What are we?

Hindsight is great but it's obviously always too late to cast light on the present. When we were gathering together at Doug and Jackie's we were all desiring the presence of God. The closest that we would come to sensing His presence was when we worshipped together. We desired community. We wanted something to happen that would generate a Spirit driven community. What were we to do? We all had families and responsibilities but the yearning in our hearts would not go away. The denominations offered us something different. We couldn't go there. I'm not sure that we were necessarily looking to organize but rather hear from God on what to do. I was growing a business and still practicing my morning sermons. The Vineyard offered us a chance to be autonomous but at the same time be a part of something. I would often attend the Vineyard church planting seminars in Columbus. They were interesting and gave me a good background on the Vineyard.

The Vineyard church planting emphasized values and practices. The Vineyard church plants reflected the values and the gifting of the church planter. That made each Vineyard unique in many ways. As much as I loved the Vineyard worship, I still felt a bit unsure of my connection. The Vineyard church planting movement progressed rapidly on the west coast. The east coast had very slow growth. I didn't pay attention to the cultural difference at the time but it is obvious to me now that planting a Vineyard church in Western Pennsylvania would prove to be very difficult. The suburbs of Pittsburgh was socia-economically much wealthier than the panhandle of West Virginia. Suburbs aren't real communities. That's how I see suburbia. Little towns are communities. Suburbs are outside the inner city community. City Vineyards seem to do better that suburban Vineyards.

Our hearts desire was to see a conquering community in northern Allegheny county and southern Butler County. In hindsight, those areas were deep into traditional thinking. Those of us that experienced the Holy Spirit often struggled to find kindred spirits. The remnants of Northfold became a large part of a new non-denominational church in another part of the North Hills.

We felt very alone in our quest but we loved each other and were willing to battle through the obstacles. We soon came to the conclusion that we had to have our own Vineyard and so off we went just like Abraham. We didn't know where we were going or what was going to happen. When you commit to something like this, all hell comes against it. Pioneers always receive strong resistance. The powers of darkness would much rather that we play church. We were all the way in the water now and there was no turning back and so 20 years after my initial coming to the Lord I was about to live a life in a dual role. I was about to give myself as a church planter as well as a business entrepreneur.

Keep in mind. The idea of church and community was still not very clear to those of us that had experienced the Holy Spirit. We were about to learn valuable lessons.

Next up.....

An Open Invitation..