There, I think I used up my alloted number of times I can use the word “awesome” in a post about church stuff….so I will attempt to use other words now…mostly for Rob’s sake. Also, let it be known, that I have no spell checker here, so ignore misspelled words untill I have time to edit this with a spell checker.
So tonight after missing the morning service at Saddleback we decided to skip going to Saddleback church all together and go up to the Anehiem Vineyard for church. And I will say that the worship was excellent (the word excellent was used to replace where a default “awesome” would usually go). First they started by calling people to the front of the chruch (not specific people just a general call), and they had a large area in the front of the sanctuary with no seats. I thought people were gonna dance, which happens sometimes for those of you who have never been to a vineyard, but it was just people worshiping in a little less confined area then where the seats were. Then they played some songs that I hardly ever hear at home, and they even played one I had never heard. They totally rocked out. The worship leader had a great voice, probably in my top ten as far as worship leaders I have heard go. I sang almost completely in his range and style, so I loved it. Then the awful part came. The guy who preached, some Nigel guy who isn’t the head pastor, was all over the map. I couldn’t find one solid theme in his whole sermon, and he basically covered topics so broad that he decribed all the major points of Christianity briefly and never tied them together…or at least he didn’t tie them together well. So after his completely incohesive ramblings went on for the better part what seemed to be eternity, a great maricle took place, he said “now before I end a quote from C.S. Lewis” and then it was over. But also I hated that he did a ministry time and basically called everyone in the building up for prayer. He did four categories, nonchristians wanting to commit, fallen christians looking to recommit, solid christians who want thier walk to continue going well, and some other category that basically covered whoever was left. There were so many people up front to get prayer that after the third time they called for more help, I was thinking “wow, maybe I should go up there” but I chickened out, and then I told Lauren what I was thinking. And she said that maybe they prayed using a different model, or she wondered what Dianne would think if a total stranger came up during ministry time at home to pray for people. I told her first, that we use the same five step model that everyone else should be using, or at least my understanding is that John Wimber came up with that and it is what his book is about, then I told her that this is a Vineyard, and no one cares that much about who is praying for who as long as people get prayed for. So she went up and prayed for someone standing there because she is much more brave then I am about that kind of sutff. I have found I’m much better at talking other people into doing things that I don’t want to do, then I am at talking myself into doing those things.
Lastly I was thinking about why the sermon sucked so much and why there weren’t that many people at such a big church when there are only two services on the weekend. I sorta decided that I expeted there to be some superstar pastor there since this was the first Vineyard, but then I remembered that not every pastor at a good church is a superstar preacher, or at least this has been true at most the great churches I have been to (including Saddleback and our own vineyard). Then I also got to thinking that our church is pretty great (not awesome) and that we have a lot of superstar kind of people there. Jim is a great worship leader, Hap, Di, and Ben are totally wicked good (not awesome) speakers as well as ministry leaders, Bob and Pam are excellent with the small team ministries and who can remember names as well as Dave…that should be a requirement for all New-Comer pastors. Then who can forget about one of the nations leading experts on small group ministries Jim, my Dad was really impressed when he realized we had Jim Egli on staff, which says a lot because he spent a fairly large amount of time studying small group ministries during his D-Min work. So besides having a super staff I got to thinking that most Vineyards should be the same. We all have a similar format for the service, we all pray before hand and try to have a spirit led worship, sermons and ministry times, and we all come from the same background. The denominiation is only 20 years old, how much diversity can there really be from one church to another right now. So I was kinda relieved in a way because this shifted my paradigm (sp?) of thinking that a church with a larger base will automatically produce a superior worship service and ministry because a larger installed base for resources. Also I think that Saddleback must put a huge amount of perperation into their services and sermos for them to be that consistantly excellent (not awesome), or Rick is really just that talented at writing sermons…which isn’t very far fetched considering his last book just spent 45 weeks on the best seller list. But I’m interested to hear some peoples thoughts on other Vineyards, especially ones that are big name churches like Cinncinatti and some of the big ones in Texas and the other ones like that. Were you impressed, did you think it was superior to ours in any significant way, was my expectation to get a great sermon at the church that started this great movement unreasonable? I’m interested to hear thoughts…but anyway, I’ll post more tomorrow about In ‘n’ Out and California and how my life is going besides church stuff.
