Sunday the 26^th will kick-off our annual Lenten tradition that we call “Leap of Faith”.  Leap of Faith is a six week faith experiment where we seek to experience God in ways we never have before.  These “Leaps” are often exciting times of seeing God at work in unexpected ways in the lives of individuals and for our church as a whole.  We usually find our faith stretched and see many amazing answers to prayers.

And so, during the 40 days of Lent, our entire church asks God for really big things – things that we can’t pull-off on our own. We put ourselves out-there to see what God might, and can do for us. 

So we ask God for:

• Big things for us, individually
• Big things for our friends and family who aren’t really  experiencing much from God
• Big things for our church and larger community

We do this by doing certain activities together as a church.  Those things include:

• A special Sunday sermon series
• Daily Bible readings, God and the Nations
• Daily prayer
• Weekly Small Group Discussions
• Some sort of activity that stretches us and our experience of God over the 6 weeks

This year’s theme for Leap of Faith is called “The World Awaits”. This theme centers around understanding, appreciating and experiencing the bigger story of God and the things that God is doing in the lives of all people. We, at the NBV, believe that God isn’t just working to benefit our lives, but the lives of our non-religious and secular neighbors, family, friends and strangers as well.

This year we’ll be going through the entire Bible and seeing how God’s plan, from the beginning, has never been to be a special possession of a limited group, but to rather share Himself, His love and blessing withall people – regardless of location, background or circumstance. We’ll also try to experience what the Bible seems to pitch, in that we get the most out of life by sharing and pursuing God together.

So, we’ll try to learn about faith alongside our non-churchgoing friends by asking them to share their experiences with faith and learn from them in a give-and-take sort of way.

If you find this aspect to be intimidating, as many people do, I’d encourage you to attend the “Conversations” discussion group on Monday February 27^th. It will be a great discussion centered around why and how these conversations can be educational and helpful to all parties in the discussion, rather than uncomfortable, unhelpful and off-putting for everyone. You can sign-up on your bulletin or email ryanwobbrock@gmail.com

This coming Sunday we’ll make available a Leap of Faith User’s manual that explains everything in-depth and will help prepare you for what we’re about to embark upon, here at the North Brooklyn Vineyard.  We’ll kick everything off on Sunday the 27^th with our daily Bible readings starting on Monday the 28^th.  By the way, if you are receiving this update and your not a part of the NBV you can still participate along with us. Just go to our website and sign–up for the daily readings and listen in on our sermon series.

I believe if you’ll buy-in all the way to this year’s Leap Of Faith, these next six weeks will be a challenging and exciting season of spiritual growth for you.

The world Is awaiting us…
Mike T