Ontario Regional Thoughtworks Blog

I Haven't Gone Anywhere

2012-02-14T09:16:00.002-05:00

Just a heads up, cause I know you've probably missed seeing weekly posts here. That will resume shortly.

In the meantime I wanted to let you know that I am recruiting a team of Vineyard folk who are interested in keeping the content flowing. This will correspond to a move from this blog being the Ontario regional blog to the National ThoughtWorks blog. So far I have a good representation from the East lined up and am working on some Ontario folk. If you are interested in being part of the team contact me so that I can share some of the details with you. As always, any one off contributions you wish to submit will be joyfully received.

On another note, I am wondering about how helpful it would be to have a closed forum for preachers and teachers to interact with Vineyard theologians for the purpose of offering constructive critique on sermons and messages? I think it would be mutually beneficial as theologians need to have that interface with what people are actually wrestling with in our movement and often working pastors do not have the same opportunity to research their sermons as they would like. I am thinking that messages and sermons could be given feedback post congregational delivery (so if you record your messages we'd have a place for you to submit that) or pre-delivery if you put it up on the forum a week or so before you were planning on sharing. I think it could also be a good and safe place for teachers and preachers to wrestle through theological implications with like-minded theologians.

This idea came from an email conversation with a pastor who joined the Society of Vineyard Scholars facebook page to ask for just such help. If there is enough interest in the Canadian context then I will pursue trying to develop something to meet this need, possibly as a project that taps into the theological wealth of the SVS as well as our own ThoughtWorks network. What I need to know is if this seems like a good allocation of our resources (time mainly) in providing theological mentoring for our churches in Canada? You tell me.

As always the ThoughtWorks team is here to help our congregations grow in faithfulness to God and to equip the saints for all that our great God desires for us to accomplish.

Frank Emanuel, Pastor Freedom Vineyard, Ottawa.

Theology and Worship

2012-01-09T09:02:00.000-05:00

I would like to post a series of reflections on the intersection of theology with other aspects of our faith lives: worship, mission, service, discipleship, etc. You are invited to join in with a post or two of your own by sending an email to Frank Emanuel. As always, comments are most welcome.
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I have been thinking about worship a fair bit lately for two reasons. First I've been asked to write an article on emerging church worship for an academic journal. But, more importantly, we are about to launch a new Worship and Listening group at our church. We've done these groups in the past, the format is simple but often the experience is profound: we gather to sing our worship to God then we wait and see what God might have to say. Even when we do not get anything specific - this act of waiting is often quite significant.

When we wait, especially in silence, we are going against a culture that defines everything by utility, by doing and worse by accomplishing something. To wait on God like this, is to risk not hearing. Instead of focusing on doing it directs us to simply 'being'. God wants us to be still and know that God is God. The theology of this is one of recognizing that God is not something we do. Nor is God is something we accomplish. God is something other than that, and we can completely miss God in all our busyness.

To say this about utility is not meant to devalue doing, or even accomplishing things. The activist aspect of our culture is what is responsible for so many of the awesome advances we all enjoy. Even from a faith perspective, faith without works is indeed dead. However, the mistake of our culture is that the doing is what gets us closer to God, and worse the doing is sometimes mistaken for God. Is it any wonder that our culture is so full of tired, burned out people when we have placed doing above hearing?

How often have you been caught up in doing, doing, doing? How often do you miss God when you do not pause and listen for what God is actually saying. I know that I tend to miss God's affirmations of me when I get busy. No wonder I often get overwhelmed when I let the busyness of life take over. It is when I stop and turn my attention to that still small voice that I hear God say how much I am valued and loved regardless of anything I can do. I am convinced that in that recognition is the rest in which we find salvation - not the busyness of our works, even our most important works.

This reflection is just one aspect of the intersection of theology (what we think and say about God) and worship. As we head into this new year, I hope that you will think deeply on the theology of all that you do as a people of faith. But most of all, I hope this encourages you to stop, wait, and listen to what God is saying.

be blessed!
Frank Emanuel, Freedom Vineyard, Ottawa

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T08:00:00.000-05:00

May the Jesus whose birth we celebrate be found in all you do by all whom you meet this year.

Jesus, come and make yourself known to our world. Let your Kingdom come!

Wishing you a joyous new year full of Kingdom encounters, deepening faith, and overflowing joy.

Frank Emanuel on behalf of the National Vineyard Thoughtworks Team.

Apologies for the Hiatus

2011-12-12T08:00:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately things have been a bit busy around here to keep up with any of the blogs I work on. I will be working hard over the next few weeks to get some content in the queue for the ThoughtWorks blog. As always I am awaiting content from Vineyards and friends of the Vineyard. Just send it on to me. This can be as simple as a pointer to something helpful on the web to an article which you have written. Together we can make this resource better and better.

In the meantime I trust that preparing for Christmas celebrations with your church families is going well. Personally, we have been using the advent candles and gospel readings to augment our own family celebration of the season. The kids love it and my youngest has jumped up to do readings. Just as important as it is to develop good traditions within our churches, it is also good as parents to do the same in our homes. We impoverish our family's faith life when we expect religious education to be someone else's job. I pray that you will all find special and memorable moments throughout this season of expectation and longing. May Christ be renewed in all our lives this Christmas season.

blessings,
Frank Emanuel for the National ThoughtWorks team!

What is in a Name?

2011-11-14T11:19:00.001-05:00

I've been part of discussions recently about the term evangelical. As in who is this term appropriate for. But it gets me thinking about the various titles we use to describe ourselves today. In particular, what does it mean to be a Vineyard person?

Vineyard, as a label, shares a lot of similarities with evangelical. Hopefully everyone who would call themselves a Vineyard person in some way find a great attraction in what they have experienced of the values and practices of the Vineyard. But when you get to know this large family to which us Vineyard folk belong, well you realize that there are a lot of different aspects of these Vineyard values that people gravitate towards. In fact sometimes there are aspects of the Vineyard family that folks find not so attractive. If calling myself evangelical meant that I affirmed everything every evangelical did and stood for then I'd be in trouble (probably having narrowed the definition to one particular branch or manifestation of evangelical). Likewise, it isn't everything the Vineyard does that makes us go 'yay Vineyard'. Rather it is the overall ethos, the community and the family that grabs our hearts so strongly.

It is also the quality of people that Vineyard seems to attract. (At least for the most part.) Those dyed in the wool Vineyard folk, even when they have different ways of interpreting various Vineyard values, are in my opinion quality people. Passionate about what they believe in. Confident in God's character and activity. Committed to the whole Body of Christ. Good people. Maybe it is the fact that we value family so much, we realize that the bonds that hold us together deserve the willingness to hear each other fully and to not feel like being family means we all need to believe things exactly the same way. This is the strength of a movement based on values rather than a statement of faith. It is also what I believe will help the Vineyard carve out her place in the future as a family that faithfully proclaims the gospel of our great Savior. Evangelicals, at their core, have this same desire to proclaim the gospel - even though there is a wide variety of ways that gospel is understood (both in proclamation and enactment). It isn't the little things that are important, it is the commitment to being faithful to God that makes both groups dear to my heart.

Frank Emanuel - Freedom Vineyard, Ottawa.

Going National

2011-11-10T22:01:00.001-05:00

I'm pretty excited about the next little while for ThoughtWorks and the Vineyard in Canada. We have been doing a lot of hard work finding ways to get the tools you need into your hands. In terms of our core curriculum we now have associated Intensives that we can arrange for your local congregation. In fact each region has a bit of budget to help get these things off the ground. As always our passion is to equip your saints for all God has in store for us! More as this unfolds.

Another change that is coming soon is a new domain name (www.vineyardthoughtworks.org) has been purchased and we will be moving our website (hopefully in a spiffy new format) and this blog there. My hope is that we will have a completely integrated (and easily updated) web presence. As many of you know this blog was meant to be a pilot project, serving the region of Ontario. Rather than setting up regional ThoughtWorks blogs, we will be migrating this one to serve as the National ThoughtWorks Blog! That will give me more access to content providers. We'll definitely still feature what is happening in the various regions, but now everybody will get to enjoy this resource.

Looking forward to serving you,
Frank Emanuel for the National ThoughtWorks Team.

Right Beliefs are not Enough

2011-10-31T11:20:00.001-04:00

In her excellent article, "Attending to the Gaps between Belief and Practices," Amy Plantinga Pauw makes a brilliant observation about Jonah. She notes that in spite of Jonah's exemplary beliefs about God, Jonah struggled terribly with his actions, that is how he put those beliefs into action. I've observed two things that this really helped me understand. First that we evangelicals are sometimes fanatical about getting the details of our beliefs just right. And second, that God rarely waits for us to have our beliefs perfect before acting with and through us. I'd like to explore this a wee bit in today's article.

The way that I've often expressed this obsession with right beliefs is as the evangelical quest for certainty. It is the age old quest really - how do I know that I'm really one of the saved? Different generations have answered this question differently- for instance the Protestant work ethic comes from the Calvinist notion that you know your are one of the "elect" if God is blessing you and that is no where more evident than in financial blessings. Leaving aside the difficulty that this posed for the poor in Switzerland, the result was an idea that working hard, earning lots demonstrated that one was "right" with God. We might laugh at that notion, but it has effected the fabric of our culture in ways we are often sadly oblivious too. I would claim that in our generation, marked by theologies of modern apologetics, we have turned the mark of being saved into one of having the "right" beliefs.

"Right" beliefs, sometimes called orthodoxy, is about what we believe about God, the world, humanity and the relationships between these three. The thing that frustrates me most is that the people I encounter who are the most obsessed with championing a particular version of these beliefs are also most often those least interested in acting out the practical and ethical implications of their beliefs. I've even had people try to "correct" my beliefs while I was about the business of demonstrating God's love through my actions. This is why I've often found the post-modern incredulity towards dogma to be helpful. Not that beliefs are not critically important - beliefs will always shape (and be shaped by) our actions. But when we make Christianity merely a religion of beliefs we completely miss the point of what God wants to do - and it just might be to preach an effective campaign of grace to our "enemies".

And then there is the case of those who just do, often with incredible results, yet often from a set of beliefs that leaves us shaking our heads. Gary Best has commented in the past that the Word of Faith people often see more healings despite their theology. Why is that? I know some would want to vilify the healings that happen amongst the more actively charismatic. But isn't that just a way of justifying our own inaction? The reality is that they see more because they ask more often. God isn't nearly as hung up about orthodoxy as we are. That doesn't mean God loves our ignorance - but God looks deeper than we do, God sees hearts. Personally, as someone who has come from the more actively Charismatic background, I have seen some of this shift in my own life and ministry. Really what we did in the past was a lot like shooting a shotgun. We saw lots of healings and other cool stuff simply because we would pray at the drop of a hat. We saw lots of unanswered prayers too, but often we would find ways of justifying those (sometimes to the emotional detriment of those we "ministered" to). Bottom line is that we had faith, but we also had beliefs, some of which were quite destructive to the lives of those who followed us. I had a friend even take his own life over the notions of holiness promoted in those groups! This is not trivial stuff.

The struggle we all have is how to connect beliefs to practice. Jonah's flight mirrors our own flight from what we know to be the implications of our beliefs (as in what our beliefs call us to do). If we really believe that God breaks into the world with real manifestations of the Kingdom - then why do we not pray at the drop of a hat? But, like Jonah, we run away afraid as much that it might happen (and we won't know how to deal with it) as that it might not happen. Perhaps this is exactly why Jonah's story is so endearing to us - it is after all the ubiquitous sunday school story. Perhaps it is because God knows this is the very dynamic we are called to struggle with. We are meant to keep both belief open to God, but grounded in what we already believe about God (look at what Jonah believed about God and God's character). We are meant to act both on what we believe and to act before we sort out all of what we believe. Jonah reminds us that God is patient yet relentless. Two sides of the same coin, so to speak. We are called to be strongly rooted in what we believe, but relentless in our quest for the truth (even when it changes our beliefs!) and we are equally called to be relentless about doing the works of God yet patient and expectant that God will shape and grow our beliefs as we act them out.

In the Vineyard we have tradition of trying to balance head and heart. For me, this is another way of expressing the tension I have described above. Heart is about what we do and head is indicative of what we know. Both aspects feed and spur on the other. A balance of head and heart means that one is open to the other, and vice versa. Hopefully this short message encourages you in your quest for the radical middle, to struggle with the living of the beliefs God is growing and maturing in our lives.

Frank Emanuel, Freedom Vineyard, Ottawa

Theological Debates:How Do We Handle Differences?

2011-10-17T08:00:00.000-04:00

As you survey the world of Evangelicalism today, you will find a vast array of different theological and philosophical views. In fact if you take a look at our own movement, the Vineyard, you will see the same diversity. The thing is, theology matters. But not every theological debate is of equal worth. I wanted to look at four key points to keep in mind when dealing with issues of diversity, a bit of a priority checklist.

1) Differences Matter

The reason a person, or group, resonates so deeply with a theological or philosophical view is that it means something to them. In fact we know these particular beliefs go deep when we see, or experience in ourselves, the instant need to defend the belief. The reason is that beliefs, at a theological and philosophical level, are often tied to our understanding of ourselves and our relationship to the things that matter - God, family, church, community, etc. Knowing that differences matter does not mean that all differences are helpful, but it does mean we need to respect differing views as being important to those who hold them and understand why there is often resistance to alternate views.

2) People Matter More

Following on this, I think it is important that as a church movement our priority is pastoral not dogmatic. By that I mean that it is about people, loving people, providing space for people to encounter and fall more in love with God, equipping people - it is about the people. So while it seems logical that we should guard the dogmatic core, by which I mean the central theological understandings on which our movement is built, we need to recognize that if dogma gets in the way of fulfilling our calling to people - then we have a problem. Again, it is very important that we not lose our foundational theologies. In fact I am often concerned with the lack of understanding our churches have about the Kingdom teachings that so animated John Wimber. But the bottom line is that without people, the ones God so loved, it doesn't matter if your theology is top notch - you will only be a clanging gong.

3) The Main and the Plain

John Wimber often called us back to the main and the plain of the gospel. The Kingdom teachings and other foundational theologies are great. The experiential spirituality that engenders an expectation of God's Kingdom manifestation is awesome. But all that is meant to serve the church, to equip her and prepare her to partner with God in proclaiming the good news to all the world. We must never lose sight of the main and the plain.

4) There is Always Room to Grow

And finally we need to be prepared to have God (often through others) blow our grids! To open up our minds to new possibilities. To challenge even the very things we thought were fundamental to our faith. After all this is God's show, not ours. So our stance before difference should always be twofold: First we are confident in the God who holds our lives, our real trust lies there not in our theologies. And second, we should always be prepared to be changed by others, always open to the idea that they might have a different view of things that can be helpful, even crucial. In other words, we need always be prepared to grow. One day we will know completely, as we are already completely known, but this is not that day. That does not mean we stand on shaky ground or lose everything if we discover a central flaw in our understanding - what it means is that God cares enough to grace us with growth.

Let us rest in God, because in God's perfect love there is no fear.

Frank Emanuel - Freedom Vineyard, Ottawa.

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-10-10T13:23:00.002-04:00

Enjoy your family, enjoy your friends, enjoy your life - and most of all enjoy the One who makes all of that possible.

Blessings from Thoughtworks Ontario.

Sporadic Posting Schedule

2011-10-05T22:26:00.000-04:00

A bit of warning that posts might be a bit slow for a few weeks while I mark the first crop of papers from my large class. I'm always looking for articles to post, especially those of relevance to Ontario Vineyards.

In the meanwhile - don't forget to vote Ontario! Your vote is important, it is one way you demonstrate good citizenship. Pray and vote is always a great strategy.

Have a great Thanksgiving!

Frank Emanuel, Freedom Vineyard, Ottawa.

