We will be holding a community interest gathering on June 4th right after church for those interested in cultivating intercession, prophecy, healing prayer and prayer ministry. You are welcome to come participate and contribute!
We’ll gather together, meet others interested in these areas, evaluate where we’re at with these things, and envision the future together.
Everyone is welcome!
Sunday, June 4th (right after church).
Hey everyone, our event is around the corner. This event is to raise money for Project Timothy, a US Vineyard discipleship bootcamp. It’s a life-changing event for our youth. God has used this camp to change lives and transform some of our youth. Come on out and support them! We have a group of 10 people from WCV going this year!
PS and bring lots of cash for our amazing gift raffle prizes and 50/50! Dessert, coffee and entertainment…come on out….
On Sunday, April 30 we’re going to be spending the morning in evaluation and envisioning mode for the Upstairs Gathering. This time is for anyone who has a stake in the UG as well as anyone would love to see something different happen – even if you’ve never been to there. It’s time to do some renovations. We are sensing that we need to make some tweaks and changes – to ask some good questions, and perhaps take it in some new directions. We want to discuss together what these renovations could be.
Everyone’s welcome.
We had a wonderful time celebrating Jesus’ resurrection together a couple Sundays ago. Check out this comic that Stephan Recksiedler drew for our kids (and adults!) to colour during our Easter Sunday service!
On May 28 we will be celebrating a decade of open doors and opening hearts in Flatlanders Inn. The Flatlanders will be hosting the morning service and afterwards, inviting everyone upstairs for an open house, a light lunch, music and some other surprises. Make sure you mark your calendars and plan to join us on this special day. Also, watch for our 10-year anniversary edition Newsletter coming out soon.
We are so excited to announce that WCV is now accepting e-transfers! 😀 This is a much cheaper option to give than PayPal and we encourage givers to explore this option! If you do online banking, simply set up an e-transfer as normal, and send it to the email address: admin(at)vineyard.ca. Please send us a separate email with the answer to your security question of your choosing. If you are unsure how to do an e-transfer, please contact your bank and they will be able to help you.
Also, CCRA regulation to the Income Tax Act (Canada) sets out exactly what has to be included in an official donation receipt issued by a Canadian registered charity. Vineyard Christian Fellowship Winnipeg Centre Inc. (our legal name) is required to have the full name, including the middle initial and address of the donor. Basically, how your name is filed on your taxes is how WCV is required to make your tax receipt.
Please provide us with this information to update our records.
Thank you!
We all need rest and rest always produces life. It’s a natural law that applies to us humans as much as any other living thing. This is especially obvious during this time of year when we see dormant trees slowly waking up after a long period of “rest”. When we notice the first tulips and prairie crocuses pushing their way through the freshly thawed soil we’re reminded not only of the beauty of new life but also the bulbs and various seeds that were “resting” in the ground before they germinated. Our Winter rest is over and spring has burst on the scene calling all living things to display their wondrous and varied life. We humans are the same, and we can surmise from the Genesis narrative, so is God (who rested on the 7th day). We’re made to live in rhythms of work and relaxation.
With these rhythms in mind we want to let you know we’re sending Andy on a sabbatical. It’s not that he’s in a desperate need of it. Rather, this sabbatical is more proactive in nature. We want to give him time and space for extended rest, refreshment and rejuvenation. The intertwining of pastoral and personal life is a delicate mix and sabbaticals are a normal part of staying fresh in pastoral life. His sabbatical will be from April 30 – July 31.
This Spring and Summer we’re going to be embarking on a new series called “Streams of Living Water: exploring unity and diversity in the church”. We’re going to be exploring the wondrous and varied expressions of the body of Christ – streams, if you will. There are many streams that comprise the whole body of Christ. We hope to place ourselves in a position in which we can be challenged by and learn from other streams and, ultimately, come to love Jesus more through the beautiful expressions of his Bride. In John 4, Jesus offered the Samaritan woman a drink from a stream of “living water” that he promised if we drank from we’d never thirst again. In John 7:37-38 Jesus said, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! 
Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.” This is what we want for each of us and we believe that this will happen through the exploration of these streams of the church.
This series will be based on a classic book by Richard Foster called “Streams of Living Water”. Perhaps you want to grab a copy and follow along. We’ve heard from many of you that this would be a good idea – so let’s make it happen! We’ll be starting June 4.
Here, Raymond Funk shares his perspective on Jesus, the Cross and forgiveness. This was recorded a few years ago before Ray died. Thanks to Stephan Recksiedler for the movie.
This is a good way to enter Good Friday.
NOTE: The Walk of the Cross starts at 6pm and our Good Friday Service begins at 7pm.
Minutes with Raymond from WCV on Vimeo.
We’ve got a team of about 13 people interested in going to the Himalayan Region Vineyard Church’s anniversary celebration in Siliguri, India this September! This is exciting – it’s going to be a great time. We’ve had to move the travel subsidy deadline to May 1 due to the need to firm up tickets, visas, etc. If you’ve been holding off letting us know if you’re interested, please hold off no longer. Contact the office right away.
May 1 is the deadline if you require subsidy (it was previously May 31). After May 1 we will determine the exact subsidy for each person. We will also reserve a group of tickets through one travel agent. If you decide to join later, you may or may not be able to get the same flight path, so it’s best to sign up together so we can travel together. It’s more fun that way! The office will organize the flight details through a travel agent, but each individual will be required to contact the travel agent to pay whatever is owing after the subsidy is applied.
