the community blog of vine & branches christian community - a journal of who we are and what we're going through as a community of faith
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vbcc advisory council
OK, I mentioned the advisory council of Vine & Branches below. I thought you might want to know who that is. I wanted to have a few people who are close to me, whom I respect a great deal, and who would understand what I was going planting this funky church. These guys are seriously top of the heap people. They are guys I can go to and whine and cry to and get advice from, as well as just good ole support. I appreciate them very much.
They are as follows in alphabetical order:
Peter Matthews - a wonderful Anglican lad who has become a great friend. He is now in the process of planting a new missional faith community in the Anglican tradition called St. Patrick's here in Lexington. They already have a blog - check it out.
Dave Nixon - a wise "old" monk. Dave is the Abbot of one of Vineyard Central's Community Houses. I like to call it the Abbey of Our Lady of Norwood. He, along with some others, got VC started a few years back. I've grown to love and respect Dave a great deal.
Kevin Rains - a great man. Dude, he even looks like me! God has knit Kevin and I together in a special way over the last two years and I love and respect him greatly. He's a pastor and spiritual director to those in St. Elizabeth's house church and the Vineyard Central network.
Steve Thompson - Another one of these friendships that is a gift from God. Steve is a pastor in Michigan and is getting ready to start a new journey in life helping to plant a new church there.
This is a rich treasure trove of friendship, wisdom, and support. I am grateful that they have agreed to be a part of what God is doing through Vine & Branches here in Lexington and beyond. I am nothing but honored to lay them before you. I hope it shows how absolutely cool we are to have such a great host of advisors.
| posted by + Alan | 9:56 AM | |
Whoooopteeehoooo! We in the new Blogger. Pretty cool. Uhhhh, Brian - write something in here! Practice for your own blog. Tell us some thoughts about community. I'm thinking about inviting the board members (advisory council of vine & branches) to join this blog team. That might be interesting - to hear what those guys who are close but "outside" this community are thinking and saying. Might be a good thing. We shall see. If you see some new names up here soon, you'll know.
| posted by + Alan | 9:24 AM | |
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
Check out our friends at Community House in Cincinnati. If you're interested in an urban monastic living situation - internship, the you definitely need to check them out.
| posted by + Alan | 4:18 PM | |
Tuesday, June 17, 2003
People often ask me, "how's your church going?" Interesting question to try to answer given the nature of our "church." See, I have to put it in quotation marks it's so funky. Anyway, I think the answer these days is, "it's going fairly well." I really think it is. I don't mean by that that we are "growing" and that we now have 50 people. We may never have 50 people in this community. I mean I think we are learning what it means to be a community of people on this journey together for the long haul. I mean we are getting on each others' nerves - that's a community thang. I mean we are dealing with it and moving on and recognizing how God is forming us through one another. It's really good stuff. It's too bad this kind of "growth" and "success" doesn't show up on many people's radar screen. So, we keep on walking down the path together. I'm sure we'll pick up a few stragglers along the way, but we keep walking, helping each other to stay focused.
| posted by + Alan | 8:29 AM | |
Sunday, June 08, 2003
Happy Pentecost! 50 days after Passover,
Harvest in the Jewish calendar. For us, the celebration of the fulfillment of
a promise - the coming of the Holy Spirit to us. Jesus promised his friends
that when he left, he would not leave us abandoned - that he would send us another
helper. He was sending us His own life - the same life that He had walking around
here - the Spirit of God to dwell in us. That's all, just a real metaphysical
connection to the eternal substructure of the universe, to God, the eternal
one - that's all!!! If we receive this gift He has given us, we open ourselves
to something HUGE - much bigger than a set of beliefs or even a commitment to
a bunch of cool people. Those things factor in but they are not the core - they
eminate from the core of spiritual union with God through the indwelling Spirit.
Amazing. Amazing that we would think of this as anything other than mind-blowingly
gigantic in its significance to us and to the world.
We had a great celebration with our own small community and several friends
and freinds of friends. That milling around up there is what we like to call
the "sacrament of fellowship." It IS a part of the "service."
That's a little off-culture to many, and we have to keep re-brainwashing ourselves
to know that as soon as people get there to come together in one place, things
have started - it's happening.
The Antiphon for our chanted Evening Prayer last night said this: On the
day of Pentecost they had all gathered together in one place, alleluia.
This is the context in which the promise was fulfilled - in the context of community
- of US, gathered together in one place.That's what Pentecost
is: Us, gathered together in one place for this reason - to receive eternal
life - to open ourselves to the life of God to come dwell in us and make us
alive like Jesus. It is the life of eternity breaking into the world, doing
the work of creation, of recreation in us, through us, around us.
We had fun in community. Great fellowship; great worship; great conversation.
I think we were built up to go out and be the people that God has created us
to be - that He is continually recreating us to be.
| posted by + Alan | 3:54 PM | |
Thursday, June 05, 2003
Gathering at Apostles this Saturday - the 7th - at 5pm - if you're able, come hang with us. Like I've said before, it's not about "joining our church" but about getting together as the wider body of Christ in the area, or if you're just curious about what we do or who we are as Vine & Branches, come too. We're going to try and stick with this first Saturday of the month thing for this meeting. So, if you can't make it this time, same time next month. Pax vobiscum.
| posted by + Alan | 12:16 PM | |