Book of Note: The History of Christian Thought

2011-09-26T08:00:00.000-04:00

Over the last few weeks I've been lecturing on key thinkers throughout the history of Christianity in my Introduction to Theology course. It is a real whirlwind tour from the earliest days of the Church to the Second World War. My course is primarily on Contemporary (post-WWII) theologies so this quick survey allows the students to see how we get so many approaches to Christian theology. It is the ground out of which all contemporary theology has grown - both in appreciation of and reaction to what has already been done. To my delight a colleague at the school mentioned a book that had been used in a previous iteration of this course (this is my first time teaching it): Jonathan Hill's The History of Christian Thought. Jonathan covers quite a bit more ground than I am able to in a few lectures - but his focus is the same. He briefly, but substantially, documents key thinkers and events throughout the history of the Christian Church. Beginning with the influence of Greek philosophy and the work of Justin Martyr (where I started as well) he weaves a historical trail all the way to Postmodernity and important theological voices like Moltmann, Pannenberg and Rahner. While he is a bit light on the North American context there is a small section on Pentecostalism. He even includes a small glossary at the end of this 340 page book!

I heard about the book a few days before my own class was about to leave the Scholastic period and run headfirst into the Reformation. I sat down that night with the book starting from Luther (a bit less than half way) and just ate it up. I was done early the next morning (and yes I did sleep a full 7 hours!). Hill's style is not to get tied down in the technical and to balance the thought he is tracking with details about the lives of the individuals he highlights. I wish I had known of this book before, it would have made for an excellent textbook choice for my students! I think this book is a must for any church library or anyone just wanting to understand the twists and turns that Christian theology has taken as it tries to understand faith in an ever changing culture.

Do yourself a favour and let Hill guide you through the History of Christian Thought.

Frank Emanuel, Freedom Vineyard

Following Christ as the Heart of Theology

2011-09-19T08:00:00.000-04:00

I've been teaching an Introduction to Theology course at Saint Paul University. I have almost forty students joining me on a journey through the history of Christian thought. It is amazing when you look at all the shifts and turns, conflicts and breakthroughs that mark the 2000+ years of Christianity. One thing is consistent throughout - other than the constancy of God's love that is - that is that God's people are able to find a relevant and profound voice of Christian faith in every shift of culture. It is not done through naive constancy, assuming Christianity never changes (only God has guaranteed to never change). Nor is it best found in our ever multiplying convictions to have found THE authentic (in our age this often means we believe it is historically authentic) expression of Christianity. It happens often in spite of our needless justifications. It happens because at the heart of every expression of Christianity is a desire to be faithful followers of Christ.

When we follow Christ we gain the courage (which I believe comes to us through the Holy Spirit) to seek understanding of what our faith means to our world today.

This is no small thing. It is how we partner with God in the project of declaring Good News to all of creation. It also should hearten us that God is never surprised by the changes in culture, nor is God ever afraid. Rather God finds amazing ways to accomplish God's redemptive purposes throughout all the earth - and God invites us to share in this work. When we follow Christ we participate with God in all that God is up to in the earth today. How exciting is that!

My hope for my class is that I will be able to convey some of the excitement I feel for deliberate theology. My hope for you all is that you will take the task of theology to heart and commit yourself to doing theology well - wherever God has placed you to be Good News. With courage, follow Christ into culture my friends, and be prepared to marvel at all God wants to do.

Frank Emanuel, Freedom Vineyard, Ottawa

Thoughtworks Assignments

2011-09-12T08:00:00.000-04:00

With every Thoughtworks course we have provided an assignment. These assignments are meant to help you anchor the ideas you have learned through each course. Some are very practical, getting you to act on what you have learned. All include a short written piece. I wanted to say a few words about the written assignments.

First these assignments are meant to be the starting point of conversations between you and a mentor. It could be your pastor or another local Thoughtworks representative. Their role is not to correct or critique, but to foster a continuation of the faith seeking understanding mandate of our program. Often when we are reading these assignments we can see the questions that the student has made and maybe get a sense of ones they haven't. Your mentor can encourage you both in what you have explored and in what you can explore next. Learning to think theologically is not about settling the answers for a set of problems, but of exploring the gift of faith that has the potential to throw mountains into the sea! Which I think is meant for us to not limit faith, or stop trying to understand how our faith can lead us into deeper understandings of all God wants to do in our world.

Second is that these assignments are not meant to be academic papers. No one is going to assign you a letter grade or criticize your writing ability. It is meant to help you articulate what it is you were engaging with during the course or readings. It is really just a starting point to continue the journey of growth that these courses open up to each of us. Our passion at Thoughtworks is to make equipping resources that will be both accessible and practical for everyone in our congregations.

I hope that you will give one of our programs a try.

Frank Emanuel, Ontario Thoughtworks Representative, Freedom Vineyard, Ottawa.

Community - It's a Value

2011-09-05T05:00:00.000-04:00

Recently my wife and I have been chatting about community. Specifically what it is we are wanting from the communities we participate in. This summer our church, Freedom Vineyard, decided not run any small groups - a tough decision but it has been really worthwhile having a break and a chance to reflect on the last ten years. During those years there are things we've done well and things we've not done well. Important stuff to reflect on, hard as it was to step back in order to do that. One of the ideas I keep coming back to is that of community. Community to me is a place where it is not just one or two people doing everything, but a group of people who together shape and enact what it means to them to be the Church. Sure I love the worship aspect, and even teaching on a regular basis - but without a strong community those things can too easily become a burden to the few. I'm convinced that running church like that is not sustainable in the long run, the burnout I was feeling at the start of the summer was testimony to this being true.

I'm about to invite folks to gather and pray about what God might want to do with Freedom Vineyard this fall. While I am confident that God has no end of great plans for each of us individually - I am open to the idea that this might not be enough to run another small group just yet. Actually in the past many of our groups literally formed themselves as people gained a vision for what God was inviting them into as a community. We've had some really amazing groups over the years and I am sure we will have more in the future. But most of all I want to participate in communities that are gathered around God's purposes, especially in participating in God's redemptive work of grace throughout the world. That's the stuff that gets me excited!

Part of what sparked the conversation was meeting up with a couple who had been part of one of our early Freedom Vineyard communities. A really great couple who had moved over from England after being part of the Vineyard there. This weekend I could sense in them the same longing for community that I saw in myself. It renews in me a sense of what is possible from the Church, that is fostering communities with Kingdom purpose. It also restores in me a determination to not settle for less than community that follows God's invitation to Kingdom works. When I call for our people to gather and pray I will ask them what is God calling them listening for the common threads that might knit together another community and small group.

My prayer at this time is for God, in God's time, to draw the right people together to create community in which me and my family can thrive. A community that will allow us to become all that God wants us to be. After all that is the mission that has been at the heart of Freedom Vineyard since the beginning - helping you become all you can be in Christ.

What kind of community are you longing for?

* The images are from Freedom Vineyard gatherings. The first is a conference we put on back in 2004. The second is from a wedding for a couple who have been long time members of Freedom. Many of the face have changed over the years, when I reflect back there are so many amazing people we've had the privilege of walking with. My hope is that there will continue to be many more.

New Thread Proposal

2011-08-29T08:00:00.001-04:00

I want to start a new thread about heroes to your faith. Who are the people who have radically shaped your faith in God? I'm sure you can come up with one or two who have really meant the world to you. Well we need to hear these stories. We need to remind each other of the profound impact we have on each other - sometimes without really knowing it. Here is the deal, if someone comes to mind then send me an email church(a)freedomvineyard.com. Tell me a bit about who this person is, how you encountered them (they can even be people you have never met in the flesh), and describe the impact they have had on your faith. I'd like to post about one a month. There is nothing like spurring each other on towards love and the good work of the Kingdom.

Value of Study

2011-08-22T08:00:00.003-04:00

I'm sitting in a coffee shop preparing next semester's courses. What a privilege to pour through various books and articles as I tease out the nuances of the subjects I'm going to teach (Introduction to Theology and Christian Spirituality at a local university). The reasons I have to read are immensely practical - that is they all are for a goal I have in mind. So I can quickly tell if an article or chapter is going to be helpful or not. That is primarily what turns a task that could be an odious chore (I can spend upwards of 14 hours on a 3 hour lecture!) into a task of joy.

When we set out to study we know we are undertaking a noble task. But when we fail to connect the texts we are reading to the things we are trying to do the resulting disconnection can sap the life right out of the process. I wonder if this isn't the reason why study is not as valued as it should be for many Christians. If you find yourself dreading the very idea of studying then consider these tips, they might be just what you need to pull open that book you have been avoiding. I hope that they can help foster an atmosphere of diligent study so that we will all be approved workers of God's Word, the Word that transforms everything!

1) Know when to stop. No one should feel forced to finish a text - that will just discourage you from continuing to read and learn. If you are not connecting with a book you have two viable options. A) you can drop it. Seriously, the book might be great for another time and it might have helped out oodles of your friends, but if it isn't connecting now then it is not going to give life. B) skim to see if what you hoped for isn't just waiting beyond the next paragraph, chapter or section. Study does not mean reading every word - it means understanding what you need to understand from a text. If you are a student understanding what is going on in a text is way more important than having read every single word. Find the stuff that gives life and sometimes it will draw you back to how the author got there - if not take the best and forget the rest.

2) Read while it gives life - ponder lots. That means go for quality over quantity. You would be much better off if, when you read something that seems to resonate deep within, you stopped and pondered why and how this bit of text is resonating with you. Take it to prayer, some of my best conversations with God spring out of such times. The object is not to learn a bunch of stuff - but for us, as pastors and leaders, to be transformed by God so that we can better serve God's purposes in this world. Sometimes a single idea can completely overturn our whole outlook on life!

3) Don't be afraid of dead ends. Sometimes we get caught in the trap that everything we do must have some sort of 'fruitful' conclusion.* Pruning is fruitful - it makes way for better fruit to come and strengthens the whole vine. One of my favourite theologians, Jurgen Moltmann, will sometimes explore ideas until they fail. When an idea fails it can fall off and makes way for new ideas to grow and produce the fruit of wisdom that God is hoping to produce in our lives.

I hope these tips encourage you to study on your terms. To not let unreasonable expectations rob you of the joy of study (nor of its benefits). That you will be able to chase down what God is really saying to you as you study - even if that word is "this idea needs to be pruned." The Bible exhorts us to get wisdom at any cost - I hope and trust that your study will bring you great wisdom and that all you do for Christ will richly benefit from that wisdom.

Be blessed as you study!

Frank Emanuel, Freedom Vineyard, Ottawa.

* I suggest reading Schaeffer's Addicted to Modernity for some keen insights into the problems with utilitarian thinking among evangelicals. It's a great read.

Book of Note: How We Decide

2011-08-15T08:00:00.000-04:00

Jonah Lehrer is a contemporary thinker who is worth keeping an eye on. Not only has he written two excellent and accessible books, also he often posts provocative and interesting articles at his Wired blog (he's the science writer for Wired magazine). I was really happy to get a copy of his latest book, How We Decide, last Christmas. I wanted to dive right into it, but leisure reading usually only happens in the summer. So Jonah came on vacation with me.

One of the big influences on this book is Damasio's Descarte's Error. I have that book and the genius of Lehrer is to take the writings of neurologists, other scientists and even philosophers and make them accessible to a general audience. He even makes the insights of such people relevant to the lives we are living now. How We Decide is actually about how we decide. Lehrer tells the anecdote about wasting an afternoon trying to decide what kind of cheerios to buy - I can relate to the feeling of being overwhelmed by choice. What Lehrer discovers is that we decide with our emotional brains more so than our rational brains. In fact studies show that folks who sustain damage to their emotion centers are actually unable to make good decisions - you often cannot reason your way to a decision like you think you can. So much for idolizing Mr. Spock from Star Trek! This does not rule out the role of reason, but it does mean we delude ourselves when we think rational thought this is the most important part of making choices.

One of the immediate applications for this is in terms of our understanding of what is certainty. If Lehrer is right, then certainty usually indicates an emotional commitment to an idea or ideology. The idea or ideology might be good - but the emotional commitment prevents our rational interaction with those ideas. This is why ideologies are so hard to change. Challenge a preacher's favourite doctrine if you want to see what this means. Our first response to having our certain ideas challenged is to defend (and then justify) our certainty in them. Sometimes we can fight that urge down long enough to have a conversation but the presence of this urge should flag to us an emotional commitment not a rational conclusion.

I am not saying that certainty is a bad thing (although if we are certain of something wrong it could well be) but that strength of commitment does not establish truth. For me the upshot is that with a little less defense of certainty we can maybe focus instead on living out our commitments to see what ones really hold us and bring us (and others) freedom, health, wholeness, hope, and joy. Recognizing how certainty functions can also allow us to hold the less important aspects of our beliefs a little looser so that we can find better patterns of cooperation with other evangelicals to do the things that are really important to God and the world God loves. At the very least Lehrer will invite us to have this conversation about certainty with a better understanding of how our minds actually work.

I really enjoyed this book, I think that you will too.

Frank Emanuel, Freedom Vineyard

Blogs that get you Thinking

2011-08-08T08:00:00.000-04:00

Last time in this series I promised some blogs about doing-the-stuff. I would actually love to have a lot of links to blogs that talk about a variety of ministries that will encourage us. However, this time I'm focusing on the "doing" of going into all the world. I want to highlight the blog of a missionary family that is about to launch out on the adventure and the blog of a missions organization started by a friend of mine. Let me introduce you to some folks who are doing-the-stuff as missionaries!

Last Pastors' gathering (Ontario Vineyard Leaders Retreat in Bancroft) I met the Snells. This adventurous couple from the Cambridge Vineyard are heading to Brazil with their kids. They will be serving the Xingu mission in Marabá. A place they have already been to, helping build a church facility, and has captured their hearts. Phil and Jen met at a primate reserve in Africa (how cool is that?) so adventure is definitely in their blood. Why not consider supporting them as they launch out in obedience to God?

The other family I want to point you to are veterans to missions as well as taking kids with them into their mission field. Al and Joanne, along with a growing family, landed in Thailand as missionaries with YWAM (last time I counted they had seven kids and I think Joanne is expecting). Since landing in Thailand, they've started and run a mission called Compasio. The Compasio blog is here. I've known Al Brown for many years now - he and Shane Jolley ran an interdenominational youth worship ministry called Ottawa Youth Alive (OYA). I used to help out a lot with sound and even played guitar for events a few times. Then all of us ended up settling into careers and "normal" life. Al ran a successful IT company until he had the realization that if he didn't go into the mission field now he might never do it. So he sold the business and headed off to YWAM. Through YWAM Al and Joanne went to Thailand with a passion to rescue young girls sold into the sex trade. As years went on that ministry grew into Compasio which, amongst other things, has a tremendous impact on the refugees that come to Thailand for refuge often only to face abuse. Keeping tabs on the Compasio blog will ensure that your heart will not grow hard to the countless at risk people that Jesus died for. Al and Joanne are home for a year and I'm sure they would love to come share with your congregation - I try to get Al out to Freedom to speak whenever he is back in Canada, it is always worth it.

Keep those hearts tender and your ears open - who knows whom God will call you to be good news to!

Frank Emanuel - Freedom Vineyard, Ottawa

PS. I am running out of blogs that I want to pass along - please send me your suggestions so I can keep this series running. Thanks.

Weekly Post Delayed - God in the Media

2011-08-01T08:00:00.000-04:00

I haven't had time to put together the post for this week yet. I blame it on summer. I'll get something out mid-week - another installment of Blogs that Get You Thinking! I'm still waiting on some content that has been promised to me, must be summer all around.

In the meantime - I wonder what you think about the post I did on the movie The Adjustment Bureau. If you haven't seen the movie I must warn you the post is full of spoilers. But I think one of the ways we are practicing theologians is when we look for the ways that God is being presented in media. I've actually been known to take guys to action films and talk about why the gospel theme of death and resurrection is so prevalent in such films. Makes for great conversation. If we don't talk about how God is being portrayed then we risk letting media colour our God concepts through subversion. Some food for thought.

Social Media

2011-07-25T08:00:00.000-04:00

I've spoken about blogs and facebook, but the evolving world of social media is continually bringing us new ways of connecting. Recently, and reluctantly, I accepted an invitation to join Google+. (Let me know if you want an invite.) So I'll talk a bit about my take on Google+ as well as on Twitter as I've also been a Twit for quite a while now. Whether you choose to use social media or not it is good to be aware of what's out there and how you might be able to leverage it in your ministry.

