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!

A God-thing

This is definitely a God-thing. In November, before we ever received notice that we were being kicked out of the school we had a prayer meeting in the basement of the St. John’s. Afterwards I went upstairs and stood in the front of the sanctuary. As I looked out over the pews in the dark something came over me and I got this strong sense that God wanted us to be there. A new home and a new beginning.

A couple of nights later I mentioned this to our leaders at our monthly team meeting and you know how when God speaks the room gets all energized? Well that’s what happened. Suddenly we were full of hope and new possibilities that frankly had been missing for a while. We allowed ourselves to dream a bit about what a new home and a new beginning might mean for our church… The ability to catch public attention; to meet in a space conducive to worship; new possibilities for neighborhood ministry; being in a community more open to what we were offering… Visibility, growth, and stability.

I hadn’t seen the team that pumped in a long time. But I quickly reminded everyone not to get carried away. After all there was no door open to us. St. Johns hadn’t given any indication that they’d be open to such an arrangement. Oh well, it was nice to dream…

A little help from a friend

But what I didn’t mention to you was that I had made friends with a guy who’s on St. John’s board and he just so happens to be in charge of their building. He was the one who arranged for us to have the prayer meeting there. Sowhen three weeks later we received the bad news of our impending homelessness I went to him and asked if he would act as our advocate. He caught the vision and went right to work, petitioning the other board members while our team prayed. A week or later he called and told me  that he had gotten permission for us to rent the church! In the short span of little over a month God changed the situation, opened the door and got us a new home.

The next step

So as of February 5^th we’ll be meeting Sundays at 12 noon at St. John’s Lutheran Church, 155 Milton St.,right off of Manhattan Ave in Greenpoint (Google Map). This move does not affect our Trash Bar service in any way. This may seem like the case of a new home and a new beginning, but I believe it’s more. I believe it’s the next step of an adventure God has had planned for our church all along and I’m excited to see what’s in store for us.q

On Thursday evening, January 19th we’re holding a prayer meeting at the church from7:00 – 8:30pm in order to seek God’s continued help in this time of transition. Come and join us.

God bless,
Pastor Mike

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.

Several members have been assigned to put together a list of prospective locations. We’re looking at churches, synagogues, community centers, private schools, colleges, and any other family-friendly we can think of. Once we get the list we will begin the cold calling to see what opportunities we have open to us. A location has to be fairly easy to get to. It must be able to fit around 100 adults. It must have space for children’s ministry as well as a bit of storage. And most important, it must be cheap! If you have any ideas or have a contact who might be helpful please let me know.

In addition I have called on the members of the Advisory Team to fast and pray one day a week until we find a new home for our morning service. I invite the rest of you to join us if you’re so inclined.

This is serious but it’s not the end of the world. The church is a community of people committed to Jesus and to each other, not a building. Yes this will be probably be a season of inconvenience and sacrifice but it could be the very conditions that brings the best out of us and causes us to experience the Lord’s presence and power in ways we’ve haven’t up to now.

So take heart. The Advisory Team and myself are committed to maintaining a healthy community life that will include meeting together on Sundays. We do have a temporary fall-back space in case nothing comes up by mid-February, but it doesn’t offer separate space for children or nursery so we’d have to all meet together in some creative way until we found an adequate home. Other churches have gone through similar crisis and gone on to thrive. So all hands on deck. If you’ve been away now’s a great time to show up and offer your support. Let’s close ranks and pray. I will keep you in the loop as things progress.

Sincerely,
Pastor Mike

Well, the holidays are now here!

We have a few things happening this month you should know about… our Annual Christmas Party on Saturday, Dec 10 6 – 10pm, a workshop on praying for the sick Saturday, Dec 17 10am – 3:30pm & most notably our Christmas schedule:

December 18
AM service: Breakfast & Christmas celebration
PM service: Christmas service at Trash

December 25/Christmas Day
No Services! If you do want to connect with NBV folks who might be getting together for Christmas, post a note on our Facebook wall or ask around on a Sunday.

January 1/New Years Day
Trash Bar service only

*Our normal service schedule resumes Jan. 8th

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.

A God-given knack

That’s when we caught our sense of mission. We began to realize that God had been using us as a bridge between himself and people who would otherwise view God (if they believed in God), as irrelevant and impractical, unfair and unkind, part of an offensive and judgmental culture, or uninterested or incapable of helping them. However, to their surprise they began to experience quite the opposite: That God was accessible and active and that he was loving and actually made their lives better. What we found was that everyone, regardless of how close they were, or felt they were to God (church people or secular people), were finding greater connection with Jesus who actually did have “good news” for their lives.

