Last week my good friend Thom Stout brought 22 teens from Grace Community Church in Washington Court House, OH to our neighborhood. They spent a couple days among us helping in whatever ways they were needed. They slept on the floor in a hot church building, brought almost all of their own food, and put in about 12+ hours of hard labor each. With the two adult chaperones included, the whole group gave away about 300 hours of work to serve us!

Much of their time was spent preparing gardens (especially the new one at Upper Milcrest Park) and cleaning out the basement of the church building.

It would be great if we as a family wrote their youth pastor, Thom Stout, and thanked him / them for the great gift they gave us. You can reach him at violentruth@gmail.com

Peace to you,
Dave

Congratulations, Matt and Renee! Clare was born Thursday morning around 5:15a.  She came into the world weighing 6lb 8oz.  Renee and Clare are doing well.  Let’s provide meals for them until the end of July!  Go claim your date on the meal registry.

Please note that while this is posted by Nathan, the words below are directly those of the Pastoral Council addressed to the wider Vineyard Central community.

The Pastoral Council received a few questions over the past week regarding the status of our Discernment Process and whether or not a new Pastor had been selected to lead VC.

VC has not offered a new paid Pastor role to anyone. Under our current Charter, the VC Board of Trustees is the only group that has the authority to hire paid staff. Related to the discernment process, informal conversations have occurred regarding the effectiveness of past leadership models, and the potential of possible leadership models going forward. No invitations however have been discerned or extended, and will not occur outside of the discernment process. The VC BOT has not met to formally consider this question of paid Pastoral leadership, but will do so as our discernment process progresses.

Our path forward regarding how we choose to be led as a Church includes continuing our Discernment Process about what kind of Church God has called us to be. Assuming we are called to be a Church, it seems likely we will call a Pastor. What the Pastor will be called to will come out of the congregation’s Discernment Process.

Dave, Greg, Jeremy, Owen

On Thursday June 23 Courtland Ave House Church is having a work day at the upper millcrest park. Please consider coming out and helping us if you can. It is going to be potluck dinner.  6:30 -9pm

We will be

• tilling up the picnic area and planting mulch
• Cleaning up the plantings that we already did and maybe adding some annuals
• Planting some more around the bath house

It seems like the best bet for planting around the picnic area would be in planters. Does anyone have any or know where we could get large ones, preferably plastic, or something not glass.

Mulch has been delivered. Picnic tables have been delivered. Now we just need to finish phase 1 of this project!

–

Mary Ellen Mitchell

This is the third in a mini-series of gatherings before Pentecost and in the early Pentecost season focused on knowing the story of Vineyard Central.

We apologize that this event invite has not gone up earlier.
Tonight, June 14th, from 6:30-8 p.m. we will gather at the Speckled Bird and we as a community will continue sharing and listening to the oral history of VC. Those involved in sharing this evening will be those who have joined Vineyard Central’s story in recent years.

We believe that in listening to the story of God’s faithfulness in our collective life together we will come to care more deeply for one another and better understand how God has guided and will guide us as a people

John and Kendra Barrow sent in the following:

We bought our house from a VC friend 9 years ago and would love for it to “stay in the family”, so to speak.

For sale by owner to friends and friends of friends. Brick duplex that can convert to a single family house, located at 1908 Mills Ave, Norwood, OH 45212. Call 368-7752 for appointment.

Downstairs apt has spacious living and dining rooms, hardwood floors and french doors; fully renovated kitchen; full bath; 2 bedrooms. Upstairs apt has 2 bedrooms, living, dining room, office/playroom, compact kitchen, full bath. New windows throughout. Basement with laundry and storage rooms. 2 car garage with carport. Spacious backyard and patio.

The following was sent in by Sandie Brock:

Friends, family, acquaintances….
Some have you may have known us for 20 years or more and never knew that we spent over 15 years of our lives touring in a Christian rock band. Oh my! It seems your past does catch up with you as we are now having a reunion date at a large festival in IL in a mere few weeks!
Attached you will find information on a preview performance being held in Cincinnati on Tuesday, June 28th. We didn’t want anyone to wonder why we never mentioned this show so here it is. If you are scratching your head and saying, “no way, I have to see this” go on and read below. The rest of you can pretend we never mentioned it.
Ideally we would love to gather you all in with us for free and enjoy this experience. Our reality is the costs for this reunion adventure are stacking up fast and we’re hoping to break even. This is a fund-raising event to underwrite some of the costs involved. It is a small venue so we need every seat sold. Thank you for understanding and thank you for your support!
looking forward to the fun,
Owen & Sandie

