This past Sunday, Mike laid out the Tithing Challenge to North Brooklyn Vineyard members who don’t tithe (give 10% of their income) to the local church. The challenge is this: give 10% of your income for 3 months & if at the end of that time you feel like it didn’t work (e.g. you didn’t experience blessings from God & that it wasn’t worth it), we’ll give back everything you’ve given, no questions asked.

Why are we doing this? Because we believe it’s going to help you discover an important thing about God and giving. God says in the book of Malachi that his people can test him on this. That when we’re generous with our offerings to his work he will “open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it in!” (Malachi 3:8-10). Those of us who do regularly give have experienced it! (Ask around… we think you’d be hardpressed to find someone who does give & doesn’t think it in some way enhances their life).

Signing up below ensures that your offerings over the next 3 months will be kept to the side as part of the challenge. Email finance@northbrooklynvineyard.org at any time with any questions.

As many of you know the NY Board of Education notified our church that they would not be renewing the contract for the elementary school we’ve been renting for the past six years on Sunday mornings and that we had to be out by February 12^th.

I immediately called our Advisory Team to fast and pray, each member covering a day of the week, until he found a new home for our church. Well great news, St. John’s Lutheran, a beautiful old, neo-Gothic-style church located in neighboring Greenpoint, has graciously agreed to allow us to become their tenant congregation! Read more ›

A 3-part sermon series January 15, 22 & 29 featuring personal finance expert Dave Ramsey (via video) addressing the very practical issue of money & how to best manage it.

Read more ›

If you’ve read the Wall Street Journal or the NY Times this week you saw that the Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal of the Circuit Court’s ruling that forbids churches from renting public school space for worship services.

This will affect some 160 religious groups in the city. What this means is that as of Feb 12th, we’ll no longer be permitted to rent P.S. 132 for our Sunday morning services.

Now what? Well after getting over the initial shock I got in touch with our Advisory Team to put together a plan. This is what we’ve come up with so far: We’ve initiated a facility search in the Williamsburg and Greenpoint areas. Read more ›

Well, the holidays are now here! Read more ›

Mike shares a little about who we are, a couple cool stories & how people can help support the North Brooklyn Vineyard.

If you do feel so inclined as to give to our Foundation Fund, you can do so at www.northbrooklynvineyard.org/giving.

The Greenpoint Gazette featured a story about us: The Vineyard Church Toasts Jesus at Trash Bar. Read it here!

If you find this interesting, check out other articles written about us over the years:

- Finding God in a Watering Hole from The Brooklyn Rail (Sept 2010)

- Punch-Drunk Church from The Village Voice (June 2007)

- N.Y. Church Goes Into the Bar and Finds a Flock distributed by AP/Religion News Service (2007)

A transcript taken from a recent talk Pastor Mike gave at our Family Meeting on October 21, 2011.

Muldoons on 3rd Ave & E 43 St.

Our story begins in Manhattan. At the time we had an alternative church gathering in a midtown office building for twenty-somethings who liked Jesus but didn’t particularly like church. A trend began to develop. Afterwards a bunch of us would go to an Irish pub across the street to hangout and socialize.

It was during this time that we began to build stronger connections not only among ourselves but also with bar staff and patrons. Some of the most impactful movements to God’s kingdom would happen as we hung out and socialized. We began to see God at work right there among people who were not “part of our church” but who nonetheless felt like they belonged to our community because they were becoming our friends. They felt included without question and loved. That’s because they actually were! That’s because everyone – churchgoing or not- was actually on the same page and were simply enjoying the sweet community of God’s Spirit. Read more ›

Here are the groups that will be meeting from October through December 2011. You’re welcome to check out any of these groups.

Most groups are a combination of building friendships, some Bible or book study & prayer, although different groups might focus on different things. Contact the group leader for more information about a specific group.

There is no shortage of noise today. City life is full of noise – car horns, sirens, children at play, phones ringing, TV, radio, music, you name it. Even in our prayer time the tendency is to do all the talking.

It’s almost impossible to get away from noise at all. And when we do, often the awkward silence makes us uncomfortable because we’ve grown so used to noise we want to fill every moment with it.

Sure we hear a lot of things but all the bustle and noise of modern living severely undermines our ability to listen to each other and most of all to God. Yet Jesus said the ability to listen what he has to say to us was the key requisite for everyone who wants to follow him. Read more ›