NOTE: This itinerary is subject to change based on available flights.
Approximate Total: $2,600 – $3,100
NOTE: Total does not include personal gifts, etc.
NOTE: These costs are all approximate. Fluctuations occur because of changes in flight schedules, exchange rates (some costs are always in USD), changes in itinerary, etc. We will get more accurate numbers after we purchase tickets.
In Siliguri:
In Kathmandu:
In Siliguri:
In Kathmandu:
>>NOTE: Updated Subsidy application deadline:
May 31, 2017.May 1, 2017.
Suhail has released a ten-song worship album of original songs! The album is called “The Joy that is Immense and Good” and the CD is available for purchase at church for $10. You can hear, read about, and also purchase the album digitally here. All proceeds will go to our WCV poor fund and the Himalayan Region Vineyard Churches.
The Joy that is Immense and Good
01. The Lord’s Prayer
02. Holy are You Lord
03. Immanuel
04. We Praise the Name of the Lord
05. Song for Baptism
06. This I Ask
07. Hallelujah
08. Where Can I Go
09. You are the Rock Beneath Me
10. Yesu Mero Prem (Jesus My Love)
It’s been said that the church is more of a living organism than an organization. Considering that the church is a complex mix of all kinds of people, this observation is a quite apt. However, it is also necessary for every body to have some amount of organization to keep it from becoming a random collection of cells at best or, at worst, a destructive tumour. This is true of every physical organism and it’s also true of the body of Christ.
Over the past year we’ve done some work on the organizational end of this spectrum hoping to bring a little more clarity and definition to the “organism” we call WCV. The aim is simply to help keep us healthy, growing in good ways, and ultimately reproducing – all trademarks of every living thing, whether single-celled organisms, or the body of Christ.
Here are a few diagrams that we hope will help bring clarity to this organizational work, specifically regarding leadership relationships in WCV. While any two-dimensional diagram of a living entity will fail to represent the organism perfectly, we think this does not a bad job. Unlike many organizational charts, this one is tipped over. In other words, while we do have leadership, it’s not a top-down but rather movement oriented. Leadership is meant to help the body follow Jesus more closely and to become more like him in the process as we are led together by the Holy Spirit.
Click on the image to zoom in.
Click on the images to zoom in.
For more specifics on who functions in the various areas, see our About Us page.
Easter is the number one celebration for followers of Jesus. In terms of importance it ranks higher than Christmas – a fact that is lost on most of our children, and, let’s face it, many of us adults too. We just like the cradle more than the cross. In a similar way, we typically skip over the discomfort and pain of Good Friday preferring to jump straight to Easter Sunday – joyfully imbibing all the excitement and energy of the resurrection. We are right to be excited and energized by Jesus’ resurrection (and our eventual resurrection too, by the way!). However, in our excitement for Sunday, we miss the gifts offered in Good Friday and Holy Saturday. If we resist the urge to short-circuit and if we linger in the way of the cross on Good Friday, and the nothingness of Holy Saturday, our celebration on Sunday will take on a whole other quality. It will be enriched in a beautiful way. Light is most brilliant when juxtaposed with darkness.
To that end, we want to invite you to participate in our Good Friday: Into the Shadows experiences. We will have a Walk of the Cross like we haven’t done before. We will journey with Jesus as we consider his final supper in Jerusalem, the agony of the knowledge of what was to come in Gethsemane, his betrayal on the Mount of Olives and his Trial in Jerusalem. As we walk with the physical cross we will stop at various points throughout the neighbourhood to consider our own crosses – find our own ways to connect with Jesus on this guided journey. Wear appropriate attire and walking shoes.
Then we’ll come back to the church for our Good Friday Service (first one ever) and consider and experience his journey to what they called Golgotha, the “place of the skull”, where he was crucified. We will also be with him as they laid his body in the tomb. This service will employ all the senses. It will be a visceral experience. We encourage everyone to participate in both the Walk of the Cross and this service, however if you can’t make it on the walk, you’re still welcome to join this Good Friday service. Children are welcome (we will talk about death and the crucification and will nail our own stuff to the cross, literally, but it won’t be gratuitous).
Our Fasting will begin on Friday continue through Saturday – a day of apparent nothingness, and be broken on Sunday. The seed placed in the ground. Waiting. Our fasting echoes this “giving up” that Jesus did. You can fast for the whole weekend, or part of it. You can choose to fast from food, or anything else you feel God may be inviting you to give up. Ask him. This small sacrifice isn’t to earn favour, nor is it some attempt to somehow twist God’s arm into getting something you want. Rather, it’s a physical act of solidarity with Jesus. It’s a discipline and it’s a pain. Every time your stomach reminds you that you’re hungry (or every time you go to check your phone – if you’re fasting from social media), etc, you can recall what Jesus did and is doing and you can offer a prayer of solidarity to Jesus. When we break the fast on Sunday morning, we are rising with him – emerging from darkness to the glorious light of his resurrection – feasting on the new life he has for us and the whole world!
Resurrection Celebration: Sunday, 10amOf course, this brings us to Easter Sunday. We will party, worship and celebrate his accomplishment all morning – all of us (Downstairs & Upstairs, children and youth all together). Emerging from the shadows of the weekend, and blinking from the dazzling, blinding light of the resurrection, we will celebrate the first glimmers of the new creation – and we’ll invite more (and he’ll show up)!
