The Origins and History of Vineyard Central
and St. Elizabeth’s

Edited and compiled by Eric Hansen
from an interview with Dave and Jody Nixon and Kevin and Tracy Rains

Audio version of this story can be heard here.

This is the story of Vineyard Central. It explores how this “community of house churches” was formed and how it became the owner of St. Elizabeth’s, a former Catholic building. As you will see, it is a story of prayer and faith.

During 2006, the team working to restore St. Elizabeth’s began meeting, and in our meetings, we often wondered how and why VC purchased St. Elizabeth’s. We knew there had been some kind of prayer vigil, but that’s about all we knew.

To learn the whole story, we had a dinner meeting in early December, 2006, with the VC leaders who were present in the beginning of the church and at the time of the purchase. The St. Elizabeth’s team at the dinner included: Leslie and Russ Nixon, Eric and Elaine Hansen, Gina Scott, and Mandy McLaughin. The Vineyard Central leaders present were David and Jody Nixon and Kevin and Tracy Rains.

As David told it, the Vineyard Central story begins in January of 1991, when Kevin and David first met during a church planting internship at Vineyard Community Church in Springdale.

At that time, David was a graduate student at UC, studying classics. The Nixons were living in Norwood, north of what’s known as the Norwood Lateral. David was working with a small congregation, Church of Christ, a median age of about 60, about 60 people in the congregation that had a history of hiring graduate students.

David: “As we were discerning where to plant, we thought, ‘Look where you are first.’ And as we thought more specifically about that, we thought this (West Norwood) was the area that seemed to have the highest need. West Norwood was considered sort of the arm pit of Norwood. We were over here, doing things -- outreaches, block parties, that kind of stuff – and we had a couple groups. So there was this unofficial stirring of the pot, trying to form a team that would come together and plant (the church). That was happening in late 1992.”

The official planting was in January of 1993. David and Jody launched Vineyard Central, holding Sunday services in the cafeteria in the basement of the West Norwood Community Center across from St. Elizabeth’s. The church had a good relationship with Jerry Osterman, director of the center, and got to use the space at no charge.

David: “I remember we started with 41 people. Within a year, we went from that number to consistently, about 95, and in January of ‘94, we moved up to the gym.”

Kevin and Tracy had gone to California after the church planting internship. They returned to the area in 1994 and entered the story of Vineyard Central.

David: “We were having a party with some of the people just trying to encourage people in our first year of church planting. We decided to order pizza, and Kevin delivered it.”

Kevin: “When we came back from California, Tracy was working in a day care. I had some connections in Norwood, because my last year of high school was at Norwood Baptist Christian School just a few blocks from here. Somebody said, well if you’re looking for a job, Donato’s Pizza is hiring, so I took it. It paid the bills.”

Jody. “First you delivered pizza to our apartment, and the next Sunday we walked into Donato’s and you were there.”

Kevin: “Was that intentional?”

David: “No. We didn’t think you were going to be there.”

The Nixons invited the Rains to join Vineyard Central. And they did. At that time, it was not yet a community of house churches, but just a “typical” Vineyard Church having “typical” Sunday morning services – sort of.

Kevin: “They were not too typical, because we hung parachutes from the walls”

David: “We did it to dampen the sound. It was this big, boxy place. We had café tables. We had a really excellent worship leader. My messages were conversational and we had kind of a cool vibe. And it was the hip place to be. Really. Early on the word on the street was ‘Hey. There’s this new thing happening over in Norwood.’”

Kevin: “Yeah. And the evidence for that was we got a lot of musicians and artists and a lot of young couples and young singles.”

Tracy: “Not many children.”

David: “Yeah. We (the Nixons) were the only ones with children at the time. We (the VC community) were about 70 percent single, and the average age at that time was probably about 25 years old.”

In August of 1994, while on a business trip in Cleveland, David got a call from Jody. The West Norwood Community Center had been condemned. Vineyard Central was allowed to hold one more meeting, and then the building was going to be closed.

