Posts that will appear in the weekly WCV Newsletter.
Twice a week we gather together for drop-in, where those of us who are from the neighbourhood fellowship, share a meal, and turn to Jesus together. We’re starting a new series on the words of Jesus, where we’re exploring what he said in the gospel of Luke. Today, Jesus healed a lady who had back pain!
Ace of Spades, Jesus! from WCV on Vimeo.
We are in the process of prayerfully discerning the expansion of our Elder team. Stephen and Gloria Fligg have been serving on the elder team for a number of years and have recently discerned that their time in this role is at an end. They are excited about serving in other areas in the 
Vineyard. We’d like to thank them for the insight, wisdom, care and love they’ve so generously given to the whole community as they have diligently served in the capacity of elders. While they’ll be missed on the team, we’re excited about everything God has for them in the future at the Vineyard!
In the Vineyard, Elders function as overseers who tend to the spiritual health and vision of the community. The Elder team, while not always elders in age, are seasoned leaders and followers of Jesus. There are two kinds of elders in Winnipeg Centre Vineyard – Pastoral Elders and Lay Elders. The Lay Elders (Ben & Debra Kelly and Paul & Sherry Ansloos) keep the big picture in mind and prayerfully seek God for direction and counsel regarding all macro matters relating to church-life. The Pastoral Elders (Riegers, Woods, Rademakers & Labuns) also embrace this role with the added responsibility of implementing the daily tasks associated with the macro. While all the current elders are married couples, this is not a requirement for prospective elders, nor is it even preferable.
Lay Elders meet monthly and commit to a 3-year term.
There are four steps in the process of adding new elders to our current team. There are also a number of considerations and requirements for elders.
The nomination period is now closed. Please continue to pray for wisdom and direction as we build our leadership team.
Here is our current Elder team (click on the pictures to see names):
What a blast! Getting together with 45+ other guys to worship, pray together, have fun, be inspired, make new friends, fire golf balls across the lake, fish, experience God together… Good times.
Below is a quick survey (9 questions – just a few minutes) designed to help us both make it better and evaluate what happened amongst us this year.
Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world’s leading questionnaire tool.
This Fall brings a new preaching series. We’re going to be looking at one particular aspect of Daniel’s life – his prayer life. We’ll ask together, what fuelled his walk with God? What was it that propelled him and his friends to have such confidence in God? What caused him to “open his windows to Jerusalem and pray as he was in the habit of doing”? (Dan 6:10 paraphrase) There are some keys that we’ll explore together over the coming months which we’re confident will revolutionize our own walks with God.
Near the end of this series we are going to have a 30-day Prayer Challenge. During November we will challenge each other to put into practice what we’ve learned from Daniel’s prayer life. There will be daily meditations and practical challenges to implement into our lives. Our vision for this time is that each person involved in the Vineyard would be inspired and given resources to encounter God’s presence in their lives on a daily basis and have it spill out to those around them!
Here is the audio from the opening session at Enlive (Vineyard National Celebration). In it David Ruis shares a salient message for the Vineyard in Canada.
At the recent Enlive National Celebration in Kitchener, Ontario, our good friends and founding pastors David and Anita Ruis were commissioned to lead the Vineyard Canada national team. Here’s a little video from them.
Recap from Vineyard Canada on Vimeo.
Also, here is a letter with more of a reflection on the gathering, their leadership and where they see the Vineyard in Canada going.
You can meet the rest of the Vineyard Canada national team, and the Canadian Vineyard as a whole, here.
A reflection on the recent Canadian Vineyard’s National Celebration by Natasha Boone.
I remember the alarm seeming more obnoxious than usual that morning. Or perhaps I should say that night, as, when the beep-beep-beep of the alarm sounded, our room was still enclosed in night’s deep darkness. We stumbled around at the ungodly hour of 3:45am, in order to catch our early-bird flight out to Kitchener ON.
(The irony of getting up at an ungodly hour in order to catch a flight out to Enlive Vineyard family camp, where we would worship God with many other fellow Vineyardites was not lost on us).
Considering the time of day and likewise having a wiggly 14 month old sitting on our respective laps dropping Cheerios both over us and the person sitting next to us, we did alright.
So we arrive in Toronto, grab our luggage, stuff some food into Jude (14 month old of a wiggly disposition) and set out to Kitchener (about an hour commute). It is about half an hour into the drive and I suddenly had the thought ‘the playpen is missing’. Now, I do not know where this thought came from, as Sean was the one who took care to load the luggage into the car at the rental office. But the thought came floating into my brain, as if sent from above.
Sure enough, the playpen was not in the car.