Twitter

I have been tweeting under the name PomoRev for a few years now. I know a lot of people like Twitter and keep it streaming on their desktops. I tried this for a bit but found it way too distracting. I do like to drop in on it once and a while and see what is trending. Trending is basically a snapshot of what topics people are talking about the most.

What Twitter is really good for is sparking ideas. Writing a tweet, which is a message within 140 characters (including spaces!), forces you to write concisely. Some people are really good at Tweeting. I use Twitter almost exclusively to put up pithy quotes from books I'm reading. Stuff that really gets me thinking. It helps me remember the quote (to type it out) and it sometimes generates neat conversations. The thing to realize with Twitter is that it is like shooting a shotgun at a distant target. Sure you might hit it, but a lot of tweets just evaporate and some hit unexpected targets as well.

Google+

Google+ is a whole different beast. Right now it seems more like a social media connector with filters. While I don't see a lot of native content, it does capture lots of linking to content in other forms and at other locations (blogs, etc.). What is different about Google+ is that you have a lot more flexibility for who you pass on content to and filtering the content you follow from other people.

The main filter is in how you set up your contacts (what facebook calls 'friends'). Google lets you organize all the people you want to network with in a variety of ways. You can put some in family, some in friends (those you feel you can share deeply with, unlike facebook's friends' concept), some in acquaintances, some in a group called following, you can even make more groups - I have one for ministry contacts, academic contacts, and even gamers. You can place folks in more than one circle - which is helpful. Also, and this is important, no one knows what circle(s) you put them in.

Circles are used when you post status updates or link things like blog posts you like. Circles dictate who can see what you have done. Circles are also used to limit what goes in the streams you want to look at. So if you really like a few bloggers and just want to see what they've linked lately put them in the following circle and click that stream. Voila you have a window into just their online lives.

There also seems to be a move towards collaboration in Google+. The way it is set up makes it great for forming working groups and teams that you can deal with directly without getting them all mixed up with the rest of the social media crowd. (I still think that one needs to realize that all online media is in some ways public.) And Google+ includes a tool for setting up chat/video groups called hangouts. I haven't tried this yet, but I'm thinking of setting something up soon with people I normally Skype.

I think Google+ has potential for being a helpful tool. But it will depend entirely on who chooses to use it. I know my own church dragged me onto facebook - I did the myspace way back in the day and was not intending on going near facebook. But in retrospect facebook has been a good tool even if it is full of distractions. I still find myself going to facebook for updates on the people I can't see as much as I'd like. So far Google+ isn't that helpful yet and the few Google+ folk I like to keep tabs on are also doing the same stuff on facebook.

Hope this is helpful. Next week I'm hoping to have another installment of Blogs That Get You Thinking.

Frank Emanuel, Freedom Vineyard, Ottawa.

What's Difficult About the Gospel?

2011-07-17T22:07:00.005-04:00

I just returned from holidays and am lining up some content for the following weeks. In the meantime this is what I've been reflecting on lately.

Sometimes I feel like we’ve simplified the guts right out of the gospel. In our effort to communicate something of the good news to the people God puts in our lives there is a temptation to gloss over the demands that the gospel makes on anyone who embraces it. As Paul tells us in Romans, the only reasonable response to the gospel is to present our whole selves to God. Anything less is not enough. I’ve been reflecting on this recently on my own blog and evaluating my own presentation of the gospel to those God has given me to love.

There is a certain danger in missing this important part of the gospel. That danger is that eventually those we share our gospel messages with will catch on to the actual cost of the gospel. It is helpful at this point to note that Jesus never sells it short in the gospels. All that talk about taking up our crosses is not about lapel pins. More and more often I am running into Christians who feel that Christianity did not turn out to be what they were told it was – and tragically they have invested many years into something that just does not work. In the worst of these cases the folk have given up on their faith, or at least in the institutions that should be life giving to their faith. The best cases end up with folk finding new ways of taking the gospel’s claims serious. While any misrepresentation of the gospel is tragic, I think the lesson we can learn is that we need to find better ways to communicate the gospel in its entirety.

John Wimber once said that a faulty gospel produces faulty Christians. Such an insight should cause us to always be vigilant as to the content and character of the gospel we preach. Let’s face it, we do not always get it right and different seasons bring out different aspects of the gospel. Our responsibility is to take seriously the need to continually reflect on and refine our understanding of the gospel. This is a serious charge we have been given. I personally think that this is now a season where God is calling us to consider the cost of the gospel and make that part, once again, of the content of the gospel we share with the people God leads us to.

Frank Emanuel, Freedom Vineyard, Ottawa.

On Vacation

2011-07-11T11:36:00.002-04:00

I just realized that I hadn't scheduled anything for today. I am on vacation. I'll try to have something at the regular time next week. Enjoy the summer!

Frank Emanuel - Freedom Vineyard, Ottawa

Intensives - Thoughtworks Serving Your Community

2011-07-04T08:00:00.001-04:00

One of the great things we get to do with Thoughtworks is bring top-notch training to your churches. Intensives are easy to put together and can be very enriching for your church and the churches in your area. Here's what you do.

1) Identify a need. The best training is timely and directed at the needs of the community. It also makes it much easier on the equippers if the group they are training is already invested in getting the most out of their training. Often training will include some pre-work (usually reading) so that the conversations can be richer and deeper. Among the areas Thoughtworks can help includes: pastoral care, biblical foundations, gaining a historical context, training in preaching and teaching, providing theological foundations, deepening faith, and others. Rather than being committed to a pre-sett inflexible programme, Thoughtworks seeks to serve the needs unique to your community.

2) Contact your Thoughtworks Rep. This is what we are here for - helping your congregation mature and flourish. We will help you figure out who best can deliver an intensive suited to your needs. We can help.

3) Choose a time and venue. A typical intensive is done on a weekend. Usually the whole day Saturday. Your role will be to provide the venue and make sure it is conducive to running the intensive you have asked for. We can work with you to make sure you know what is required.

4) Get the word out. We will help with this too. Most intensives will primarily draw from your church and the churches close by, after all the needs of communities are not all the same. Events like this a better together, so why not offer the opportunity to your neighbours? I am sure they will thank you for it. Wouldn't it be awesome if our churches were instrumental in bringing quality training to all the churches around us? We will also advertise on this blog and help you get the message out through other social media.

5) Reap the benefits. An equipped church is a confident church. In the Vineyard we love the idea that everybody plays - but we also love the idea of equipping the saints so that they can play better. This is the piece that is so important for the future of our communities. Our goal is not just a transfer of knowledge, but to ignite the spark of Kingdom possibilities in every person we can. Imagine what an equipped and confident church can do in your neighbourhoods? Imagine what we can do in out nation? Imagine what God calls us to participate in throughout the whole world! Let Your Kingdom come.

Looking forward to seeing you at a Thoughtworks intensive soon!

Frank Emanuel, Freedom Vineyard, Ottawa.

Note: the picture is Larry Levy (Halifax Metro Vineyard), I used it cause I like Larry a lot and he embodies the kind of down to earth passion for teaching that I am trying to promote here.

Thoughtworks Curriculum - Working For You

2011-06-27T08:00:00.002-04:00

Ancient-Future Church Year 1 - Quest for the Radical Middle

Because all theology is done in a context - it is really important for us to know our own context. That is exactly what this course is all about. Here Bill Jackson details the history of the Vineyard movement without glossing over the difficult bits. Case in point is the appendix on Lonnie Frisbee, aka that young man. Bill does the Vineyard a real service with this book.

One of the difficulties with any young movement is communicating exactly what makes us unique. Many have come to the Vineyard because of the great experiences they've had with Vineyard folks. Unfortunately, many of those people also come in expecting the Vineyard to be something other than it really is. I still get surprised looks when I describe the Vineyard as a conservative evangelical denomination. One of the beautiful things about the Vineyard has been its ability to bless a diverse segment of the Church - often without imposing our unique theological perspective on others. Really we've been good at helping the church experience the empowering presence of God's Spirit. I love that. But being blessed by the Vineyard and being Vineyard are not always synonymous.

Jackson delineates important Vineyard perspectives such as a center-set ecclesiology (idea of church) and an emphasis on the inaugurated-enacted reign of God. These things differentiate the Vineyard from its respected pentecostal and evangelical kin. Jackson also shows how this differentiation has played out in the Vineyard's brief history. I'm thinking of our short-lived relationship with the Kansas City prophets. A clearer articulation of the Vineyard's core understanding of Kingdom might have made that moment a bit less painful. In any event it was an opportunity for Vineyards to return to their theological center.

I have used Jackson's book as a basic text in teaching Vineyard history to leaders in training. It reads easily, presents a fair depiction of the Vineyard, and gives us the background each of us needs to understand our own relationship to the Vineyard family. I highly recommend that every Vineyard person read this book, regardless of if you do it as a Thoughtworks course. But if you are going to read it...

If I could recommend a companion to this book it would be Carol Wimber's John Wimber: The Way It Was.

Frank Emanuel, Freedom Vineyard, Ottawa.

Family and Stories

2011-06-20T08:00:00.001-04:00

We recently had our annual Ontario Regional Vineyard Pastors Retreat. As always it is wonderful to see dear friends, pray and worship together, and just be refreshed. There are always some churches doing really well and others struggling along - this year my own congregation was amongst the strugglers. The format this year allowed each of our churches to share just where they are at - and to have the whole gathered community surround them in prayer. It was incredibly encouraging. I am struck by a few strengths of our region, I want to highlight them here.

Love

Did you ever have someone you respect embrace you and tell you honestly that they loved and appreciated you? The amazing thing is that I get that a lot from these Vineyard leaders. And I feel the love for them right back. The feeling of family is what brought me to the Vineyard, and it has been well warranted. This year I was able to bring my wife and a couple co-leaders, to see them also embraced as family is incredibly enriching. It isn't that these folks are interested in what we are doing, but they are interested in us as individuals. There is something God-like in love like that.

Diversity

The thing about family is that family is not about everyone being the same. Sometimes even I feel like quirky uncle Phil experimenting with what it means to be Vineyard in Ottawa. But wouldn't family without quirky uncle Phil be so boring? Regardless, I need to say that, despite my own flavour of Kingdom risk taking, I have never felt anything but support from this family. I really appreciate that each church is unique. Take it from someone who has pushed a few boundaries (and made more than a few mistakes) the willingness to not reign everyone into a box is amazing. The diversity that flourishes in this environment will ensure that we will continue to be a testimony to our great God for generations to come. I am so grateful for the opportunity to serve such a rich and diverse community of churches.

Faithfulness

You don't get this far by not being faithful. Not only are we genuinely committed to each other, this region is full of leaders who are committed to the long haul in the communities God has led them to. Year after year the same core group of leaders faithfully come and share. Sure there are new faces and a few that drop off, but there is a consistency. It is not all new every year. And what's better still, the new ones that arrive are brought in through the model of faithfulness already present in the group.

I want to end by echoing a proclamation God has made over our region: God is not done with the Vineyard in Ontario. I look forward to seeing God's plans unfold in our region and I couldn't dream of a better group of people to enter into that future with than the folks who lead our Vineyards.

Frank Emanuel, Freedom Vineyard (Ottawa)

New Feature - Now With Mobile Template

2011-06-13T08:00:00.000-04:00

Now you can get your Regional Thoughtworks Blog fix on your mobile devices! Don't miss an article ever again.

If you have been inspired by any of our articles then why not consider adding one of your own. This is a blog for the region, by the region. Let's live out Ephesians 4:11-13.

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. (NIV)

Giving Away Your Best

2011-06-06T08:00:00.002-04:00

I’ve been thinking about this Wimberism a lot lately. John taught us to give away our best. It is one of those sayings that can either be just a nice platitude or it can really shape everything you do. In retrospect I think it is something we’ve done intentionally and unintentionally in our years with the Vineyard. So I want to offer a few observations about giving away your best.

It hurts. I’ll start with the hard obvious one. We all love the stories of how we give away our savings or a worship leader only to have God turn around and give you something even better. I’ve certainly had quite a few of those experiences. But the bottom line is that you never give to get. And sometimes you don’t get something to replace what you’ve given away. That doesn’t mean you missed God, that means you gave away something really costly. When you get it back it didn’t cost you anything. But when you don’t get it back you can experience a whole different kind of blessing. The blessing of pain. And I am not being facetious, this is a blessing. I don’t think we’d treasure near as much the moments when God gives back if there was never moments when God just accepted our offering. And it becomes too easy to take for granted the gifts you have when they are disposable.

We’ve given up quite a few worship leaders over the years. I was listening to a CD from one of them today even. I wouldn’t give up the time they spent with us blessing us with the gift of heartfelt worship in song. But how much more do I value the gift we’ve given to the church in Ottawa through our obedience. The worship leader I was listening to today has been training worship leaders for another church in the city – he could never have done that if we weren’t willing to embrace the pain of giving him up. Giving away your best hurts.

Would you want to give God anything less? I really think that we need to have this perspective about giving away the best. When we give it is really as an offering to God. I’m reminded of Paul’s words to the church in Rome about what a reasonable act of worship is. Presenting ourselves as living sacrifices means there is no holding back. Whatever God wants is what we give. And anything less is really not an acceptable gift for so great a King. This needs to apply to everything about our lives. God calls us to what theologians call a cruciform life. That is a life shaped and marked by the selfless giving of God’s self through the cross. To be cruciform is to emulate this by offering ourselves fully and completely to God. I think Paul is right, this is the only reasonable act of worship.

Whose Kingdom is it anyway? This is really what it comes down to. We sometimes have this notion that the Kingdom of God is something we build. It isn’t. Sure we get to participate in what God is doing. But the Kingdom is all God’s. So we are really only ever giving what is God’s. It hurts because it is shaping us. It is true worship because it makes us into God’s cruciform people. We give away the best because, that is what the Kingdom looks like. The Kingdom is the selfless love of God made manifest. It can never look like our own selfish little kingdoms. It has to look like Jesus, through and through.

All of the Psalms

2011-05-30T08:00:00.003-04:00

A number of months ago, I began a project that I suspected at the time would last about three years. The project? To put the entire collection of biblical psalms into modern song. The rules? Move through them sequentially, 1-150, with minimal alterations in text, omitting none of uncomfortable stuff. I’ve allowed myself to select from any of the widely accepted translations, though so far the NIV has been the primary translation I’ve worked from, simply because the language seems to translate into song better than the others. My initial goal was to put one psalm to music per week. I started the project in September and I’ve currently posted the first 8 psalms. It currently being May I’m clearly behind that rather lofty pace, although I’m not daunted by the goal. Whether three years or ten, God willing, it will get done.

The challenges are significant. Non-metered poetry is a nightmare to put to song. There is no rhyme scheme. The subject matter is often full of vindictive tribal violence, political whining and family drama. King David, the primary author of the psalms, often comes across as bi-polar, creating a profound challenge creatively. How exactly does one create appropriate musical context for poetry that extols the glory of God in one sentence, and follows immediately with a call for the destruction of the children of one’s enemies in the next?

Why have I undertaken to do this?

I’ve been a worship leader in Vineyard churches for nearly 20 years. During that time, I’ve encountered the glory hidden in the psalms over and over again. I can think of no other source material that has so influenced how we worship God. Nearly every worship song I can think of is in some significant way derived from the psalms. This is as it should be, in my opinion.

And yet...

And yet we aren’t totally honest with ourselves in our reading of these wonderful, glorious, complicated, bloody and occasionally horrific scriptures. We tend to pick and choose the “nice” bits and leave the messy stuff behind. I understand why we do it, and on one hand I don’t question the practice. It is often appropriate to simply reflect on the glory of God. The messiness of life is pretty self evident in our day-to-day existence. There’s no need to highlight it in song and sully our “God time”. But I also feel challenged to find a way take the bitter material with the sweet; the angry with the compassionate; to find a way to make room for the plea for murderous revenge against oppressors and keep it in step with earnest supplications of protection for the poor and helpless. And what of self-righteous boasting before God, judgement of others and utterly broken repentance for heinous crimes? Apparently, these are all acceptable spices in the ingredients of praise... often all pouring from the same heart, at the same time. Who knew?