Thank you, and Goodnight.
Janine says
I am glad you had a good time during worship!
Bummer about the preaching. It’s kewl to take a step back and see how good we have it (in any realm)
How’s everything going with Lauren’s family? You guys are leaving us hanging, out here. lol
Dirk says
“I have found I’m much better at talking other people into doing things that I don’t want to do, then I am at talking myself into doing those things.”
This is called being a leader. 😉
rob says
No, that’s called being an asshole.
megli says
i went to bert waggoner ‘ s church two summers ago with my brother who lives in houston and i wasn ‘ t really all that impressed ( it ‘ s not actually that big , contrary to what you might expect ) . i really love the guy as a leader though . he just didn’t make the best pastor . my brother lives in houston and he and his wife tried going to that church for a while , but had trouble connecting since their age group wasn ‘ t really represented ( sad ) . they eventually found a smaller , closer vineyard that they have really loved .
i went to the aneheim vineyard once , as well , and basically felt how you did : good worship but lacking in a lot of other areas . my visit to their youth group was especially disappointing , but i think you can almost expect to be disappointed by any youth group .
i also visited the san antonio vineyard after the national conference . it is super – small , but i really enjoyed being there and they really seemed to have caught the vineyard vision .
that about sums up my vineyard visiting experiences .
Roger Sodsod says
Hey BigCat.
Daniel and I went to the Columbus Vineyard a couple months ago, and I was amazed at the quality of Rich Nathan’s preaching. He hardly looked at his notes; he had all the scriptures memorized (at least the book titles and chapter and verse numbers); and he was very relaxed, conversational, and had great stage presence. The topic of his sermon was the gift of hospitality. One might think that such a topic would make for a ho-hum sermon, but I left that day realizing how important it is to regularly extend yourself and invite people into your home. It is another way to love on people. He began the sermon by talking about Martha Stewart and using her as an example of how to be hospitable. Of course he was doing this to make a point–that all the refineries and decorations are not as important as your desire to want to speak God’s love into people’s lives. He also talked about being hospitable to those who have no ability to return your hospitality.
My only criticism from my experience at the Columbus Vineyard (and I may be more sensitive about this having had Neuk as my mentoring pastor this past semester) is that it is very easy to get in and out of that church without anyone noticing you. The person who greeted me had no idea whether I was a member or a visitor; I could see it on her face. Also, I filled out a guest card and mentioned on it that I was an intern at the Champaign Vineyard and was in town because I was attending a VLI weekend intensive. A week later I received a letter in the mail thanking me for attending the Columbus Vineyard and asking me if I needed help finding a Vineyard church in my area. This was clearly a bulk mailing since even the signature was printed by a computer.
My two cents…
Siberian says
I think I have to side with Rob on that one…
Ben says
So, I just accidentally deleted James last post, so I’m sorry about that because it was fairly interesting. Feel free to replace your comment if you wish James, but it was a total accident.
Jonathan says
BiCa,
Dude, what is vinyard all aboot? I went to one up in Toronto back in ’96. It was in this huge like airplane hanger and it was really AWESOME:) But that was the only one I have ever been to. I am reading this book by a dude who is a pastor of some sort from a VINYARD in Cinnci, and I was trying to find that place when on a yahoo search this cool blogger popped up. So it seems from the short bit I have read that you go to a VY, so give up some info. Also, is Saddleback a vinyard church? Do you go to two churches? So many more questions, but I will ask away another time. I hear someone hammering in our skatepark so gotta run. Late.