Preston Vineyard

It’s not simply some idolatrous accident that we chose to introduce this paper with a lyric by Bruce Springsteen. We feel that his song points to the crux of the state of many peoples position in society today. We are living today in a culture where choice is king, where relativism rules and materialism is the master of many.

We are bombarded daily by slogans that give us an excuse for life: “Just do it”

But what have we got when we turn out the lights at the end of “every hard earned day”? Alone. In the dark. Alone?

“At the end of every hard earned day people find some reason to believe”

Call us old fashioned but at Preston Vineyard we still think that reason is God, and we are dedicated to pursuing a relationship with Him and doing our best to follow His example demonstrated through His Son Jesus.

¹⁸Jesus, undeterred, went right ahead and gave his charge: "God authorized and commanded me to commission you: ¹⁹Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. ²⁰Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I'll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age."

Vineyard Churches UK (Association of Vineyard Churches (‘AVC’) UK) was formed for the purpose of joining together churches who hold common values and practices, and, first and foremost, it is a conservative evangelical movement. It is governed by a Council through a number of Task Forces, including a Board of Trustees, which give oversight to the pastors of existing churches and facilitates widespread church planting.

The major part of its function is to be an organisation that gives, helps, serves and strengthens our churches. As you’ve often heard it said, ‘our aim in Vineyard Churches UK is to do all we can to help you become all that you can in Christ...’ We’re thoroughly committed to the view that this can only be achieved through the building and sustaining of strong relationships among us based on love, openness and trust.

This is our starting-point, and is a crucial assumption, which underpins everything we do, not least when it comes to considering these other important issues.

administrate the movement (including a small national office staffed by an Administrator, maintaining databases, financial management and reporting, correspondence, answering queries etc. etc).

Whatever organisational and oversight structure we construct should be built on people who, for as long as possible, continue to remain in the role of senior pastor. Once you begin appointing large numbers of people whose only role is to govern a movement, the emphasis inevitably becomes more on bureaucracy and status quo, and less focused on the original mission. Hopefully, by maintaining a system where those in government are also on the frontline in pastoral ministry, we can avoid losing the vision in the process of carrying it out

Developing relationships among leaders who like to be together, work together, and get things done together, is primary to maintaining a highly relational movement. If we do that, we have the pleasure of serving God with our contemporaries, equals, friends, and colleagues. Holding all these friendships together are the values, goals, theology, and practices we share in common. Though we are not all equally gifted in any area of ministry, we value one another’s distinctive contributions

We want the local church freely to express itself and govern itself, within the constraints of the values, theology, and genetic code of the Vineyard.
In other words, we want each Vineyard to resemble the family, without necessarily having an identical personality, while at the same time enjoying local autonomy, which means being a registered charitable organisation in its own right, establishing its own policies, leasing or owning property etc. etc. We do not want, and have not set up, a bureaucratic system that controls the local church.

Our understanding is that power and authority resides both in the spiritual and relational aspect of our ministry as well as the structural.
We are, we trust, a ministry, initiated and led by the Holy Spirit, and we move on as the Spirit gives us opportunity and as relationships develop. In the wake of that happening, we then will follow along behind with the necessary structure.
Vineyard Churches UK is not a structure, which has (or wants) legal jurisdiction in the local Vineyards. We have assumed that if we have spiritual authority, we don't need legal authority. And if we don't have spiritual authority, we certainly don't want legal authority! In other words, we don't want to govern people and churches who don't want government and oversight from us, and we don't want to give direction or bring correction to people who don't recognise our spiritual authority to do so.
So, if a local church or its pastor doesn't want to take pastoral counsel from us, then the obvious conclusion is that they are not under our authority. In that circumstance, as a matter of integrity, we would simply ask them (without rancor or belligerence) to change their name, and become identified with a movement or denomination whose leaders they can submit to.

Assuming that a Vineyard and/or its senior pastor had not strayed theologically or morally, we would not need to resort to the procedure for Termination of Membership as outlined in the By-laws. Why? Because this (hypothetical) situation is not an issue of church discipline, but merely a relational/pastoral one. We would simply ask them to change the name of their church by removing the name ‘Vineyard’, and is so doing, we are not implying anything negative about their behaviour or beliefs, nor are we attaching any blame to either side. We are simply recognising ‘after the fact’ something that has already happened, namely, that we do not have spiritual authority and that we are not their leaders.

