Many people rent homes – especially when younger and less established in careers and circumstances. But once you begin to put down roots and begin to think of a particular area as home you tend to think in terms of investing in your own house. We talk about “stepping onto the property ladder”.

1. It avoids dead money - rent
2. It may be an investment
3. We can knock it about a bit, redecorate
4. We can make it our home & become neighbours
5. It says, “I am serious about living here”

There are two types of property we use as a Community of Faith:
1. We rent facilities for specific events – weekly worship, Gathering, Vine – what we call “weekend use”
2. We rent office and storage space – what we call “midweek use”

At this point our urgent need is to find better midweek facilities. The VC is our current base and although it is cheap to rent it is completely inadequate to the task in hand.

Much of what we do currently and what we would like to do – what we feel the Lord is calling us to – is hampered or even blocked by the lack of suitable facilities.

If you have followed the property forum on the web site you will know that we have found what looks like a very good fit for us: Northside Business Centre.

We have set in place the sequence of events which we hope will eventually lead us to taking ownership before the summer. It is wise to hold this lightly because there are plenty of steps to take any of which could trip us up or halt our progress for a while.

This building is on the Sheepscar junction on the North Side of town on 3 main artery roads and several bus routes in and out of Leeds. It is a relatively modern office building which will need very little doing to it. It should also be easy to sell should we need to in due course.

What does this mean in terms of the question, “Where are we going?”

• It does not mean that we are going to turn into a Property Company.
• It does not mean that the Wharfedale Vineyard is going to become associated with a building in the same way that traditional church buildings are.
• It does not mean that we are only going to do our stuff in the vicinity of the office building.

• It does mean that our staff have decent working conditions. The output from our staff team is amazingly good when you consider the circumstances in which they work. There isn’t enough room for them all to sit down never mind have some desk space.

The administrative side of church work is a mixture of the mundane and the mad – sometimes you don’t need much space or resources and then all of a sudden a ton of work arrives and you need space, equipment, time and everything becomes very stressed.

• It does mean that our staff, and pastoral staff in particular, will have somewhere they can meet with people. Currently there is no space for privacy – for confidential discussions or just to work in peace.

• It does mean that we have a base which is relatively safe and accessible. Many people don’t like visiting the current office on their own – especially for night time 24/7 slots – because it is not a terribly salubrious area.

• It does mean that we can have proper storage space – accessible and yet not intrusive. Most of the current downstairs room acts as a storage space for all our equipment and resources. The fact that Anne and the team can actually make the meeting room function at all is remarkable.

• It does mean that we will be able to cater for a range of events. At the moment the kitchen can’t be used for any serious catering for H&S reasons. With a proper kitchen we can run youth groups (chilly bean, sleepovers), Alpha suppers, training conferences, parties, newcomers’ suppers, feeding the homeless - all sorts.

• It does mean that we will be able to offer various mid-week activities that people are asking for:
Mums and toddlers, youth groups, band practices, large group meetings (bigger than can fit in a home) and worship, café events, gathering events, parties, 24/7 room.

• It does mean that we have a proper, accessible base from which to launch Reach Out activities.

Conclusion

The vision we have for the Vineyard in this region, such as “the Church that I see,” is taking shape. We have stepped onto the ladder. To make the next steps for the kingdom we need some help. It has come to the point that a building will enable us to step upwards again.

We are finding it difficult at the moment to make progress and need the release and the enabling which a mid-week facility like this will give us.

Just like buying a home it will take a fair financial commitment, but just like living in a home it will enable so much of what we already know we have to do. Moreover it is an investment which may well provide us with a big step up to the next level in time to come.

This will not be the last time I talk to you about buildings, bricks and mortar. Whilst the Vineyard seeks to fulfil the great commission and continues to grow, our need for buildings to enable the vision will be ongoing.

But I hope that this explanation helps you see the need for us to take this rather larger step forward into buying a property this year. There is stuff going on behind the scenes with lawyers and valuers and banks and agents. We are opening a property bank account. We will keep the web site posted with any significant news and I will share developments of interest at weekly worship.

I am expecting things to come to a crunch in March. That is when we will need the money to buy the property and when I will be coming to you inviting you to give to this project if you feel the Lord wants you to be part of the Vision I have been sharing with you.

I went into the 24/7 prayer room at midnight on Friday and sat there looking at all the pictures and words. It described a Community of Faith doing the stuff, extending the Kingdom of God, a spiritual “house” that was way bigger than any premises we could occupy.

The Lord gave us much to do in 2006. We are called to step up again and work to extend the kingdom some more in 2007.

We will need to be bold, we will need to invest time and energy and money.

And in rescued and changed lives we will see his kingdom come again.

David Flowers, 15/01/2007