We Are Going To Celebrate Tomorrow Night

Tomorrow night, we will celebrate our 5th year anniversary of VRC.

This is the post that I put on the Greene Street Letters before that 

that first meeting.

I've had a lot of people asking me questions surrounding the service we are going to start on April 13th.
Wish I had more answers, but I don't.
I know this flies in the face of "how we should do church" attitude that some see as necessary.
I guess if there is a downside to be a "Vineyard-ite", it would be that I operate from the notion that this truly is God's church and if He has called me to participate, then I would do well to stay out of the way and simply cooperate with Him.

I remember when I took over the morning service at Gadsden Vineyard. We had scores of new people show up and they would ask questions like, "Why don't you have a youth program?" Well, the reason we didn't have a youth program was because God hadn't told us to start one. One of the first things that happened after coming to the A.M. service, was that the person in charge of the children's church moved on to start something else. So we didn't have a children's church. Here again the questions came..."When are you going to start a children's church?" My reply was very simple..."I'm not." If God desires for us to have a children's church, then we are going to pray about it and He will put it on someones heart to start one. 6 month's passed and finally a new person came to me with a desire to start one. Like I said, I have found it much better to simply wait on God and cooperate with Him.

Today will be my last day at teacher here at Rapha. I will move back into the role as staff Pastor (although I don't think I ever really left that position). It has been a long strange journey since coming here in 1998. I am grateful to Steve and Marilyn Yarbrough for giving me the opportunity to be a part of this program. Rapha truly was a training ground that God used to grow me.

To me, the most incredible thing that has happened over the past 15 years is to watch what God has done in the lives of those who have been healed and saved from addiction.
I think it is best summed up in I Corinthians 1:27-28 - But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things---and the things that are not---to nullify the things that are." In other words, it is the free grace of God and His empowering presence in the life of someone in addiction which breaks the lifestyle of the addict. How can you argue with someone who shares their story of the deliverance that has taken place in their own life? You may not believe the story. You may get angry and think of the story as a religious exaggeration. You may even believe that the person is lying . But you will never beat the person who had the experience. Experience will always trump an argument.

So, I guess you could say that on April 13th, at 7 p.m. at the Gadsden Vineyard, there will be a coming together of the foolish, the weak, the lowly and the despised. We will do so for the glory of God.
Ain't that weird?

God on you....
mbb

I'd like to leave you with a video of me explaining about Vineyard ReCovery....enjoy.