And so, the AllOfThePsalms.com project.

This project has already had a deep effect on me, and I’ve hardly even started. Each psalm, taken in its entirety as a complete work of worshipful creativity, speaks to a breadth of the God/ Human relationship that eclipses the narrow sacred/secular divide that is the trademark of much western Christian spirituality. God can’t possibly be engaged with the dark emotions can He? Hate, Envy, Greed, Fear, Domination, Aggression - these are the anti-matter of the redemption story aren’t they? Irredeemable, right? Couldn’t possibly find a place in a worshipful heart, correct? Well... the psalms point to answers that are uncomfortable for my domesticated soul. They seem to suggest that the conflicts of the soul need not be resolved before we enter the holy place of dialogue with God. They hint that it’s okay to bring dusty, muddy, blood stained garments into the presence of the Lord of Glory. But, we protest, won’t they tarnish the sheen of the courts of heaven? Won’t they corrupt the luster of Christ’s throne? David and his co-writers seem not to share our concern. They are constantly the mess of heaven and it appears that they get invited back over and over again.

So, I invite you to join me as I jump into the mystery of praise, worship, prayer, repentance, anger-management and holy creativity through a musical exploration of the psalms... all of them.

Kris MacQueen, Cambridge Vineyard

Blogs that get you Thinking

2011-05-23T08:00:00.001-04:00

As promised I am going to feature a couple blogs from the US. The Vineyard was born in Southern California, and while I know the Canadian Vineyard has forged a unique identity within the Vineyard family we still draw from our roots south of the 49th parallel. I'm sure there are many other excellent blogs from US Vineyard leaders out there, these are just two that I've found helpful voices along the journey.

I start with Jason Coker's often edgy blog - Pastoralia. I think I first encountered Jason through blog comments when I was exploring emerging church voices while researching my master's thesis. We certainly seem to follow a lot of the same bloggers. Jason and his wife Jenell pastored the recently closed the missional Vineyard Ikon (San Diego). Jason's recent reflections on the closing of his church are worth reading (and I'm not the only one saying this). There is a depth of maturity expressed in what he calls an autopsy of his church plant. Jason is also an active participant in the Society of Vineyard Scholars and has reflected on the work done there. Plus his space preacher banner rocks!

Jumping to the other side of the country, I virtually met Steven Hamilton after he read an article I wrote for Inside Worship ("Towards a Post-modern Liturgy"). His blog Verve & Verse is always full of rich reflections on life, faith, worship and pastoral theology. Another participant in the Society of Vineyard Scholars, Steven has a sharp mind and a passionate voice. He serves in the Vineyard Community Church of Central Maryland. I think you will find his blog a rich repository of reflections. (Plus he is boldly bald like myself!)

Next time I will focus on blogs that exhibit the Vineyard value of doing the stuff! As always I'm looking forward to your blog suggestions as well as comments.

Frank Emanuel - Freedom Vineyard, Ottawa

Technocrati Claim

2011-05-22T13:32:00.000-04:00

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Teaser

2011-05-22T09:49:00.004-04:00

Just a quick heads up about an upcoming post by Kris MacQueen (Cambridge Vineyard) on his exciting project of putting all the Psalms to music! An excellent example of the creative ways our folk are deepening their relationship with Scripture. Watch for it. In the meantime why not check out the Songshare website we featured here. Kris is one of the passionate minds behind this resource. He has a strong desire to see a new generation of excellent Canadian Vineyard worship.

I am also working on gathering some articles dealing with doing missions - at home and abroad. It is shaping up to be an exciting summer on the Ontario Thoughtworks blog. Perhaps some of these areas are passions for you too? Want to share an excellent resource you've found? Maybe you want to share your experiences doing the works of the Kingdom? I'm always looking for fresh material to share with our region (just click on my name below and let me know what has hooked your heart).

Keep faithful my friends.

Frank Emanuel, Freedom Vineyard

Book of Note: Revise Us Again

2011-05-16T08:00:00.000-04:00

This review originally appeared at Matte Downey's blog outWORD. Used with permission.

=================

I recently ordered a book by Frank Viola called Revise Us Again: Living From a Renewed Christian Script. The agreement was that I would get a free copy in return for reviewing it here on my blog (thanks to Speak Easy bloggers). Good deal, right? I had read bits and pieces of Viola's writing before - most of it I found to be prodding and often provocative rhetoric that sought to point the church in a more authentic and biblical direction. There were several glowing endorsements of the book in the email that notified me of the book's availability for review, so I took the bait.

What follows are my candid and honest opinions. You need not agree with my assessments and thoughts, but I offer them here for your consideration. First, let me say that Viola is by all indications a lover of Jesus dedicated to the purity and authenticity of the Church. That's a good thing. He hits his stride in a few places on this theme of revision: in chapter 6 he uses personal experience and numerous examples from the Bible as well as influential historical figures to develop very helpful delineations of the reality of God's presence. These are clear, concise, and serve to clarify much of the confusing language we often hear on this topic (briefly, here are his 4 distinctions: God as actually present with his people, a perceptible sense of God's presence, setting one's mind and heart actively on his presence, and the unnoticed but ever-present consciousness of God's presence).

The afterword is chock full of scriptures which illustrate the point Viola has been trying to make in the preceding 10 chapters: that our life script must come from our identity in Christ, and all actions and attitudes should naturally flow out from this realization. Those are the really good parts of the book.

Sadly, much of the rest of this easy-to-read volume finds Viola vacillating between being too general and then offering overly detailed, specific scenarios; the result is that much of the book is hard to identify with unless you are an American who has been steeped in a variety of the contemporary Christian worldviews prevalent in the USA. He assumes that we share many of his experiences, but it is just not so, Frank. He also begins most every chapter with neat and negative categories of what is wrong with current Christian thought and practice. All of us have a religious heritage which has conditioned us towards these unhelpful and inadequate mindsets, he assumes, and I venture to say that this assumption is too narrow.

No doubt the audience that he is writing for (Bible-belt or cultural Christians looking for a fresh and authentic perspective, perhaps?) will find much of what he says helpful. That's good! But unfortunately, Viola's main weakness is his failure to follow the very principle that he is putting forth: that it all begins with our true identity in Christ. Again and again, he begins addressing an issue by drawing lines such as those between libertines and legalists; he makes boxes and then herds what he calls charismatics, quoters, and pragmatics into them. None of them are getting it right, of course. Much of the time Viola uses a deconstructionist methodology which, at least in my opinion, fights against his main theme of changing how we think about who we are. While he purports that all must start with Christ, he seldom does.

Some of the generalities that I found irksome (sorry, Frank) were that Viola tends to make sweeping assumptions like "a large portion of the Christian world today has neglected a number of vital elements of the gospel" (page 58). There is no support for or explanation of statements such as this. Also, there is no definition or clarification of many of the terms he uses such as fundamentalist and literalist and we are left to assume that he is using them in a rather loose, colloquial sense.

Viola draws on a rather broad pool of references for this small book, and unfortunately, seems not to have done his research on a number of them. He is not careful with words either, sometimes choosing a clever turn of phrase over an informative and clarifying one. At one point he has a fictional stereotypical figure refer to "the subjective soup of mysticism" and becoming "lost in the sauce" (page 48). A very evocative word picture, yes, but as a student of mysticism, I can authoritatively say that it is not an accurate or informed one, even if it was coming from a fictional character. At another point when he is talking about old wineskins versus new wineskins, he states that "the new wine is always better than the old wine" (page 113). I have never heard a wine connoisseur utter those words, in fact, they all pretty much say just the opposite. Perhaps Viola is referring to a spiritual principle here, but he never explains it, so the phrase just leaves one puzzled because it is so counter-intuitive.

When Viola concentrates on the centrality of Christ, the book flows wonderfully and inspires the reader to let all of life be moored to this simple truth. However, when he spends page after page chopping contemporary Christian experience and culture into bite-sized pieces and analyzing their lack of nutritional content, the theme gets lost. Perhaps a kind but rigorous editor might have helped him keep on topic as well as take more care to exemplify his theme. The book would be much better served if it were characterised by more renewing language (as the title suggests) instead of being so focused on deconstruction.

Thanks for the read.

Matte Downey, Église Vineyard Montréal Church

How Bible Studies Can Help Your Community

2011-05-09T08:00:00.002-04:00

I've had the pleasure of hanging out a bit with my Calvary Chapel buddy Andy. He's always encouraging me with his passion for the Bible and sharing the Bible with others. I think we have a lot to learn from Andy, I think sometimes we've given up on Bible Studies and the result is that many of our people simply do not have a good grasp of scripture. I hope this post will encourage you to think again about running Bible Studies in your congregations.

Frank asked me to share our experience in using Bible Studies to see both outreach and the church grow here in Ottawa.

My wife and I moved to Ottawa in May of 2004, and quite frankly, we had no other tactic for starting a church other than starting a Bible Study. God was gracious to us and opened doors for us to get in front of some small groups of people and just simply read the Bible and try to explain it's truths and apply them to our lives.
Maybe I could share some things that would we learned in doing that in different environments.

First - No one else is doing it. We found that there was a huge appetite among Christians and non-Christians to have someone be willing to go through a book in the Bible and explain and answer questions. There was a lady we met, who told me months after being a part of one of the Bible Studies, how she had been praying for years for God to send someone to come and simply explain the Scriptures.

Second - God honours His Word, and the Spirit will confirm the Word with signs and wonders. I've had the glorious privilege of praying with people to receive Christ after a Bible study. I've seen God heal hearts, comfort minds, give faith, hope, heal cynicism through just simply sharing, systematically through the Bible.

Third - there's more than one way to do it. I've done it where we all sit in a room and we hold all the questions until the end and we are dismissed. I've done it where people jump in with comments and questions, and I've done it where I give an overview of the passage and we split up into groups, with different translations, even other languages, and answer questions in the text together. I've done it in rehabs, half-way houses, homes, restaurants, coffee shops, business training rooms, university lounges, cottages, boats, cars, parks and back porches.

Lastly, it's incredibly effective. Some of my staff today came from a Bible study that I led at a half-way house for guys in drug and alcohol recovery. It's mind-blowing to me to see these guys so tremendously effective in ministry today, they are leading worship, preaching, teaching, serving, praying and evangelizing right next to me today. How could I have known the amazing fruit that would come from those very humble environments, with guys that their families and friends had long abandoned, and we just simply opened up the Bible and looked in it together, picking up where we left off the week before.

Frankly, I don't know what else Christians should do when they get together, other than break open this beautiful book. Jesus said: "My words are spirit, and they are life to a person's whole being" (John 6:63).

May the Lord bless you as you serve Him.

Andy Falleur, Calvary Fellowship of Ottawa

Theology and Worship

2011-05-02T08:00:00.002-04:00

One of the things that I have often thought about is how theology undergirds everything we set out to do as Christians. Put another way, what we believe about God influences every decision we make. So if our theology is flawed, then our actions will also suffer in the same ways. Therefore it is important to spend time reflecting theologically (we do this all the time without the baggage of calling it theology anyway). One of the key areas of Christian action that I am passionate about is worship. Worship is not only shaped by our theology it also plays a key role in shaping our theology. Theologians have often described this dialectic or reciprocal relationship between theology and worship.

Just one area where our theology and worship meet is in our image of God. If our understanding of God is not one who is actually worthy of worship, then it is hard to inspire passionate worship. Likewise, if we do not sing about a God who is authentically worthy of worship then what is the point? The problem most of us develop is that our understanding of God takes on all kinds of baggage as we go through life. How significant people have behaved towards us can directly influence our understanding of God. What people we respect tell us (by their words and actions) about God also has a deep influence on our impressions of God. The further away from the corporate worship settings (where we speak and sing about our God) we get the less impact worship will have on our image of God. And I should also mention the all too common problem of Biblical illiteracy which leads to misshapen views of God. Why would you worship anything less than the God we sing, speak and read about in our Christian traditions? The simple answer is that you wouldn't.*

Worship definitely plays a role in leading us to discover the amazing qualities of our God. Worship that is theologically grounded is always the best. I remember the first time a pastor told me (when I was a young worship leader in a Foursquare church) not to use a certain song anymore. It was actually one I liked singing with great passion, so I asked "why?". This has become one of my favourite theological questions. He explained how that particular song spoke about how we established God's reign and he felt it robbed the glory from God. In other words - the image of God that this song evoked was of a god who was really only God because we declared it to be so. The theological flaw in this song is that it missed the fact that God is God not because we say so - but because that's what God always is and always will be. Anything less is merely a projection of our desires; what we would like God to be. And like my pastor friend recognized we need a God who is really God, not tamed by our desires to exercise some control over God in any way. Convinced that this was a theological problem with this song, I dropped it from our list of worship songs.

Over the years I've become more and more sophisticated in my discernment around worship songs. I feel at times like I'm terribly picky. Actually I will stop singing in worship settings if I feel the words portray something less than the awesome God I meet in the gospels. I do this because I do not want to disengage my brain in worship. And if you know me you would know I love to worship exuberantly. But more I want to worship with my whole being (mind, heart, strength, etc.) - so words matter to me. I also don't want to reinforce bad theology by singing it. I am convinced that what we sing strongly shapes what we believe and what we believe is manifest in everything we do.

Worship leaders are often even more powerful teachers than even our best preachers. I usually tell new preachers (I do a preaching/teaching training course for churches that invite me) that they are fortunate if someone remembers just one of their carefully constructed points. What people usually remember from sermons are the stories. Be that as it may, those same people will be able to remember the songs they sing week after week. Songs lodge themselves into our minds and work their way into our hearts - the words we sing need to have the same care that we give the words we preach.

When I hear comments like, "it's just a song", as if it doesn't matter what we sing, I usually shudder inside. In worship it is never just a song - it is worship of the most high God, the Lord of Lords. Worship of such a God always deserves to be our best, our most passionate expressions of our best theology (that is talk about God). I believe this is one of the key areas where the Vineyard has excelled as a movement.

Vineyard worship, from the early days, consistently told us of a God who was accessible, available, and interested in meeting us and transforming our lives. We learned to fall in love with this God, and the refrains of our love songs echo throughout many a church today (well beyond our denomination). What an amazing offering we have made to the Church. When we sing joyfully of the idea that the creator of all actually loves us, what joy that inspires. I do not want us to lose that heart - what I want us to do is continue to mature in this gift and offer even more theologically sound songs and services of worship. I believe that this is what will let even more generations fall in love with our great God. The way we do this is to continue to craft theologically sound passionate worship, and let those joyous strains fill our churches and gatherings.

How have you seen the theology of the songs you sing shape your expectations of God?

Frank Emanuel, Freedom Vineyard, Ottawa.

* I know there are all kinds of theories about why worship wanes in our communities - but the core issue is, in my opinion, one of content. It doesn't matter how "masculine" we make worship, if you aren't discovering the God who created all that is then you are just creating more problems.

Cusp of an election

2011-04-25T09:35:00.002-04:00

Don't worry, this is a non-partisan message. But I think it would be remiss to not encourage you all to vote. I call you to participate as citizens of this great country God has blessed us to live in. For us who live in the tension of the now and not yet of the Kingdom, our whole lives (what we say and do) should point towards the Kingdom we hope for. Spiritually this means we get to participate with God's redemptive activity in the whole world. We do this on our knees and on our feet. Politically we need to do the same. So pray and vote Ontario.

[Vineyard loving political theologian steps off his soapbox]

Frank Emanuel, Freedom Vineyard, Ontario

Jesus is alive!

2011-04-24T08:44:00.003-04:00

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.
John 20:1

Happy Easter everyone.

Underground Streams Podcast

2011-04-18T08:00:00.000-04:00

The Underground Streams podcast came out of a desire to communicate a message that touches on heart issues and explores truth. We do this through open discussion with a panel of participants. We connect to things that touch on the spirituality of individuals, things that cannot be explained completely by the Five senses.

It is our desire to create a forum that Christians can relate to and
that would be thought provoking and entertaining. We also hope it will appeal to people who are searching for spirituality and connect to it because the topics look interesting. We try to avoid using Christianese language or promote it as a Christian podcast. We want it to have broader appeal.

