Elm City Vineyard Church Talks

The pilgrims arrived a few weeks ago in Psalm 122: "Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem" (122:2). But having reached the desired destination, there is nonetheless anxiety about whether that blessed state might last: "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: '...Peace be within your walls and security within your towers'" (122:6). This week we look at Psalm 125 which draws on a long tradit...

As we continue our “Psalms of Ascents” series, we come to Psalm 124, which begins, “Had it not been the Lord who…” – words that invite us to consider what our lives might have been had God not been with us, protecting, preserving, and sustaining us.  But for God to have been with us – “on our side,” as this psalm also asserts – is not something we can presume upon or arrogantly hold in an us/them...

Mercy is abundance when facing lack and forgiveness when facing wrong. Psalm 123 compares our need for mercy to a servant looking to a Master for direction. Your eyes do not look away. Every movement is tracked. Your action is tethered to theirs.  Is that how much you are tethered to mercy — for you, for your people, for God’s people, for…your enemies? In our broader context, mercy is not that pop...

If we’re pilgrims, where are we going? Our Psalmist (in Psalm 122 this week) confidently says: Jerusalem. We might want to rejoice with those who say, “let us go to the house of the Lord” (Ps 122:1). But we might also ask, “can you share those GPS coordinates right quick?” Our path to any physical place, in these times, is fraught. Is there any sterling city anymore? Is there any place to shout Go...

This week, we will focus on whom we ask for help: a God who is remarkably involved in our lives. This God intervenes on our behalf and for our good. This view of a personal God might be new or may have become hard to believe as of late. This Sunday we will hear why a God who watches over our coming and going is good news. - Series Description - On Sundays this summer , we're exploring the Psalms o...

Join us as we start our journey together in Psalm 120, a psalm that encourages us to cry out to God as a starting place for any pilgrimage. - Series Description - On Sundays this summer , we'll explore the Psalms of Ascents (Psalms 120 - 134) together. This particular group of psalms is all about being on a journey with God-- being a pilgrim in pursuit of God’s loving presence. The journey involve...

At Pentecost, we celebrate the Spirit filling and empowering people. A different world is possible because of what the Spirit can do in and through us. As we conclude our series, Spread the Love , we will take time to proclaim, demonstrate, and take some risks to see the Spirit’s work amongst us today. Come and see. - Series Description - For God so loved the world, he sent Jesus. As God does, we...

The idea of obedience brings complex reactions for many of us, perhaps stirring fears of legalism or a sense of anxiety. But when coupled with love – our love for God and God’s love for us – obedience to Jesus is the only way of true freedom and joy. Obedience to Jesus draws us into a life of personal transformation, deep and healthy relationships, and active participation in God’s work in the wor...

Community is key. We are not meant to live in isolation. We are also not meant to live in communities that are empowered by fear, anxiety, a cult of personality, or mere pleasure. Communities empowered by the Holy Spirit are altogether different. God is refining communities like this through a Spirit that directs, gathers, and forgives far more than we would on our own. Explore more in community t...

ECV’s mission is to call all people to revolutionary lives of action through spirit-empowered communities that love and obey Jesus Christ in all things. But what does a revolutionary life of action actually look like? In the upside-down kingdom of God, true world-changing revolution happens in the hidden places, from the margins, and it is fueled by a love that changes everything. Hear more from o...

God calls all people to know and experience Him. Our Church exists to do the same. Some religious folks think God is only for some. Some non-religious folks think God is not for them. Jesus does not accept these false divides: he pursues the outsider while pursuing the insider to do the same. We have a countercultural mission to join . How do we invite all boldly and courageously as we obey Jesus’...

Love your neighbor. Be kind. Practice patience. Keep it under control. Love your enemy. Showing up in the world the way we hope to is hard work. Or is it? the Bible says that love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are aspects of the fruit of the Spirit’s work in our lives. This fruit is a natural outgrowth of God’s work within us. What differen...

