Elm City Vineyard Church Talks

At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus was attacked by an angry mob simply for speaking well of the enemies of his own people, and he later taught that God would bless us when people hated and mistreated us on his account. Elsewhere, the Scriptures guarantee that to be faithful to Jesus and to love those he loves will often put us at odds with others, and often with our own people. This week we will consider how Christians around the world and throughout history have experienced persecution and opposition not only for their faith in Jesus, but for their faithfulness to love the wrong people in his name, and we will seek God for courage and wisdom to embrace this same cost as part of our life with God.- Series Description -Jesus’ greatest commandment is to love God and love neighbor. Paul, a famous church planter, simplifies it even more: love your neighbor as yourself. In a city like New Haven, there are many people to love. Some are lower on our list because some of us have to move in and past discomfort to love people God has placed nearby. Some are simply harder to reach. In this short series, we will look at what it means to neighbor New Haven. This will include an overview of the topic, a specific look at folks in the incarceration system, immigrants, and people others see as “wrong” to love. Multiple Sundays will have tangible ways of serving our neighbors that we can do during our worship service. If you want to grow in loving people in the new year, be a part of this series!

As we love our neighbors beyond our comfort zone, this includes neighbors who have recently arrived to our country. Scripture has a long witness of blessing the stranger in our midst and showing them hospitality - the goodness of God in practical ways. In the book of Leviticus it says, “do not mistreat foreigners living in your country, but treat them just as you treat your own citizens. Love foreigners as you love yourselves, because you were foreigners one time in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.” This invitation stands in contrast to the way we can vilify foreigners casting them as a shadow on our land, a competitor for our goods, or simply too strange to engage in a daily way. The Kingdom offers a different way: service and compassion to people experiencing displacement just as God served His people in Egypt, just as God serves us as we learn how to belong to a heavenly country that we get citizenship to only through Christ. This work takes courage. Come hear this message of hope.- Series Description -Jesus’ greatest commandment is to love God and love neighbor. Paul, a famous church planter, simplifies it even more: love your neighbor as yourself. In a city like New Haven, there are many people to love. Some are lower on our list because some of us have to move in and past discomfort to love people God has placed nearby. Some are simply harder to reach. In this short series, we will look at what it means to neighbor New Haven. This will include an overview of the topic, a specific look at folks in the incarceration system, immigrants, and people others see as “wrong” to love. Multiple Sundays will have tangible ways of serving our neighbors that we can do during our worship service. If you want to grow in loving people in the new year, be a part of this series!

What does it mean to proclaim liberty to the captives? How can we neighbor people that are locked up? When it comes to loving incarcerated people, we have to be intentional to even see folks who are often invisible to us. Yet, in a city like New Haven, many of drive past a correctional center regularly to get to our work, homes, our home groups. Of course, even more people are trying to re-enter society and need support. Thankfully, God has a special place for criminals, those held in detention, jail, or prison. Jesus had experience with that the last day of his life and so have so many other saints, biblical and otherwise. This Sunday as we continue loving our neighbor beyond our comfort zone, we’ll dive into God’s heart for the prisoner.- Series Description -Jesus’ greatest commandment is to love God and love neighbor. Paul, a famous church planter, simplifies it even more: love your neighbor as yourself. In a city like New Haven, there are many people to love. Some are lower on our list because some of us have to move in and past discomfort to love people God has placed nearby. Some are simply harder to reach. In this short series, we will look at what it means to neighbor New Haven. This will include an overview of the topic, a specific look at folks in the incarceration system, immigrants, and people others see as “wrong” to love. Multiple Sundays will have tangible ways of serving our neighbors that we can do during our worship service. If you want to grow in loving people in the new year, be a part of this series!

In Matthew 22, when asked what the greatest commandment is, Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”What does it look like to actually live out these commandments? More specifically, how can we love our neighbors here in NewHaven as ourselves? Join us this week as we begin our new series on loving our neighbors…even when it’s not comfortable.- Series Description -Jesus’ greatest commandment is to love God and love neighbor. Paul, a famous church planter, simplifies it even more: love your neighbor as yourself. In a city like New Haven, there are many people to love. Some are lower on our list because some of us have to move in and past discomfort to love people God has placed nearby. Some are simply harder to reach. In this short series, we will look at what it means to neighbor New Haven. This will include an overview of the topic, a specific look at folks in the incarceration system, immigrants, and people others see as “wrong” to love. Multiple Sundays will have tangible ways of serving our neighbors that we can do during our worship service. If you want to grow in loving people in the new year, be a part of this series!