The role of Vineyard Churches UK is to give help, support and encouragement to pastors and leaders, and providing resources to the movement. So its profile needs to be high enough to accomplish these goals, but not so high that it contradicts our assumptions or violates our values about organisations. There is a balance to be struck, so that we don't end up with a monolithic, bureaucratic monster.

Preston Vineyard Church is part of the Association of Vineyard Churches and was planted in 1998. Preston Vineyard started with a home-group of 9 people on 23rd September 1998. Our mission statement then read:

We endeavour to ensure that everyone who joins learns how to:

- Pray successfully for the sick

- Witness effectively to family, friends, neighbours

- Worship God in freedom

In brief we are here to reach out to our generation and present the good news of Jesus Christ in a relevant and meaningful way.

We value sung worship, teaching from the bible and the reality of the presence of God.

We also value the relationships we are building up with other churches in the Preston area.

It is a priority for us that these values continue to be fostered as we believe this will give a stronger presentation of the good news of Christ to the citizens of Preston and the surrounding area.

People often ask - "How do you grow a church"? “It's an easy one to answer. We don't. God does. We look forward to reaching out to and welcoming in the people He sends to work with us”.

We stand by that statement to date as we continue with our church growth, and are continually amazed by the Lords plans and are equally excited by these current movements and relationships with the congregations and residents of Fishergate Baptist Church.

Having held church in sports centres, class rooms, hotels, pubs and personal lounges for a couple of years our 1^st “established” residency was at the Catholic High School at the End of Laurence Ave in Frenchwood (The school was never comfortable with us using their name). Initially focusing on the area of Frenchwood we regularly sent out teams to clean up the streets. This involved litter picking and also moving bigger items. Why would we do this? Because it demonstrated in a practical way that the people of Frenchwood and Avenham are loved and valued by Preston Vineyard.

We have come to love students at Preston Vineyard because they have come to be part of us and influence how the Church expresses Christianity. Through our links with UCLAN Christian Union and Fusion (a national student initiative) ex students now hold positions of leadership in the Church with responsibility for developing our ministry both to and through students in Preston.

We were very pleased to have supported Pais in their work in schools in and around Preston. Our Pais worker based at Preston Vineyard until recently developed our work to young people (high school age kids). This was a new development which we were really excited about and hope to repeat again soon.

Stepping Stone are events we designed to improve life through thrilling, exciting, unforgettable nights out ( a matter of opinion) Examples have included - an evening of comedy at the Adelphi Pub, Family Fun Days, Fireworks Evenings, Bowling, Cinema trips etc.

One of our more successful projects was to work with “Tough Talk” a team of ex hard men and jail-birds who give a powerful message of freedom and redemption through their testimonies and a hard core power lifting demonstration. Tough Talk have supported our ministries both in the city centre “Party in the Park” and at a well attended specific event at the Sports centre at Walton Summit.

CiaP has worked very well for us in terms of non conventional evangelism. Our church over the past 6 years has periodically held a home group in a couple of pubs in the city centre, the appropriately named “Angel” and the Adeplhi. The curiosity of the regular pub goers provided some great fun in terms of “in your (ours) face” real questioning about who and what we stood for and believed.

A Bloke Called (ABC) Jesus is basically our own version of the very successful Alpha course as an introduction to the Christian faith. Again run from pubs, we have provided a platform to come as you are and ask all those difficult questions that make Christians squirm. Accompanied by good ale and good music, the dialogue was stimulating and very rewarding for both the visitors and the presenter of the course.

PEN is a network of churches that was chaired for several years by Tim Farnhill of Preston Vineyard. *At present PEN has 23 churches & 7 para church groups with several others in the pipeline. The network places a strong emphasis on relationships between individuals, groups and churches. As a network it does not shy away from potential conflict but is experiencing God’s enabling to always ‘think the best of one another’ & respect and recognise what each of us are doing in order to see Preston transformed. The network holds no place for competition or judgementalism and the heart is to seek to do together, in the community & churches, what may not be achievable apart. It presently is working on different approaches to enable greater access by individuals, churches & groups*. We are keen to maintain our relationship with PEN and similar network groups in the city. (* paraphrased Greg Smith October 2004 – see appendix 3 )

This is an emergency temporary housing project for mothers and their families. The hostel is a purpose built facility opened in 1991, which is owned and managed by New Leaf (North British Housing Association).

The scheme comprises 36 units of accommodation, which consist of 1x 4 bed house and 35 1 and 2 bedroom flats. All the properties are self contained and fully furnished with bedding and household equipment provided where required.