TICKETS: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/181161
PDF flyer: http://www.servantband.com/SERVANT_CTB_Flyer.pdf
http://servantband.com/
https://www.facebook.com/servantband

Starting this Sunday, June 12, and throughout the season of Pentecost, we will be meeting in the “upper room” studio at the back of St. E’s, and we will be meeting at 10am. These changes are in keeping with what many of you indicated as you as your preferences on the two polls sent out a couple weeks ago. Hope to see you Sunday!

Below you’ll see the order of how our gatherings will progress in the season of Pentecost and following.  This will not always look the same, as we need to provide space for surprises, for God at work in ways that won’t necessarily “fit” the order we’ve set up.  But we trust that this structure for our gatherings provides space for us to, like the movement of the tides, spend time intentionally communicating with and listening to God, and spend time intentionally communicating with and listening to one another. The plan is for the more traditional “worshipy” elements to take about a half-hour, and the conversations to take about an hour.  And as often as house churches and others step up, we will share lunch together.

The discernment team put a lot of thought into the order, seeking to integrate elements of what we have been doing together weekly for months, along with pieces we’ve added in response to strong words we’ve heard (like Dave Barr’s word to practice listening prayer together).  So we hope the order of worship gives space for us to cling to and listen for God speaking to us now and also for us to remember that God has already spoken.

You’ll notice the conversation is included in the order of worship.  The meaning is clear.  Conversation, the  act of listening and speaking thoughtfully, is worship too.

Opening
Call to Worship
Songs
Passing of the Peace
Framing the Conversation
Listening Prayer
Conversation
Eucharist
Closing Song (“Unless the Lord Builds” or “Memory and Hope”)

Hello Vineyard Central brothers and sisters,

We’re on the brink here of the third movement of our Discernment time: Pentecost and following. We’ve had an eye on this time since we began the Discernment period. In a number of ways, as we’ve communicated before, the seasons of Lent and Easter served as preparation over a longer term for the specific conversations we will be having in the season of Pentecost.

We have met weekly, and engaged in rhythms of song, prayer, listening, and Sabbath rest together in our Sunday gatherings.
We have eaten together, sharing a common table that has deepened our conversations with one another and begun to be a space for interaction with others in our neighborhood.
In the season of Lent, we practiced the spiritual disciplines of lament and relinquishment; of at least beginning to sort through the way we feel about VC, about our personal lives and stories as a part of VC’s story.
In the season of Easter, we practiced the spiritual disciplines of proclaiming hope, of seeking to speak out a variety of hopes; hopes that we feel have been dead, hopes of healthy aspects of our community we desire to continue, and hopes that we can organize around a meaningful sense of unity together

As we stated earlier in this process and continually throughout, the weekly commitment to being with one another is not something we take for granted. It has had a leavening effect on us (we hope), opening up space in our relationships where tension and mistrust may have had a negative effect if we had intense conversations right off the bat. Those who have faithfully gathered in this season so far are now more prepared to speak with more courage, to hear with more depth, and to pray with more desperation. If you are reading this, and you have not participated in the process so far, waiting for the conversation time when we finally “talked about what mattered,” you are encouraged to (and will be reminded to) commit to a disciplined period of silence and listening in the larger public forms of our conversation for a period of several weeks as you engage with a process that has been going for a long time now.

We must not take the gift of gathering together for granted, and need to protect the process and God’s work among those who have gathered.

Over the next two (or three) weeks, depending on how the conversation progresses, we will begin our conversation with the opportunity to
1) Offer very concrete, very specific affirmations of where we see health in Vineyard Central, and
2) Offer very concrete, very specific sharing of where our community is compromised, is dysfunctional
In response to these two things, your response might be: “But I thought we addressed these issues in Lent and Easter?” We did, to a degree, but we spoke in broader contours, in more general statements as we tried to embrace the process. The next several Sundays, we’re encouraging one another to be systematically, rigorously specific with our thoughts. This is no hoping for what could be, or general lament for what has not been. It is a commitment to specifically affirm specific aspects we see as healthy in the present, and it is a commitment to specifically state specific dysfunctions or sickness we observe in the present. Do you hear the word specific?  

