VC Calendar

Here's what's coming up:

Weekly
Monday - Friday
Fixed Hour Prayer
Morning Prayers 7:30 am - 7:45 am
Midday Prayers 12:00 pm - 12:15 pm
Compline 9:00 pm - 9:15 pm
In the St. E auditorium

Sunday
Weekly Worship Gathering
10:00 am
In the St. E auditorium
More info here

Monthly

May
9th- Extended worship night in the St. Elizabeth auditorium. Starts at 8pm and goes until 10ish. Contact Janet with questions at janetpressley@msn.com or 513-263-0377.

14th- Join us Wednesday evenings beginning May 14 from 9:15pm-10:30ish to watch our favorite episodes of Arrested Development (all of them). We'll go through September to watch all the episodes! Suggested donation of $3 or 3 canned goods per night goes to Save Elizabeth building fund or food bank. Save our Bluths, Save Elizabeth.

16th- Friday night cookouts will kick off May 16 from 6pm-??? This year we will host them in conjunction with Speckled Bird Cafe. The Bird will provide inexpensive grilled items, and of course the best coffee and cold beverages in town! Cornhole on the piazza, maybe even some rock band in St. E's. Click here for more info.

30th- Extended worship night in the St. Elizabeth auditorium. Starts at 8pm and goes until 10ish. Contact Janet with questions at janetpressley@msn.com or 513-263-0377.


Resources
'We get many requests and frequently asked questions such as:
• Are there other house churches in the US you would recommend?
• How does your budget work?
• What suggestions would we have for a house church being planted?
• What suggestions would you have for living communally?
• What books would we recommend?

So we created this page to help provide some of those answers. There's a recommended book list and web sites for some of our friends. We'll add to it as life goes on. Enjoy!

You can view our latest budget info here: 2008 Budget.

Notes of the 2008 Budget
One of the frequently asked questions we get is, "how do your finances work"? Well, it depends when you asked the question. Recently, Vineyard Central has changed how we handle our financial life together as our journey of faith together has grown and changed.

In the recent past, we pushed almost every financial decision down to the lowest possible level with almost all tithing, giving, and spending occurring at the house church level. Our network operating needs were met by a monthly pledge from the house churches back to the larger Vineyard Central network. While this served us well for a time, some problems began to be highlighted as our network grew and changed. House churches are by their very nature fluid, flexible and living organisms. They birth, they die, they expand and they contract -- and they must be allowed to do so in order to remain healthy. As Vineyard Central grew and changed and tried to do things like add a weekly worship gathering, steward and restore a beautiful building, or share weekly community meals, we found ourselves with a system of finances that was no longer serving us well. We were asking an organism that is fluid by nature (house churches) to make long term financial commitments to cover fixed operating costs that they were ill equipped to make. It did not seem like a very natural fit; so we’ve decided to change that.

As of January 2008, the Board of Trustees has decided to set one budget for our financial life together. Rather than having separate Building Funds, Weekly Worship Gathering Funds, Leadership Funds, House Church Operating Funds, etc., we are moving towards one unified operating budget to guide our finances. Now, when money comes in; whether that is from renting space in our building, or from Sunday morning giving, or from house church members, it goes into our general funds and is distributed according to our budget. 

We still want our house churches to have a financial life together and to be empowered to make decisions together about how best to use their resources in a way that advances the Kingdom of God and blesses the world. Therefore, each VC house church still has its own bank account, but rather than asking each house church to commit to a specific monthly pledge back to VC to support the network’s operating expenses, a percentage of all tithes given by a member of that house church will be used by the wider network and a percentage will be returned to that specific house churches for their use.

Since this system is a change for our community, we plan to review and revise our policies, our percentages, and this budget each quarter to make sure we are being good stewards of our funds. This budget covers all of the expenses that cover our life together as a network, including such things as: Sunday community lunches, utility costs, partial salaries, insurance, facility repairs, etc. We believe it is fairly self explanatory, but below are a few notes that may help to clarify a few items:

• We expect the majority of our giving to outreach and missions to occur at the house church level as these groups are in closest contact with various needs. Therefore, there is not a specific category that covers this type of giving in our network budget.
• VC gives 3 percent of all donations to the Vineyard USA Church. This comes off the top of all donations given to Vineyard Central.
• VC acts as a missions support organization for specific missionaries and organizations that we believe in and want to support administratively and financially. Money given to these organizations does not appear in this budget as those funds are outside of our normal operating budget. VC keeps a small percentage of all funds to help cover administrative costs.
• While there are minimal funds that are budgeted for the restoration of Saint Elizabeth, our hope is that funds can be raised specifically for this purpose that will supplement the budgeted funds.
• While the Board of Trustees is ultimately responsible for financial decisions, a small Finance Team has been appointed to deal with the day to day issues that arise.