With the car (eventually) turned around, we silently headed back to the airport. It was discouraging, as we thought that we had been going the right way (to Kitchener) with all the gear that we needed, when in fact, we had been driving for at least half an hour without something that we really needed – Jude’s playpen.
So long story short, we got back the airport, Sean re-traced his steps to the luggage pick-up area, and retrieved our neglected playpen from the nearly empty carousel. We got back on the (now familiar) road and were on our way again, a little dis-heartened, but glad to be moving forward.
So why tell you these details about getting up early, flying to Kitchener with wiggly baby in tow, driving for a bit, realizing that we missed a piece of luggage and so turning around, retrieving said luggage and getting back on track?
Because sometimes it is okay to acknowledge that something vital has been forgotten and steps are need to be taken to go back and ‘get’ that which was left behind.
Cheryl Bear offers a song.
One of the highlights of the Enlive Vineyard Family camp was hearing the guest speaker Cheryl Bear, a woman from the Nadleh Whut’en First Nation in British Columbia, who, alongside her husband, Randy Barnetson, happens to also pastor a Foursquare church in Vancouver. As the Vineyard movement, we have done a lot of things well. Generally speaking, we have followed God’s voice and been submissive to his leading. As Ms. Bear pointed out in her talk, however, we have not given due honour to the Native peoples and culture in our midst. We have not been adequately inclusive and inviting. And this, along with a detailed and thought-provoking teaching on First Nation’s culture itself, is what Ms. Bear brought to the table.
It quieted the room, as conviction usually does.
I, for one, don’t like realizing that I have to do a u-turn. Or, as Ms. Bear, so eloquently said in reference to how the Vineyard movement in general has excluded First Nations (as well as women and Francophones, but that mention came later, during a speech by David and Anita Ruis) “it is ok to change tracks’.
It is okay to change tracks. Much like the realization that the playpen was left on the carousel, waiting to get picked up, it is ok, if not imperative, to turn back and get what is needed. What is missed.
The Vineyard movement needs the First Nations. Women are needed. Francophones are needed. All these, along with who the Vineyard movement is currently being comprised of, are needed.
It is okay to change tracks. It is necessary to go back and get that playpen.
At the end of July, the tribe gathered. Vineyard people from east to west and north to south, from all across our nation came together in what felt like a family reunion (without any of the weird uncle, or the bickering aunt stuff). It was an amazing time of worship, connection, fun, teaching, encouragement and challenge. There were 21 people (ranging in age from 14 months to, well, we won’t say) from WCV who made the trek.
Below are some of the highlights from our organized times together (not to mention paint-ball, pulled pork and water balloons):
Robby Dawkins (Vineyard pastor from Chicago), spoke passionately about healing. He walked us through a powerful time of praying for the sick – many were healed, many were better than before, and others were the same but felt loved. It was great. “We have authority to heal!”
Cheryl Bear (pastor, musician, theologian from Vancouver) shared profoundly on First Nations inclusion in the Vineyard and First Nations ministry issues. Go here for a reflection on this element by Natasha Boone. Cheryl spoke eloquently offering both challenge and explanation towards inclusion of the marginalized voices among us. It was great that her strong voice was heard because the Holy Spirit was certainly speaking through her. “Hope involves work!”
David and Anita Ruis (WCV church planters) were installed as National Team Leaders of Vineyard Canada. They shared their hearts, and encouraged us to “hold on to the centre”. They laid out a track that they and the rest of the National Team feel is the direction God’s calling us as we move into the future. They called us as a movement in Canada to:
Ellie Mumford (Mumford and Son’s mom and the co-director of the Vineyards in the UK and Ireland) roused us saying, “brothers and sisters in the Canadian Vineyard, in my humble opinion Aslan is on the move…!” and that “this is supposed to be fun!” – and it was.
Additionally, Andy led two workshops and Suhail spoke about our very own School of Justice and Noel & Dona shared on the Himalayan Region Vineyards! It truly was a rich time. The next one will be in 2018 in Alberta.
Sept 12 – 14, 2014 @ Lake of the Woods
Let’s get together and enjoy this beautiful spot of creation and each other’s company. Swimming, boating, canoeing, golfing, hiking, camp-fires, late night games & snacks, cannon-balls off the dock into the refreshing waters of Clearwater Bay – there are loads of fun activities we can do together. Plus we’ll have amazing food served up by our talented WCV chefs.
In the midst of having fun together, we’ll get to know each other better. While the whole weekend will be pretty informal, there will be a few times of worship and prayer plus we’ll have the chance to hear a few WCV guys share thoughts that will encourage and inspire us on the topic of experiencing God.