David: “We had to come up with a plan. The leadership team got together, and we prayed. We took time to say, ‘Lord, what do you want us to do?’ We discerned that we were to begin meeting in homes. And that was all we understood.

“So, that next Sunday morning, nobody really knew that the building had been condemned. Everybody’s walking in, thinking it’s sort of a normal Sunday. Except that now we had to crowd down into the cafeteria because they had already chained off the second and third floor. So now, we are down in the basement. We had 150 people packed into this cafeteria, and we had to tell them we no longer had use of this building as of the end of this meeting.”

The VC leaders explained that they had prayed and discerned that they were to begin meeting in homes. They said anyone who was uncomfortable the format could leave, no questions asked. They then asked those remaining to gather in one of five locations within the cafeteria according to the geography of where they lived. The groups were instructed to have a conversation and pray whether they had the energy and resources to form a group, with volunteers for the following five roles: a group leader, an assistant group leader, a worship leader, a host home, and someone to watch the children. No one was allowed to take more than one role.

After about 30 minutes, the leadership went to each group, asked if they had volunteers, took down the names, prayed for each group, and released them to begin meeting in homes. The leadership promised they would stay in contact and would come back together as a large group at the end of a month.

David: “Kevin became the leader of what was probably the most energetic group.”

Kevin: “We actually named them by geography. They were all called Vineyard Central. I remember that being important to me. I know I felt like I had been part of a church planting that morning.”

Jody: “You were Vineyard Central Southside.”

Kevin. “Exactly. I just adored that name.”

In September, one month later, VC leadership rented part of the Fun Factory warehouse on Sherman so all of the groups could gather. Kevin and Tracy decorated the warehouse with balloons, confetti, and string. At the meeting, older children put on roller skates — that was the children’s ministry — while the adults met in another room of the Fun Factory.

David: “I think really there were a lot of people who came thinking, well, this was cool, this was a fun month, now they probably have a place, and we’ll go back to regular meetings. But really the message was, ‘You know what, we’re going to do this a while longer.’”

Over the next five or six months, the 150 people who had been present at the meeting when the home groups formed — they were not yet called house churches — dwindled to about 60 people.

The VC community continued to meet in homes weekly and have monthly meetings at the Fun Factory until November, 1994. The whether was turning cold, the building itself was just a large, dark, warehouse, and it took a lot of work to set up and tear down each month. The VC community started looking for a new location to hold the monthly meetings.

David: “We had, I believe it was in late November, an all night prayer meeting. We invited anyone who wanted to come, and the focus of that prayer was, ‘Lord, could you give us a better space for the kids’. I remember it was a Friday night, and it started at 9 p.m. and finished at 6 a.m. When it finished I cooked a big pancake breakfast.”

The next Monday morning, David received an unsolicited phone call from the Diocese of Cincinnati.

David: “(The diocese said) we have this property that we would like to offer to you to stay in free and to use free for the next six months.

(I asked), “You mean, we could live their for free in the priest quarters?

(They answered), “Yeah, you’ll have to pay the utilities and basic maintenance, but you can (live there rent free) and you can use the (St. Elizabeth’s) building.”

At the end of the six months, David said, the diocese was hoping we the VC community would make an offer on the building.

VC leadership had had some prior contact with the local priests and had walked through the building at one point, but they had not had any other contact with the diocese and had not thought about trying to buy the compound. The offer to move in was unexpected but welcome, as it eased both some of personal financial burdens and provided Vineyard Central with a home and the community had a better meeting place for the children

The Nixon family (Jody, David, and three children) moved into the priests’ quarters (now called The Brown House) in December, 1994. The VC community had its first meeting at St. Elizabeth’s in that same month. They were not using the main cathedral, but the back part of the church, which is fairly easy to heat. The children were in one of the rooms, and the adults meet in the larger room on the second floor.

Six months pass. It was time to decide if the VC community wanted to buy St. Elizabeth’s

David: “You have to imagine: 60 people in their mid-20s. Nobody has a real job. They’re all artists, writers, poets, musicians. Bohemians. That’s it.

