The following is a post by James Cherian:

Usually, on the last Sunday of every month we only have one service at 10am, and we come together for a pancake breakfast before the service starts.

[Side note:  Starting April 29 thru the end of August, we will be shifting to only one service at 10am]

The Cafe/Food Team as well as others have done a great job in organizing it, and it’s at such a place where we feel we can take a significant next step in this idea.

But first a little background…

When we first started the pancake breakfast, the idea was to build up community again.

One of our five values as a church is:  “We value living life together:

We do not want to be just a collection of individuals or a large crowd. God is looking for us to be a community of people who have joined his mission in the world – because following Jesus happens in the context of relationships, not in isolation. We aim to build up the church, and each other through maintaining mutual respect, open communication, determined cooperation, and believing and speaking the best about each other.”

From even before this church had its first service, this has been a high value for us.

Of living in community with each other, of our ministry being based on relationship with each other.

This is why we have kinships, this is why we have ministry teams, that’s even why we have a coffee break before the message (that and so you don’t fall asleep ; ))

This is such a high value for us, that we used to eat together after church every Sunday- we all used to either cook a dish to pass, or we ordered pizza, or something.

And enjoyed each other’s relationship at a common meal.

But as we went more portable and we started renting space that we had to move everything out of every week, (250+ chairs!!) this important meal got overlooked.

Partly as a result of this, slowly over time, how we lived out that value of life together suffered.

So, when we got into our current building,  we decided to gradually build that meal up again and help to build up community again.  We started doing the pancake breakfast each month.  And it’s been cool seeing how people have responded to that.

We’d like to take a significant next step in this now.

In response to this high value we have on life together, what we would like to try and do- and this will be a bit of an experiment- we’re going to be learning as we go- so we’re asking that we all show each other grace in this.

But what we would like to start doing on the last sunday of every month, hopefully beginning April 29th, is have a communion meal together as part of the regular sunday morning service.

Much like the early church did when they met together in each other’s houses.

We’ll give you more definite details about this as the date gets closer.  It’s still a bit ‘work in progress.’

It’s not going to be a separate thing before the service, or after the service- it’s actually going to be a part of the service- a central part of it, in fact!

We’ve tossed around a few names for this, not sure what will end up sticking- it’s not technically the Lord’s Supper, because we’re having it in the morning.  We could try Communion Meal Sunday- but that’s a mouthful, Lord’s Table…or maybe just The Table. We even talked about calling it the Lord’s Brunch- we’ll see what sticks.

In 1 Cor. 10 and 11, Acts 2, and parts in Jude and 1 Peter- and just from what early historians of the church witnessed, we can see first of all that Christians met in each other’s homes and they met each other every day.

They shared a life that was intimately linked together through Jesus. They met together in homes and it centered on a meal shared together, According to Acts 2- most probably they did this every evening, after their work day; most probably it was some sort of dish to pass kind of thing, where they shared their meal together.

As part of that meal they would recognize who they were and who they belonged to- by eating a piece of bread broken from one loaf, and drinking wine from one cup.  Paul in 1 Cor. 11, tells the Corinthian church what this should look like when they come together to eat their common meal:

23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

And this is the meaning of that shared meal.

The early church would come together at the end of the day, have the common meal together, and as part of that meal they would celebrate communion- Remembering the Lord’s death until he comes again.

It showed their unity, in the face of a world that was opposed to them.

And it reminded them that they belonged to God and each other, not for the sake of themselves, but for the very sake of that world around them.

So we are going to try a bit of an experiment.  We are going to take the pancake breakfast one step further, and share a common meal together, centered on the Lord’s Supper.  We will still have time for worship and a short message, but the focus will be taking this intentional step to develop a shared life together in Jesus.

Let’s see what happens.  Let’s see what God does with it.  If we fall flat on our faces, we’ll help each other up.  But if it produces good fruit, then Praise God!

Being regular

The Pastoral Search Team has resumed its bi-weekly meeting schedule.

Wading through the web

Our initial search included contacting Vineyard churches we had connections with and the regional overseers across the country. This utilized a more personal network of people that we hoped would provide applicants closely suited to our church. No one has worked out yet from this networking although we continue to review any applicants that come in from these contacts. In fact we are in the process of reviewing information from one such candidate at this time.