Celebration is a way to mark God’s consistent presence with us and to call forth more of God’s good Kingdom to come and draw near. Celebration is worship. Celebration is prayer. Celebration can even be resistance. As we mark that there have been no homicides in more than four months and none in 2026 , we choose to celebrate as an act of defiant hope that a different world is possible

Why did Jesus come to the world?” It's not to bring a cosmic judge even closer to those he would condemn. Instead, Jesus came to show us how to live , even if his greatest lesson came through his death: resurrection is real if we trust in Jesus. Jesus sacrificed for those who killed him because God so loved the world .  Join us as we celebrate that God’s great love is for us and that God’s great l...

“Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." - Jesus (John 12:24) As the week we now call Holy Week unfolds, we see in Jesus what it looks like to live a sacrificial life. Together as a body we'll explore Jesus's instructions and see what that may look like in our lives. - Series Description -...

When we think about the deep things of life, money may not be the first thing that comes to mind. But Jesus says there’s a deep connection between our hearts and our wallets. Join us Sunday as Matt invites us to consider what the way we spend our money might tell us about the deep attachments of our hearts. - Series Description -  True depth cuts through shallow places of safety. For some of us th...

In Luke 4, Jesus says that the Spirit of the Lord is upon him to proclaim freedom to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set the oppressed free-- to proclaim the Lord’s favor. If we follow Jesus, we are to go and do likewise. We are called to go deeper in mission — not mission as a one-time experience but as a daily act of discipleship. This seems tough, but, just like building the vir...

Join us as we reflect on Humility as a posture of dependence that allows us to receive from God. Join us as we discuss what humility is, why it matters in our lives with God and others, and practical steps for how we can grow in the humility that Christ models for us. - Series Description - True depth cuts through shallow places of safety. For some of us this means moving from the shoreline to the...

Join us as we reflect together “On Becoming Prayerful People” so that we might better live into the richness of active engagement with and openness to God as a way of life.  Far more than merely asking God for things on behalf of ourselves or others, Christian prayer involves moment-by-moment availability and permeability to God and embraces a great “biodiversity” in the ways of prayer available t...

We conclude our series, "Chosen by God, Living as Exiles" with a teaching on "A Faith Received: Getting Back to Basics." The Apostle Peter was happy to remind the church of the central realities of our faith (2 Pet 1:12-15): the death and resurrection of Jesus, our new life and ongoing transformation in Christ, remaining faithful to Jesus in the face of suffering and opposition, and living in the...

When God calls people to follow him, he also often calls them to leadership roles within the church. What does it look like to lead and follow well while living as exiles? - Series Description -  In this series we will explore 1 and 2 Peter, the Apostle Peter’s two letters to the scattered first-century church in Asia Minor, who, though distant in time and place from ourselves, nonetheless share m...

God calls us to action even when we’re in exile. Even in the winter, God still calls us to bloom. How? We receive God’s power and God’s call. We participate in God’s promises over us. We make every effort to confirm such things — for our own lives and the lives of others. This is how we grow — not only for one season of life, but for our whole lives. Lifelong growth is ours if we continue to exper...

Followers of Jesus, 1 Peter says, rejoice "even if now for a little while [we] have had to suffer various trials" (1:6). It's a teaching shared across the writings of the New Testament: the kingdom of God has come already in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the church but has not yet come in its fullness. We are born to a "living hope" as we awa...

The author of 1 Peter calls Jesus followers a holy priesthood (1 Pet 2:5). He commands them to be holy as God is holy. If the people of God are already living in exile, it could seem like this is just another hard thing: how can I live as a holy priest in a context of exile, oppression, and suffering? This is daunting unless holiness is not a standard to live up to, but a set apart path laid out f...

Followers of Jesus live in a world that is often at odds with the life Jesus calls us to, and our own place and time is no exception. To be faithful to Jesus means that we will often feel out of place and called to ways of living and being that clash with the ways and rhythms of those around us. We are, in the words of the Apostle Peter, exiles, strangers, sojourners, foreigners, temporary residen...