Preston Vineyard has both ministerial and personal relationships with this project as a member of our congregation was recently housed there.

Our ex pastor still holds the chair (and will soon be replaced by another representative from Preston Vineyard) of the Mill Bank Cherry Tree (MBCT). This involves meeting with the other committee members including James Watterson (Minister at Carey Baptist) and 2-3 other staff members) and administering the budget of approx £1000 per year.

It's a low-key activity but there is loads of potential for outreach. In the past Preston Vineyard has excelled in sharing the stocking the emergency food supplies with Carey Baptist. We have also assisted in their summer “garden party”.

There is also the potential for PV church members to become official 'befrienders' to the residents at the scheme and training is offered.

We have in the past in association with Shaun Vehey pastor of Wymott Prison provided a satellite church service to the inmates of that prison. This involved sung worship, testimony and fellowship and was very well received. We are keen to establish this prison ministry in the future.

24/7 Prayer is Preston Vineyards latest involvement. In February we experimentally took part on a 24 hour prayer ministry at Fishergate. We have embraced the attitude of the realisation that it is essential to have prayer at the centre of our mission and mission at the centre of our prayer. 24/7 prayer provides us with a God centred vision and objective.

There are plans to extend our 24/7 prayer room to a permanent facility with links to the Preston City Churches.

The Founder of the Vineyard Church, John Wimber once said that faith is spelt R.I.S.K

Church planting is a people-intensive, high-risk venture. We do not want to ``play it safe," we want to take risks, and we have no desire to set up unrealistic standards someone must meet in order to be considered for church planting.
But we don't want to play fast and loose with peoples lives in the Kingdom of God, either.

Since that plant in 1998 we have undergone several venue changes and 2 pastors until we find ourselves residents in the basement of Fishergate Baptist Church on Saturday evenings with a core “membership” of approximately 40 people (inclusive of all age groups).

We are currently experimenting with a new dynamic in pastoral care in the shape of a 5 core Leadership Team who share the responsibility for the care and welfare of our church.

The philosophy of our ministry at Preston Vineyard still holds true and mirrors and supports some of the core values of The Shaftesbury Society (see appendix 2)

Belief that God speaks today and wishes to intervene in people's lives.

Respect of the individual

Actively pursuing sharing blessing with other people with no hidden agenda

Contemporary approach

Logical connection between all church ministries and reaching the lost

Teaching the Bible

Worship

Ministry to the Poor

Equipping the Saints in and out of the Vineyard

Unity in the body of Christ - enjoying others being prospered

Serving the body of Christ through renewal and equipping

Building churches that plant churches

Study (see appendix 3) has shown that Preston has a particularly difficult history of division and conflict in the churches, and because of human sinfulness, and current tensions and disagreements it seems unlikely that there will ever be perfect unity in the church on earth.

Lack of trust within the church may mirror what is happening in the world outside.

Division remains a scandal and stumbling block to those outside the church, diverts energy from the work of God’s Kingdom and wastes resources in unnecessary and inefficient competition.

This is particularly so where resources are limited as in the Urban Priority Areas of cities like Preston.

So we end with a challenge to talk and pray and work together with both church and non church organisations, while respecting difference and diversity in order that the work of God in our city may flourish.

We at Preston Vineyard are energised by the prospect of the potential for amalgamated service and worship with the different congregations of Fishergate Baptist and the Preston Chinese Gospel Fellowship (培士頓華人福音團契) with whom we share our facility.

We look forward to developing a “Covenant between Congregations” as described in the Shafesbury Society’s basic guideline paper.

3: Preston Vineyard – A Challenging Church

When we moved to the basement of Fishergate Baptist Church in the summer of 2004 we adopted the idiom “A Door of Hope”. We sincerely believe that this is what we have been called to provide to the city.

We desire to change the stereo type of church perception to the poor, the lost, and the back sliden by being a place where one can belong before one believes, where the key word is inclusive not exclusive, where worship is something one can partake in without un ease or embarrassment. A place where God lives and breathes instead of simply being a figurehead visitor.

We are encouraged by our core value comparisons with those of the Shaftesbury Society.

We sincerely believe that the church is a living organism rather than being an organisation.

We understand that we are driven, guided and supported by the unction of the Holy Spirit.

We are driven by the Words and deeds of our Lord and our God Jesus Christ and live by the motto not What Would Jesus Do ?, but rather What Did Jesus Do? And we earnestly seek to follow in His footsteps of compassion and love.