The Trash Bar

We started to wonder, could this knack be a gift? Could it be our mission? Thus the Trash Bar service was born. We put an ad out on Craig’s list. The owner of Trash responded and met with us. He invited us to meet on Sunday evenings. We accepted the invitation following Christ’s example of accepting invitations to anyone’s house. Thus Trash Bar became an advancement of what God had begun in Manhattan, bringing together what God was doing at Submerge and what he was doing at Muldoon’s under one roof.

The bar was a natural gathering place for all sorts of people. We simply did what Jesus did and met the people where they were at. The church service would serve as a call to worship and provide an opportunity for exploring Jesus in a non-threatening way, with many of the confusing and often off-putting religious trappings of Christianity stripped away. What’s more, the after-service socializing again became more of an opportunity for community to develop for anyone and everyone – church affiliated or not. Over the years faith conversations, sharing of life stories and friendships have become the hallmark of the Trash Bar experience.

Connecting

We’ve experienced: Bar staff becoming like family. People from all walks of life, from all over the world becoming part of our community. We’ve connected with the most unlikely people often alienated from traditional Christian religion – Atheist scientists, cynical journalists, New Age spiritualists, members of the LGBT community, agnostic intellectuals, skeptical hipsters, Buddhist mystics, even Hasidic Jews

Morning Service @ the School

Not long after we started meeting we realized there was a larger community of people in the neighborhood that were spiritually curious but lacking a life-giving connection that Jesus provides who would not fit at Trash. So we began a morning service to provide the exact same opportunity for families and children. Both services are now integral to our mission; neither is more or less important than the other.

This knack or gifting is who we are at the NBV. You can say it’s our church family identity or mission. This why we exist in the first place and why we do what we do. This is what makes us unique and why so often people who have moved on say they’ve never quite been able to find anything exactly like the NBV.

We hear over and over that what people find attractive and helpful about us is that… We’re inclusive… We allow them to belong before they believe… We don’t use confusing God-talk and we keep things practical…They like our honest, no-hype style… They like it that we let them go at their own speed… They say God’s made accessible and they were able to experience him without being forced to… We’re prescriptive rather than directive and not preachy or talk down to people… They like that we’re relational rather than programmatic.

Measuring success

You might say we’re a church for the “rest of us” not just for the religiously informed and that makes us a safe place for anyone of any faith or non-faith background to explore what it means to follow Jesus. There aren’t many communities around like us that I know of. So we shouldn’t compare ourselves with other churches. So how do we know when we’re succeeding then?

Numbers shouldn’t be ignored but they can be confusing and not tell the true story of our success or lack of it. Our most important indicator is the level and frequency to which lives are being impacted by Jesus. It’s the number of tiny steps people, who previously considered themselves non-faith-types make towards a meaningful relationship with Christ. And because of this progress is slow.

How might success look around here? A person who’s been hurt by the church finds God, peace and healing in our community. A person who’s never put the pursuit of God high on their ‘to do’ list begins to take steps toward a relationship with Jesus. A long-time churchgoer who can quote 100’s of Bible verses experiences the power of forgiveness for the first time. A drug addict finds support and freedom in Jesus and through our community. Someone who’s been a church attendee for years begins leading a small group for the first time. Someone who has financial difficulties begins trusting God’s provision enough to be generous with the little money they have. Someone who has experienced a major moral failure doesn’t have to leave the church or God but walks humbly back towards both. People of diverse racial, gender, age, socio-economic and religious backgrounds worship Jesus together and become friends. A person senses God speaking to them for the first time. Someone learns to pray for the sick. The Bible becomes more important and a regular resource in a person’s life. Someone who is typically self-focused starts taking an hour to visit day laborers or help someone in need.

If these things are happening then we are succeeding in our mission and calling from God… and they are! We need to be thankful for the many, many blessings that God has given us and the way he’s used our community. Caring for what he’s entrusted us with is our only responsibility so let’s do that with enthusiasm and grateful hearts.

If you currently attend our church or are an alumni we’d love to hear how your story connects with or has been impacted by the bigger NBV story, so drop us a line at info@northbrooklynvineyard.org

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.

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. (John 10:27)

The point is that our ability to listen and respond to his voice is crucial to experiencing the abundant life Jesus came to bring us.

Listening vs. hearing

Listening is not the same as hearing it’s more.It’s actively taking in, processing and being attentive. True listening involves a level of recognition, understanding, of getting to know the other. Someone said that,“Hearing without understanding is like snipping an electrical cord in two, then plugging it in anyway, hoping somehow that something will light up.”  This is not something we do intentionally. But when we pray to God we’re often baffled and frustrated by our sense of disconnection   - a feeling of being left sitting in the dark.