In the meantime we have decided to utilize the Vineyard’s national and regional web sites for positions.  We will be posting a job description to the Vineyard USA jobs site (http://www.vineyardusa.org/site/jobs). Aside from the less personal nature of this method we have been warned that it may generate a flood of responses from both outside the Vineyard movement and outside the country. Several members of the team will be checking those applications to narrow the list to the more qualified ones. These will be reviewed by the whole team.

Filling out the Team

We are still looking for one more person to complete the 10 member pastoral search team.

In Transition

The search team is helping the church council with their discussions regarding the transition as the Wilson’s move to Ireland. They are preparing information to be shared with the church April 22nd that will cover how the church might use a group leadership model going forward.

Our next meeting is scheduled for Monday, April 23rd.

This past Sunday, Bob & James shared an update about our upcoming transition. If you have any thoughts or questions about this process, contact us. We would love to hear what you’re thinking. The following is the transcript from this Sunday:

Bob: Before we get into this week’s message, we wanted to take a few minutes and give an update on our upcoming transition as a church.

While we are excited about what God is doing, it clearly set the Ithaca Vineyard & my family on an different path than we had been.  Over the next 6 weeks we are planning to take some time during out Sunday services and share with you how things are going moving forward. This morning, we wanted to take a few minutes and try to encapsulate everything, and also let you know when we’ll be talking further.

Part of wanting to do this today, before we have a more extensive discussion over the next several weeks is to learn what you are thinking. This morning we’ll talk briefly about the pastoral/leadership transition, as well as my family’s move to Dublin. If you have any questions, would you write them on your connection card? If you think of something later in the week, send us an email…both James and my emails are in the program. This way as we are preparing the next few discussions, we’ll make sure we address the concerns that you have.

During our 1st round we had a handful of candidates, as you know, none of them ended up panning out, and we are still accepting resumes.

However, as we’ve moved closer to the time my family will be leaving, we recognized, the key thing right now is to focus on ensuring that the leaders, and the church as a whole are ready to move forward. Therefore, while we are still seeking resumes, main thing our church council has focused on is the transition. Even the PST, we’ve asked to begin serving more to help us think through the transition…

Two people have stepped down, Wale moved, and Ivan will be moving.

So Mike Heisler will begin serving on the team.

The other important item I want to talk about briefly this morning is how we are setting things up, and seeing them run moving forward, specifically through this transition.

On April 22 we’ll go into much more detail, today again we want to give more of a general outline.  Even before Ireland popped up on our radar, Bill, Steve, James and I had talked about moving to a model with more shared responsibility.

More of a team approach…a shared leadership. As we’ve gone through this process and realized we did not have a new lead pastor ready to step in by June 1, we sensed that we needed to revisit this idea.

There are a couple other Vineyard churches that have done something similar…some of you may remember Steven Hamilton from the Vineyard’s Anti-Slavery Task Force who spoke here a couple years ago…he was part of a church with a similar model that we are looking at, and is planting a church this summer in Pittsburgh.  So we’ve been in conversation with him, and he has shared much of the research that he has gathered.

As for details…that is what we’re going to get into on April 22.  Over the next few weeks we’ll be talking more with our current ministry team leaders getting their thoughts…and share all of that with you on the 22nd. In addition, following that meeting, council members will be visiting kinships to dialogue more.

In our current set up…I work full-time, and Liz is half time… And simple logic dictates that if we are going to keep moving forward as a church, others are going to need to step up, and get involved. If you take those 60-70 and simply divide them up among the church council…they’ll be overwhelmed, and likely won’t be doing this for too long.. However, as more and more people commit to getting involved and sharing their gifts and talents…we believe that this can and will be an amazing experience for the Ithaca Vineyard.

On behalf of the church council, while we recognize that this is big…we are so excited about what the Father has in store for us!

At this point I want to invite James up to share briefly about the other half of our transition.

James: So in addition to what Bob mentioned, the other big part of this transition is that our church, the Ithaca Vineyard, is sending out the Wilsons to plant a church in Dublin.

On Sunday May 6th we will be laying out all the details of what our involvement with the church plant will look like, but today I just want to give you a quick preview of it, and for you to be praying and thinking about how you can be a part of this.

