bearing the consequence of God - vineyard edition

The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."
Luke 4:17-21

this post goes along the lines of my former posts bearing the title: bearing the consequence of God: part one, part deux, triple-play, and the penetecost edition...

...this one is focused more on radically re-digging the wells and the essence of the vineyard: an historian's perspective on how the vineyard has borne the consequence of God...and the inbreaking of His Reign in this now-and-not-yet age of ours...


because the education and perspective of an historian can be a subtle thing, let me begin by saying:

...even given my natural cultivation for detachment, history trained me to reach for perspective and embrace with multi-hued insight what has gone before, afterall, as we say at the National Archives: 'what is past is prologue'...

but also: sometimes we lose something of great importance (as galadriel says in The Lord of the Rings: '...and some things that should not have been forgotten were lost') or rather we point to outcomes and consequences (in christianese please read: fruit) as the essence of the tree, when what we are pointing to may merely be the fruit of the tree, let the reader understand...

currently in my own faith community, finding ourselves within the tribe of the vineyard movement, we have been radically re-digging at the root (previously mentioned here)

[aside/recommendation: historical radicalism (from the word for 're-exposing the root') can be witnessed to as opposed to the contemporary popular idea of radicalism, and my friend mike barrett does that beautifully in his full article Modern Radicalism vs. Historical Radicalism, from which the following is excerpted: "[contemporay radicalism] is called "radical" because it gets tattooed, writes edgy books, does podcasts, speaks at conferences (for top fees), and never really sacrifices much at all." mike's article was in the last Relevant Magazine]


ok, so a few questions i ask myself in a season of re-digging the wells:

• have we forgotten something more essential than what we can easily identify (i.e. the genus, the species, the tree and/or the branch as opposed to just the fruit)?
• what is our perspective, removed as we are from the initial context of the birth?
• what can we say from our current perspective, without indulging in certitude?

through the vineyard movement the holy spirit changed things:

• changed the way the Church at-large worships
• changed the way churches operate (empowerment...everyone gets to play)
• changed the way the Church ministers (power of the Holy Spirit, Servant Evangelism, and currently Social Justice)
• changed the way we educate leaders in Church (with innovative tools and technology used by VLI and VBI)
• changed the Church...period (which includes stuff working its way out even in the eastern orthodox church...and if the change is that far-reaching it has to be the Spirit of the Living God)

context for the birth of the vineyard movement:

flowing from the context of that 1960's-ish generation, which is the context in which the Jesus movement was birthed, from which was birthed those erstwhile siblings: calvary chapel and the vineyard...the essence i see as an historian for all of these is the newfound freedom as a result of the good news of the Kingdom of God in Christ Jesus [and possibly 'exploration' rooted in the newfound freedom in Christ] (thus a movement of freedom, not merely a prayer movement or a worship movement or other such things)...we are a further result of the reign of God

thus, bringing freedom to the Church and this age that consequently brought re-newal:

through newfound freedom and exploration in worship

through newfound freedom and exploration in the power and charisms of the Spirit

through newfound freedom and exploration in ministry:

• freedom to come as you are
• everybody gets to play
• naturally supernatural
• servant evangelism (opened up freedom for many more in the Church to 'do the work of an evangelist')
• releasing women in all aspects of ministry (consequently disentangling and re-naming the elements of power, authority and control)
• social justice (probably the most current newfound freedom being explored that i witness to: the environment, poverty, modern-day slavery, race, etc.)

through newfound freedom and exploration in peoples lives:

• forging and exploring the path to freedom with addicitons
• forging and exploring the path to freedom from their past
• forging and exploring the path to freedom from this age

so, more questions:

• what does this mean...what are the implications for the vineyard currently?
• what horizons remain unexplored with the newfound freedom in Christ as our essence?
• how have other perspectives limited who the vineyard thinks it is, and the next generation of those who identify themselves as vineyard?
• is the legacy lost if no one agrees with me that freedom is the essence of the vineyard movement?
• can we say the above without it being threatening to those who would categorize (thus limit) the vineyard as a church-planting movement or a worship movement or 'fill-in-the-blank' movement?

thus, from wimber's power evangelism to rich nathan and who is my enemy? to gary best and naturally supernatural to dave schmelzer and not the religious type to phil strout and God's relentless pursuit to tri robinson and saving God's green earth to martin buehlmann and a church that changes lives to dave workman and the outward-focused life to mike barrett and the danger habit to eric sandras and buck-naked faith to don williams and 12 steps with Jesus to ken wilson and Jesus-brand spirituality

...all these people are writing and talking about the freedom that comes through an encounter with the utterly free and great God in Christ and His reign in our lives...

throwaway thought: all of this has lead me to the conclusion that the vineyard was one of the primary illegitimate fathers (one of several) of the emerging church (illegitimate in that most do not want to claim the child that is the emerging church)...but the vineyard forged the context of freedom for the emerging church to...well...emerge (i am sointrigued that what i hear from leaders like brian mclaren is taking what we think of traditionally in the vineyard as the ministry of the good news of the kingdom of God and applying that to new places, riding up against that fault-line of the gospel and culture)...all as a result of the inbreaking of the kingdom of God...it's all about Him!

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1