Vineyard is all about zealously or passionately “doing the stuff”. Why do we feel this way? What has influenced us?

One of the main influences, if not the major influence on John Wimber’s life was an understanding of the kingdom of God. Learning about the kingdom of God gave John a new perspective. In his own words, his Christian life took on an entirely different meaning. Attending church was no longer a dreaded activity, but became, exciting gatherings in which the people of God are equipped to go and preach and demonstrate the gospel.

The kingdom of God gave John (and all of us who are a part of the Vineyard movement which he founded) our biblical and theological key for power evangelism and experiencing signs and wonders today. The kingdom of God has shaped our approach to ministry, and given us the basis and motivation for equipping the saints and joining the fight against Satan. Teaching about the kingdom of God has become a deeply ingrained practice in Vineyard churches.

We will reproduce below a number of blog posts about the Kingdom of God in the coming days, that had been featured in discontinued NLV online site, and include a video in which John Wimber teaches on the kingdom of God..

TOPICS
Ignore at your own peril!
Beginging to end: About restoration
Rejecting Jesus is rejecting the kingdom
The kingdom creates the Church
Kingdom authority
Being filled with the Spirit
Overwhelming our personality

The picture we have in mind for a discipleship process in NLV is like the building of the launch pad and rocket which launches the US Space Shuttle.

Step 1: Building the foundations – Getting to know God and learning to love and trust him. Learning to be proficient in the tools for going deeper, strengthening yourself in the Lord. Learning about grace, and enjoying the honeymoon phase.

Step 2: Building the launch pad – Learning to hear God’s voice and his purpose. Obeying, and becoming a person of integrity. Learning about service, accountability and humility. The temptation is restlessness, over eagerness to achieve results and acquire skills and impatience with God. Saul and David are Biblical examples. But giving in to this temptation merely lengthens the process! Bear in mind that God is less interested in what you can immediately do for him than building your capacity to handle what he has destined for you.

Step 3: Building the rocket – Acquiring skills and practicing spiritual gifts, learning to work with other people within the fellowship and understanding authority. The temptation in this phase is to stop here, think that you have arrived.

Step 4: Launch phase – Dependence on the Spirit, promoting unity and teamwork in the body. Jesus sent out the Disciples and the Apostles went out …in teams. Fulfilling God’s purpose in the widest sense as described in Ephesians 3:9-11.The temptation here is pride in your philosophy of ministry/success and ceasing to adapt, and you stop discerning the seasons and the current moves of the Spirit.

FAQs on going deeper, going higher

1) What is going deeper, going higher?

Going deeper, going higher is an integral element of a discipleship process which NLV will employ and accordingly we will focus on:

Being relational and fellowship-based -
NLV desires to be a dynamic community of grace, hope and purpose. Going deeper, going higher seek to build a culture of encouragement and discipline amongst participants in a cohort to help them grow closer in their walk with God, and fulfil the vision of our fellowship: Love God, love people and co-mission with Christ.

Character growth and ministry involvement -
We know that God’s plan and will for us is to grow spiritually and become fruitful, producing character and doing the good works which he has prepared for us. Going deeper, going higher will help participants attain this through sustained learning experiences, practice and transparency in a small group (life) context, and by being involved in field assignments and the ministries of the church.

Leadership development -
Going deeper, going higher is an important means for NLV to develop leaders, and will be led by your Pastor. You could say that this is a stretched version of a typical Discipleship Training School program, or that this is more structured training than our current “show and tell” method.

2) What kind of commitment do I have to give?

Going deeper, going higher will involve participants meeting periodically throughout the year. At this time, we envisage that our meetings will be divided into 2 semesters. The first is over a six months period from April to September, and comprises of up to 12 fortnightly sessions held on a weekday night. The second, from October to March, will comprise of 4 to 6 sessions which can start at any convenient time in this period.

You only make a commitment for each semester. But we will require your commitment to faithfully attend every session of the semester that you have signed up for, and to participate as best you can in any field or ministry assignments given in the semester.

