Leaning Towards the ???
Tonight I am going to do something a little different for my blog entry. I'm going to talk a little about my home church, the Ann Arbor Vineyard, in the hopes of starting some discussion among my friends who also go there. So I need to start with a little history regarding the Milan Vineyard, which was where my church originally came from.
The Milan Vineyard was (and is) a wonderful church that has a mission to "lean towards the lost, the young, and the poor." The church recognized the fact that churches can be very inhospitible places for people who have never been to church before. People in churches tend to have their own lingo, and assume that you already know who people like Isaiah and Melchizidek were. Imagine walking into a church for the first time and having somebody walk up to you and say, "So, have you been washed in the Blood?" Some churches are like that, and can be intimidating even for those with an extensive church background. So in order to lean towards the lost, the Milan Vineyard does a great job of reaching out to newcomers, skipping the lingo, and putting sermons into context. "There was a man named Isaiah, who lived in the ancient Jewish community, who said..." For leaning towards the poor, the Milan Vineyard has an active ministry called the Compassion Ministry. Each week, the church gives out over 2000 lbs of food to people in need in the Milan community. And rather than pretend that kids don't exist, the church has a very active program to reach out to high school youth.
The Milan church thrived in the late nineties. People loved coming to church every Sunday, and the church grew to the point where they decided to "plant" a new church in the Ann Arbor area. And thus the Ann Arbor Vineyard was born. The first few years were wonderful, because the church was essentially still the same as the Milan church. But over the past couple of years, the church has been struggling to find its own identity. Our mission statement changed so that we lean towards the lost, the poor, and the young ... with the goal of planting churches. (BTW, shouldn't church planting be auxillary to its mission?) Unfortunately, the environment in Ann Arbor is different from Milan, and many of the ways that we reached out to the lost, the poor, and the young don't work in Ann Arbor.
I think that if you could identify the one area where the Ann Arbor church is doing well, that would be the outreach to single moms (no, single dads aren't included). The church has done an admirable job of reaching out to single moms, but we seem to have forgotten about the lost, the poor, and the young.
So, the points for discussion are: Is it time to formally change the mission statement of the church to reflect our focus on single moms? Can we find new and innovative ways of reaching out to the lost, the poor, and the young? What about reaching out to the 18-35 age range, which is traditionally ignored by churches? Can we re-incorporate some of the more contemporary elements to worship that we used to have? And what can we do about the "blah" feeling that many of the people are having about church? And most importantly, where does God want the church to go?
Feel free to submit anonymous comments, or associate them with your name if you would like.
The Milan Vineyard was (and is) a wonderful church that has a mission to "lean towards the lost, the young, and the poor." The church recognized the fact that churches can be very inhospitible places for people who have never been to church before. People in churches tend to have their own lingo, and assume that you already know who people like Isaiah and Melchizidek were. Imagine walking into a church for the first time and having somebody walk up to you and say, "So, have you been washed in the Blood?" Some churches are like that, and can be intimidating even for those with an extensive church background. So in order to lean towards the lost, the Milan Vineyard does a great job of reaching out to newcomers, skipping the lingo, and putting sermons into context. "There was a man named Isaiah, who lived in the ancient Jewish community, who said..." For leaning towards the poor, the Milan Vineyard has an active ministry called the Compassion Ministry. Each week, the church gives out over 2000 lbs of food to people in need in the Milan community. And rather than pretend that kids don't exist, the church has a very active program to reach out to high school youth.
The Milan church thrived in the late nineties. People loved coming to church every Sunday, and the church grew to the point where they decided to "plant" a new church in the Ann Arbor area. And thus the Ann Arbor Vineyard was born. The first few years were wonderful, because the church was essentially still the same as the Milan church. But over the past couple of years, the church has been struggling to find its own identity. Our mission statement changed so that we lean towards the lost, the poor, and the young ... with the goal of planting churches. (BTW, shouldn't church planting be auxillary to its mission?) Unfortunately, the environment in Ann Arbor is different from Milan, and many of the ways that we reached out to the lost, the poor, and the young don't work in Ann Arbor.
I think that if you could identify the one area where the Ann Arbor church is doing well, that would be the outreach to single moms (no, single dads aren't included). The church has done an admirable job of reaching out to single moms, but we seem to have forgotten about the lost, the poor, and the young.
So, the points for discussion are: Is it time to formally change the mission statement of the church to reflect our focus on single moms? Can we find new and innovative ways of reaching out to the lost, the poor, and the young? What about reaching out to the 18-35 age range, which is traditionally ignored by churches? Can we re-incorporate some of the more contemporary elements to worship that we used to have? And what can we do about the "blah" feeling that many of the people are having about church? And most importantly, where does God want the church to go?