A lost art

It can be said in general that most of us don’t how to listen. Though most of us have ears that can hear very well, we don’t actually know how to use them to listen especially to God. You can say hearing God’s voice has become a lost art.

Failure to recognize God’s voice and listen isn’t necessarily because you don’t care or you’re insensitive. All the believers I know earnestly want to hear God’s voice. However anxiety, preoccupation, busyness and pressure can undermine the skills of even a good listener and we’re all prone to these things. So listening for God’s voice requires effort. It takes work. I don’t pretend to be an expert at it, but I am trying to learn to get better at it. And like every skill, the more you do it, the better you’ll get.

A new series

In order to help us recover this ability to listen to God’s voice we’ve started a sermon series called, “Hearing What God Has To Say”. We’ll take a look at the common ways God speaksalong with some practical ways you can tell the difference between your own thoughts and imaginations, the voices of others, voices from our past and God’s voice. We’ll also talk about what to do when God speaks to us. I believe this is going to be one of the most interesting and helpful series we’ve offered.

I hope you’ll join us as we begin this adventure of learning listen and respond to God’s voice.

God bless
Pastor Mike

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First we revised some of the language and decided to use the term apprenticeship instead. It’s easier to visualize us becoming students rather than religious zealots, which is the image the old language conjured up for most of us. An apprentice is a student that learns to do what his or her master is good at. In Jesus case, he was good at living the life of the kingdom here on earth. So as his students we’re with him, learning from him, how to get good at living the kingdom life.

Along with that we adopted Dallas Willard’s description of an apprentice of Jesus as our working definition: Learning from Jesus how to lead our lives as he would lead our lives if he were living it. In other words, as an apprentice of Jesus I’m learning to do everything I do – as a man, husband, father, grandfather, friend, neighbor, and citizen – the way Jesus did all that he did. This frees me to live my entire life connected with God.

Everything I do becomes sacred not just church-related stuff. I don’t have to go off and work in Calcutta with the poor in order to lead a meaningful, God-pleasing life. I can drive a cab and be with Jesus, learning from him and participating in his kingdom. In other words this apprenticeship covers everything, my entire life. The sacred and the mundane, my praying and my playing.

With this new understanding of what it means to be a disciple (oops I used that word) we don’t have to be one person in church and another when we’re out and about in the world. We can be the same person we are on Sunday as we are the rest of the week. The way Jesus was. The whole world was his cathedral and all of life was sacred to him.

Here’s a couple of important events coming up in September you’ll want to be part of…

10^th Anniversary of 9/11 Memorial Service with the River Church
On Sunday, September 11^th our church will be hosting a special memorial service commemorating the 10^th Anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center.

The River Vineyard Church will be joining us here in Brooklyn that morning.

We’ll be combining our worship teams and Pastor Mike will be sharing the message with Pastor Charles Park. Feel free to invite your family and friends.

Area Day

Area Day is an annual family reunion with a purpose. The Vineyard is a family of churches. We share common history, values as well as a common mission. There are currently elevenother Vineyard churches in the greater metro area.

For the past couple of years we have gathered together for a day of getting to know each other and encouragement. We’ll worship and celebrate together, hear from our local Vineyard leaders, offer helpful workshops and of course take time to minister to one another. This year the North Jersey Vineyard in Teterboro will host Area Day on Saturday, September 24^th from 10:30am until 4:00pm.

Set this date aside on your calendar. Bring your small group. More info to follow.

That’s probably why he got so many dinner invitations and why kids climbed all over him. This Jesus is no sober sourpuss like the one portrayed in medieval paintings. No, he’s worry-free and full of joy. It seems that where he was joy was and his joy stood out. It apparently characterized and energized him, setting him apart from all other human beings.

His foundation

His joy wasn’t simply a strong feeling of happiness. It was a state of mind. A deep abiding sense of well being that comes from being safe, secure, and at home. It was this at-home-ness that formed the foundation of Jesus’ life and was the source of his joy.

You see Jesus looked at the world differently than you and I. Tohim it was a perfectly safe place to be, because as he saw it, at the center of life was “Abba” – his wise, reliable, all-powerful, ever present and adoring Father taking care of him. This eliminated all need to be anxious, stressed or defensive. Life was quite simple – trust the goodness of Abba and obey, “The One who sent me stays with me. He doesn’t abandon me. He sees how much joy I take in pleasing him.” (John 8:29) You could say Jesus made his home in his Father’s love and the result was joy and that joy was the strength of his life.