3) What happens if I skip a semester?

The first cohort of participants will start going deeper, going higher in April 2009. If you decide to skip a future semester, there are several options. You may rejoin your cohort if what you have missed does not critically affect your ongoing personal development. You may also join a new cohort at the point you left.

4) What subjects will you be covering in going deeper, going higher?

We will employ and integrate external resources (teachers and programs) with what we have, to equip participants with ministry skills, as well as teach academic (biblical-theological) courses and leadership subjects, onsite. Furthermore, we plan to provide opportunities for participants to attend selected offsite conferences, seminars and short term mission trips.

The subjects will be relevant to achieving the goals of going deeper, going higher mentioned earlier, and I envisage that they would include:

My Relationship with God; The Kingdom of God; The Ministry of Jesus; Being a Missional Person; Stewardship of Life & Resources, The Church; Spiritual Disciplines; Hearing God; Vineyard 5 Step Model for Praying; Being Naturally Supernatural.

5) How do I sign up?

Email your pastor to confirm your interest to participate.

To WORSHIP, BELONG & SERVE, GROW & GO are our priorities or our ways and means to realize our vision.

WORSHIP, prayer, praise and thanksgiving are our highest priorities. We have grasped how wide and long, and deep and high is the love of Christ. Our new life show that God’s abundant provision of grace and the gift of righteousness have come to reign in us. We love God and people because he first loved us.

NLV gathers for worship because we are thirsty for God’s presence, and out of a profound sense of his worthiness. We shall honor and revere God in all that we do. We look forward to visitation by God as a by-product of our worship: God’s presence and power shall become manifest in different ways, for salvation, for deliverances, for sanctification or healings. God will also visit us to bless and to speak to us.

We are, first and foremost, people called to an intimate relationship with God.

BELONG & SERVE are also crucial ways to bring our vision into being.

Coming together to be the fellowship makes us become better, stronger, more effective in our work, and able to offer help and warmth to one another. We gather people to come with us because God has promised good things concerning his people and we shall share whatever good the Lord gives us. Living together in unity we shall receive great blessings from God. And when we love others, God will abide in us and his love is made complete in us.

Our fellowship shall be a place to belong (where you fit in, feel right with, like coming home) and a place which belongs to you, and where you serve one another.

We shall care, share, and serve each other in practical everyday ways, like praying for one another, lending a listening ear, coming alongside in times of trauma, and offering tangible helps when needed.

GROW & GO is another priority needed to bring our vision into being. It is essentially a discipleship process: growing to become more mature and more like Jesus, and going to do the good work that the Lord has prepared for us to do. Together we shall do even greater works than Christ.

Grow and go means seven specific objects or goals that the fellowship shall aim for. They are:

1) Imitate Jesus to have the character, mind, the heart of God and do what he did. Filled with the Spirit. Empowered by the Spirit.

2) The Bible shall be central to our teaching, faith and life. We shall seek to teach the Bible clearly and accurately.

3) We shall offer as much training as possible to help grow and develop effective disciples. Training is not the same as studying and gaining more knowledge on a subject. Our training is “equip the saints” for the work of ministry, and also for life.

4) We shall spend significant time and resources to show the love of God to the poor, the broken, and the marginalized.

5) We want to help others fall in love with God with outreach programs, tell his story, and also tell our personal stories.

Through the good works of the fellowship we shall be like a city on a hill. Draw people to Jesus! Let people see NLV and conclude that there’s more than just people at work here, but also an extra-ordinary God.

6) We trust that God will use our fellowship to send out and plant other Vineyard churches and be involved in Missions: Forging relationships with indigenous pastors in neighboring countries, Coming alongside. Where appropriate, sending resources and people to the church plants which we are relating to on short term basis, e.g. on missions trip, as well as on long-term assignments.

7) We shall also love, respect and co-operate with other fellowships because we are all part of the Body of Christ.

Here is a guide to connecting and participating in the life and vision of NLV!

Here are a number of values that guide our choices and actions in NLV. They are being REAL, RELEVANT, AND RESPONSIVE.

