Elm City Vineyard Church Talks

It’s that time of year. It gets dark before 5pm. It can seem like darkness is all there is. While that is true for December in the northeast, that can also feel real for our souls. But what if we remember that anything can be illuminated by God’s light? This light brings about truth—revelation about what is so, grace—warmth and kindness from the one who has no shadow, and beauty—God’s light making...

On this first Sunday of Advent and of the liturgical year, we reflect on how Jesus was born to humble people in quiet village places, and not in a great city or to the rich and powerful. In our own time, too, it is in humility and quietness that we are invited to encounter Jesus and to receive from him the one true life, so often revealed in whispers and not shouts. Join us this week, bring a frie...

In this third and final week before Advent, we will finish our 3-week series on worship with a time of extended musical worship interspersed with brief reflections on Scripture to help us review, reflect on, and embody worship in all areas of our lives. With word and song, our physical bodies, attentiveness to God in ordinary moments, and offering our lives to God as a living sacrifice, we will fi...

Worship is more than music. It is a whole life surrender to God’s will. This kind of whole-life worship reshapes our lives to look radically different than the patterns of this world. This week, in the second installment of our teaching series on worship, we’ll be exploring what it means for us to lead fully submitted lives of worship, beyond our communal singing and our religious services, and wh...

Do we live slow enough to notice invitations from God to worship? We don’t ever start worshipping God ex nihilo, out of nothing . We join in. We respond to an invitation. During our short series on WORSHIP before Advent, we are taking time to see worship as more than music. Worship is the site of our noticing God and drawing near. Worship is obedience. Worship is the place we establish habits of s...

This Sunday, we have the privilege of hearing from Julia Pickerill, co-senior pastor with her husband, Eric, at Vineyard Columbus, a flagship Vineyard church and the largest Vineyard church in the world. Julia and Eric have been part of Vineyard for many decades, led Joshua House, a rich and rooted young adult community at Vineyard Columbus for many years, and spent seven years in the Netherlands...

During our series on Enemy Love, it may have been easy to wonder…but what about the Pharisees - the religious teachers that strongly oppose and eventually help kill Jesus? Jesus doesn’t seem too chummy with them. How is that love? Jesus does have a strange way of showing this group love. But by putting the pieces of our series together - creative engagement, proximity, and forgiveness, Jesus someh...

It can be easy to avoid our enemies, but it may be even easier to be offended by them. Jesus calls us to do something different: to love them. When we give up being offended, opportunities for love abound…even love that gets close. Jesus demonstrates this in his ministry. He gets close to people that his own community would consider enemies. When a tax collector shows up to see Jesus, Jesus doesn’...

If your sworn enemy asks you to love those who hurt you, you should run. If God asks the same, you should lean in and listen. Most people nod and agree with the teaching to love your neighbor — even if we don’t. But to love our enemies? Most laugh. Why love people who will hurt us? Why prioritize people who want to harm us? This seems foolish, unwise, even abusive. Yet, loving one’s enemies is the...

In this fourth week of our teaching series on Healing, we’ll be looking at what scripture has to say about the healing of our cities. The brokenness in our connections to one another can be so easy to see in the city around us. But real hope for the healing of our city can be harder for us to grab hold of. Do we hope in our own striving? Or is our hope in Jesus, the wounded healer who loves our ci...

God heals broken bodies. God heals troubling thoughts. But what about hearts? Broken hearts are not just the stuff of junior high drama. A broken heart steals our joy, robs our peace, and leads us to numbness. God isn’t only invested in our spiritual lives. God is invested in healing our hearts and emotions. We can ask God for full hearts in order to receive deep healing in our very emotional live...

God desires an integrated healing for us — body, mind, emotions, communities, and the world around us. In the Gospels, Jesus heals bodies. Does he heal minds too? With our increasing awareness of anxiety, depression, and trauma, it would be great if Jesus’ healing was more than skin deep. This Sunday, we’ll talk about how God does heals us through meditating on truth, rejecting lies, and receiving...