Christians could use it as a springboard for conversation with those around them who have not yet awakened to the spiritual side of themselves. The highest percentage of people who find Christ is through relationship.

We try to produce a show that has humour, original music and talk. We keep the length short to around 15 minutes.

Our podcasts are recorded on GarageBand software via Skype. That way we do not have to be in the same location and can invite guests to be a part of it. The podcast happens about 2 times per month. To do it this way, it is necessary to know GarageBand software and its limitations.

From a technical and creative aspect, we have a TV, movie, music composer/producer who participates in the podcast and also produces the show for us. We record our conversation on GarageBand around the topic and then he edits and produces the podcast using his software and technology. If others are looking for help, you could hire him to work with you. You can contact him directly through his website.

We have also placed the podcast on YouTube for additional exposure and are working on it being placed on itunes. It currently is on Podomatic. You can also find us on the web. We need to have more followers who would be willing to commit to our podcast to have it make an appearance in the New Age spiritual realm. You and your friends could help us accomplish this if you would become a follower of the podcast. Podcasts only affect the world as they become popular with listeners.

Bob Buckley, Vineyard Toronto Downtown, Ontario

Blogs that get you Thinking

2011-04-11T08:00:00.000-04:00

I call this edition - bragging up my friends. I must admit that the two bloggers I will highlight today have a special place in my heart. Both are seasoned Vineyard pastors with a real passion for deep faith and engaged spirituality.

Matte Downey has found a way to live her faith out loud in her outWORD blog. Matte and Dean pastor the awesome Vineyard Montreal. Matte is also continuing her theological education at Concordia University and brings a real vibrant faith seeking understanding to her blog. She is studying a mystic, Evelyn Underhill, so how cool is that? I say very. I've known Matte and Dean for quite a few years now and they are among my favourite people on the planet. Matte is energetic, passionate, and full of freedom. And it oozes out on her blog. Give it a read, I'm sure you will agree.

Brad Culver is probably the closest thing to a Vineyard mystic that we have. I ran into Brad and Mary at a Celtic Spirituality retreat years ago and have counted them amongst my dearest friends ever since. Mary and Brad planted the Refuge in Cambridge and have since retired to a homestead near Bancroft. Brad does a fair bit of speaking, mostly in the US, and I'm sure your congregation would be encouraged by his faith. Deeply grounded in a love for Christian tradition and history, Brad's blog Living Water from an Ancient Well is full of prayers, blessings, musings, and encouragements. Brad invites us to renew the connection our faith has with 2000 years of Christianity. Check it out, I'm sure you will find it encouraging.

OK, next time I'm going to highlight a couple blogs from Vineyard folk south of the border.

Frank Emanuel, Freedom Vineyard, Ontario

Thoughtworks Curriculum - Working for You

2011-04-04T08:00:00.000-04:00

God Thoughts Year 1 - Naturally Supernatural

Some folks in our church, Freedom Vineyard, are actually working through this course right now. One of the interesting aspects of that study group is that we have one participant who is not from a pentecostal or charismatic background. Naturally Supernatural reads completely differently to someone not familiar with these worldviews. I'll talk about that experience in a bit, but first what I really appreciate about this book.

When I read Naturally Supernatural I can hear Gary Best's voice. If you haven't had the pleasure of sitting in on one of Gary's presentations then I would encourage you to, Gary has been organizing monthly webinars for the Vineyard in Canada which are well worth taking in. For me the experience has been similar to reading Carol Wimber's John Wimber: The Way It Was, another important book for folks interested in the Vineyard. In that book it felt like I was sitting across a kitchen table from Carol and she was telling the honest story about John, good and bad. In Naturally Supernatural it is like sitting in a room full of friends and Gary is on a stool sharing from his heart about his honest stumblings towards a God who calls us to participate in the works of the Kingdom. I use the word stumblings deliberately here, Gary is not pretentious, in fact he lays it all out there including his own mistakes. But over and over the message is that despite our stumblings the God who meets us is ultimately a good and kind redeemer taking joy in our faith. Even when that faith is just tiny.

One of the things that those who don't know Gary might miss is that he is tracking the evolution of a walk with God that he's been on for many years now. This has made the book a bit difficult for those without the same supernatural assumptions as Gary. It has led to some lively discussions within our book study, which is ultimately helpful. I was surprised at details I missed reading it myself, simply because I have been part of the pentecostal/charismatic world for many years now. This problem with the text could be addressed by a little more attention to the context and assumptions at work in the anecdotes Gary tells throughout (but especially in the first chapter). Those of us inside these worldviews will find this book incredibly encouraging. It does a great job of moving the engaged reader to what I find to be a key strength of the Vineyard: situating the power of God in a Kingdom Theology framework.

This framing of the supernatural into the operative theology for the Vineyard is critical for us to wrestle with. It is how Wimber brilliantly made pentecostalism accessible to the conservative evangelical world. This way of understanding the supernatural situates it as a natural part of every believers' world. So instead of talking about special anointings and offices - Gary shares Wimber's view of the gifts as tools in a toolbox as a metaphor for the sufficiency of the Holy Spirit to enable us to live the experience of God in both word and deed. This moves us beyond a paradigm of 'super men and women with the power for the hour' to a paradigm of the people of God working with the Spirit of God to do all the things that Jesus did in his earthly ministry - and dare I say more. As I recently blogged - this is the heart of the Wimberism 'everybody plays'. Certainly there are other ways of understanding a supernatural faith, but this is the view that evokes in me the feeling of "yes! that's what I signed up for."

Like all of the ThoughtWorks courses, this course has an accompanying assignment. Included in that is a short book review and a practical application of the book. This assignment was developed by Cathy Berry when she ran the course in her local church. At our last book club, we made sure to pray for each other - in our group there are some serious health needs. We even had one couple share about their experience of effective healing prayers the night before our study group met. It has been very encouraging.

What have been your experiences of Naturally Supernatural? Have you taken in a Naturally Supernatural workshop with Gary or Joy that really impacted you? We would love to hear your thoughts.

Frank Emanuel, Freedom Vineyard, Ottawa.

Following Wimber on Facebook

2011-03-28T08:00:00.001-04:00

Social media sites, like facebook, can be incredible tools for networking and equipping. In my congregation, Freedom Vineyard, our facebook group functions as a dynamic bulletin allowing us to connect our community. It is also a connecting point for the Vineyard Ontario Leadership Team (VOLT). And recently many of us experienced the power of social media as it gave us a common place to mourn the loss of our dear friend Rob Hall. Perhaps I'll post at a later date about some of the problems with social media sites, but today I want to focus on one of the boons.

Sean and Christy Wimber have set up an official John Wimber facebook page. So you can follow John Wimber on facebook. What I love about this resource is that they regularly post Wimberisms, that is things that John said. Continually they call us back to the heart and values of the Vineyard movement. If you are on facebook, you owe it to yourself to follow John and be challenged by the Wimberisms that will show up in your news feed.

What are some of the ways that you have found social media helpful in your ministry?

Everybody Plays

2011-03-21T08:00:00.000-04:00

I was chatting with a theologian friend the other day about play and theology, his comment was insightful: everybody love play theory until someone tries to live it. The reason it came up was through my reading Wolfgang Vondey's excellent Beyond Pentecostalism. Vondey is one of the best scholars on Pentecostalism today. He admits that seeing play as a primary contribution of Pentecostal theology to a global theology is really hard to talk about in a non-playful way. It got me thinking about my own reservations around play, especially in terms of living the faith life. I liked to think that Wimber's slogan of everybody plays really didn't mean play, but doing the stuff in a more serious way - but now I'm not so sure play should be dismissed so quickly. Here are a few things I think are worth reflecting on:

1) Play is messy. This is the reason we want to dignify our religious expressions, most of us have learned to dislike mess. The problem is that play captures all the things we desperately want out of faith. Things like risk, inclusion, joy, experimentation, no need for the success models that have burnt so many of us out. The reason play is so messy is that it refuses to take itself seriously, at least not in the ways that "grown-up" culture wants to think of seriousness. Certainly play takes play seriously. But it is not purposeful in the ways that are typically valued by our culture. Without play we lose our ability to dream and experiment.

2) Play is all about joy. If the play isn't joyful then it doesn't last. This doesn't mean play is never hard, but it has its own rewards. I love playing games, and the games I love most require a tonne of work to pull off well (role playing games and strategic board games). But the work is always worth it - there is nothing quite like corporate story telling or having your friends over to play the silly madness that is Killer Bunnies. Joy in this case is about enjoying each other as much as the activity. And in terms of our faith lives it is about us enjoying playing with God and experiencing God's joy in playing with us. As Rik Leaf once sang, "joy is the serious business of heaven."

3) Vondey talks about how we grow up and lose our sense of play. Play is what kids do. When Jesus talks about becoming as little children I think he might be getting at this. Play doesn't have expectations, it doesn't really have goals. If it discovers a purpose then it can quickly go from being play to something more work like. This aspect of play is probably the most risky. It means dropping a tonne of pop Christian training. It means saying we don't have to know what it will look like - instead we just have to enjoy the process of playing it out. When I was reading Vondey I kept thinking that I've yet to see this sustained but the few glimpses I've seen of playful living were totally worth the risk.

4) Play is for everybody. Back to the Wimberism, everbody plays. What I love about play is that it is not about the superstars. It is not sport. It is not drama. It is play and everyone can play. Isn't that what we really want for our churches? A place where everyone can play, where no one needs to feel left out? I think so. I know it is an ideal, but I'm willing to let my ideals get caught up in the joy of play if it means I get to play with God. How about you?

Book of Note: Christians are Hate-filled Hypocrites

2011-03-14T08:00:00.000-04:00

NOTE: This is a reprint of a review from my personal blog, Bert Waggoner recently recommended it for Vineyard folk. I thought you might like to read a review of this gem. Frank (Freedom Vineyard)

This is a very helpful book. Prof. Wright has presented something that I strongly believe we need to sit down and think about. As an academic who studies evangelicals I am constantly weighing through alarmist self-condemnation and finally someone has had the guts to say that it simply isn't true. Whatever else I say about this book, I think it needs to be read and taken very seriously. Wright calls us to love the truth and be suspicious of statistics, especially when someone is trying to sell you something.

Wright wades through a variety of claims made about Christians, with careful attention to Evangelical Christians. He shows how these claims are often based on erroneous, suspicious or poorly interpreted statistics. He draws on large sample statistics to try and get at what the real situation might be. To his credit this could be very tedious writing, but Wright moves us along at a pace that avoids bogging us down in the details but gives us enough information to see whether or not there is any substance to the claims. I find he is fair. He doesn't paint an overly rosy picture, but he also doesn't paint the doom and gloom we often hear from pulpits.

Wright could have spent a bit more time on the disconnection between his statistically measurable aspects of Christian action and morality. The reality is that the agendas for negative publicity are often filled with strong assumptions about the nature of Christian action and morality. This isn't as much a critique of Wright's choices here as it is of the ideologies behind the internal negative reports on Christian morality. He does get at this with his lovely term "cranky nostalgia", I would simply call it ideologically driven romanticism.

For me the litmus test in terms of bias came when Wright addressed the powder-keg issue of homosexuality. I felt he was very focused, not presenting his own bias but sticking to his task of evaluating Christian attitudes, as measured by the statistics, towards gay individuals. I wonder if he could have been as unbiased towards Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses as well - he seems to lump them in with other religions despite the fact that they are Christian sects which emerged around the same time as many other "evangelical" sects. Historically it is more helpful to lump them in with the groups they are most related to, regardless of their adherence to classical categories of orthodoxy. The only reason I point this out is that it is a place where Wright's bias does show through.

All in all this is an excellent book. Wright punctuates it with humour (albeit fairly geeky humour) and keeps his analysis succinct and relevant. I highly recommend this book.

Your Turn Now

2011-03-07T10:55:00.002-05:00

We are in our fourth month here at the Regional ThoughtWorks Blog and we need your help. One of the things that John Wimber reminded us about was that "everybody plays". That means you too. I hope you will consider helping out in any or all of the following ways:

1) tell us about blogs that you find helpful in your life and ministry.

2) write a Blogs that Get you Thinking post.

3) write a piece on how you are interacting with any of the ThoughtWorks material.

4) write a review of a book, film, or training course you have been challenged by.

5) write about a conference or event you participated in that you think others could also benefit from.

6) write about what your community is doing to equip the saints for Kingdom ministry.

There is an incredible diversity and richness in our region. I'm looking forward to mining those riches together and living out the promise of God from our last regional celebration - God is not done with the Vineyard in Ontario.

Blogs that get you Thinking - Video Edition

2011-03-07T08:00:00.000-05:00

Let's face it, blogs work because they are often short snippets of much bigger conversations. They are accessible - unlike larger books and articles. In the busy lifestyles that dominate our culture - small is big. So it should be no surprise that short videos would be so popular on the internet. But if you've ever surfed YouTube for "good" videos, well you've probably been more disappointed than encouraged. I want to mention a couple of video sources that I have found helpful.

First, TED talks. These short videos are so consistently good that I actually subscribe to them as a podcast (I'll post more on podcasts later). TED is a non-profit organization dedicated to getting ideas out there. Their original focus on technology and design has broadened considerably over the years - and although the talks happen in expensive conferences they are so dedicated to the idea of getting the ideas out there that they make them freely available online! Plus they are all fairly short - under 30 minutes and sometimes under 15. What is really helpful about TED talks is that they often capture ideas that have mainstream traction in our culture.

Second, 30GoodMinutes. This is an inter-religious video and sermon archive, with the focus on inspirational messages in a well-organized website. You'll find the full range of voices from Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, speaking about stuff that matters like hope, endurance, getting along with each other, and faith. Speakers you might recognize are Randall Balmer, Robert McAfee Brown, Rodney Clapp, and Joan Chittister (a radical Catholic sister that I've grown to appreciate).

I know there are many other great sites out there. Some even oriented specifically to evangelical Christians. But I felt these sites might be ones some of us had missed and that are definitely worth visiting when we need a quick bit of inspiration or mental stimulation. Enjoy.

Frank Emanuel, Freedom Vineyard, Ottawa.

Why a ThoughtWorks Curriculum?

2011-02-28T08:00:00.000-05:00

I have talked a lot about the ThoughtWorks curriculum resource, but I wanted to give a little general rationale for what it is and why we built it. Certainly we could simply tap into the excellent resources at Vineyard Bible Institute or the Vineyard Leadership Institute and if you have access to either programme we would certainly encourage you to take advantage of it. But ThoughtWorks offers a little something more, in my opinion. Here are a few advantages to implementing ThoughtWorks in you congregations.

1) Made in Canada by Canadian Vineyard leaders

Each member of the ThoughtWorks team is both a leader in a Canadian Vineyard church and a representative for one of our four regions. We have a heart for the Canadian context and, we believe, a good understanding of what is important to developing and equipping Canadian Vineyard leaders. You know us, and you can easily call on us to tweak the material to fit your context.

2) Highlighting our National Successes

Because we are regional representatives we try our best to keep track of what is going on in our regions. More than that we have a mandate to highlight the best of what is going on in our regions in the hope that we can spread the wealth and equip more churches for Kingdom works. Because we keep in touch with each other we can also share what is going well in other regions, and spread the wealth nationally as well as regionally.

3) Developed For and By Leaders with a Passion for Equipping

We are not just folks who like to read - we read so that we can minister better. And what we want to do is pass on the best of what we are studying to you. Of course we love to hear about the things you are reading and finding helpful as well. Think of ThoughtWorks as a theological resource that can help you navigate a veritable mountain of material to find what might work best for you as you serve God in your own context. The courses we have developed represent areas that we have found to be essential to Vineyard ministries in the Canadian context.

4) Evolving and Basic

Lastly, ThoughtWorks curriculum is evolving. We still try to keep material as accessible as possible, but without sacrificing the depth that you will need to walk out your callings in the churches you love. Evolving yet basic is a good way to describe this curriculum. Basic because these are the building blocks for building strong disciples in keeping with our Lord's command: go into all the world and make disciples everywhere!