The seasons of Lent and Easter served as opportunities to deal with these issues in a more general, broad categories kind of way. The season of Pentecost offers us the challenge now to be courageous, to be truthful, to be transparent, to deal with what is without hemming and hawing around. Because if our community is compromised, and if we desire healing and hope, we cannot afford to fail to deal clearly with what is.

We cannot afford to maintain where we are at right now.

So, we hear the words of God proclaimed to us as God proclaimed them to Joshua when he was faced with the giant task of following Moses as the leader of Israel. He felt inadequate, afraid, struggling to hope and trust. God said,

“Be strong and very courageous… Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Dear friends, neighbors and folks we have yet to meet,

Over the past several years we (Erin and Robert) have come to know our primary vocation as that of tending land, raising food and growing in love for the people of our respective neighborhoods.  As our lives now come together in Norwood, we are learning more deeply the goodness and challenge of this work.  This summer, we are tending several pieces of land around our neighborhood and hope to share the food with you.

As we participate in the raising and harvesting of this food, we are humbled by excess rain and heat, by our sore muscles and tired bodies.  There are days when our slow work seems absurd in our fast-paced, labor-saving society, when entrusting a seed to soil in the hopes of its coming to life truly tests our faith.  But as we press into these realities, we are coming to know the goodness of embracing our limitations and relinquishing control.

Hours of work give space for rhythms of prayer; shoots of green speak of God’s great provision.  Indeed, the food you receive will carry the story of February afternoons spent bent over trays of cabbage and Swiss chard transplants, of potatoes buried with friends on Good Friday, of curious robins who scour our upturned soil for worms and grubs, of people who pass by to say hello or pull weeds, of the wonder that comes from pulling a fat radish from its hiding place amongst the carrot tops.

As we learn to receive God’s bountiful provision we are being reoriented to the freedom Christ offers – a freedom that liberates us from fears of scarcity and releases us to share the gifts we’ve been given.  We want to invite you to participate in this story of abundance by offering you a weekly share of the harvest.  It is our hope that this food will not only nourish you bodily, but also be a means of God’s grace to you and to those with whom you share your table.

(None of this would be possible were it not for the support, generous hospitality, and radical Christian commitment of several friends within the Vineyard Central Community.)

___________

The program:
For eighteen weeks, beginning Tuesday, June 21 and continuing into mid-October, we are going to do our darndest to provide weekly shares for 15 interested households.  The shares are available at a suggested donation of $25 per box, or $450 for the season, but please give as you are able and feel led.  While we need to earn income from our work, we do not wish to out-price those who are interested in receiving but who cannot afford our recommended donation amount for the season.  Having led a successful food share program like this in Vancouver, Canada our hope is that some people will feel free to receive even though they can not afford the suggested amount while others freely and anonymously give more.  We have faith that this economic model can work and bring life here.

Regardless of how much you can give, we want to share our harvest with all who desire to partake, trusting that God will provide all of us with enough.  The non-profit, Woven Oak Initiatives,* will be serving as our fiscal agent, and will keep in confidence the details of all monies given.

Ways you can participate:
Volunteer—We will hold weekly volunteer days every Thursday from 9 a.m. to noon.  If you would like to participate in these, please contact us and we will provide further details.

Sign up for a share— Community Supported Agriculture programs, such as ours, often receive payments at the beginning of the growing season. Our preference is similar: a single donation at the beginning of this distribution season.  If this does not work for you, we can certainly come up with another arrangement.

You may also want to consider splitting a share with someone else.  Whatever the case, we are asking for a commitment to the entire season, rather than buying a box week by week.

What you can expect to receive in your weekly share:
You will receive fruits and vegetables as they come into season.  Right now, we’re harvesting the cool season crops (radishes, leafy greens, peas, green garlic, bok choi); soon we’ll receive broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, turnips, cabbages, green onions, carrots, beets.  In the middle of summer, you may expect cucumbers, squash, basil, tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers; and in the fall, sweet potatoes, bulb onions, and winter squash.

Of course this list is by no means comprehensive or exact.  We’re asking you to journey with us through any unexpected twists and turns this growing season may bring, trusting along with us, that there will be enough.  Perhaps there will be an abundant harvest and you’ll get more than you can eat in a week; perhaps it will be a thin season and your weekly box will be lighter than we’d like it to be.  We recognize that in inviting you into this program, we’re asking you to take a risk in faith.  We are grateful for your support of the larger vision behind this project, hopeful that with your participation, it might take root and grow to maturity.