One of the core values of the larger Vineyard movement nationally and internationally, is for us to be a church planting movement.
To that end we’ve planted a church in Wellsboro, PA, and have been in partnership with getting Vineyard church planting started in the Dominican Republic.

So in cooperation with God’s call on the Wilson’s to plant a church in Dublin, our church will be sending them out as church planters/missionaries.

Our part as the sending church will be to support them through prayer, resources (including financial), and sending teams to help them.

So the Dublin church plant will be our primary focus in terms of church planting and missions.

As many of you know, at least if you’ve been to a business meeting, or read one of the giving brochures on the info table, our church takes 10% of our general offering that we receive & gives it away…
3% to AVC
3% to CP
2% missions
2% to benevolence (to help those in need in church or community at large).

In the past we’ve given much of the money that we’ve put towards missions to various outreaches.
About 2 years ago we sensed God telling us he wanted us to seek him as to where we should focus our missions/church planting budget…Ireland was not on our radar back then.

But now with the our church being directly involved with planting in Dublin, we’ve decided as a council, that for the next 3 years
we will be giving a part of the total church planting/missions percentage to getting the Dublin church plant off the ground.
While there is still a part what the Wilsons need to raise themselves- some of you may decide to give individually as well. You can talk to Bob or Liz if you’d like more info about that, or they’ll be contacting many of you over the next few months to see if you’d like to get involved this way as well.

On Sunday May 6th, we’re going to describe the details of what this looks like, so today just wanted to give a quick blurb about what we’ll be talking about, and for you to be thinking and praying about how you can possibly be a part of this.

In the meantime, if you have any questions at all please feel free to email us.

Thanks.

Beginning this new stage involved a few items:

1) Replacing 2 members of the team. Wale Adio and Ivan Daykov both needed to step down from the team due to their own transitions out of Ithaca. We have taken the past 4-6 weeks to pray and consider who we should add to the team.  We are in the process of contacting members at this point.

2) Contacting pastors & leaders throughout the Vineyard and ask them if they have people they think would be a good fit here in Ithaca. At this point, we have not received any more resumés. We are also considering other places where we can gather resumés from potential candidates.

3) Giving the team a time to rest. While we started off meeting two nights/month last fall, as we got closer to Christmas, the time commitment increased dramatically. Since we didn’t have additional candidates, we thought the best step was to give everyone a few weeks off.

So what’s next?

With today being March 1, that means Liz & my time here at the Vineyard is coming to an end in 3 months. The PST realizes that the likelihood of having a new candidate selected in place by June 1 is highly unlikely. So, while we will continue to search for a new candidate to serve as our next lead pastor, we have decided that the best use of the PST’s time at this point is preparing to transition the church from our current leadership to the leadership that will be in place after May.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll post more information here, and we’ll use time during one of Sunday morning worship services to explain more about what this transition will look like.

In closing, on behalf of the whole PST, I want to express my appreciation to Ivan and Wale for everything they brought to the team. They, just like each member brought tremendous insight as well as a passion for the Ithaca Vineyard.  You will both be missed.

In the meantime, please be praying for the PST, the church Council, and our church, as we begin putting our transition team in place. (If you’d be praying for my family as we prepare to move to Dublin, that would be greatly appreciated.)

Thank you!

Pamplona

This year, from January 7-15, I took a trip to Lima, Peru, with the non-profit organization MEDLIFE (Medicine, Education, and Development for Low-Income Families Everywhere). For half the trip, I worked with medical professionals in a mobile clinic offering primary care to community members. My tasks included everything from teaching kids how to brush their teeth to filling out prescriptions to shadowing physicians. The other half of the trip, I worked on a team that included the members of the Pamplona community to plant trees and build two sets of stairs that will allow residents greater safety and ease to access things like water and food and schools for the children.

