Month: October 2022

Getting to Know our New Leaders

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As we mentioned in our last post, we have invited two new pastors and two new prospective elder couples to join us in leading WCV for this upcoming season! To help us get to know one another, we invited each of them to share a bit about themselves.

Let’s continue to pray for these new leaders, as well as the existing Leadership team of Winnipeg Centre Vineyard.

 

Mauritz & Estelle van den Heever

Mauritz will join our community as  lead pastor, as soon as immigration gives them the green light to come to Winnipeg!

Mauritz has been involved with the Vineyard in South Africa since 1996.

Throughout the years, he has served as a youth pastor, administrator, lead pastor and itinerant preacher within the Vineyard South Africa movement .

Estelle is a teacher, who served with Mercy Ships in West Africa, shortly before meeting Mauritz and serving alongside him. They share a passion for missions,  both having been part of mission work within Africa and abroad.

Throughout the years they have found themselves involved with ministry to the poor and vulnerable.

As a family they value hospitality, friendship and lots of laughter. With their son, Benjamin, they look forward to being part of the Winnipeg Centre Vineyard church family.

 

Krista & Cliff Heide

Krista and Cliff have been part of the Winnipeg Centre Vineyard since 2003, and have raised their three kids in this community.

Over the past many years Krista has served in various ministry roles inside and outside of WCV, including worship leading, creative arts, preaching, eldering, house group and mission work. She carries a deep love for involving creativity and trauma informed care into pastoral care and spiritual formation.

Krista is a spiritual director and is completing her last course of her Masters of Ministry Program.

Krista is currently serving as our Interim Pastor, and will step into a more focused pastoral role once Mauritz arrives.

 

Barb & Dave Johns

Dave and Barb are new prospective elders and have enjoyed being with the Vineyard tribe since 1999.  They’ve loved the heart and cry to call the kingdom to come right in our midst both through worship and engaging each other and those in our neighbourhood.

Dave was drawn to the Vineyard initially through the music and finds a place some Sundays playing the harmonica. But it was also a place that had a refreshing view of Jesus that kept him coming back. He has a deep heart to see the first Nations served in a culturally relevant way and has been a part of the community outreach.

Barb’s heart rests solidly in the desire to see people engage more deeply with God.  She has served broadly through the prayer ministry and prophetic avenues.  She is a spiritual director and is currently apprenticing to guide others in the Ignatian exercises.

 

Deanna & Deyan Momtchilov

Deyan and Deanna have been part of the Winnipeg Centre Vineyard for over 20 years and continue to consider it home. They first met through one of the church’s house groups and got to know each other while serving the community together.

 

Over the years, they have completed the church’s internship program, helped out in kids’ ministry and led a house group. Deyan has enjoyed contributing to the creative community and Deanna has loved being involved for many years in Breathe, our mom’s group. 

 

On top of being prospective elders, Deyan is currently serving on the BOD and Deanna is looking forward to continuing to find ways to lend her support to the women and families in our community. 

 

Deyan and Deanna have four children, Simeon, Esther, Kaloyana and Gavrail, and live in the Scotia Heights neighbourhood of the city.

Leadership Developments

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As you may know we’ve had a few things on the go for the past several months. Specifically, we’ve been praying and working towards a new leadership situation at WCV. As was announced in our Sunday Gathering a few weeks back and was communicated by email, here is the exciting news:

New Pastors:

We have made offers to both Krista Heide and Mauritz van den Heever and both have accepted!

Mauritz will be WCV’s new Lead Pastor as soon as he, Estelle and Benjamin can get here. The van den Heevers will be joining us from South Africa so it may take some time for them to get to Winnipeg. Because of this Krista will be serving as Interim Pastor (part-time position) to help bridge the gap between Andy stepping away October 2 and whenever Mauritz and Estelle are able to be in Winnipeg.

After the interim period Krista will be working in a part-time pastoral position which will focus on teaching, creative and spiritual formation.

New (Prospective) Elders:

While we’re excited about the pastoral developments we also have some exciting news to share about our Elder team.

Dave and Barb Johns and Deyan and Deanna Momtchilov have agreed to let their names stand as Prospective Elders! This means that they will be functioning as elders for the next season to see if it’s a good fit. The Prospective period lasts until the AGM in 2023 (likely in April) at which time the community is given an opportunity to ratify them. You can read more about our Elder process here.

We’re grateful for God’s continued provision and faithfulness to us as a community. Seek first the Kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be added. This certainly has been our experience as we have endeavoured to seek Jesus above all else. Let’s keep doing that!

 

Photo by Merakist on Unsplash

Fall Sermon Series: Life In The Kingdom Part III – Kingdom Devotion

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This Fall we’ll continue our exploration of the Sermon on the Mount – the foundational bedrock of Jesus’ teaching. We will be picking up in chapter 6, Part 3 of our outline which we’ve called “Kingdom Devotion”.

Jesus shifts gears in this portion of the Sermon. He begins to focus more on application – putting into practice what he’s just taught in previous sections. In this section he covers three key areas in the lives of his followers: giving, prayer and fasting. He expects his followers to be tending to their relationships with others (giving), their relationship with God (prayer), and the state of their inner lives (fasting). Jesus assumes his followers are active in these three areas. He says, “when you give” (6:1), “when you prayer” (6:5) and “when you fast” (6:16). He cautions his followers against publicity and doing these things to be seen. He cautions us to not babble on and on searching for the right prayer formula or combination of words that will produce the desired results. Jesus says to his disciples, “pray like this”, and then proceeds to teach them the prayer that has come be known as “The Lord’s Prayer” or the “Our Father”. As we will see, this is a prayer we must learn to live. It is a prayer that has power to form us.