Message series: "Stories"

At Central Vineyard we value listening to several key voices.

One is the voice of God through His Spirit.
Another is the voice of God through the Scriptures.
The other is the voice of each other as we witness through our stories.

We value hearing every person's story and believe every story is a treasure – because stories are glimpses of truth and reality. We also wonder what would happen if every person valued their own story.

For June, we're going to look at the power of stories and how we can become better story-tellers of the hope we are living in Jesus.

Message series: "Making Room"

“The movement from hostility to hospitality is hard and full of difficulties. Our society seems to be increasingly full of fearful, defensive, aggressive people anxiously clinging to their property and inclined to look at their surrounding world with suspicion, always expecting an enemy to suddenly appear, intrude and do harm. But still—that is our vocation: to convert the hostis into a hospes, the enemy into a guest and to create the free and fearless space where brotherhood and sisterhood can be formed and fully experienced.”

— Henri Nouwen

Have you read the book of Acts lately? Let us give you a quick snapshot:

The first generation of church was cranking along, numbers being added daily. It says that they got to 3000 people — not a gathering of 3000 together in one place, but 3000 gathering together in smaller groups all over the city.

Where were they? This was well before the days of church-buildings and hall-hires. They were in upstairs-food-halls and each others homes. 

Archaeological findings show us that they literally knocked out walls to make room for everyone.

People who weren’t meant to be together in society were in the same room and beginning to call each other brother and sister. They were a community of enemies and strangers who were becoming friends and family. 

They were the people who were making room for anyone.

Making Room is our new message series, exploring this kind of Biblical hospitality and what it can do.

Faithful Presence Wrap-up

Baptism Gathering / April 9 2017

Baptism Gathering at Long Bay to celebrate the baptisms of Susie, Vicky, Andrea, Marcus and Caleb.

STUDIO / Term 2: How to pray for others

“Studio is for anyone who doesn’t feel confident in praying for others, or who perhaps hasn’t prayed for anyone before, no matter how long they have known Jesus or been at Central Vineyard. Studio will be a safe place to learn and practice using the gifts that God has given.”

We're extremely excited to announce our new training initiative: Studio. 

It's not a lecture – each evening is a third teaching, a third practicing and a third Q&R discussion.  It's led by our new staff member, Strahan Coleman and we'll have some terrific Central Vineyard contributors and guests joining in.

Studio will begin May 2, running fortnightly on Tuesday evenings for the term. See the full details at centralvineyard.org/studio

FINANCIAL REPORT 2016

FIRSTLY, THANK YOU.
 

We are a church that believes in being generous with all that we have, because being generous is the outworking of the realisation that what we have is God's first. Thank you for being generous people. Your generosity has been an incredible blessing to us.

In 2016 financial giving played a huge part in getting Central Vineyard up and going. We have successfully been able to cover all the costs of growing our church plant initiative from a small startup through to the growing church it is today; hiring our first staff members, paying rent, purchasing equipment and blessing the people of our church and city through generosity and several missional initiatives during the year.

We are reliant on the generosity of our people to cover our budget, which enables us to do all that we do together and to ourselves be generous as a church. (We also receive a small contract from Vineyard Churches Aotearoa NZ who pay Central Vineyard for Dan to spend part of his time as the national director's ministry assistant which means we have been able to pass on some of our hours to other staff members.)

Our total income for 2016 was: $150,507.10
(including a surplus from 2015 of $17,030.62)
Our total outgoings for 2016 was: $138,240.16

Due to careful stewardship of our finances we have met our needs and finished the year with a small surplus.

If you have any questions about our spending you can contact any of our board members to discuss anything, or Dan.

To close, again, thank you to those who have financially given this year. Without generosity we couldn't play our part in joining God in what He is doing in our city as well as we are.
 

"So we will see in our history the faithful love of God."

Message series: "Faithful Presence"

“And they will see in our history the faithful love of God.”

— Psalm 107:43

For two thousand years the Church has faithfully tried to navigate the tension between being the people of God's presence, and being placed in their moment of history and their place in the world.

How we navigate this tension has led to all kinds of paradigms and ideas and practices and campaigns and events and structures... It all gets quite cluttered and overwhelming to be honest.

So with this series, we're taking things right back to the radical heart of the Gospel.

God's kingdom is at hand: He is lovingly putting all things back-to-right, blessing it and making it good again, and we're invited to come and join Him in this work of love until all things are made new. 

What could it look like to be a church that right now — in this moment of history, in this city — lived in such a way that "...they will see in our history the faithful love of God"?

Welcome to the series, Faithful Presence.

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MEMORISATION/PRAYER CARDS

Ideal as a phone wallpaper

STORIES: Celebrating our diversity in a multicultural kingdom

Waitangi Day reminds us we are not a one-culture-only-nation. We are multicultural; diverse, yet unified here by this context of place. This weekend we are going to take this moment to remind ourselves that God’s kingdom is a place of cultural-diversity. The church is meant to taste like this:

“After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb.”

— Revelation 7:9

What does it mean to celebrate the stories of our diversity? How might we learn off each other? Come and hear the stories this Sunday as we host a panel of Central Vineyard people from diverse cultural backgrounds.

It's going to be ka pai.

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