Kinda Overshadows Everything Else

2011-02-25T20:29:00.003-05:00

Vineyards in Ontario, and beyond, have been mourning the loss of a valued leader this week. Tuesday Rob Hall was killed in a construction accident in Zambia. That this really happened is still sinking in. I keep reflecting on a time when Rob came up to me at one of our leaders gatherings, he wanted to apologize for something, I don't even remember what. But I do remember him sharing his heart over closing the Kitchener Vineyard. What I was struck with was his depth of character and his passion for people. From that moment on my respect and appreciation for this man of God just grew and grew. Judging by the heartfelt comments on the facebook page and blog set up in his honour many, many people experienced the same man of integrity and passion that I knew. Rob I miss you man.

At this time we can show our love and support by donating to a trust fund that has been set up for his wife Kate and their children. And we can pray for Kate and their children to experience the God of all comfort at this time.

Taking Our Pulse - Survey

2011-02-23T09:18:00.003-05:00

If you are part of a local Vineyard community then please go complete this survey before Monday.

It is that time again, these are the same questions put out to the Vineyards two years ago. The survey will take about 15 minutes to complete and will help Vineyard Resource Canada to get a sense of what beliefs and values are important for our movement as well as measure what we are doing well and what we need to continue working on. I hope you will consider participating.

Book of Note: Blue Parakeet

2011-02-21T08:00:00.000-05:00

Our book club just finished reading this book. It is actually the required text for Biblical Foundations Year Four of the ThoughtWorks Curriculum. Scot McKnight, the author, is a New Testament scholar and professor at North Park University in Chicago. I've been following Scot's blog for a few years now as he is a great thinker and friendly critic of the emerging church movement. What is great about this book is that it is written for a non-academic audience, and it is quite readable. What I dislike about this book is that he leaves a lot of assumptions unexamined - such as a notion of tradition that he fails to adequately explain. Despite this, the value in the book is that Scot provides an alternative hermeneutic lens by which we can read scripture. In simple terms he shows what is possible when we take seriously scripture as story instead of a self-help book.

I really appreciate Scot's notion of the blue parakeet. He uses the illustration of an unusual bird that shows up so that we would pay closer attention. He complains, and rightly so, that we want a tame Bible, we want all the blue parakeets safely in their little cages so that they won't rock our world. But the Bible is what Metz would call a dangerous memory. It should be a revolutionary text that constantly challenges us to dig deeper into the heart of God. I think this is what frustrates me most about looking to the Bible for simple answers, by that I mean answers that don't shake our worldviews, instead of letting it upset us and spur us on towards love and good works. When we read Jesus saying "go" or realize the implications of Jesus' response to the woman caught in adultery it should challenge us. It should make us question what we want to cage up for the sake of our comfort. The Bible should be like Lewis' Aslan, not a tame lion. Or, as Scot tells it, like a blue parakeet set free to change our perspective.

McKnight also develops a methodology by which we can allow scripture to be living story in our midst. He insists that the fear that such an approach will lead to chaos is unfounded - rather that the culturally shaped readings (he wants us to be honest about the world we bring to the text when we read it) will allow us to preach the gospel effectively in our culture (p. 206). This shouldn't be confused with capitulating to culture and watering down the gospel - but finding ways to frame the gospel so that it can penetrate the culture more effectively. In fact I think that this is actually something evangelicals are good at.

Scot gives us a great entrance into a much needed conversation about how we read Scripture. While it does present some problems for more critical readers, like myself, I think what he does is accessible and well worth reflecting on. His encouragement to not settle for a tame Bible is so important for those of us longing for more of God's Kingdom (as opposed to our kingdoms).

3.5 out of 5 stars.
Frank Emanuel (Freedom Vineyard)

Regional Resource Library Idea

2011-02-14T08:00:00.002-05:00

A few weeks ago I mentioned the excellent resource LibraryThing. As pastors and leaders there are a lot of great books, CDs, and DVDs that can benefit us - but sometimes you just can't afford to spend the cash. Don Rousu mentioned in a recent ThoughtWorks Skype (conference call) that resources like the CD collection of Christian History magazine can be a huge benefit to folks in our movement. So what I was thinking about creating is a community library.

The way it would work is that I'd create an OntarioThoughtWorks LibraryThing account and fill it full of the tangible resources that folks in our region are willing to pass around. Your responsibility would be to get it from who has it last - there are lots of fields in the LibraryThing database to make this easy. You simply look for the book, CD, etc. and see who has it (and how long they've had it) and request to have it next. You can also see any reviews that we have made on the material - I can also include links to articles on this blog that pertain to using that material. There are some seriously great possibilities here.

My experience of the generous people in our region is that you all love to share resources. I can't tell you how many folks have given me books at regional gatherings and the like. So this idea is just a more deliberate way to do this.

What do you think? Would this be something you would use? What I am thinking is that we could use a portion of the ThoughtWorks budget to make available a few regional copies of the ThoughtWorks curriculum books and videos. Let me know in the comments and at the regional gathering what you think.

I am looking forward to finding creative ways to equip and empower the Vineyard in our region!

Frank Emanuel, Freedom Vineyard

Book Clubs

2011-02-07T08:00:00.000-05:00

Book Clubs are very popular these days. I am convinced that they foster social connections that folks long for, but they are also an excellent opportunity for equipping the saints. Over at Freedom Vineyard we have a club called Freedom Reads. We are on our fourth book together and we try to mix it up between lighter type books (The Shack, Blue Like Jazz) and entry level books on Christian faith (The Challenge of Jesus, Blue Parakeet). We let folks pick and choose what books to participate on, but we also have a faithful core who really enjoy studying together.

A great connection to the ThoughtWorks curriculum is that most of the modules have books attached to them. Currently our group is finishing up Scot McKnight's Blue Parakeet which happens to be Year Four of Biblical Foundations. Folks in our club have the option of completing the ThoughtWorks assignment for a certificate. Whether or not they do that, it is a practical way that we are implementing the ThoughtWorks curriculum into the life of our congregation.

Book clubs are really simple to put together. They almost run themselves. This is what we do.

1) Decide together on a book. Book clubs work best if folks have read the books. So the best way to get buy in is to choose together. Think of the ThoughtWorks curriculum as a springboard into a whole world of mentoring and discipling possibilities. Your regional ThoughtWorks representative would love to help you identify more books that might serve your community even better. You want something that will be enjoyable and challenging. A couple of our books have been disliked by some of the readers - but those are often then best studies (the Shack for instance had quite a polarized response but amazing conversations came out of our reading of it).

2) Break the book into reasonable portions. I usually set up a reading schedule for our group. You want enough material that you move through the book at a steady pace and have enough to work through when the group meets, but also you need to make it small enough that folks don't feel left behind or overwhelmed. We also decided that meeting every week was too much and try to meet about twice a month. Enjoy the process, often after a good discussion folks will want to revisit sections they've already read so they can see how other folks in the group saw something completely different in the text.

3) Be informal. We meet around a dining room table. We have coffee, tea and some munchables. A facilitator makes sure the conversation keeps moving, but often an open question like, "what did you like or dislike about this section?" is enough.

That's it.

Have you tried a book club? Here is a great opportunity to share your experiences, talk about what worked and what didn't work. If you have a different structure, let me know - that might make a great post for this blog.

Thoughtworks Curriculum - Working for You

2011-01-31T08:00:00.000-05:00

This is a new series looking at the various Thoughtworks offerings in terms of curriculum you can run in your congregations. What is exciting is that there are many ways this material can be run, what we present on the Thoughtworks website is simply a guide to running the material as either a mentoring exercise with someone you are equipping to lead or with a small group who simply want to know more about the Christian life.

Kingdom Encounters - Year One

Preparing a Message

A few years back Don Rousu sent me this teaching, I think it was on tapes even! He does a great presentation and the one big message is that every good sermon should be centered around one clear thought. Sounds simple but unfortunately it is not what is typically heard from pulpits around the world. And unfortunately I'm certain I've added to the chaos that is contemporary preaching.

Preaching is a serious part of Christian worship. This kicks off the Kingdom Encounters material because for many people it is the proclamation of the Kingdom that becomes the first clear encounter they have with God. Not that the message is somehow divine - but it can create the place of encounter with God. Paul underscores the historical importance of preaching when he asks "how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him?" (Romans 10:14c) The context of this passage is that the preaching of God's Good News (aka the word of Christ in the NRSV) enables people to believe and be saved! If this is so important than I am convinced it is worth spending time learning how to do it better.

About a dozen or so years ago I found myself in a classroom training to be a professional corporate trainer. I actually had a teaching background (college) and years of preaching/teaching experience. But as the classes unfolded I found myself wishing I had sat in that chair years earlier. It was so helpful that I've since developed a Preaching and Teaching workshop that I have had the privilege of delivering for Vineyards in Ottawa, Pembroke and Sarnia. I'm sold on the need to develop this skill and I'm also sold on the idea that almost everyone can preach and teach competently.

The course that Don has put together includes a text, Design for Preaching, H. Grady Davis; Don's course notes which you can use to structure your mentoring time; and, as always, a final assignment which can be completed for a Thoughtworks certificate (contact your regional Thoughtworks representative for details on how this works.)

If you have folks wanting to lead small groups, preach in worship gatherings or just understand more about the role of preaching in Christian worship - this is a great course to start with. Maybe you, as a teaching pastor, want to know how to hone your craft and clearly articulate the goodness of our God, this is the course to start with.

May signs and wonders follow our preaching of Christ's word!

Upcoming Webinar

2011-01-26T09:08:00.002-05:00

Preaching that Sticks

Join us for a webinar on February 15

Reserve your webinar seat now at: CLICK

If we've been pastors for any length of time we've probably spoken millions of words - that's our job (or at least a major part of it). Most of the time we live in the hope that our many words are actually making a difference. Sometimes that hope becomes a little more tenuous when in the middle of preparing our next message we realize that we can't remember our last.

Is it possible to have preaching that is remembered, understood and even instrumental in bringing about real life change? In this webinar we will try to unpack some of the key essentials in making that a reality by answering questions like these:

Whose message are we preaching?

Who are we preaching to?

Are we talking with or talking at?

Are we expecting too little?

Are we making room for encounter?

Panelist: Gary Best
Webinar start times:
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM PT
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM MT
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM CT
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM ET
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM AT
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM GMT
This message was sent by: Vineyard Resource Canada, PO Box 333, St. Stephen, NB E3L 1H8, Canada

Developing Biblical Literacy

2011-01-24T08:00:00.000-05:00

I have to make a confession here. While I love to read and study Scripture - in the midst of the busyness of being a husband, father, pastor, student and teacher it is not easy to keep any sort of regular devotional reading schedule. Over the years I've used many different tools, and for seasons they are great. But like many of the busy people who come to our churches - these practices can fall off when another, seemingly more urgent, task arises. I have asked my friend Andy to write a post on running Bible studies - he is brilliant with these, and frankly I think we need to re-imagine how we can introduce more Bible study into our congregational life - but what I'm wanting to do today is reflect on our commitment to Scripture as "the people of the Book" (as our Muslim friends call us).

Because I know that my relationship with Scripture is somewhat feast and famine. It is very important for me to make sure that the Bible is a central part of the worship life of the congregation I pastor. This does two things for me. First it means that I am, as primary teaching pastor, responsible to at the very least be in the Word as part of my preparation for regular teaching. The second thing is that it means that our community sees the value of Scripture modeled on a weekly basis. Let me explore both of those ideas just a bit.

Quite a few years back in our community, Freedom Vineyard, we decided to find a place in our worship for public reading of Scripture. We actually turned to a lectionary. A lectionary is basically a Scripture reading/worship schedule for the whole year. Our intention was to re-learn the gospels. Many of us had started to realize that bouncing around Paul's letters with our favourite sermon topics was not stretching us. Around that time I was taking a course on Mark's gospel and started to realize that the majority of the Christians we knew, myself included, were great with snippets of scripture but often quoted things that did not always ring true when carefully read as part of a whole book or narrative. We also started to recognize that Paul's context was in a church that regularly and publicly (in worship that is) read gospels. When we adopted lectionary readings it was mainly so that we would be reading the gospels as a regular part of our worship times. For me as a pastor this meant reflecting deeply, wrestling even, with the gospel reading for that week's message. But because we were following a schedule - and missing the other days of the week - it also meant for me that I was not just responsible for learning what that little bit of gospel meant, but what it meant in a continuing story that is woven daily through our worship lives. For a long time I simply incorporated the lectional readings into my devotional life. But, as I confessed before, devotional trends come and go for me. So having a set reading/teaching schedule means that in preparing for a service I always read what comes before and after the gospel text - so that I know what is happening in the story so that I might have a better sense of what is going on in the text.

Corporately it has a similar effect. My congregation is used to thinking about the gospel reading in the context of what is going on in the narrative around it. I've noticed that there is little tolerance in our group for the common technique of proof texting, that is when we gather up a number of verses to support whatever idea we are presenting. Because we meet as a small group, when someone tries to throw in a verse I've seen folks question the speaker about what the verses before or after do to their basic argument. While that sort of thing can make us uncomfortable - as a pastor I was excited to see that their biblical literacy was growing. A typical teaching in our group sticks pretty close to the source texts, rather than relying on favourite passages taken out of context.

How we interact with Scripture as teachers sets the expectations for the people who attend our bodies. As evangelicals we often claim to have a high, meaning it is very important to us, view of Scripture. But how can we claim this and yet never think about how we treat Scripture in our worship/teaching times? It is a good check, every now and then, to ask if we are letting Scripture shape and change us or if we are simply manipulating Scripture to serve our perceived pastoral needs? Hard questions, but important if we want to truly be "the people of the Book."

Frank Emanuel (Freedom Vineyard, Ottawa)

Book Club: Naturally Supernatural

2011-01-19T08:00:00.000-05:00

Watch for an upcoming post on running book clubs next month. But I wanted to invite anyone around to join us in our latest book club where we will be reading Gary Best's Naturally Supernatural together. There are bulk rates on the books so if you want in let me know as soon as possible. For those interested in completing the ThoughtWorks diploma for God Thoughts Year One, that option will be made available to you.

Our schedule is:

Feb. 7 - Chapters 1 & 2
Feb. 28 - Chapters 3 & 4
March 21 - Chapters 5 & 6

Hope you can join us, meetings happen at my place (Frank & Sharon's place, Centrepointe (Ottawa)) from 8PM until 9:30ish.

Blogs that get you Thinking

2011-01-17T08:00:00.000-05:00

Ok, let's take it a bit closer to home this time. Well sort of.

Anchorhold is the personal blog of Colin Benner. I still remember the first time we met Colin and Denise, they ended up in our living room praying over us with Colin praying while playing my classical guitar. It was a lovely moment, a memory I have cherished for years. We really got to know the Benner's when they were pastoring Amicus Vineyard in Kanata. Colin and Denise both served on the Ontario Regional Leadership Team as well as the National Missions development group for the Vineyard. It isn't much of a surprise that they are once again pastoring in another part of the world - Azerbaijan. I love these guys. Colin is a deep thinker and his personal blog is worth reading. To me it is like a window into the devotional life of a friend who truly models faithfulness.

I would be remiss if I didn't plug my own personal blog. Freedomlog has been around since 2005. It has been a vehicle for my reflections on God, faith, being a dad, studying theology, pastoring Freedom Vineyard, building relationships, playing games, basically the whole gamut of my life. I get visitors from all over the world, and every now and then a great little conversation will spark up. I like to push the boundaries of living out faith, so sometimes the material can be a bit edgy - you might want to start with my new reader warning.

There are a lot of great blogs out there, what are some of your favourites?

Mentoring and Healing of the Inner Man

2011-01-10T08:00:00.001-05:00

We asked Don and Ruth to share a bit about Kingdom Encounters year 4: Mentoring and Healing of the Inner Man which is material they have developed and worked with for many years. Enjoy!