BEING REAL
We value a fellowship where real people live real lives through seeking and knowing a real God who wants to meet us in a real and lasting way!

Being real for us means “no hype, no manipulation” in our meetings, during worship, and when praying for one another. We do not try to drum anything up or do things for “religious effect”; rather, we, like Jesus, look to the Father to see what he is doing at any given point in time, and we try to get on board with what God wants to do.

We don’t pretend to be someone else with God or with each other. It is important that our words and deeds match up.

Being real with one another shall be seen in the way we talk, dress, pray, and act. We shall relate to one another in an honest and open fashion. We are honest about our struggles. We accept brokenness in each other. Real questions can be asked, real lives are mended, real (tangible) help are offered when we see needs, and people can have real conversations about life and eternal issues.

BEING RELEVANT
We value a fellowship that is relevant.

People ought to be able to walk off the street into our meetings and not feel out of place or like they have stepped back in time a hundred years. God is already relevant so we don’t need to make God relevant, but sometimes we need to be careful not to become stumbling block to others. We aim to create an atmosphere where everything from our language, our dress and music are in touch with the current culture of our community. This is why we have a simple auditorium without any ornate decorations or religious symbols, and we dress casually, allowing people to “come as they are.”

We shall make every effort to make the Christian message as simple and easy to understand as possible, and relevant, presenting real (biblical) answers to the issues that challenge people living in the community. Singapore is a great country where hard work pays, i.e. success and the good life can be got if you set your mind to it and apply yourself. Our great challenge to being relevant is to demonstrate that God’s grace and favor is far better and that a relationship of intimacy and trust with God is best. We shall demonstrate the reality, goodness, power and love of God, and share how he will work powerfully in our lives.

BEING RESPONSIVE
We value a fellowship that is responsive and dynamic.

We love God and others and tell his story because he first loved us. We do what we do because we have experienced for ourselves the goodness, mercy and justice of God, among other things. We expect that God’s presence, power and grace can breakthrough at any time into our lives and circumstances.

We shall be responsive to the Holy Spirit’s daily leading of our personal lives and of the fellowship. We shall do the stuff that Jesus did in response to the Spirit of God coming upon us.

We tell others of our story because he has made us into oaks of righteousness, given us crowns of beauty instead of ashes, oil of gladness instead of mourning, a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

We don’t see ministry as being church bound, that is, something just done in our meetings, because God is always working. Our Father in heaven is intent on advancing his kingdom on earth. So too we shall be intent as we go on our way every day, in our neighbourhood, school and workplace. We shall join in his work whenever we see the Father at work. Everyone here gets to play a role to continue the co-mission started by Christ.

We value a climate in the fellowship where service is eagerly volunteered. People function as leaders without waiting for appointments and wanting titles. The opportunity to build church from the bottom up is welcomed.

We value people and prefer to promote people rather than programs. When a person has shown passion and leadership for a particular ministry project (say a Mercy Works project), we shall rally behind that person and affirm him or her. We shall do what we can to fulfil God’s destiny for each person in the fellowship.

Everybody needs a skeleton and a church body is no different. We need a structure to function effectively but we believe that organization should always follow organism. In other words, we need enough organization to hold God’s activity, but the structure should never take precedence over God’s movement or be a substitute for God’s activity. As such, we shall maintain as little structure as possible to get the job done, and build structures that enhance rather than stifle ministry and relationships. This means everyone shall have a really short line to the pastor!

NLV shall:

By being:
BENEFICIARIES OF GOD’S GRACE, A TEMPLE OF GOD, A COMMUNITY & FAMILY OF BELIEVERS. LIKE A CITY ON A HILL drawing men and women to Jesus. AN ARMY advancing the Kingdom of God and doing all the stuff that Jesus did. A SCHOOL & HOSPITAL training, equipping, healing, revitalizing and getting our people ready for Kingdom warfare.

And as we: WORSHIP, BELONG & SERVE, GROW & GO.

This is a really audacious vision if you consider where we are right now on the Road Map.