When & Where?Sept 12 – 14. Starts Friday at 7:30pm. Ends Sunday at noon.
Rademaker Cabins on Lindsay Rd, Clearwater Bay, Ontario. 20 minutes east of the Ontario border, just 2km east of Clearwater Bay. Right on Lindsay Rd – drive straight in to fire road 5 or 6.
Cost $50 (partial subsidy available if needed)
Bring sleeping bag, bedding, tent if required. We have limited inside beds (first come basis) but lots of decks for tenting or mats!
Payment with registration: Please include cash or cheque to the church office or Cornelius Martens (payable to “Winnipeg Centre Vineyard”).
It was an amazing celebration. On June 15th we celebrated our fathers, but we also joined a heavenly party for five guys as they took the courageous and public step of baptism. Hearing parts of their stories was deeply moving and seeing them stand side-by-side, on the same level, all in need of (and receiving!) forgiveness was an amazing picture of the kingdom of God. Five guys with incredibly unique and individual stories, yet all finding common ground at the foot of the cross and in the waters of baptism.
Hey folks. Our annual VBS is coming up, July 1 – 5th. Last day to register your child is Thursday June 26th as we are almost at full capacity. Contact Jodi:
[contact-form to=’jodi.wcv@gmail.com’ subject=’VBS Inquiry’][contact-field label=’Name’ type=’name’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Email’ type=’email’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Comment’ type=’textarea’ required=’1’/][/contact-form]
Register Here (click on the image):
Well, it seems like summer is finally here and our schedule is adjusting accordingly. Our Sunday Gatherings during the summer months are special times because they include all the children throughout the whole service. Because of this, we tend to make sure the overall service is about 1/2 hour shorter (10 – 11:15am instead of 10 – 11:45am). We do this by shortening the sermon and cutting out announcements altogether. June 29 will be our first shortened service without organized kid’s church.
Also, we are going to be having just one main gathering downstairs from now until September. The Upstairs Gathering has been a great addition to our regular gathered life together. We’ve observed tremendous value in it and it provides us with lots of room to grow. However, during the lower attendance summer months, it makes more sense to consolidate into one gathering, then begin again with two gatherings in the Fall. June 8 was our last Upstairs Gathering until the Fall.
Another note about children in services: On June 15th we’re going to be celebrating baptisms during the service. The elementary aged children will be part of this service. There will be kids’s church June 22 – which will be the last kid’s church until the Fall.
Finally, we encourage you to continue to find ways to connect, relax and rejuvenate yourself this summer. If your still making summer plans, consider the Enlive National Vineyard Celebration (they only happen once every 4 years!) in Kitchener, ON. It will be a blast.
VBS is happening from July 1 – 5, make sure you check this out and register now.
Also, we’ll be heading out to the farm a few times this summer (July 27 & August 24). If you’ve never been there before, make it part of your plans!
Most of our faith journey is exactly that – a journey. It is the path we walk as we follow Jesus. The early Christians called it “the Way” because they recognized that the path of discipleship was a journey. For most of us, growth happens gradually as we navigate
the twists, turns, ups and downs of our lives. There are, however, punctuated moments and critical junctures along this journey that can play a major role in determining the kind of path we are on and the kind of disciple we are. These events can define our intentions and expose the state of our hearts. Our current series on Peter is designed to explore some of the moments of discipleship Peter faced in his life.
Baptism is one of those moments. One does not slowly become baptized. It is a singular point in one’s history. In fact it’s more than just a moment – it is an act of obedience to anyone who has decided to follow Jesus (often another moment). Jesus, Paul and Peter all had significant things to say about baptism (Mark 16, Romans 6 & 1 Peter 3 respectively). This sacrament which Jesus even participated in himself, is in God’s plans for every one of his children. We explored some of the reasons for baptism and the symbolism behind it in the sermon a few weeks ago (here). Participating in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection are the primary realities demonstrated through baptism. Somehow we can access his post resurrection life now – it can become part of us. This is possible only through his death (which we celebrate during the other primary Christian sacrament of Communion). When we are brought up out of the water, we are cleansed and born into a new community, and are participating with Jesus in his new life! This is why there is often a fresh sense of being filled with the Holy Spirit at the time of baptism.
We are going to have a baptism on Sunday, June 15. If the weather looks good, we’re going to haul the dunk tank out into the Green Space and celebrate together out there after the Sunday gatherings are finished. There will also be a BBQ – yes we know it’s father’s day – but what better day to experience the Father’s love, just like Jesus did at his baptism, than on Father’s day?
If you’ve never been baptized and are a follower of Jesus, we invite you to consider it. Call or contact the office if you’re interested and we’ll be in touch with you.
