I have had a couple of people in the past few weeks ask me
to further explain what it would look like to be in a Branch on a day to day
basis.
I can explain it like this.
We are all busy and lead lives that have many activities
pressing on our time daily. It gets very
difficult and overwhelming to balance work, family, relationships, sports,
hobbies, etc.
Now, a typical “church” thing is to saddle people with more
activities onto these already busy schedules.
Be in a Bible Study, mid-week prayer meeting, Women’s ministries, Men’s
breakfasts, etc. Lately, you are
expected to “be in community together”, or “do life together”, so that just
adds to the busyness. There is a
pressure and expectation that you need to be involved and if you are not, your
commitment to serving the Lord and the “church” is questioned.
At the Vine and the Branches, we have seen this as a
hopeless situation, and a failure of the modern church. It burns people out, makes you feel guilty
for not doing more, makes serving a burden rather than a joy, and cuts you off
from having any real impact in your community.
As a solution to this, the Branches will be operating in the
Community that you are in. Remember, we
are defining community as the place you physically live, or the place you live
your life. There are all kinds of people
in these communities we are connected to, and all have the same need: to know Jesus and His revolutionary
Gospel. It does not matter if they are
following Him or not, we all need the Gospel to transform our lives.
In light of this, a Branch will be someone (or more) from
the VnB engaging in their Communities, intentionally bringing the Gospel according
to their passion and gifting. It will
not be adding another activity to your schedule. Rather, it will be incorporating Jesus and
the Gospel into what you are already doing. It will not be forcing you to be somebody you
are not, or make you do something you are not interested in being a part
of. You are who God has made you to be, and
He has placed you in the Community you are to introduce Jesus into it.
Therefore, the ministry of the Branches will be very
flexible, very fluid. It will look
different from place to place, and Branch to Branch because we are all different
in gifting, personalities and passions.
There might be other Christians in your Branch, and their might not
be. It doesn’t matter if they go to
another church or not, nor does it matter if they choose to be a part of the
VnB at our Sunday gathering or not.
We will all be working for the same goal, to introduce Jesus
and His Gospel to people.
For those of you reading this who like the idea, but feel
like you are not equipped to do this, I will post another time about the role
of Sunday teaching and Leaders in the ministry of the VnB.
