Vineyard Community Church

Okay, coupla things to set the stage. First of all, I'm not the leader--I'm in no way shape or form part of the leadership team at this church. But "leader" is just as true as "none" or "regular attender" with regards to my relationship to this church. And since it irks me that those are the only three categories under "relationship to this church" in church rater's form, I went ahead and put "leader"

Second, I guess I'm a bit prejudiced. I mean my part time unpaid job is working for a guy who *is* part of the leadership of this church (sort of). Plus I really like everything I've ever heard Rose Swetman say or write. So I was going in with a bit of an overwhelmingly positive bias.

Thirdly, I'm on the upside of my cyclothymia, so the church gets the benefit of that as well.

Having said that, I've never been to one of their Sunday services before, so I didn't *know* what it would be like. And I'm pretty overwhelmingly biased *against* "Sunday morning worship services" in general. So there's a bit of a strange mix for you.

(all of the above to simply point out that this rating, like any rating, is at least as much about me as it is about the object of the rating.)

Okay, The straight 5's isn't totally honest either. I did that for two reasons. First of all, I find it astoundingly amusing when people do the straight five ratings for a church here on church rater (triple especially when they are the leader or pastor). And second of all, delightful Rose was beseeching me both before and after the service to please be kind to them on here, and to give them a good score, and so forth. Which I also found very amusing. Not amusing in and of itself, per se, but amusing rather because it's a bit unusual. Usually the poor leaders and people of a church have no idea that I'm planning to write about their goings on at this web site, so they just treat me like a ... normal person. Rose, of course, knows me, and knows about this site, and ... well, her first, and correct, assumption upon seeing me there was that I would write about it. And hey--why not beg the critic for a good rating? So there it is. Straight fives. You're welcome Rose =).

If you've managed to read all the way through all the above astoundingly boring drivel about me, I congratulate you.

My brilliant 5 year old daughter said, upon arriving at "the church", "Hey, that doesn't look like a church building". So that was automatic points right there. Cause "look like a church building" automatically frightens me.

There was visitor parking available right close to the front door, which was kewl.

As soon as I got inside, a really nice lady named Annette greeted me and introduced herself, asked my name, asked my two children's names, said hello to them, and asked if it was my first time. And then was very gracious and patient when I proceeded to answer all her questions with questions. Way to go Annette. She helped me find the coffee and donuts (always a big plus), and helped me help E and C to the children's thing, and then invited me to sit at her table during the service. So maybe I wasn't as offputting as I intended ... er ... that is, seemed to myself to be. =)

My kids hung out with the brilliant half native Margerie (sorry if I screwed up the spelling there) during the service, and afterwards reported having had a fun time. Margerie has an astoundingly brilliant tragic romance story which you should ask her about some time, if you ever get to visit Community Vineyard.

Rose said to me "We're not slick", to which I internally replied (that is, to myself) "Well *that's* good to hear." Cause "slick" sounds like "fake and scary" to me.

And they weren't slick. And that was an excellent thing.

I got there late. Well, I thought I was late. I got there about 10:40, and it said online it started at 10:30. but it didn't really start until about 10:45. Annette said that was fairly normal. This morning I found that really brilliant. There was a time I would have found that annoying. But I'm older and wiser now, and I can never get to these things on time with my two girlicans. So I found it brilliant.

I failed to time the sermon. Can you believe that? Mostly because it kind of sucked me in. That's pretty freaking rare. Usually sermons bore the pants off me. well, not literally (thank the gods), but you understand. Rich preached on the passage from Luke describing the crucifixion of Jesus. I found that astoundingly kewl--preaching on the crucifixion during advent. No denial of the dark side of Christmas going on here.

Ok, wait, maybe I should get out my notes ...

Ok--he talked about the upside down kingdom. He used the phrase in such a way as to suggest that it's a catchphrase at Community Vineyard, which I rather like. perhaps because I'm right into oxymorons, paradoxes, and strange self-referential loops of all types. He was saying god at his (I would have preferred the female pronoun for god, but you can't have everything I guess) weakest is stronger than man at his most powerful. He mentioned, as examples of man at his most powerful, the a-bomb, terrorism, and empire. I love that he mentioned these three things. I don't really agree that this is man at his most powerful (I'd opt for MLK junior, Ghandi, and ... perhaps Carmichael and hell, I'd even throw George Macdonald and Brian McClaren into the mix. but that's another story).

He talked about becoming a christian as what happens when we change from seeing what Jesus did as stupid and and weak to seeing what Jesus did as powerful and loving.

I guess I'm somewhere in between. I like it that Jesus chose non violence. I don't get it that he bowed out after he rose again. but I'm getting way off on tangents here.

He told about the day, 4/22/69, after which he considered himself a christian, and said that Jesus statement "Forgive them" about the people who were torturing him to death. "The power of that statement is so much more powerful than anything else I ever saw". I partially get what he's saying. I mean it makes sense to me that the world is never gonna be fixed unless people can choose to forgive us, the perps.

Ok, they're doing a kewl thing where the whole church gets involved in buying presents and putting on a big party at a big low income housing development in the community. That's awesome.

When he read the passage for the sermon, Rich read from the only decent English translation, Eugene Peterson's The Message. More points for the church.

They have this kewl little shrine set up on one side of the sanctuary labelled "prayers for the missing". It looked like people were lighting candles and writing down prayers for people god loves and is missing. I think that's pretty kewl.

After the sermon was a time of worship music during which we were invited to visit the various little worship stations around the sanctuary devoted to the poor or the missing or one other group (I didn't see), or to write down encouraging words or impressions which we thought god was revealing to us and put them in a little basket. Aftewards Rose read several of them out (I mean they warned up front that this was what they would be doing--I think they were all anonymous)

Also afterwards people were invited to go over to receive prayer from some people if they wanted to.

I think my wife Megsie would have loved this service. It was very ... charismatic, I think, is the word. And Megsie grew up with that. 10 years ago I would have found it astoundingly weird and strange and even frightening. But I've had a bit more exposure now and I didn't find it uncomfortable at all. It felt ... homey/communityish, in a comfortable way.

Oh--the music was pretty kewl. But the white people started to clap. My general theory is that white people should just refrain from clapping to the music. No doubt that's shockingly racist and un PC. but there it is. I think I'm ruined for white people clapping forever since I spent time in west africa.

Last song they did the Beatles "All you need is love" That was kind of fun, and all of a sudden all the baby boomers seemed to awake from their slumber and go into party mode, which was fun and quite amusing as well.

Part of the reason I had a positive bias for this church going in was because I know that they have swum a bit of an uphill battle in choosing to be very involved in their community, especially with regards to social justice issues--choosing to think people are more important than doctrine--kewl stuff like that.

In the foyer, there was a rack of fair trade, organic coffee and chocolate for sale, from equal exchange http://www.equalexchange.com/. Since coffee and chocolate are two big industries that by and large promote and help propogate systemic evil in the world, and since the fair trade movement is fighting that systemic evil in really creative, effective ways, I just found this mega yotta brilliant. And I must confess I stole one of the tubs of fair trade hot chocolate powder for making hot chocolate, the drink. Which I shall off and and make a cup of right now, I think. Don't worry, I intend to either pay for it on Community Vineyard's website, or barring that, I'll send them a check. When I get around to it. I promise.