"And as the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like him and reflect his glory even more".

2 Corinthians 3:18

At Preston Vineyard we are committed to the on going associations with the Preston Evangelical Network (PEN), our developing “covenant” with our church neighbours at Fishergate and our existing outreach projects as outlined above.

It is our desire to build on those relationships and expand our network to other church and non church groups in the city e.g. Main Junction (with whom we currently share our basement venue) and PCAN the Preston Christian Action Network a newly founded network overlapping the membership of PEN and the City Centre Ministers group. (see appendix 3). Also, we have in the past had association and mutual support with Oaklands Christian fellowship at Lostock Hall.

We agree whole heartedly with the Shaftesbury Sociey’s position that we must:

Build up the relationships across the different congregations – advertise their events, go along to them and visit a service. This will build understanding and appreciation of what others are involved with and contribute.

There are many Church groups that we could most certainly begin to work with almost immediately in terms of some of our current projects. For example the Salvation Army in terms of our 24/7 Prayer Initiative. *Preston Salvation Army has a medium size centre on a good site just to the north of the city centre. A fairly large worshipping corps linking well with other churches in the city, and offering social services to needy people*. The Salvation Army historically has a good reputation in outreach and a wonderful philosophy in service to the lost: (* paraphrased Greg Smith October 2004 – see appendix 3 )

“While women weep as they do now, I’ll fight; while little children go hungry as they do now, I’ll fight; while men go to prison, in and out, in and out, I’ll fight; while there is a poor little lost girl upon the street, I’ll fight; while there yet remains one dark soul without the light of God, I’ll fight – I’ll fight to the very end.”

- William Booth (Founder of the salvation Army)

A war cry indeed.

Meeting the Challenge

We appreciate that there are dozens of groups, charities and churches in Preston performing duties and providing care for many different needy causes. Whilst supporting these groups we feel that we must plan carefully so as not to replicate or disrupt these good works.

We seek to provide for the deprived, poor and disadvantaged in a realistic and valid way by becoming integrated with our communities.

The bottom line is that we edify, enlighten and serve our city in a manner that will spread the Lords Gospel story by our actions not words and make his Grace and Love known and accessible to all.

4: Emergent

'Invade the Cities, Invade the culture, Invade the nations'

This phrase, first coined by Roger Mitchell, can just be heard on the Christian rock band Delirious’ ‘Live and In the Can’ album spoken by their guitarist Stu Garrard. It’s small phrase with a big agenda, and one that has been echoed down through the entirety of Christian history and is as relevant today as ever, even in Preston!

The Emergent Church

While the statistics on church growth in the UK and Europe make fairly depressing reading and the media, when showing any interest in the church at all, generally focuses in on the negatives, there is another side to the story.

One of the most encouraging and exciting developments over recent years has been the significant rise in the number of new expressions and experiments of christian communities more commonly referred to as 'the emerging church'.

Preston and the surrounding area appear from the census statistics to have a higher than average proportion of people willing to call themselves Christian although it would appear that when it comes to active evangelism there remains a certain inherent restraint in actually putting oneself in the line of fire in the name of their faith.

Within this section and the following sections “Relationship” and “Servant Evangelism”, we explore the ways in which Preston Vineyard are prepared to “blow their cover” and step out into the real world as we have bought into the concept that we are called to be fishers of men, not keepers of aquariums.

The meat is on the street – John Wimber

Discovering what exactly is happening or what that really means is however is no easy task – here’s a couple of ideas.

Emergent is a friendship. Becoming a part of a friendship is a quite different from being part of an organization or church. It's more like joining a conversation.

To join a conversation, you need to hang around and get a feeling for what's been said before you arrived. This involves listening, maybe asking a few questions (doing a little homework) at the sidelines of the main conversation. Then you wait for a good place to contribute to the conversation-with an apt question, an observation, a story, whatever.

A friendship is always mutual: you contribute to influence and enrich others, and you listen and learn and are influenced and enriched too.

We believe that Fishergate Baptist Church offers wonderful potential and an ideal situation to operate as an ermergent group as part of Preston Vineyards outreach and evangelism.

We understand that this is not a covert operation. We wish to operate as Christians within society and to do so we need to be -

Culturally aware

Culturally sympathetic / compassionate

Culturally relevant

- to people of any faith and equally to those of no faith.

We recognise that our Truth is only our opinion in the “post-modern” world.

At no time will we be selling religion.