“So now it’s the end of the six months, and the diocese is saying, ‘Well, would you like to buy it.’ And we’re saying, ‘Yes we would, but we really don’t have any money right now, could you give us a three-month extension?’”

At the end of that extension, the diocese’s leaders again asked if the VC community wanted to the church.

David: “We said we’ll buy it if you sell it to us for $10,000. Totally laughable. And we were just hoping they would say, ‘Aww. Isn’t that sweet. Let’s just give it to ‘em.’

“To the contrary, they were outraged.”

The diocese wanted $250,000 for the property. They gave the Nixon’s a court order, telling them they had to leave the St. Elizabeth’s complex within so many days, or the diocese would call the authorities to physically evict them.

Jody: “When they first said that, we kind of gave up. We felt pretty discouraged. We went to the zoo; we just kept going to the zoo; we took our kids to the zoo. We started driving around Norwood looking for another place to live and figured it was over. And we got a letter that kind of changed everything.”

The letter was from a young, shy, quiet Xavier student who lived in the neighborhood.

David: “I guess she had been up a good bit of the night, and she wrote a letter saying something to the effect that, ‘I am a person of Norwood, and I think it’s significant that you guys were brought here. And I think it’s significant that this building has been offered to you.’ It was just this sort of great, encouraging letter saying, ‘I think God wants you to fight for it.’”

Jody: “It was powerful. We did a big about face.”

David; “The next concrete action that took place was gathering people to pray, saying, ‘We don’t have money. We don’t know what to do. Let’s just get everybody together to pray.’

“So, we had seven nights of prayer. It was late. I think it was 9:30 to 10 every night, whoever could come. We stood around the entire building, and we held candles, and we just prayed. Facing the building, we prayed. Silent prayer. And the general prayer was just sort of, ‘Lord, would you give us this.’

“And then, on the seventh night, everybody turned outward. And people probably drove by and thought: ‘Who are these whackos?’

Tracy: “That’s where our cult status came in.”

Jody: “We had little cards that we passed out. And when people came up to ask, we just handed them a card.”

David: “Right. It was silent. There was not to be any talking. On the last night, turning out, the prayer was oriented toward the neighborhood. It was, ‘Lord, if we can be faithful here, over the long haul, if we can be your people in this neighborhood, then let us have this.’”

After each session, everyone would come inside. There were a few worship songs, and those praying would share what they sensed during the time of prayer.

David: “So the deadline is approaching for us to be out. We’ve had this prayer meeting. And a business man came to us and said I’ll underwrite any loan, co-sign, up to a quarter million.”

The businessman’s resources were sufficient to satisfy any bank.

David: “We got together again to pray. We asked ‘What can we really offer. Honestly, what can we pull off?’ I know it will seem laughable to many of you, with higher prices (for property today), but we said $110,000 was the most we could do.”

“So we submitted our offer. And within several hours we heard back from them: ‘Yes. That’s good, but we get the convent.’”

Kevin, David, and Linford Detweiler (of the band Over The Rhine) were at Detweiler’s apartment in Over the Rhine. David turned to Kevin and Linford and asked what they thought. According to David, it was Kevin and Linford who insisted that they needed to have the entire property, including the convent. They three of them decided to make a counteroffer: $150,000 for the church building, the priests’ quarters, and the convent.

David: “And then it was just a waiting game. I think we stayed there all afternoon and waited just for that phone call. And finally they came back and said, ‘It’s a deal.’ So, then it was a matter of just finalizing that but — a $150,000 with commercial loan – 25 percent down. Now, this very young, small, and poor church had to come up with $37,500 – quickly.”

Jody: “So we had another prayer meeting about that.”

Kevin: “It’s back when we had to pray. It just keeps hitting me. We had nothing but prayer. That’s all we could do.”

Jody: “And at that meeting, we (the Nixon’s) kind of started the process by deciding to sell our really nice Volvo — that I loved. So, that’s what we said we were going to do. And then it was fairly miraculous what other people came back with.”