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What lies behind this training? The development of this course grew out of our personal history. It began with facing a lot of inner pain and a personal cry to find healing in our own lives. Through a long and painful process, the Lord Himself led us by the Word and Spirit to face our own sins and to forgive the sins of those who had hurt us. He told us, through the scriptures, that he would redeem our pain by comforting others with the same comfort that we ourselves had received from God (II Cor: 1:3, 4). And He has. As we found some freedom and healing for ourselves, we began to share with others what we have discovered in Christ.

It was in the late 70's and early 80's when we our church went through renewal that God began bringing to us scores of young adults who were addicted and relationally dysfunctional. It became apparent that the wounds of the wounded would soon overwhelm us and bring wounding and dysfunction to the rest of the church! Out of desperation, we began to cry out to the Lord to help us bring healing and restoration to the broken in a consistent and intelligent way. He proved faithful to answer those cries.

The first part of the answer came through an electrician whom we had hired to upgrade the lighting fixtures in our church’s worship space. Over a period of three days, he recounted how he had taken his severely depressed and totally dysfunctional mate to a counselling centre in Denver, Colorado. He reported that she not only made a full recovery, but that she was 200% better than she had ever been! When we asked for more information, he lent us a book that led us into the work of Dr. Charles R. Solomon and his Exchanged Life seminars. These teachings, which were brilliant diagrammatic illustrations of the insights of Watchman Nee, focused primarily on issues of the lies of rejection which are broken by the liberating revelation and power of our true identity in Jesus Christ. God had already used the teachings of Watchman Nee to open our eyes to many biblical truth, but Solomon’s illustrations provided a way to effectively communicate those insights to others. “If you can see it, you can understand it.”

As we began to share these insights with our counsellees, we saw people make great strides towards wholeness, but then they would either plateau or regress. We sensed something was still missing and that we needed more help, so we cried to the Lord once again. Within a few months, he brought us into relationship with John Sandford of Elijah House ministries. Their teaching fit like a hand in a glove with what we were already doing, and we began to apply these further insights in our counselling ministry. Once again, we saw people who were stuck at a primary level of healing make new and dramatic breakthroughs! This phase of the ministry focused primarily on father and mother wounds and the bitter root judgments and vows that arise from those relationships. As we led people in forgiving parents, renouncing judgments and vows, and confessing personal sin, deep and significant healing came to nearly everyone with whom we prayed. This included people suffering from severe depression, dysfunctional relationships, fear and shame-based personalities, acute gender identity confusion, performance orientation, various patterns of addiction, and the like.

After several years of gaining experience in the counselling office, we got some vision for equipping others to do what we were doing. Over a period of about 10 years, with the addition of our own experience and insights, we developed the current set of training materials, including lectures, diagrams, history forms, and audio recordings that our students could use to begin applying this healing ministry to others. We have offered the training in about 45 hours of class time held over three weekends in November, January, and March. All of the training materials are now freely available online at no cost to the student.

Although not all who have taken the course have gone on to counsel others in the same way we have, all of the graduates share a solid, biblical understanding of what spiritual freedom and maturity looks like and it has produced a culture of discipleship and healing within our church community. You can’t put a price on that! It has had a profound effect, not only on how our students pray for the sick during ministry times, but also on the effectiveness of their prayers.

Don and Ruth Rousu, Harvest Vineyard, Edmonton

Society of Vineyard Scholars Annual Gathering

2011-01-04T15:00:00.000-05:00

I mentioned this upcoming event earlier. The line up is set and it looks great. Again I wish I could attend and if they post papers somewhere online I'll link them up here when I find them. Take a look at the schedule and consider attending. I'm hoping that next year I have enough of my thesis written to justify presenting a paper there.

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Greetings from the Society of Vineyard Scholars!

We are just one month away from By The Renewal Of Your Mind: Imagining, Describing, and Enacting the Kingdom of God, the 2011 Society of Vineyard Scholars annual conference in Seattle, and we at SVS HQ are thrilled about the way that things are coming together.

The full program for the 2011 Society of Vineyard Scholars Annual Conference is available online now. Featuring more than forty papers in fourteen parallel session from scholars in the Vineyard, as well as three world-class plenary speakers, a spiritual pedagogy workshop, and plenty of time for worship, prayer, prophetic ministry, and just hanging out, this is going to be a highlight of the year for all who attend.

Click here to download the conference program.

Three Days Left To Get $99 Conference-Rate Hotel Rooms

SVS has acquired a special conference rate of $99 on hotel rooms at the Marriott Courtyard Downtown Seattle--Lake Union. These rates apply for Thursday February 3rd, Friday February 4th and, as available, for Wednesday February 2nd. These rates are only locked in until January 6th, so reserve today! These rooms can be booked by calling 206.213.0100 and reserving under the group "Vineyard Scholars." If you have any questions about or problems with your booking, call Geraldine, the very helpful Marriott manager responsible for our group block at 415-229-9470.

Don't Forget To Register!

To register for the SVS conference, there are two steps: first, purchase a conference registration and second, ensure that you have a current SVS membership. Both are required for participation in the conference. This is very important, as these policies will be strictly enforced during the conference. There will be a $5 surcharge for all who register for the conference on-site, so do yourself a favor...register online today! All details about how to register for the conference can be found on the conference website, under the heading "Registering For The SVS Annual Conference."

As always, if you have any further questions, please email the SVS.

We are looking forward to seeing you in Seattle in February!

Sincerely,

Caleb J. D. Maskell
Steering Committee
Society of Vineyard Scholars

Magnificat: A Retreat for all Creatures (Feb. 11-13, Guelph Vineyard)

2011-01-04T08:00:00.001-05:00

This just came to my inbox, it looks awesome. I had a chance to stay with Rik and Cathy Berry last year - awesome folks. I would encourage any who can to attend. If you do go and can write up a bit of a review for this blog please let me know.

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We call this worship experience the “Magnificat” after Mary’s song, “My soul magnifies the Lord...” As the artists gather together art is created in confluence, where one person’s inspiration feeds another. Drama or poetry might begin, a musician would pick up the theme, a visual artist would give color, the dancer might flow into this... We create together and God speaks through the art.

Any creative person (artists, poets, musicians, dancers) regardless of their skill level. We do want the professional artists to be there, but we also want to give life to the less recognized creatives.

Vineyard fellowships have offered “creatives” some opportunity within worship services, but often music is the only real player. We believe this retreat can help to open new perspectives on how a full artistic expression of worship can benefit the entire congregation. Artists can bring breakthroughs!

This retreat would be great for all the creatives in our region. It will be a chance to receive prophetic insight, prayer and encouragement from someone who is already walking this path. Our hope is that this gathering will lead to an ongoing support network within the region of those who have similar gifting.

Creatives have often been misunderstood, and are in need of healing and encouragement on the way towards releasing more fully what God has given you.

We will gather over a weekend to find new inspiration and strength from God for what lies ahead by creating art together.

You will experience a measure of healing and a restoration of calling.

Over the time together each person will receive prophetic insight through prayer and words of encouragement to set them in motion. There are a few sessions where these opportunities occur but especially on the first night as Rik Berry (Vally Gate Vineyard, Kentville, NS) leads the opening session.

You will have a chance to experience worship through a confluence of the arts.

The retreat is held at Guelph Bible Conference Centre at 485 Waterloo Ave. in Guelph. The grounds of the Centre are filled with mature trees—a beautiful setting! All accommodations and meals are included.

We begin Friday (Feb. 11, 2011) evening and end after lunch on Sunday (Feb. 13, 2011).

The cost is partly dependent on the number of participants. Our goal is to keep the total cost at $200. The deadline for registering is January 10th, 2011. (Yes, it’s an early deadline, but we need to have our numbers lining up or we will have to postpone the retreat to another time).

The retreat is hosted by Guelph Vineyard. To register or obtain further details, please contact Lisa Cosier.

Study Resources: LibraryThing

2011-01-03T08:00:00.000-05:00

One of the values John Wimber tried to instill in the Vineyard is that of being lifelong learners. Often in the busyness of pastoral life it is hard to make sure we keep learning. There is actually a great joy in learning and studying that many of us forget in the day-to-day work of living. Learning is one important way that we can keep our ministry fresh and exciting. It requires an openness to new things that gives room for God to be God and show up in ways we never expected. Learning should be seen as an adventure not simply a must do task. But every adventure requires some good equipment to be successful. In this series I want to highlight some of the resources that folks have found helpful in being life long learners.

Books are a big part of learning. But there are a lot of books out there. Personally I have a lot of books, but that is because I am expected to know my field of study (20th century evangelical theologies) very well. Keeping track of all those books is one thing, but remembering which ones were great and where they walked off too is even better. I really love LibaryThing. It is cheap ($25 gets you a lifetime membership and they have free accounts for up to 100 books), friendly and flexible. My own library is available to me anytime I want. I buy a lot of used books so a quick web search makes sure I no longer end up with multiple copies of books (yes this was a problem for me). It also lets you rate books, create citations, find out what other people say about books, note who you loaned the book to, write and read reviews, etc. It also has a community, so you can find people with similar book interests and chat with them. I am also a big fan of the Early Reviewers club - cause who doesn't like free books! One other feature that I want to mention is that LibraryThing also helps facilitate sharing of books between members.

If you are looking for a way to keep track of your books then I highly recommend this tool.

Making Thoughtworks Work

2010-12-29T08:00:00.001-05:00

One of the things that Thoughtworks does well is organize and deliver weekend intensives. These are training opportunities, hosted by a local Vineyard, open to anyone. Over the years we have run them on everything many different topics, and we can do them for you. It is my hope that as you read material on this blog or work through the Thoughtworks curriculum that you discover things that you believe your congregation can benefit from. That's where we can help. Simply contact your regional Thoughtworks representative and figure out an option that works for you. Often the reason we have not is because we haven't asked.

To facilitate getting training out as cost effectively as possible, we also need you to let us know your passions. Have you done an excellent teaching on marriage counseling? Why not write up a blurb for this blog - that way when folks read it they can be inspired to bring that wisdom to their own congregations as well. The more we know about the passions in our region the better we will be able to let the whole region, and even country, benefit. The same goes for needs, if we know that there is a problem with biblical literacy, we can help connect you with resources that will work for your congregation. Building on the positive experience of the National Webinars, we do not need to be locked into traditional modes of training either. We are here to serve the churches in our movement, ensuring that we build on a strong foundation.

Blogs that get you Thinking

2010-12-27T08:00:00.002-05:00

About once a month we would like to feature a few blogs* and other websites that get you thinking. This month I wanted to draw our attention to a couple of East Coast blogs with Vineyard connections.

The Naked Pastor is none other than David Hayward. David and Lisa were the pastors of Rothesay Vineyard(NB) from 1995 until 2010. I met David at a Post-modern Hermeneutics* workshop at Dominion Hill. I recognized right away David was a sharp thinker. Over the years I've come to appreciate his blog the NakedPastor. He posts articles, comics and pictures often probing deeply into our unexamined preconceptions about God, church and life. David often has very lively debates in the comments, although they can get fiery at times as well. I make a point of surfing over to his blog at least once a week. Whether you agree with him or not, David Hayward is really good at making you think.

Another great East Coast blog comes from PEI. Cracked Virtue is the personal blog of Vineyard pastor Brian Metzger (Charlottetown Community Church). I also met Brian at the same Post-modern Hermeneutics workshop as David. He has quite a different personality than David, but again a keen thinker and a great guy. Brian does more of a commentary style blog, sharing his thoughts on everything from how he's feeling personally to what is going on in churches today.

EDIT: Brian has moved his blog here.

If you know blogs and websites that get you thinking why not write up a little context blurb and email them to me. (church(at)freedomvineyard.com) I'll try to put up a few new links the third Monday of each month.

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*Blogs, like this one, are websites where a person or group of people journal in a public way. The better blogs also allow you to interact with the content through comments.
*Hermeneutics is just the fancy word theologians use for interpreting stuff. Post-modern in the case of the workshop was used to name the present state of culture in which deep suspicions toward the Bible, or any religious text for that matter, is considered 'normal'.

A Bit on Blogs

2010-12-23T10:33:00.004-05:00

Blogs have been around for quite a while. They can be a wonderful format for fostering discussion. I have a new series about to start here on the Ontario Regional Thoughtworks Blog called Blogs that Make you Think. Every month we will highlight a few blogs that are worth visiting, beginning with some Canadian Vineyard blogs. Blogging is not like other formats you might be used to (although there are many examples of people trying to make blogs that function like traditional web pages). It is not like a web page in that a blog does present some sort of article, but then it allows you to interact with that article by commenting. But it is also not like a forum (or a newsgroup for those who have been around the internet a long time) where the conversations are continuous threads generated by an ongoing discussion - although the conversations in the comments can sometimes turn into veritable forums. The difference is that the blog post is what generates the comments.

Blog posts are an interesting form of writing too. Often they are constructed in a stream of consciousness fashion. Much as I'm doing in this post. There is usually a central idea and the blog forms a sort of sermon, if you will, around that idea. As such, blog posts are often not fully cooked ideas - they are meant to express someone's thinking on an area they are interested in. I do this all the time on my personal blog. Where the posts come out of what has absorbed my attention that day. Also it is important to note that opinions in a blog post reflect an individual - which is why on this blog we have a policy of noting who the post comes from at the end of the post. My hope is that you will find less and less posts with my name on them and more from folks around the region. This distinction is important because the posts on this blog do not represent the Vineyard or even Thoughtworks - but represent the individuals who offer them up as part of an ongoing conversation. Although they do represent the value of a rich and diverse conversation amongst people trying to express faithfulness to God's Kingdom.

Comments is where blogging becomes a rich form of conversation. Once a post is out there, then it spurs others to also reflect on that idea. Over time a certain ethos will develop, that is a set of ideas that are of importance to the bloggers and those who read the blog. We set out an explicit ethos that we are trying to create in our initial post. Over time blogs will attract followers who become the most frequent commentators, but most blogs are open to anyone commenting. For those interested, we have set up comments to require some sort of identification - the reason is that this cuts down on the amount of spam comments and it also promotes a more civil discussion. There are always ways to comment anonymously. We also monitor comments for spam, which is an advertisement pretending to be a comment. In terms of what people comment on, I always find it surprising. But that is be beauty of the blog. Conversations can spring up and go well beyond the initial post.

I hope this little introduction is helpful. The first post in our new series is scheduled to come out Monday. I trust that you are all enjoying the holiday season and finding opportunities to place Christmas as the center of your festivities.

Merry Christmas all.

Frank Emanuel - Freedom Vineyard, Ottawa

Book of Note: Can Evangelicals Learn from World Religions?

2010-12-20T08:00:00.000-05:00

Refuge Vineyard (Cambridge) planter Brad Culver pointed me to this book by Gerald R. McDermott. Can Evangelicals Learn from World Religions? Jesus, Revelation and Religious Traditions sounds quite daunting. It is actually a very accessible read and one of the more useful books in my library. McDermott tackles the problem of religious pluralism (our cultural reality) and provides a real workable and soundly evangelical means by which we can live our faith in the world today. That is a big claim, so let me unpack it.

The two dominant responses to pluralism are to appeal to a same but different view of religions or to demonize other religions. I know that most of us struggle for something in the middle, but it is hard to not find yourself at one end or the other. The "all roads lead to the same place" view is quite common amongst classically liberal theologies (e.g. Paul Knitter's No Other Name?) and usually makes us evangelicals run the other way. What this approach ignores is that the scandal of particularity, that is the technical term for the belief that there is something unique about what Jesus has done, is of huge importance to Christian orthodoxy. But when we insist on the scandal then we often do it in a way that says all religions, except maybe Judaism, are rooted in lies. So in that way of thinking there is nothing we can learn from world religions except maybe how to argue against them. And even though I hold to the scandal of particularity, I find neither of these responses adequate. That is where McDermott comes in.