At no time will we be looking to “save the lost”

We will be prepared to be open minded, aware, sympathetic / compassionate and relevant as just another group of like minded people in society who may have view points that might be interesting to someone else.

We are not there to win or lose arguments – though we may have disagreements

We are not there to deliver apologetics…..this is not Alpha

We are there to hold a conversation and strike up friendships with our city community.

5: Relationship

“We long to see them [urban areas of deprevation] become places where” "mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed"” (Psalm 85).

- Shaftesbury Society. Development and Regeneration Group

Reading the above was music to Preston Vineyards ears.

We have a vision to expand and impact our community both in the city centre and in the surrounding suberbs, many of which are very deprived. (see appendix 3)

We would love to explore a means where by we can join the Society’s dream to;

“share God's love with communities living in urban areas of deprivation”.

The hard work of identifying the real needs of our community has been partially achieved through an excellent, independently commissioned paper for Preston Christian Action Network and the Anglican Commission On Urban Life And Faith:

“Urban Ministry and Mission in Preston : Towards a Strategic Overview.”

Greg Smith. October 2004

The paper eloquently highlights the areas of most need and hints at potential projects that could be used to unify the church in Preston and to serve and bring together it’s diverse ethnic and religious communities to enhance harmony and edify Gods Kingdom.

We would welcome the opportunity to enter into a relationship with the Shaftesbury Society and other like minded groups and agencies in the city. (see section 3 above)

We would love to assist in partnerships to help our Dreams and Visions for Preston become a reality.

We believe that by creatively exploring our role as a church, we will be better equipped to serve the needy and spread the gospel for the glory of God.

6: Servant Evangelism

What is Servant Evangelism?

Servant evangelism is a simple, straightforward approach to sharing God’s love in simple, practical ways.

In 1984, following a simple outreach project Steve Sjogren and several people from the Vineyard Community Church in Cincinnati had a vision to reach their city by serving others with no strings attached. They called their project Servant Evangelism and today the SE model is successful in reaching and serving communities world wide.

It is the ideal vehicle for reaching out to the city centre community and the city of Preston as a whole. We have at Preston Vineyard made some minor headway in this area.

What are the long-term results of doing Servant Evangelism?

As a Church:

1. The church will become oriented toward action. The church is in continual need of redefining. It seems clear that the church is living in an age of great inwardness. In light of this inward focus, we need to ask the question, "Why does the church exist?" We certainly exist to worship God and to grow in wholeness and Christlikeness, but Jesus made it clear that we must also give of ourselves if we hope to keep growing. The Great Commission links God's special presence to the action of the church going into the world.

"Go therefore and make disciples... and lo, I am with you always"

(Mt 28:19-20, RSV).

God is with us in an immediate sense as we carry His life into the world.

Human nature always points the emotional compass inward. To be the church, we must on occasion point that compass outward. Jesus promised that "rivers of living water" would flow out of the hearts of all who believe in Him. Try as we may, God will not bless attempts to make a stagnant and cloistered pond of that river of life. As we bring the kingdom of God into the community, we will change the world in which we live.

2. The church will be redefined to the surrounding community. The church in general has taken a lot of blows over the last few years, especially in the wake of scandals involving sex and money. The world has falsely pictured the entire church as beggars always on the verge of going out of business. We've also been pegged as hustlers always looking to get something for nothing. The third picture the watching world has of the church is that of a monastery whose residents have only one message, "Come in and join us." The world isn't looking to be part of a failing cause, and they want nothing to do with fast-talking, slick approaches.

As we begin to do humble acts of service in the community, we will restate our identity. Instead of separatists who are constantly judging the world, we must extend forgiveness, acceptance, and love from God. New definitions are slow to catch on, but hard work will get their attention. We become viable in the eyes of the world as we get beyond ourselves and serve our way into their hearts. In an age when the church has been judged by the world as being irrelevant and out of touch with people's very real needs and pains, we prove ourselves worthy of trust.

The Community

The community will be saturated with the presence of these deeds of kindness. The word "saturate" may seem like an odd word in reference to evangelism, but consider the long-term effects of this approach. Preston currently is represented by the following demographic in terms of religious / ethnicity

Preston: ethnic group by religion, 2001 Census	Christian	Buddhist	Hindu	Jewish	Muslim	Sikh	Any other religion	No religion	Religion not stated
British	87976	101	17	46	184	20	195	11574	7697
Irish	1342	3	0	0	5	0	0	71	118
Other White	1053	4	8	5	87	0	7	205	130

A Position Paper for the Shaftsbury Society