It’s for us too

When I take in Jesus’ teaching, especially in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and the Upper Room Discourse (John 14-17), I’m convinced that you and I were intended to share in his joy. In fact I believe Jesus came to open the way torelationship with Abba so that we can have that same at-home-ness and experience the same joy he did, forming the same rock-solid, storm-resistant foundation for our lives he had. He gave this promise, “Remain (make your home) in my love… so that you will be FILLED WITH MY JOY. Yes, your joy will overflow!” (John 15:9,11) He prayed to Abba, “…I have told them many things while I was with them so they would be FILLED WITH MY JOY.” (John 17:13)

Bearing fruit

So here’s the deal. Do you want – what in today’s world of stressand angst is a very rare treasure – the joy of the Lord? It’s the big payoff for anyone who chooses to follow Jesus and live his or her life from his leadership and love. It can’t be, manufactured, earned, or worked up… it’s afruit that will appear in your life as you focus on putting first things first and making a close intimate relationship with Abba your top priority just the way Jesus did.

Now on to the joy…

Mike T

This has helped me read what are essentially poems that were put to music and sung in worship services, with fresh eyes. And in doing so I’ve been shocked by how much complaining and gripping is going on. The psalmists were real grousers!

This raises a couple of questions: Can complaining ever be good and how can gripping be worship?

Singing the blues

I did some digging around and found out that apparently the Jews were into the blues. It was actually common to hear the blues sung in the Temple. They sung about how they really felt and if you’ve read their story, the Jews often felt bummed out. They believed that it was good to express all their emotions so they included all their feelings, even the negative ones in their songs. Check this out…

Will the Lord walk off and leave us for good?
Will he never smile again?
Is his love worn threadbare?
Has his salvation promise burned out?
Has God forgotten his manners?
Has he angrily stalked off and left us?
“Just my luck,” I said, “The High God goes out of business
just the moment I need him.” (Psalm 77)

You have to admit, they were honest with their emotions and so they sang how they felt. If they felt hate they sang about hate. If they felt depressed they sang about depression. If they felt God-forsaken, they sang about it or if they felt God wasn’t being fair they sang their complaints to him as well. So the Psalms don’t just express adoration and wonder, they are songs of sadness, anger and frustration. Many express what you feel when you’re feeling miserable.

Now think about what goes on in our worship services. We sing some beautiful, well-written songs but often we’re not expressing what’s really going on inside us. We’re singing about love when we’re really angry or disappointed with God. We sing about having faith while really we’re struggling with doubt. We sing about joy when we’re actually full of heartache. We go through the motions, sing the words but experience little presence, little connection and little transformation of our souls. Maybe we need to take a page from the psalmists, lay our cards on the table and be completely honest with God and do some healthy gripping and lamenting!

Complaint therapy

Do you know why the blues is so popular? It’s therapeutic. The bluesman is honest. He’s not afraid to express all those emotions that most of us keep bottled up inside and don’t know how or are afraid to express. With the help of his song, he gets in touch with his pain and releases it and that feels so good to him and his audience. It’s cathartic.

The Jews had no therapists, so they had to bring all their feelings to God in order to have mental health. They had to get their negative feelings out before him. Worship wasn’t only to praise God but it was therapy as well. It both glorified God and brought healing. Healing happens when we feel loved and forgiven but it also comes with confession…

Why God do you turn a deaf ear?
Why do you make yourself scarce?
For as long as I remember I’ve been hurting;
I’ve taken the worst you can hand out and I’ve had it…
(Psalm 88)

That’s a load off his chest… Complaining and lamenting to God removes those pollutants and toxins that contaminate our soul. That’s what the psalmists did and it worked.

I’m not advocating we become a bunch of whiners or grumps but rather people that are able to get past our complaints to a place of true rejoicing. That will never happen if we suppress our negative feelings. They have to be dealt with. So complaint has a legitimate place in our prayer life when we’re going through tough times. It’s not a lack of faith, it actually shows confidence in God’s love that allows us to complain to him and know he will heal us and give us peace like he did the Psalmists.

Hope this helps. See you Sunday
Mike T

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³³ “Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ ³⁴ But I tell you, do not swearan oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; ³⁵ or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. ³⁶ And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. ³⁷ All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.

On Sundays here at the NBV we’ve been going through Jesus’ teachings in his Sermon on the Mount. I skipped over this passage on swearing and giving oaths because of scheduling and time constraints. But it doesn’t mean its less important than any of the other things he had to say about living good and wise lives. So I thought I’d write a few words about it here.

