pat loughery

Rose Swetman tells the story of Vineyard Community Church (Shoreline). We got here at the end of it. I’d strongly recommend hearing this podcast.

Ends with one of the guiding principles of VCC: Isaiah 58:5-12 (The Message).

Q: How do you deal with the idea that people who are not Jesus followers are doing the work of the Kingdom (community agencies, etc)

A:

Q: Does it matter if the Holy Spirit is inspiring it or not?

A: It doesn’t matter to me – I’ve let go of that. If people are doing father-like stuff, every good gift is from the father, right?

Q: When you first started this chuch, were you sponsored by some organization?

A: No way – Rich and I have been biocational all the way till about last Jan; always self supporting.

Q: Do you need a building? How important is it?

A: Great question. I don’t have the angst about mega/micro/house/coffeehouse/pub churches. All are successful. For us, this is our path. It’s taken 3 years for local agencies to use our building the way we wanted it to. Long time.

Rich Swetman adds, Vineyard gave us a foundation in Kingdom. But that was about salvation and healing; we see Kingdom as more expansive than that – wherever the Kindom shows up we’ bless. I believe that the HS is leading people who are doing the work of God. Melisaa Etheridge ‘s lyrics were spirit-inspired; we have no problems partnering with anybody. no matter what they believe, or what they say they believe.

What are psiritual practicies that help you?

A: Thursday morning intercessory prayer meetings. We’re covert holy spirt people. not petitionary prayer, but ‘here we are, lord, show us how to pray’. We pray heavily, all wired differently, but… we go for it. Another thing: we try to model practices in our Sun Am workship gatghering. Guided meditation, Scriptures, centring prayer, lectio, fasting and prayer. at least 3x/year we set aside 3 days for fasting/prayer, thos are very helpful times. Lectio divina is a very helpful thing for us.

q from jim:books that have been helpful to you.
A: missional church; Gospel in a pluralistic socliety ; shaping of things to come; celtic way of evangelism

Q: your response to people saying this is just about social gospel

a: i think that’s our dualistic away of thinking; we’ve separated kingdom from king. worship jesus as king, out of that relationship serve. i’m not very sophisticated in this, it’s simple to me.