Five Core Values, Seven Simple Words
Dianne Leman is Co-Senior Pastor of Vineyard of Champaign-Urbana, Illinois
On a recent Sunday, I was hurrying down the building corridor when I passed an older gentleman and said a brief hello. He stopped and began to earnestly tell me how his very ill four-month-old grandson was in a large children's hospital, where doctors were unable to diagnose his condition. As he finished sharing, I said simply, "Can I pray for you right now?" It only took a moment to pray, but God's presence with us was powerful. We parted ways, trusting God to move in this baby's life.
Can I pray for you right now? These seven words--seven simply supernatural words--capture the essence of the five core values of the Vineyard movement:
- The Theology and Practice of the Kingdom of God
- Experiencing God
- Reconciling Community
- Compassionate Ministry
- Culturally Relevant Mission
At the Vineyard of Champaign-Urbana , where I pastor, we encourage everyone to be attentive and ready to speak these seven words wherever the opportunity arises--whether in the church building, on the street, or in our homes or workplaces. And in this practice of praying for others, we express the Vineyard's five core values.
We offer to pray because we believe the kingdom of God has come, and we trust that at any moment the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit may break in and bring healing to our broken world.
We experience God when we respond to the Holy Spirit's nudges and ask, "Can I pray for you right now?" As we pray, we sense God's heart, we share his love, and we receive his guidance. We are actually partnering with God! His empowering presence fills us and flows through us.
We make a regular practice of meeting together in small groups where, as a reconciling community, we not only practice praying for each other, but also share stories, failures, and successes. We humbly bear one another's burdens. We are reconciled to one another and to God as we confess our sins and receive forgiveness. We part, freshly empowered to continue the work of the kingdom, bringing reconciliation wherever we go.
Because we are equipped and ready to pray, we often find ourselves engaged in compassionate ministry outside the church service. A young man from our congregation was on the campus of the University of Illinois when he stopped to talk to a distraught student and ended up asking, "Can I pray for you right now?" A new mom from our church was pushing her stroller through the neighborhood when she met another new mom. When her neighbor shared some struggles, she asked, "Can I pray for you right now?" And sometimes, miracles happen as the future invades the present. Other times, we don't see any change but we have still shared the love and mercy of Jesus with another person.
When we pray for someone, we are careful to use language that is familiar and meaningful to the person receiving prayer. We meet people in places and situations in which they are comfortable, not waiting for them to come to prayer meetings or Bible studies or church services. Most often, we take part in culturally relevant mission as we go about our everyday lives, living among our neighbors and engaging in the same culture our they engage in, instead of giving into the urge to hide away in the Christian subculture.
Being ready to speak these seven simply supernatural words "Can I pray for you right now?" will help all of us live out the foundational values of the Vineyard. Five core values, seven simple words.
Comments
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As a healthcare professional, I know that those seven words can encourage and comfort. Prayers do make a difference. Having read many of the core value, informational, and testimonial pages, I have no doubt that Vineyard is a movement that has a positive impact on thousands of people every day. My concern is that you seem to be selling a gospel that leaves out the part that everyone is a dirty, rotten sinner on the way to hell, unless s/he repents, asks for forgiveness, and follows Jesus. If you never use the words sin or saved, and if people don't know they are lost, how can they escape the hell to come?
I think that all very much cool!
In my opinion it is the most important words for all Christian people. These 7 words will help me throughout all life. God bless you.
I can testify to the power of asking those 7 words to someone. I am a member of Dianne's church in Champaign-Urbana, and I have had the opportunity to pray with people who are hurting and are in need of prayer, but don't ask. I can't tell you how many times that I have been blessed by praying with someone who told me of something going on in their life. I have been a member of the Vineyard in Urbana for 19 years, and I can't imagine not being involved in a Vineyard Church. Thank you so much, I truly appreciate the Vineyard movement.