Swearing oaths

Back in Jesus’ day people commonly made oaths or vows. “I swear on a stack of Bibles this is true.” Although God’s law took these vows very seriously people often used “swearing” to sell themselves and manipulate people. To get them to believe them and do what they wanted. The religious experts even invented legal loopholes to get around having to keep their word by swearing to lesser things. For instance if I said, “I swear by heaven I’ll do such and such”, I could break my vow without penalty because I didn’t swear in God’s name. Thus creating an elaborate system allowing for deceit.

Jesus said this is wrong. Not only was it lying It was a form of disrespect. We shouldn’t have to swear at all. It implies that our words can’t be trusted. Simply tell the truth. When we say “yes”, mean “yes” and when we say “no” mean “no”.

Let your yeah be yeah

Today in a world where lies have been downgraded to “misspeaking” and spin doctors make a good living doing nothing but figuring out attractive or coercive ways to say “yeses” that are not really yeses and “nos” that are not nos and where swearing on a stack of Bibles means nothing, this passage is a breath of fresh air.

I think Jesus’ point is that we shouldn’t have resort to selling ourselves by using attractive, flattering or coercive words. Our word alone should be enough to guarantee its truthfulness and reliability. With the goodness of the kingdom at work in our hearts creating character that’s full of integrity, we will become truthful people. Others will trust our words without us having to rely on oaths.

Truth telling seems so rare these days that we almost feel we have to end our statements with “I swear to you” or “may I be struck by lightening if I’m lying”. But if out of a renovated heart telling the truth becomes a habit, we’ll feel less and less pressure to back up our words with an oath or a promise and be people that reflect God’s truthfulness. People that say what we mean and mean what we say.

See you Sunday,
Mike T

A lesson from the Sermon

Here at the NBV we’ve been going through the Sermon on the Mount. We’ve come across a startling yet very helpful truth. Jesus said, “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees you will not enter the kingdom.” A goodness “beyond” that of the religious experts? What could Jesus possibly mean? Well simply this: You can’t keep the law by keeping the law. You have to aim at something better, something beyond merely keeping the rules.By just going through the motions and blindly obeying you can keep the letter of the law still miss the mark. This was the Pharisees problem and Jesus pointed that out rather forcefully when he said, “You people honor God with your lips, but your hearts are far from him.” Recently I’ve been thinking about how this applies to becoming generous givers, central to being a kingdom of God person – a person with a big heart toward God and people.

Applying this idea to giving money to the church and tithing, I realize that I will never become the kind of generous and joyful giver God expects me to be or reap the benefits he has in mind for me by focusing on giving generously. I must focus on something beyond and better than just giving money.

What’s important is what’s on my mind and what’s going on in my heart when I’m giving. Am I counting the dollars? Am I thinking about how hard it is? How much of a sacrifice I’m making? Or am I focused on God and expressing my gratitude and love to him? You see the amount of my offering is not the issue. The real issue is what’s going on inside me.

The widow

The poor widow in the above passage illustrates this best. She gave more than all the others had given. To Jesus the absolute value of her gift wasn’t important. On a percentage basis, the widow gave much more than her wealthier fellows. Most of them would have given ten percent, but she gives one hundred. The impressiveness of her generosity goes beyond mere percentages, though. She could have given just one of her coins and still given fifty-percent of what she had – five times the percentage of the others. But she gives both coins. And in so doing she’s puts her life in God’s hands. She’s giving herself to God, and trusting him to provide for her because she’s not focused on the money part, all she cares about is worshipping. She’s so wrapped-up in God she gives above and beyond. Some might say that she gave foolishly, beyond her means, but Jesus sees it differently and praises her for it.

Beyond our checkbooks

So giving generously to the church, even tithing, goes beyond your checkbooks. It’s about your heart, which is what giving is really about any way, isn’t it?

When you give (or don’t give) what are you focusing on, the money or the love? It’s not how much you give that really matters. It’s why you give and how you give that’s important. It’s actually not even about whether you give at all (Yikes, I can’t believe I just wrote that)! God doesn’t need your money. He wants your love and with it, your trust. Giving is the practical way we express this type of devotion. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. When God has your heart he has all of you, including your pocketbook.

Yes, we really need you to give to our church but more than that we need you to aim for something better and beyond merely giving out of a sense of duty. We need you to be like the widow – so deeply in love with Christ that you’re willing to put it all on the line for him and his kingdom. If we all made that our aim, our church would never have any financial struggles ever again.

God bless
Mike T