More FAQs:

What's a house church?
First and foremost it is a church. We add the adjective ‘house’ because for most people the word ‘church’ conjures up images of large buildings and large gatherings. (We have those too but that’s not what we’re talking about right now.) Some other common ways of referring to these smaller gatherings are simple church, organic church, and home church. The main thing as you can see is the noun 'church.' It's not merely a bible study (though we do study scripture together) and it's not merely a support group (though they are supportive groups). They are intended to be holistic, spiritual communities, offering a range of shared practices and relationships. So a Vineyard Central house church is a Christ centered community that meets weekly to be the church. There are several common elements that work their way into these times though not necessarily every week. Some of the things you will find in most of our churches most of the time include shared meals, worship with songs and prayers, sharing stories of God's activity in our lives, supporting each other via listening and prayer, learning together by engaging with Scripture, communion, and being on mission together.

Why do we have weekly services?
This is a very important question for us and one that we've wrestled with over the years. In fact we've had long stretches of our history with no weekly, large corporate gatherings. We'll state upfront that we strongly believe that our home churches are truly churches and that long term they are the best avenues for developing a relationship with Christ and with us. Having said that we also recognize the value of larger gatherings at this time in our history for a few key reasons. First, not everyone is comfortable walking into someone's home and meeting a group of complete strangers in that somewhat intimate setting where everyone already knows each other. So these larger gatherings are onramps for those who want to get to know us a bit first before committing to that smaller gathering. Second, we love the neighborhood where we are based and we've found that having a public face matters to them and speaks to them of our commitment to be in this place for them. Thirdly, there are some unique things that a larger gathering accomplishes better than a smaller gathering like celebration in song and messages from teachers who are trained and gifted to share from Scripture.

What about kids?
Kids matter to us. We have many kids at our Sunday gathering and at several of our smaller gatherings throughout the week as well. Each house church decides how they will nurture the children within their own context so it's kind of case by case as those go. As for the larger gatherings we include the children in part of the adult worship and then they go off for a time tailored for them. Every week we open our time together with a song the kids can readily connect with. The kids seemed to enjoy watching the adults doing hand motions that the kids mastered years ago. 

Who's in charge?
That's a tough one because the honest to goodness answer sounds so flippant and like we're evading the question. So, the short and long answer to this question is: Jesus is in charge. We mean that. We spend a considerable amount of time especially at critical junctures in our life together determining what his will is via listening prayer and searching the scriptures. We also recognize that God calls people to work with him in leading his church: pastors, teachers, prophets, and elders to name a few. We have human leaders as well. We have a board of trustees who cares for the legal matters of being an organization, handling money, and owning property. We also have a pastoral council made up of trusted, proven leaders who are skilled at discerning what the community as a whole needs and seeking God's will for our collective calling. There are leaders in our house churches as well who guide these smaller communities, the core of our life together. So, who's in charge? Well, the short answer is Jesus and whoever he gifts with influence at any given time. We do have a senior pastor we call Kevin. And we have a pastoral council called David, Juli, Jesse, Ryan, Kevin, Sandie, Owen, Aaron, Sarah, Jeremiah, and one more Sarah. And there's also the board of trustees called Kevin, Owen, and Dave. And of course there's our beloved Leadership Council made up of our house church leaders. For more info on these click here. But we hope you know that the real answer is... you guessed it: Jesus. He's the One we love and follow.

Do we have office staff, payroll, etc?
For a long time we didn't have any pastors on payroll. Recently we've developed the Leadership Sustainability Fund for folks who choose to do so to donate toward a salary for Kevin so he can devote more time to leading Vineyard Central. He receives a small monthly stipend from this fund. We also pay a small fee for bookkeeping and for web site maintenance and some general administrative duties. We sometimes raise support for leaders or projects, asking specific donors to contribute above and beyond their regular giving to this specific cause.

How is outreach cared for?
Mostly through our house churches. Some through living in the neighborhood. A house church might decide to do a service project together, choose a date and time, buy whatever supplies they need, and go for it. For example, recently St. Elizabeth House Church decided to clean up some graffiti in the 'hood, so they bought paint and other supplies and did so in lieu of their regular meeting one week. Occasionally all the house churches might work together to plan a larger event, like a neighborhood grill out, and all pitch in to buy supplies and take time to serve together. Also, because many of us live in the immediate neighborhood, we get to know our neighbors and therefore know of specific needs they might have. We can bring these needs to our house churches to help care for them, or someone might just provide a meal or babysit or give some other type of service to a neighbor. There are also some new mission efforts that we're participating in.

What's the best way to connect with a house church?
Check out our page with the current list of house churches, choose one, get in touch with the contact person, and go visit. It's okay to visit more than one, then choose one that best works out for you. Also, you can come to our Sunday morning gathering where you can meet people who are in house churches, ask questions, and make connections to one you might like to visit.

Copyright 2008 • Vineyard Central
1757 Mills Avenue, Norwood, OH 45212 • 513-396-7202