I learned so much on this trip, not just about health care but also the importance of education, especially health education, in breaking the cycle of poverty and offering long-term solutions. The needs of these impoverished communities are very simple: nutritious food, clean water, and the chance of a good education. The solution is simple but complicated to implement because of how everything is interdependent. But what is encouraging is the significant presence of faith in God, a firm source of hope for many Peruvians. We saw “the Lord is my shepherd” written on the

The Volunteers

backs of buses, a huge statue of Jesus on a mountaintop, and other signs of belief in God. Since the church has such an influential presence in Peru, pray that it would be God’s hands and feet to meet the needs of the poor and destitute, maybe through partnership with more American churches and non-profits. 

In addition, my two Christian friends and I were able to have some good conversations with ourteammates. While we were sitting in the common rooms having our evening devotions, so many people approached us and started conversations about the Bible and Christianity for us. We were also able to convince one of our non-Christian friends to join us in our rooftop praise and prayer meetings one evening. We know that such opportunities to share our faith were a blessing from God. We were also reminded that here, back home, our own

Teaching kids how to brush their teeth

communities are rampant with a different kind of poverty in the form of spiritual blindness and darkness. There is much healing to pray for both throughout the world and here at home. But praise God that he is not sitting idly by but equipping us all to fight against the suffering around us and build up his kingdom here on earth. 

Thank you all for your support and prayers! Please come to me with any questions, and I will do my best to answer them. 

In Christ,

Jo

More photos from Lima:

Completed Stairs

The Doctor's Station

Houses in Pamplona

Houses in Pamplona - A community of Lima

Loading the Buses

The Pharmacy

The OB-GYNs

The Line of Patients

This past Sunday James gave a quick update about where we are in the Pastoral Search Process. We want to pass the text along from what he said. Thanks to everyone for your prayers during this process.

The Pastoral Search Team will be available for any questions following our 10 am worship service on January 29th.

Here is the text from James’ Pastoral Search Team update given on Sunday, January 15, 2012:

Morning everyone.

I wanted to take a few minutes to give you a brief update on behalf of the Pastoral Search Team.

First of all thank you for all the praying and fasting and hearing from God, and input you have been giving over this process. And thank you to my fellow team members who have made a serious investment of time and energy to this. It’s been really cool experiencing God meeting us through this process- I’ll get more into that in a bit.

In our last update, I believe in the beginning of December, we were fully in the midst of interviews. We got our original pool down to 3 candidates that we really wanted to find out more about.  And we interviewed them over Skype. Of those 3, there was one candidate that really rose to the top for us.

After some more fasting and prayer, and preparation we invited him and his wife to Ithaca for an on-site interview. It was a really good weekend.  We got to spend some time with them, and had a, for lack of a better word, a vigorous interview- I was exhausted afterwards. They both even had  a chance to check out church here on a Sunday morning!

He interviewed really well.  He felt this was a place he could see himself in. We left very impressed with many things, and with some questions about if this person would be the right fit here in Ithaca. Most of all we didn’t want to jump to any conclusions, but wanted to wait and see what God said.

If your remember it was that time in early December we called on the church for a time of specific prayer and fasting for the search team and this process. After that time, the team met together again and by the end of our meeting- it was clear he was a very strong candidate, but there were definitely some things that we needed to make sure about. We did some more digging with the references, we checked references that he didn’t list, and we asked questions to really give us a better picture of who he was and help us to discern what God was saying. And honestly, it was a stressful time.  The team had some really long meetings wrestling with who this candidate was and was this the person who God wanted to help lead this church. Even though it was hard, it was really good to see how we were interacting, and how God was using each individual to fill in a picture that none of us could see on our own.

So, we scheduled one more Skype interview to clarify some of our thoughts, before we actually took a yes or no vote. And this is when the really cool thing happened.

As we were preparing for that interview, team members began to share the different words, visions, and thoughts God had been speaking over the past few days:  They were words like: “trust God for the follow through.” “When we are ready to listen, then we’ll hear God.” Be patient and trust God to answer.

All of it seemed as if God was saying: Be at peace and trust me.

And we all had this sense that one way or the other we would have a clear answer by this past Thursday, which was when we had scheduled the skype interview.

Sure enough, a few days before our final Skype interview, after having gone through his own discernment process, the candidate withdrew his name from consideration.

There was disappointment, but the larger picture that one of the team members, Wale, pointed out to us is that this shouldn’t be a discouragement- this is progress.