The Rains, for example, gave the money they had been saving for an extended vacation. Others also gave savings or other assets toward the down payment. Vineyard Tri-county chipped in $2,500. The down payment was cobbled together the down payment from small pieces -- $1,000 here, $2,500 here.

David: “So that was the purchase of the property. And I think if you ask, what was the vision for it, I think the honest thing I can say is there was no vision for it. It was more of a sense of, ‘We’re supposed to have this. We don’t really know why.’

“For a lot of people, it didn’t make sense. Why would you guys want to do this because it’s a huge building? There’s all kinds of liability with it. It’s in an area of town that you’re never going to draw lots of people to. You have no parking … and you mostly live out of your home churches.”

“It didn’t make sense looking at it from a number of angles. The only thing I could respond to that was, to the best of our knowledge, we felt like the Lord was saying, ‘Go for it.’ That’s all we can say. Looking back on it, it felt like buy-in to the neighborhood. Sort of like how a couple comes together and then they have a baby. And then it’s like: ‘Now we gotta be responsible.’ That’s sort of what it felt like.

“I think at times it (the building) has been a big distraction. But I’ve always just sort of held the hope, and I think Kevin and others have, that we would grow into it. A very defining passage for me comes from Richard Foster’s book, ‘Celebration of Discipline.’ It says goals are discovered, not made.”

“There’s a way of life that says you make the five-year plan, strategic objectives. And you sit down and you go, bop bop bop bop bah, and you do all of this and then you just go after it. And that is a way of doing things. And you can get a lot done that way.

“I think maybe more how we’ve operated in the past is, ‘Well, what is the Lord saying? And do we have to understand it all? Can we just do something and then trust that maybe it’s going to take 10 years to understand what this was all about?’

“We’re okay with that, but I think to many other people, it’s very frustrating.”

In 2002, Vineyard Central sold the convent to Community House, which was the communal aspect of VC at the time. That sale allowed VC to pay off the mortgage on the church building and own it outright. In 2004, the Rains bought the brown house from Vineyard Central.

This left VC liable for only the sanctuary property.

In 2005, Community House dissolved as a legal entity. The Nixons bought the convent from Community House before it dissolved.

By selling the properties and getting them classified as residential property (they had been classified as commercial when the church owned them), they are no longer subject to annual inspections by the city of Norwood.

The buildings were purchased with the agreement that if the owners ever were to need to sell them, they would first offer them to Vineyard Central to keep them "in the family".

Vineyard Central now owns the St. Elizabeth building outright, and does not have to make mortgage payments. The artists rent the space in the back, which helps pay utility and maintenance costs.

In the time since VC purchased St. Elizabeth’s, the cathedral has been used to varying degrees. At times, it was used for weekly Saturday night meetings. It has been host to concerts and art shows. For around two years, the VC community used it weekly to hand out bags of groceries to the neighborhood. Since January of 2006, there have been Sunday morning meetings.

But it has been left vacant, uncared for, and unheated at times.

Kevin: “Part of our desire to live into the idea that we are a network of home churches meant that we could not be building centric. We could not let that become a focus if we were truly going to be a network of home churches. So for a while it was almost seen as a distraction or a competition with the central piece of our calling.

“(But), I don’t think it is any longer. I think what happened during that season is it gave us time to establish the culture, if you will, of Vineyard Central that it is going to be a network, a cluster of home churches.

“We’ve been meeting in that building (on Sunday morning) for about a year, and something we discuss in our weekly gathering team meetings is that we are somewhat amazed and grateful that beyond belief that meeting in that building, having that building, is blessing the home churches. We’ve been able to birth several new groups this past year, and I attribute that to people gathering on Sunday mornings. It’s given people stability. We have this Sunday morning gathering, so it’s easier to launch into a group.

“In my mind there’s kind of a thread, and I hadn’t made this connection this strongly until tonight, but as Dave was talking about, and as Jody was talking about turning outward with those candles – there’s a thread that runs from that moment in time to what we are doing now on Sunday mornings and what we are doing to try to re-hab the building.

“It’s for the neighborhood.”

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