With hope and gratitude,
Erin and Robert

Erin: 630-401-6132 (fishintut@gmail.com)
Robert: 513-351-0751 (wagtraumen@hotmail.com)

Some logistics for participation:
Please contact us by Thursday, June 16th if you wish to sign-up for a weekly share.  Donations can be made to Woven Oak Initiatives* and may be mailed to:

Woven Oak Initiatives
c/o Joshua Hanauer,
3904 Spencer Ave
Norwood, OH 45212

(Please write “food” in the memo line)

The first vegetable pick-up will take place on Tuesday, June 21 (location in Norwood TBD) from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.  This pick-up time will continue throughout the summer.  If you are not able to come at this time, please make arrangements for someone else to pick up your box of vegetables.

___________________
*WOI is a Christian non-profit located in our neighborhood that has generously offered to serve as our fiscal agent.

This coming Saturday night Dave & Jody Nixon will host/guide at the Convent an extended time of prayer for Vineyard Central. Start time is 7:00 p.m. End time is 1:00 a.m. Six hours total. Come as you’re able and for as long as you’re able, even if that’s only 30-60 minutes. This is a space for us as a community to do that thing of “waiting on God” as we enter into this final season of our community discernment. (Because of the late hours, this is an adult-only affair. Parents of children might consider tag-teaming so that both spouses can be present at different times.) If you have further questions, please contact Jody Nixon.

One of the purposes of this “middle trimester of discernment” was to unearth and voice the various hopes we carry as a community of faith. During this Easter season and the lead-up to Pentecost we’ve been encouraged to name living hopes as well as dead ones, those that are currently in our hearts and those we’ve let die. We felt it important to name the latter because we are “people of the resurrection.” We believe God can put flesh on dry bones and breathe life into those bodies.

The expression of those hopes has taken place during our weekly worship/discernment gatherings, during house church conversations, at the Speckled Bird on Tuesday nights, over dinner tables, and in many smaller impromptu conversations around the neighborhood. Some of these have been recorded, but I suspect most have not, and that what we do have is just the tip of the iceberg. And I suspect that the quieter ones among us, those who feel more inhibited in the sometimes fast-paced and free-flowing conversations and need more time to reflect, might enjoy a forum like this, a less intimidating venue for stating their hopes in writing and for the benefit of others.

So this is simply another collection basket for the naming of hopes.

Here are the 7 Rules of Engagement:

1 State your hope as concisely as possible in the “comment box” below. (Most people don’t have time or energy to read lots of long, long posts.) Ask God to help you discern the primary hope(s) you carry (or carried) and then to express that as clearly and succinctly as possible. (E.g. “I have longed to have a very clear understanding of what it means to be a member of Vineyard Central, to have a written document that names our responsibilities toward God, each other and our neighbors, something that we’re willing to agree to publicly, sign and live into.”)

2 Be specific and concrete, not vague and general. (E.g., “My hope is that we’ll love our neighbors better” is general and vague. It sounds (and is) noble and inspiring, but it also doesn’t give a clear picture of what that means to you. “My hope is that each and every member of Vineyard Central will embrace the practice of inviting a (non-Vineyard Central) neighbor into his/her home on a weekly basis for the purpose of sharing a meal and building a relationship” is specific and concrete.

3 State your hope positively, not negatively. This isn’t a forum (nor should there be any kind of forum) for taking potshots or criticizing. (E.g., “I wish we weren’t so unstructured / unorganized!” or “I wish the ‘leaders’ would do a better job of seeing that the children in our community are cared for!”

4 Ask yourself if you’re willing to contribute to the realization of the hope you name. If you’re not, if you believe it’s the responsibility of others and that your job is just to name what you want in place in order to make your life easier or better, reflect on whether you should post.

5 If you have several different hopes, try to state them so that each can be heard on its own and stand in its own spotlight.

6 Sign your name to your hope. This isn’t anonymous. We should be willing to say who we are. (BTW, “frustrated parent” or “disgruntled member” aren’t good examples of first and last names.)

7 If you’ve already voiced your hope(s) in a different setting, we’d love to have them restated in writing.

_____________

Let the naming begin. Peace to you,
Dave Nixon