To me God was basically saying, “You can take me at my word.”  He said he would make it clear that week, to simply trust him, and he didn’t leave any gray area in the matter, he simply shut that door for now.

The cool thing for me is, how much God has been speaking through this process, and making himself known through it.  That he does have it in his hands, and we are called to simply wait, be patient, be faithful, and do the hard work of cooperating with him.  He’s saying “Trust me”.

And that gives me a sense of peace, that even though this process is challenging, God has a good end in mind for us as a church, and for the Wilsons as they are transitioning to the next chapter of their lives.

We’ve read in a few places, that the average search can take about 18 months.  So we’re still possible very much in the beginning of this.  We really don’t want to rush this, but again taking things slow and patiently listen to God.

The next chapter for us as the search team and what we’re asking the church as a whole to do, is to commit this next month for a time of fasting and purposeful prayer- to acknowledge that this is Christ’s church, and for him to lead us and make clear to us who he wants the lead pastor to be, and how he wants that transition to look like. And through it all for us to keep moving forward as a church- to keep fulfilling the mission he has for us in this city- to demonstrate his love to Ithaca, NY. And again, we want to hear from you- as you sense things from God, or if you have any questions at all- feel free to talk to one of the people on the team.

Speaking of the team- if they could all just stand up for a minute. Like I mentioned before it’s been such a pleasure working together on this- there’s an excitement, energy, and puposefulness about them.  On behalf of the church council, we really appreciate the love they have for this church and each of you here- and I’m really glad they are a part of this.

They are:  Wale Adio, Ariel Beverly, Ivan Daykov, Judy Malys, Dan Stevens, Chekesha Watson- and the church council- Steve Clark, Bill Williams, and Bob Wilson.

Thanks everyone!

On Sunday we will provide a place on the connection card where you can sign up for a day. Or drop us an email if you’d like to sign up now. More info on Sunday.

James Cherian

Usually, when I think of meetings and committees and group projects, I think of a million other things I’d rather be doing.
Being on the Pastoral Search Team has been a different story- It’s actually fun and exciting.
I look forward to doing the work in preparation for our meetings, and enjoy the time we have together.

The things I most dread about these types of meetings (long, pointless debates, passive aggressive personalities, lowest common denominator decisions) have been met with a refreshing, thoughtful, engaging, and meaningful process in discerning who it is that God wants as the next lead pastor of the Ithaca Vineyard and to see this transition happen in a healthy way for all those involved.

The people God placed on this team play no small part in this being so. I am grateful for that.

A few months ago, when we met with John Elmer (our Area Pastoral Care Leader) to discuss our search process, I jotted down: “If this whole thing is successful, know that it was all because of God.” Though, we’re still a long way off before we can say this process was ‘successful’, it’s been very exciting to see how God has been at work through this.

It would be hard to write down every detail of this process, but I thought it would be helpful to give the church a better idea of the journey we’ve been on.

The very basic job posting we started off with states:

The Vineyard Church of Ithaca is currently seeking a lead pastor
starting in June 2012. Ithaca is a college town (Cornell University,
Ithaca College, Tompkins Cortland Community College) in Central NY.
The Ithaca Vineyard was planted in 1999, and during the semester
averages about 200 people during Sunday attendance.  This is a
full-time position.

The successful candidate will have strong teaching/communication
skills; a passion for reaching out to a secular community; a
commitment to Vineyard Values and Kingdom Theology, as well as
Spiritual Formation and Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.  This
position will also provide the opportunity to serve as a Chaplain at
Cornell University.

The Pastoral Search Team then began to process what this job looks like through the filter of our Vision and Values.

It never hurts to repeat them, so straight from the website:

Vision

The Vineyard Church of Ithaca Exists to:

Demonstrate God’s love, mercy, and compassion to those in the Greater Ithaca area who are distant from Jesus and His church,draw people into relationship with Him and us, minister healing into their lives, and equip them for ministry, giving them the best opportunity to become fully developing followers of Jesus Christ,

Values

We value the kingdom of God:

We believe the kingdom of God, which is the future reign of God breaking into the present through the life and ministry of Jesus, is the overarching and integrating theme of the Bible. We are committed to proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God and to bearing witness to the “already and not yet” of the kingdom in our words and deeds—through healing (physical, emotional, and social), doing justice, and setting free those held captive by evil.

