Here are the groups that will be meeting from February through April 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.

Did you know that the great Hindu leader, Mohandas Gandhi at one time had considered becoming a Christian … that is, until he was turned off by the inconsistency in the lives of the believers he encountered. Rather than convert to faith in Christ, he retreated to his native religion and would later say, “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

Author Brennan Manning wrote, “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”

Misunderstanding our beliefs

One of the big reasons for this inconsistency is that too many of us misunderstand our faith. And if we’re uniformed about the basic foundational teachings of the Christian faith how can we live out the message of the gospel the way it was meant to be.

For many today the “gospel” has become a self-centered, me-first exercise in personal improvement. The central question has become, What can Christianity do for me? How does being a follower of Jesus benefit my life? This thinking is far from the first-century concept of the faith, which centered its message in kingdom-building, not coming up with “steps” to becoming a better person and achieving personal success.

Jesus has called us to be his ambassadors. Therefore we need to know what we’re representing and communicating. Read more ›

Mike concludes his Rethinking Prayer series with a reminder that we’re not left to struggle with prayer on our own. We’ve been given very special help. 11am at the school or 6pm at the Trash Bar.

After four frustrating days of cancellations and delays Char and I finally made it to Phoenix and our grandsons. Can you tell I’m smiling?

There’s another reason I’m smiling. I sense something wonderful taking place in our church. A God-thing. Something that just a year ago when things were at their bleakest looked so unlikely. When the loss of key leaders along with mounting financial woes had taken the steam out of us. When we were existing month to month. At that time a trusted member of my Advisory Team, in a moment of candor confessed, “If we were a company we’d have gone out of business by now.”

But despite the gloomy forecasts and my worst fears we haven’t gone out of business. God’s played much bigger than that. Today as we stand at the beginning of a new year it’s like night and day around here! God’s turned things around and because of that, I’m smiling. Read more ›

The Foundation Fund Offering
Sunday, December 19th

Be on the lookout for more details about how you can participate.

Join us as we discuss topics like:

• Taking the Bible seriously in a skeptical world (Nov 14)
• Solitude, silence and prayer in a crowded world (Nov 21 & 28)
• Worship in a self-centered world (Dec 5)
• Practicing generosity and service in a selfish world (Dec 12)

Busy, busy, busy…

Pastor and author, Bill Hybels likened the hyper-busyness of our modern day lives to being a contestant in one of those shopping sprees where you get to make a mad dash up and down the aisles of a store filling your cart with as much free stuff as you can in fifteen minutes.

It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, but instead of being thrilled about it your stomach’s upset by the thousands of items lining the shelves from floor to ceiling, aisle after aisle. You haven’t thought it through. You’re unprepared. Where do you begin? It’s too much! Now the manager is about to give the signal to begin… in your heart you feel sick.  You’re winging it, and you know it.  You’re about to waste a once-in-a-life-time opportunity!

Hybels said this is a picture of many of us. We’re like that frustrated shopper facing the shelves lined from floor to ceiling with countless things to do begging for our time. We’re overwhelmed by the sheer volume of worthwhile activities available to us, all wrapped in brightly colored packages just waiting to be claimed… Read more ›

Stories have power. They bring us together & point us to God’s bigger story… The next 2 Sundays (October 24 & 31) come; be uplifted & inspired by personal God-stories of people at the North Brooklyn Vineyard community.

People on the move

We’ve just finished-up a sermon series on our Core Values. I hope finding out that we’re more than a bunch of nice people that go to church on the weekends helpful. I hope finding out that we’re actually people on the move, becoming a new kind of human beings, participating in a mission initiated by Jesus to remake the world into a better place to live, encourages and inspires you. It certainly does it for me.

“Fellowship-ing”

This reminds me of something that not many people know about the name, “Vineyard Christian Fellowship”. For the longest time the Vineyard referred to itself as a “movement.” We were an association of churches drawn together by a life-giving culture that was both distinct and intangible. At times we felt and experienced who we were as a movement more than we could define it by some formal statement. We eventually distilled this culture into our five core values. Read more ›