Helping people experience the not-yet as they transition in and through the already. 20 years ago, having been a believer for 10 years. When I needed to get saved all over again. Good people processing their lives through their exchanges with a good God through an expression of Christianity called Vineyard transformed my life for the next 20 years. I learned about the "not-yet" which is so profoundly expressed in Ephesians 1 thru 3 (and other placed too). I learned about the Father's love, favor, blessing and how to reside in His house though a prodigal. I learned that rest and peace was a good place to live out of. I learned not to be a older brother, too. I was a single father with three boys living at the poverty level. People coming and going stopped and gave me what they had (figured out) and some gave me gold (one day at a home for dinner, I was given a jewelry box with a set of card keys in side), too. I should have been stoned but was loved over and over again. Encourage and shown how to sin less and less each day. Needing to eat, live and be a father, I was shown how to fish. Soon I was coming and going from the court of the Father and found myself not only receiving love but giving it away too. All the while learning (some time struggling) not to call unclean that which the Father had called clean. Sometimes the Already needs to be the "not-yet". Sometimes (and often) the "already" needs to be wiped out. My favorite program to watch and to be engaged in my everyday life is Extreme Home Makeover on ABC which for me is the most modern metaphor of the Not Yet - Already. Taking people by the hand and sitting with them far above everything that so easily beset them. (currently All Nations, Tulsa)
God has taught me so much about him, others, and myself through praying for others. People respond to those 7 words more positively than I believe a lot of Christians may think!
Some times the everyday things in our lives cast a steel blanket on us and we can't seem to lift it off. This can make a long day, and those days seem to add up and before we know it we can only think of ourselves. I know when I find the strength to peek out from under my blanket and I ask someone those seven words, I find myself standing taller without the wieght of a blanket. It worked for Peter.
7 words. So simply put. Thank you sister! God bless you for sharing this.
That's a very powerful way to encourage the whole body of Christ to step out by faith and minister to people. Very inspiring article. I'm glad I took the time to stop and read this.
Simply doing the Stuff Jesus showed us to do... Lets keep it up... God is so Good.
I love what you wrote. Is there anyway to make a board where people can place their testimonies from stepping out to pray for others? I would like to read about what God is doing around the Vineyard. I believe that such a board would be unifying for us as a movement, and build faith and expectancy.
I think the most important things that I learned in a Vineyard church were to trust God (now), pray for others, and be myself. In the 14+ years since I first heard about John Wimber and the Vineyard movement, I have had the opportunity to do this in more places then I ever imagined possible. My life is now filled with memories of God at work -- through me no less -- in malls, restaurants, and churches from Boston to Sao Paulo, to Oslo and Cincinnati. His amazing grace, propehtic insights, words of knowledge and healing power on earth as it is in Heaven-- It is the greatest privilege of my life.
I believe it was Martin Luther who said something along the line of: if all scripture was lost to us except fpr the Gospel of John and the book of Romans we would still have all we need for life and godliness. I feel the same way about the Vineyard prayer model within the framework of our movement; such an awesome tool! And those 7 little words can open up a world of opportunity for the Kingdom to breakthrough into the lives of those who hurt and need His touch. Lets keep it simple, lets keep it focused (intentional) and lets keep it effective.
It is always fascinating to see how much God can do with such simple words and actions. Those seven words have changed my life in a lot of ways. One result is that I've gained a new appreciation of the limited scope of God I always seem to entertain. I constantly wrap God up in a nice little neat box and say, "Look, there's my God. Isn't he great? He can do this... and this... and..." The reality is that God is bigger than us and our thoughts. I'm very thankful that the Vineyard has at its core, aspects of who God is and who He wants us to be, that are different than I've experienced in other places and times. Being empowered to seek what the Holy Spirit is doing and then let him do it is not only an amazing theological concept, but it has changed my life. Sure, I have a lot of frustrations and even doubts still, but the fact of the matter is that for 5 years I never even contemplated that prayer could be ministry. Now, I am convinced that ministry is an important motivation for prayer.
God has taught me so much about him, others, and myself through praying for others. People respond to those 7 words more positively than I believe a lot of Christians may think!