God heals. We see this in scripture. Jesus performs miracles and then his disciples do the same work of healing people from sickness and setting people free from dark forces. We see this in church history. Saints do healing work and communities rejoice. Hundreds of years later, do we see God’s healing in our lives? In our community? This Fall, we’re going to look at who Jesus is as a healer, but a...

This week, for the final message of our summer series on the book of Ephesians, we will be looking at what it means to live as children of light. In a world like ours, with forces at play that are neither safe nor kind, it can be easy to keep parts of our lives hidden in the dark. But when we hide from God and from others, shame grows, and we become less of who we were made to be. This Sunday, we’...

In Ephesians 3, Paul writes about his ministry of bringing "the news of the boundless riches of Christ" to non-Jews (Gentiles), "to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God" (3:8) "now revealed...by the Spirit" (3:6).What is this mysterious plan now revealed? Would you believe that it's the church? "Through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now...

What does God’s love mean to you? A question like that can elicit some pretty complicated and beautiful responses. Join us this week for another family friendly service filled with testimonies and lessons on what God’s love means to some of our youngest ECVers. - Series Description - How often do we lose sight of God’s character? We rupture a relationship and feel guilty. We sin and justify oursel...

Church can be one of the easiest places to feel like we don’t belong. In this week’s portion of Ephesians, Paul reminds us that we have been brought in and no walls stand between us and Jesus. Not only so, but Jesus is the cornerstone of the new building being created by God from those who are called by him from the prophets to the apostles and on into today. Our lives are built on Christ and thro...

When we look around, things aren't perfect, or even ideal. The Bible uses stronger words- there's a way of death, and we see it daily. From wars between nations, injustice among people groups, or the internal strife we each feel. But there's also a promise that something unexpected can come from what we see, and people can be made ALIVE. Join us as we continue our journey through Ephesians and exp...

How often do we lose sight of God’s character? We rupture a relationship and feel guilty. We sin and justify ourselves instead of seeking forgiveness. We lose our job and feel devastated. We need to remember who God is. God is powerful. God is alive. God is a unifier who makes us one. God is love. God is generous. God is light. The letter to Ephesus declares who God is, and we will ask God to help...

When Paul wrote to the church of Colassae, perhaps Paul wondered, “What if tomorrow, different households became faithful witnesses to the person of Jesus in all that they do? What would our world look like with multiple homes on fire with the Holy Spirit?” Paul’s ancient letter to the Colossians encourages the church of Colassae to dwell with Jesus’ teachings, clothing themselves with what they h...

When we look at the world around us, there is so much death. So many default ways of being and living that bring about harm, emptiness, something other than freedom. We see it in our individual lives, and we see it in the oppressive systems and structures all around us. And yet, Jesus invites us to live with our minds and hearts set on a different Way, a Way from above that is life and peace and f...

Paul’s letter to the Colossians urgently encourages the church in Colossae to remember their connection to Christ, where the fullness of God lives. Christ, the head of the Church. Christ, the one who aids God in reconciling all to Himself. Paul wants the Colossians to know that they are complete in Christ. Yet, many of them are living captive to deceptive philosophies and empty practices. A growin...

In the first two weeks of our teaching series on the book of Colossians, we've explored the "hope laid up in heaven" (Col 1:5) that the gospel articulates, good news that "bears fruit" in the communities to which it has come all over the world. While Christ's supremacy has been "proclaimed to every creature under heaven," the rule and reign of God is not yet "all in all" (as 1 Cor 15:28 puts it),...

We conclude our post-Easter teaching series, Empty, on the Sunday that concludes Eastertide in the church calendar: the feast of Pentecost. We've explored the idea that empty things-- like the empty tomb of Easter morning-- can be places of blessing. When we empty our schedules, wallets, resumés, beds and more to be present to God we can experience his life-giving abundance. Join us this Sunday wh...

Join us this Sunday as we continue our Empty series. We will focus on the Empty Bed. Is it a site of restless anxiety or a place of reflection and peace? Sometimes, our culture's messaging on sex and our trust in God's goodness in this tender area of our lives determines whether we hide in shame or isolation or whether we open up this part of our lives to God and others. We become open not because...