Feel free to submit anonymous comments, or associate them with your name if you would like.
posted by David at 4/18/2006 10:41:00 PM
2 Comments:
Good discussion Dave. Since I am a former member of the Vineyard I can say (even now that I am no longer a member) that The Vineyard is a remarkable church that accomplishes so many things that many churches aren't doing anymore.
I think the single mom's outreach is very much a part of the outreach to the lost, the poor, and the young. Think about it. Single moms may be lost and in need of Jesus. Many single moms are definitely poor or at least struggling to make ends meet. Single moms, by definition, have children (the young), to whom the church is doing great ministry. I think the outreach to single moms is a great idea in an age where single moms are definitely among "the least in the kingdom."
There is a disgrace or shame that many single moms feel about being single and raising children even in this day and age. The church helps restore some dignity that has been lost along the way.
It would be great to see the church reach out more to single dads, too, but there are way more single moms than there are single dads out there. That doesn't mean we (Christians) shouldn't be reaching out to them, however. I personally think we should be reaching out to all people.
It is a great thing to be sensitive to the fact that there may be people out there who would be intimidated by someone asking "have you been washed in the blood?" or "have you been slain in the spirit?" Some churches have people who say things like "the Lord told me" or "the Lord says!"
The Vineyard does a great job of making church comfortable for people.
I agree that church planting should be auxillary to a purpose statement. While it is never a good thing for a church to become inwardly focussed, part of my experience with the Vineyard was the almost total lack of opportunities for spiritual formation, education, moral and conscience formation, and help for those of us who are in need of "more." At a time when I was doing some outreach I was going through a really hard ordeal and needed some support and encouragement and partly because my friends were all too busy, partly because the church had nothing to offer to a more mature Christian who was struggling with life, and because the church was preoccupied with growing churches, there was no pastoral assistance for me. I had to stop the outreach and deal with my problems elsewhere because once the church got you in, you were completely on your own to deal with real faith struggles and issues.
I was told somewhere along the way that this need for deeper, meatier teachings and help for the struggling are to be provided within the small groups (kinships). From what I heard about other kinships, and from my own experience at my own kinship, these were not much more than a social club that gathered to worship before socializing.
Planting churches that offer little to no support and ministry to those who are already in the church leads to planting unhealthy churches. Somewhere along the way, there will be some major breakdowns as people with real needs are ignored or uncared for. I pray this doesn't happen again.
I also began to notice that the Gospel was becoming watered down and sugar coated in order to attract people to the church. I was beginning to see Jesus as a "new-age feel-good guru" rather than our Lord and Savior. Sometimes he seemed like a big huggable teddy-bear. This is problematic because this is not the authentic Jesus. While Jesus did bring greatly needed dignity to "sinners" and those who were considered the "least in the kingdom," he did have some very hard teachings that offended even his disciples. I did not find it helpful to have sugar coated messages at church and no opportunities to receive meaty and challenging teachings that would inspire me to holiness and love of God.
The Vineyard was a great place for me while I was there but it really felt short in a number of areas. Worship should not become a performance to draw people to church. Worship is much more than being talented and playing the music well. We had great musicians that played great music but too frequently failed to lead us in worship. The faith should not be sugar coated and watered down in such a way that people get a one-dimensional picture of who God is, and it should do more than just make the listeners feel good. Sometimes it should convict us and inspire us to ask God to change our hearts and our lives. Sometimes it should make me be sorry.
I think purpose statements are great tools for churches but they shouldn't become blinders that prevent real ministry to people who need it.
The small groups can provide a fair amount of support, but it's usually due more to the relationships that develop, rather than anything organized within the group itself. Some of the groups do have in-depth bible study, but I don't think there's much discussion of detailed practical application, especially for tougher issues. Most groups have a "no unsolicited advice" rule. This makes the small groups "safe", but there is no environment for traditional discipling. Plus, there's no mentoring, as pretty much everyone in the group is at the same place and trying to figure things out together.
While I generally suport the single moms' ministry, I do object to the church's exclusion of single dads. There are (or at least were) single dads at the church, and I can't imagine how frustrating it must be to come to a church that lavishes attention on the single moms (pampering nights, "pink bag boutique" giveaways, close-knit social circles, and kinships) and completely ignores the single dads.
I agree that worship shouldn't be a performance. Performance can take a variety of different forms though. It can be a band that is showing off its technical ability. Or it can take the form (as it did this past weekend), of putting the little kids on stage to "help" with worship, so that we could all go "awww" for how cute they were.
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