A Discerning Community & “Holy Indifference”

Hello Vine,

Let’s discern together (again). About six months ago, we sent a poll asking you to prayerfully give your feedback about service time. Next week, you’ll be invited to do the same.

Your leadership team (the Vestry) is prayerfully putting together a survey to hear your feedback again because we are a discerning community at The Vine. This means we care to do the work of listening to the Lord’s leading, both corporately and individually. We’ll ask you to reflect on your experience of worshiping at 3pm, and compare it to our other option (and former time): 9am.

Through June, we will continue worshiping at 3pm to allow many to respond, for us to receive responses well, and to plan for what we will do.

Until our survey comes around, what you can do is prepare.

• Recall the vision: Hospitality, Mission, Logistics (see the January announcement video here).
• Reflect on what you’ve noticed – the challenging, the surprising, and the encouraging.
• Ask the Lord: what most helps us to live into our vision, to “follow Jesus together in such a way that our lives become fearless in love for God and people”?

Lastly, a discerning community seeks “holy indifference.” This is not a lack of passion. Rather, we receive our passions, opinions, preferences, thoughts, etc. We engage these passions together – in the context of loving God and people. And we open our hands to release control and trust the leading of our good Shepherd through them – if we listen, He will speak. In God’s Kingdom, unity does not mean uniformity – this is how we practice it, and it’s consequently a powerful witness to our current time and place.

I am very thankful for each of you! In our passion and diversity, let’s discern together,

Michael+