We value embracing the sacred in every aspect of life:

We believe that our whole life is set apart for Christ and His purposes.  We view life in an integrated, holistic manner, rejecting the idea that there are “sacred & secular” aspects of life. We welcome God’s presence, seeking to be attentive to what “the Father is doing,” and supporting His work with our whole lives. We value an approach to God’s presence that is respectful both of God and others. We eschew hype and other efforts to manipulate either God’s presence or the response of others to his presence.  We are committed to being open to the leading of the Holy Spirit and responding in a way that is naturally supernatural whether we are at church, home, work, school, or wherever.

We value living life together:

We do not want to be just a collection of individuals or a large crowd. God is looking for us to be a community of people who have joined his mission in the world – because following Jesus happens in the context of relationships, not in isolation. We aim to build up the church, and each other through maintaining mutual respect, open communication, determined cooperation, and believing and speaking the best about each other.

We value ministry based on the compassion of Jesus

We believe that mercy is fundamental to all that God does in salvation. We therefore aim to extend compassion to one another, and to each person God brings into our lives. We believe that the church does not exist for itself, but rather to actively demonstrate God’s mercy to all. We are committed to being generous in every aspect of our lives, to “give away our best,” whether people or resources, in order to expand God’s Kingdom.

We value being culturally relevant in our mission:

We believe that the church exists for the sake of those who are distant from God. We are called to bring the gospel of the kingdom to Ithaca, and beyond, faithfully translating the message of Jesus in language and forms that are relevant to diverse tribes and cultures. We seek to develop an atmosphere where people can feel relaxed and at home. Therefore, we want every expression of ours – whether speech, music, architecture, or manner – to be non-hyped, natural, reality based and in touch with the current culture of our community.

After much discussion, we came up with some important characteristics and qualities we’d be looking for in light of our Vision and Values.

Distilling that list, we found 3 things that would be the primary responsibility of the lead pastor.

They are (not to the exclusion of other characteristics and qualities):

• Setting and maintaining direction and vision of the church.
• Main teaching pastor (majority of Sundays).
• Equipping and developing leaders.

Again all these things are from the lens of our Vision and Values – things that distinctly make us who we are.

We took time to pray through and engage thoughtfully with each other, and really ingest all these core things we were looking at.

As a person who’s been at the church for a while, these statements are more than just words – they are central to who we are as an expression of Christ’s body.

It’s part of our job as pastors to instill this in others.  So it was a good learning experience to work through these together in a small group of people, and hear how they saw and processed these core ideas; and to get feedback on how well we were communicating the Vision and Values, what was working, what wasn’t, etc.  Through all this, I believe we’re really coming to a place where we’re more and more understanding who God called us to be and become as a church.

Equipped with this cooperative understanding, we drafted questions to try and discern which candidate could be the right person to lead as pastor.

Of course, we are doing the ‘typical’ things of a search team: weigh strengths/weaknesses of each candidate, weigh strengths/weaknesses of our church, listen to their messages, check references, research resume’s, etc.

As Bob mentioned, we’re in the midst of the interview process now, and it’s really exciting meeting these candidates and talking about who they are and who we are.

At the end of the day, no instrument or method we come up with is going to be perfect.  We rely on God, ask for his wisdom and strength, and to the best of his enabling in us, make a decision- realizing that ultimately this is Christ’s church, His body.

If you landed on our website, we’re glad you found us! Look around, email us if you have questions.

We are in the process of changing our website around a bit, so if things seem like they are in bizarre places – we’re tinkering. We’re sorry for any confusion.

Thanks!

Throughout October we are having our annual Personal Care Products drive. While you are running around town this weekend, don’t forget to grab some (extra) deodorant, a few bars of soap or some toothpaste and bring them with you on Sunday. These items will go to Catholic Charities (they give out little bags of personal items to people who need them). We will have a table set up in the café over the next couple weeks to collect the items. Thanks for your generosity!

Here are the items we are looking for:

(*most needed)

laundry detergent

dish soap

toilet paper

shampoo

conditioner

diapers

household cleaner

deodorant*

feminine hygiene products*

razors*

bar soap*

toothpaste*