McDermott tackles a cluster of issues around the way evangelicals view other religions. He looks at the notions of revelation, and rightly suggests that it is naive to think that God is without a witness there. In fact he would encourage us to look for the ways that the Father is already speaking within other religions. Much like the story of St. Patrick and the Celts - Patrick found that God was already at work drawing the Celts to Jesus (such as the four leaf clover, another excellent book on the subject of God's witness in world religions is Don Richardson's Eternity in their Hearts). However, there is a problem with just trying to find the ways a world religion is like Christianity. If all we are doing is trying to convert the religion of the other then there can be no learning. McDermott does something fascinating with this core idea - he makes it the basis of an attitude towards other religions. This attitude has two important parts:

1) Unlike the approach where we lay down what makes us distinct as Christians, McDermott asks us to come into the conversation (with other religions) as who we are. His position is that if we come to the conversation what we bring is our Christian religion, and that it is as valuable as any other contribution. But it also means that we need to take the claims of our religion seriously, including the scandal of particularity. That is why we look for those things that we can recognize, so that we can understand the other - but, I would suggest, also so that we can better understand ourselves. Part of the integrity of this aspect of the attitude is that we recognize we are still growing in our own knowledge and understanding of God.

2) Which means, unlike the demonization approach, we truly value the contributions of world religions. In fact, from the confidence of our identity we can even open ourselves up to the possibility of God speaking through our conversations with practitioners of other world religions. The shift is that we look first to what God might be doing before we simply assume that the person in another religion is not also trying their best to understand God's plan for themselves. It does not mean that we do not look for moments to share what we love about Christianity - but it does mean that we also get to hear what others love about their religions. This opens all kinds of doors for inter-religious conversations and even cooperation toward making this world a better place.

I have found this approach very helpful in the relationships I have with other world religions. In a recent conversation with a Muslim friend of mine he commented about how he enjoyed talking about religious things with me. And we've had some deep conversations. I think we've both been enriched by the experience. And he is just one of the people from other world religions that God has graced my life with. Would I love to see him become a Christian? Actually yes I would, but I have a confidence that God is at work drawing him and in that I see the work of Jesus who already draws women and men to the Father. (In fact that is the only way they ever come.) So I trust, pray, and share - but I also find myself enriched, challenged and I think prayed for. And this is good.

Also I often recommend this book for new students. Academic study of theology today is not possible without encountering other religions. It also necessitates the opening of ourselves to new ideas and new ways of talking about God. McDermott will be challenging to some of these students, but I trust that they will see that he gives them (and us) tools to navigate the religious pluralism of our day with integrity as evangelicals.

5 out of 5 stars.

Have you Participated in a Webinar?

2010-12-15T11:54:00.003-05:00

The Webinars that Vineyard Resource Canada has been putting on are excellent. I try to be part of as many as I can, but it is not always possible for me to participate at the time of the event. If you've participated in past webinars and would like to write a short report, that would be really helpful for this blog. What we'd be looking for is simple:

What was the topic and how does that topic interest you?
What were the key points brought up in the presentation/discussion?
Did you find the presentation/discussion helpful?

Let me know if there is one you would like to do. Also it is fine to get more than one perspective on a webinar.

I would encourage you to sign up even if you cannot attend, their is a download offered which only comes to those who have registered for the event.

thanks,
Frank

Why Theology?

2010-12-13T08:00:00.000-05:00

Bert Waggoner, National Director of Vineyard USA, has a very thoughtful post on why he feels theology is important. It is worth reading. Why is theology important to you? If you do not feel it is important, why?

Looking forward to having this conversation with you all.

Upcoming Webinar

2010-12-10T11:53:00.002-05:00

Centered Set: Take Two

Join us for a Webinar on January 11

Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:CLICK HERE

During our webinar in the past week it was immediately clear to me that we wouldn't begin to mine the depths of this topic sufficiently in one setting to do it any justice. As a result we are going to offer a followup webinar on this topic in January. What do I think that we need to further explore (topics of which we have hardly scratched the surface)?

• If salvation is seen as a process, what markers are there to demonstrate movement toward Jesus?
• Is it necessary to define movement toward Jesus over time? What place is there for community discernment on this issue?
• Practically how is leadership impacted by a centered set paradigm?
• How do these things work themselves out in a larger church context?

You of course have other questions as well. For those who want to participate, I propose that you email us your question(s) by the end of December 22. We'll choose the most representative questions and address them together. We'll have the microphones opened up through the whole time so that we can go back and forth on each issue as long as it takes to get further clarity.

You can download the webinar later, even if you can't attend the live event, but only if you register now. (You will receive an email the day after the webinar with a link to download the file at your convenience).

Webinar start times:
10:00 AM PDT
11:00 AM MDT
12:00 PM CDT
1:00 PM EDT
2:00 PM ADT
6:00 PM GMT
This message was sent by: Vineyard Resource Canada, PO Box 333, St. Stephen, NB E3L 1H8, Canada

Worship Training Resource

2010-12-06T08:00:00.001-05:00

We asked Dan Wilt to pitch his work training worship leaders. Worship is often the first place people learn theology - it is so very important for us as a movement to pay attention to the quality of our worship. Much as we all love just getting lost in God's presence (what's not to love!) we must also recognize we are training our people in the things of God. Dan's work draws deep from the breadth of Christianity. He encourages us to go deep too - not just deeper in love with God, but deeper into a life of godly devotion that surrenders completely to all God has for us in this world. Here is how we can connect to what Dan is doing. This is one resource you are not going to want to miss.

WorshipTraining.com is today's foremost online worship development resource available. Featuring hundreds of free media resources, including On-Demand courses, retreats, training seminars and more, you will explore worship through an ancient-future lens, connecting with resources from many streams of the church. You can even do online study for university credit.

No worship leader should be without a free account - grow with thousands of others from over 50+ countries and denominations on the site.

Start your free account: http://www.WorshipTraining.com/

Scheduled Content

2010-12-04T10:10:00.000-05:00

I have been busy lining up content for this blog. I should have something new every week, and I've scheduled this content to come out on Mondays at 8AM (I am good up until mid-January with more content on the way!). A great Monday ritual would be to check here and see what is new.

You can also subscribe to this blog via the link at the bottom or follow it through social networking through the tools on the right.

If there is a feature you can't find, let me know. I want this blog to be a very friendly and helpful experience for us all. If there is a type of article you find helpful then click that link at the bottom of the article and I will try to line up more of the same. Together we can make this blog a very useful resource for our work as servants to the Kingdom.

Frank

Upcoming Webinar

2010-11-30T12:34:00.001-05:00

Centered Set: What Did We Get Ourselves Into?

Join us for a webinar on December 7
Reserve your webinar seat now at: CLICK HERE

It's a familiar concept for us in the Vineyard movement. It is supposed to describe how we function as a community. Have we fully considered the radical implications of this perspective, particularly now as we are more serious about really engaging with the communities in which we live, work and play?

• Are centered and bounded sets mutually exclusive?
• Is this just for "Baptists in transition" or for everyone?
• Why does this "feel" like compromise?

We will explore this together along with a panel of practitioners.

You can download the webinar later, even if you can't attend the live event, but only if you register now. (You will receive an email the day after the webinar with a link to download the file at your convenience).

Panelists: Gary Best and others tba
Title: Centered Set: What Did We Get Ourselves Into?
Date: Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Time: 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM PT
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM MT
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM CT
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM ET
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM AT
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM GT
This message was sent by: Vineyard Resource Canada, PO Box 333, St. Stephen, NB E3L 1H8, Canada

Theology Pubs

2010-11-30T09:00:00.000-05:00

This summer I presented a few Thoughtworks workshops at the National Gathering in Penticton, BC. We had such a good crowd for the Theology Pub/Post-modern Hermeneutics workshop that we had to run two groups (sample theology pubs)! The format was simple, I presented a bit on the model of theology pubs and then we did it on the topic of post-modern hermeneutics. Some of the feedback on the theology pub format was really good - and my experiences with running theology pubs in Ottawa has convinced me that it is a way of creating space for those who want to really reflect on their faith and the challenging issues we face trying to faithfully live out our faith in the world today. So, I'm going to share a blog version of the presentation I ran in Penticton. I know there are other approaches to theology pubs so I'm hoping to get some of the other leaders who have been running them in Ontario to share their ideas on the topic as well.

The first thing I addressed was the venue. Although it is trendy to call them theology pubs it isn't the pub that makes them special. In fact a lot of bars that call themselves pubs are not really good environments for a theology pub. What you want is a coffee shop, quiet pub, or restaurant where you can seat everyone together comfortably and carry on a conversation. From experience it takes a bit of work to find a good location - we had added challenges with accommodating a couple wheelchairs. A few other important aspects of the venue need to be considered. First this is about a public conversation. There is something about bringing it into a public space that allows participation that you wouldn't get say in a church building or in a private space. It also allows listeners on to jump in. Another consideration is size. Because we run theology pubs on edge topics relevant to our community - we can have fairly big turnouts for a pub setting. It is worthwhile thinking this through before you get to the venue and find that you can't really have a proper conversation with the group you attracted. In Penticton I figured we might run into this problem so I had asked Mark Taverner, a pastor I knew ran theology pubs in Langley, to be ready to take half the group.

Then I spent some time on the philosophy of theology pubs, what they are all about. The most important aspect for us is having a good conversation. I define a good conversation as thoughtfully engaging the topic with an eye on the implications of our faith life towards that topic. At Freedom we intentionally take on topics that we are wrestling with as a church community. By bringing these things into conversation we are creating a community that works through issues together. It makes church function more like a family, and even when there isn't consensus on an issue, at least folks feel like they've had a part in shaping the churches response to the challenges of the day.

I have already looked a bit at why a public conversation is important. But another aspect is that the mode of a theology pub is a bit different than we usually do training in the church. The technical name is a Socratic conversation, which really just means that together you explore an issue by asking questions in a group. It isn't about getting to the one right answer, but allowing the answers and questions to be explored. This doesn't mean it never lands on answers - but it requires a lot more patience than we might be used to. Which is the third point - listening. I think Wimber had a brilliant insight in his healing prayer model when he talked about listening to the person and at the same time listening to God. I find that this works really well in theology pubs. Conversations are about hearing the different views and questions. We usually invite someone into the conversation who we know has a different perspective on it than we do, this enriches the conversation. It is important that we don't see theology pubs as debates. But we also need to recognize that we are people who hear and respond to God. So we listen in two directions. But the nuance I like to insist on is not to try and hear what God's answer is - cause often we get that confused with what we want God's answer to be - but rather, in light of this what would God want me to do? How would God want me to respond? Just that little shift is an amazing change to the conversation. Overwhelmingly I find people who want to explore deep issues, but us evangelicals haven't made ourselves very good conversation partners. (I am also convinced that Jesus' brilliant way of responding to folks came from his ability to actually hear what they were saying, something to think about as we read the gospels.)

In terms of content, the world is a complicated place. Historically the evangelical churches (in particular) have had an amazing capacity to experiment and find fresh expressions of the gospel that speak into the culture. What I think we are called to today is to rise up to the challenge of culture once again. We don't shy away from tough subjects in our theology pubs. I know Mark did his first one on hell, great subject. We need to recognize that most people are wrestling with the ideas we once thought were settled - and that this is not a bad thing. At Freedom we've taken on everything from the Eucharist to homosexuality. And they have been wonderful conversations. What I would encourage is that you don't just come in with your already established opinions. Either do some research into the subject and the various perspectives on the subject, or find someone who has been working in this area. I often invite someone from one of the universities to participate. They don't lecture, they are just there as another person in the conversation. There are folks out there who would love to come and be part of such a conversation, often we tell them we'll buy them a pint for coming - but most enjoyed themselves so much we had to fight to pick up their pub tab!

Really the only person you need though is a facilitator. The facilitator does not need to be an expert on the topic. But they do need to cultivate a few skills. First they need to know the goals of the theology pub, conversation not debate, etc. Second they should prepare a few starting questions that can get the conversation rolling. Our experience is that this is important to get things going, but usually we have to decide to stop it because the conversation takes on a life of its own when it gets rolling. Third, they need to steer the conversation clear of becoming a debate. What I loved about the workshop I ran in Penticton was that there were a variety of opinions on how we read scripture in a post-modern day - but it didn't devolve into an argument. At one point, as the facilitator, I realized two people were saying almost the same thing but with different language. I simply introduced a new term and helped each side see how it captured what they were trying to say. The new term was helpful because they hadn't attached themselves to it as the way to say what they were saying.

Hope this was helpful, I would love to hear of your experiences with theology pubs. What works, what doesn't, and what could be done differently.

Frank Emanuel (Freedom Vineyard, Ottawa)

Society of Vineyard Scholars

2010-11-29T08:43:00.000-05:00

Recently on my personal blog I talked about the importance of presenting papers at academic conferences. And this morning a reminder came into my inbox about the near deadline to submit papers to the Society of Vineyard Scholars. Much as I'd love to participate, I have prior commitments this year. But that should not stop you from considering it. The call is open to all who believe in the mission of the society.

Within the current call for papers, I super interested in the topic 'Doctrine of Justification' as this doctrine has been subject of a lot of conversations I've been part of around the Vineyard in Canada in the last couple of years. There seems to be a growing concern that while substitutionary atonement is an important understanding of Jesus' death and resurrection, it is not the only one and that we might have lost some of the richness of resurrection theology by focusing on just one aspect of God's work through Christ. Last year folks had posted articles from the conference, I'll be sure to put a link up here for all that come up from this years meeting.

One last note, if you are from the Ontario region and plan on attending (alas I cannot this year) then please consider writing a review for this blog.

Frank Emanuel (Freedom Vineyard, Ottawa)

Resource: The Song Share Project

2010-11-27T00:25:00.000-05:00

The Canadian Vineyard is a wonderfully active place. The Worship Development team has set up an amazing site for sharing and developing new worship songs. It is called the Vineyard Song Share Project. As Prosper of Aquitaine (390-455) noted, lex orendi, lex credendi, that is how we worship shapes what we believe, therefore, it is so important that we intentionally develop worship that reflects the theology that has been life to our movement. Worship has always been a central value in our movement and the Song Share Project lets us all have a hand in shaping worship that will bless the Church and, more importantly, bring glory to God.

Frank Emanuel (Freedom Vineyard, Ottawa)

New Thoughtworks Blog

2010-11-26T17:21:00.000-05:00

Thoughtworks is a Development Group of the Vineyard Church in Canada. Our purpose is to equip churches to faithfully love God with both heart and mind. While our resources focus on thoughtful engagement with Christian theology, history, and practice, our ultimate passion is to see Christians strengthened in their faith so that they can participate with God's redemptive works throughout the whole world.

How does it work?

Through the Thoughtworks website you will find curriculum and other resources developed by our national task force to serve our churches. Thoughtworks also works with each region to organize workshops and training opportunities to help you equip the saints. Regionally a representative helps get the resources into your hands. These resources focus on four important areas of theological mentoring: God Thoughts, what we call foundational theology; Biblical Foundations, recognizing the authoritative role scripture plays in our movement this material fosters a deep relationship with the Bible; Kingdom Encounters, because whole people are a whole lot better than the alternative!; and, Future Church, where we focus on how we continue to build effective ministries in a changing culture.

So why the blog?

In order to better facilitate resourcing the Ontario region, this blog was set up as a central point of contact for those interested in mentoring and discipleship from a Canadian Vineyard perspective. Here we will feature articles to get you thinking and keep you connected.

Look for articles:

on approaches to mentoring and discipling

reviews and discussions of books and tools that Vineyard folk have found helpful

on upcoming regional training opportunities that you can get involved in

reports from past events that folks in our Region have attended

articles on theological work that is relevant to Ontario regional Vineyards

As with any good blog you will be able to comment and interact. Comments will be monitored by regional Thoughtworks representatives. Announcements will not have commenting enabled, but should always include contact details for further inquiry.

OK, so is there a catch?

Actually yes there is. We are looking for content. This blog belongs to the regional Vineyards in Ontario. If you hang out with us then you are invited to participate. Send your blog posts to the Ontario Regional Thoughtworks Coordinator.* He's a really nice guy named Frank.

We are looking forward to many fruitful conversations and seeing more of what God has for our region, our churches and our world.

__________________________
* Article submissions must match one of the above listed categories. Please include a note about your affiliation with the Vineyard - you do not need to be a member of a Vineyard church, but you do need to be known to a Vineyard church. We reserve the right to edit your article, but we will make sure any changes meet with your approval before we post.