New message series: Advent Together

We are excited to be stepping toward our good friends, Saint Augustine’s, to walk shoulder-to-shoulder through the season of Advent Together. 

Advent marks a new beginning, it’s the beginning of the Christian year, and through various traditions and practices, is a chance to create space in our lives to meet with God, as he comes to us in the form of a vulnerable newborn, Jesus. 

In our Advent Together special delivery pack you will find a whole variety of ways to engage this Advent season, including; some beautiful weekly devotional cards from our friends at Venn Foundation, a how-to guide on making an Advent wreath, some recipes of our favourite treats for your table, a postcard about Good Gifts 2021, plus a Christmas card of course - it is nearly Christmas after all! If you’re a family, you would of received a great Advent CV Kids pack to bring your tamariki along on the journey too!

And all of this is designed to work alongside our shared Advent teaching series as we welcome Mathew Newton (of Saint Augustine’s) to the CV Sunday formats in a couple of weeks time. Also, we’re firing up the video machine too, so you’ll be able to read, listen or watch!

New music release: Gentle and Humble at Heart

In the absence of getting to sing together, here's a new release of music from our worship crew for you. May it be good for your soul and draw you to Jesus.

Words and music by Anthony Macleod and Donald Goodhall

Performed by Anthony Macleod

Filmed by Dylan Jones / For Good Media

Mixed by Vivek Gabriel

New message series: Been here, done that

In this moment of history, with terms like “unprecedented” or “one-in-a-hundred-years” bandied around regularly, it’s easy to think no one has done life like this before. Or the other temptation is to think the way they did navigate it is antiquated: we have progressed and don’t need to listen to history anymore. But that would be chronological snobbery, to not look back receptively would be unwise. So then, to listen to how people have navigated history is wise; there is wisdom to be found in looking at the story of their lives lived.

The Church, while it hasn’t seen this moment of history before, has lived versions of our current challenges before, and here’s the good bit: God has done amazing things in the Church as She lived in those moments. Things that are worth us paying attention to as we navigate these times.

The Church has a lived story in all kinds of situations across the globe. Been here, done that is a mini-series that wants to turn around from here and look at what the Church did. We’ll be exploring five moments in church history that speak to our current historical moment, attentively listening to the wisdom gained that we may apply it today.

Join us each Sunday in level 3 for this series released as Sunday Epistles to your inbox and on our Podcast

eBook: Be with, be like

Over the last three months we have journeyed through an important series exploring the idea of fruitfulness. We called this series Be with, be like; experiencing and exhibiting the Father's love and Christlike Way by the Holy Spirit.

The series started as preached sermons, but then three weeks into it, due to the Delta Outbreak, it changed form into written letters. While talks and letters are different in lots of ways, one thing they do have in common is they both work with words. So, we have gone back and collected all of the words of this sermon series together and repackaged it for you to keep as this eBook.

As we say in the dedication:

May these sermons not just be words to learn from,
but words to live by —
that they help you be with God,
that you may be like Him.

PRE-GATHERING COMMUNITY PRAYER

The seal of the Moravian church: a community that prayed non-stop for 100 years and one of the most impacting missional movements of church history.

SUNDAY'S 9.00am

We're praying before our Sunday gathering every week for people to meet God both within our family and outside of it. God is already doing amazing things in our midst but He also asks us to keep knocking on the door, to keep expecting more.

So, let's get together to pray for the anxious to be free, the sick to be healed, the lost to be found and for God to keep carrying us forward into the great unknown.

God can and will change the world through our prayers.

Message series: "Intention (What do you want?)"

We're kicking off 2017 with a summer series that investigates our intention and looks at an important question we all need to ask: "What do you want?"

This confronting question from Jesus reveals the power of our intentions and what they lead us to do. It will be a great journey for both you as an individual, but also for us as a family, as we look at what the intentions are for our year ahead.

“Jesus looked around and saw them following. “What do you want?” he asked them.”

— John 1:38

Message series: "And I will give you rest."

“...and I will give you rest.”

— Jesus

You've worked hard this year and to work hard is good. You've created new things and contributed to what is going on in the world and the Kingdom of God. You've poured your time, energy and resource into the things you love most.

Now, as we head towards Christmas and a summer break, what does it mean to take a break and rest?

Join us in our new series "And I will give you rest" as we explore what the rest God offers looks like, and why it's important.

We've got guests coming!

For the next two Sunday gatherings at Central Vineyard we have guests coming to speak and share. Don't miss out on hearing from these two Vineyard NZ leaders and great friends of Central Vineyard.

Lloyd Rankin, national director of Vineyard Churches Aotearoa NZ, is coming to speak on Sunday, November 13. Lloyd and his wife Victoria pioneered the Vineyard movement here in NZ and have planted several churches over the last two decades.

Jacinda Lilly, who pastors Coast Vineyard with her husband Matt, is coming to speak on Sunday, November 20. The Lilly's were sent from Shore Vineyards (just like us!) and planted Coast Vineyard three years ago, and continue to see it grow and bless the Whangaparaoa Peninsula.

Central Vineyard's First Birthday + Photos

Our journey so far

Our first birthday

A big thanks to all who helped pull this special celebration together and to Cameron Thorp for taking these photos.

Half Time: 6 months into our first year as a church

It's been 6 months since we became a church, and to celebrate we took this Sunday to reflect on where we've been and where we're heading. You can listen to the talk here, but I wanted to jot down a bit of a list too for those who like to read and consider. #introvertsunite

In Matthew 7, to land the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said to "build your house on the rock." As a church that is unashamedly pursuing Jesus, this is exactly what we have been trying to do. We don't want Central Vineyard to be a flash-in-the-pan – we want it to have longevity and health, and so we have spent the first part of this year digging particular foundations that this "Rock" would have us build on:

• We wanted to get back to the roots of what church is: a gathering of witnesses (rather than a service to attend).
• We wanted to be a church where everyone knows their own story is important and powerful. We continue to hear great stories every week as we have learned to keep asking people the question, "What's your story?"
• We wanted to be a church that would bless our city, so we have created our missional expressions together in collaboration. We have launched our first mission expression, Forward.

How is it all going? Well, pretty good actually. Our church has grown substantially over these first 6 months while still holding tightly to these foundational values we have wanted to live out. It's grown so much that we have moments of feeling like the structure we have in place around it all is a bit strained, so we have some exciting developments:

• We have been able to give Amber Osborn (operations administrator) and Emma Breetvelt (children and family ministry co-ordinator) small part-time salaries for their work in our church team.
• We have decided that having to finish our Sunday gatherings so promptly at 11:30am (due to having to pack up and hand over to the next hall booking) is now robbing us of moments with God and with each other, so we are prayerfully looking for a new building premises.
• We are seeing the fulfilment of several prophetic words that have been given to us over the last two years.

Where to next? Well we want another foundation at Central Vineyard to be that everyone knows they are gifted by the Holy Spirit to contribute, bless and play their part in what God is doing. So we have a new journey ahead which is called "Gifted", a series that will explore what it is to be natural, ordinary people of a supernatural, extraordinary God.

Just a note on this; on Sunday we opened up some space for people to listen to God at the end of our gathering and several words were given and emailed in afterwards – it seems our series has already begun!

Watching the church that was in our hearts for the last couple of years form into the Central Vineyard we have today is one of the most exciting things I have ever had the privilege of seeing in my life. Gab and I love where this is all going and we will continue to prayerfully go wherever God's presence is leading us as a family, and keep our hand to digging good foundations for the future. 

Aroha nui,

Dan