In Luke's account of the birth of Christ, an angelic herald proclaims to a group of shepherds "good news of great joy for all people." ECV exists to call all people to revolutionary lives of action through Spirit-empowered communities that love and obey Jesus Christ in all things. This week, we will consider this "all people" aspect of what it means to follow Jesus, and how it challenges us to live vulnerably, availably, and courageously to love and engage with people very different from ourselves as a way of life, that all people might also know and obey Jesus, too.- Series Description -During Advent this year, we join believers around the world as we seek to quiet and reorient ourselves to Jesus in this often busy and fragmented season. And as we both celebrate his first coming and expectantly await his return, we seek to savor and reflect his light, enter into his joy even in our pain, and lift our eyes to the world for whose sake he came.

Joy is a major theme of the Christmas story, and for good reason—Mary rejoices with her cousin Elizabeth as she carries Jesus in her womb, angels announce the birth of Jesus as "good news of great joy" to the shepherds outside Bethlehem, and the Magi rejoice "exceedingly with great joy" as they approach the place of Jesus' birth. And yet even in the joy, there is much sorrow and pain and loss—Simeon speaks of a sword piercing even Mary's soul, Mary and Joseph take Jesus and flee from Herod as refugees to Egypt, and Herod takes the life of innocent children in Bethlehem after they depart. Today, too, both at Christmas and beyond, our joy is often mixed with sorrow, loss, and pain. This week, we will consider how true Christian joy does not dim in the face of pain, but rather strengthens and encourages us in the midst of it, as we encounter our one true source of joy, the Lord himself.- Series Description -During Advent this year, we join believers around the world as we seek to quiet and reorient ourselves to Jesus in this often busy and fragmented season. And as we both celebrate his first coming and expectantly await his return, we seek to savor and reflect his light, enter into his joy even in our pain, and lift our eyes to the world for whose sake he came.

It’s that time of year. It gets dark before 5pm. It can seem like darkness is all there is. While that is true for December in the northeast, that can also feel real for our souls. But what if we remember that anything can be illuminated by God’s light? This light brings about truth—revelation about what is so, grace—warmth and kindness from the one who has no shadow, and beauty—God’s light making ordinary things beautiful and marked by His power and presence.- Series Description -During Advent this year, we join believers around the world as we seek to quiet and reorient ourselves to Jesus in this often busy and fragmented season. And as we both celebrate his first coming and expectantly await his return, we seek to savor and reflect his light, enter into his joy even in our pain, and lift our eyes to the world for whose sake he came.

On this first Sunday of Advent and of the liturgical year, we reflect on how Jesus was born to humble people in quiet village places, and not in a great city or to the rich and powerful. In our own time, too, it is in humility and quietness that we are invited to encounter Jesus and to receive from him the one true life, so often revealed in whispers and not shouts. Join us this week, bring a friend, and learn to get quiet and make room for Jesus at the beginning of this not-so-quiet holiday season.- Series Description -During Advent this year, we join believers around the world as we seek to quiet and reorient ourselves to Jesus in this often busy and fragmented season. And as we both celebrate his first coming and expectantly await his return, we seek to savor and reflect his light, enter into his joy even in our pain, and lift our eyes to the world for whose sake he came.

In this third and final week before Advent, we will finish our 3-week series on worship with a time of extended musical worship interspersed with brief reflections on Scripture to help us review, reflect on, and embody worship in all areas of our lives. With word and song, our physical bodies, attentiveness to God in ordinary moments, and offering our lives to God as a living sacrifice, we will finish out the liturgical year together in preparation for Advent and welcoming the coming of Jesus. Do join us, and bring a friend!- Series Description -Our Fall 2024 series started with healing and continued with enemy love. It’s hard to admit we’re sick, and we need healing. It’s hard to love our enemies. It’s also hard to submit ourselves to God and worship God alone. Yet, if we worship God fully, healing comes easier as we are oriented around the Healer — not just our wounds. If we worship God fully, we’ll know we’re lifting someone up who loves us…and our enemies. This short three week series will be a primer on how to notice God and be invited to worship, understand obedience as worship in all areas of our lives, and form habits of formation — even in the every day — that help us worship God for the long haul.

Worship is more than music. It is a whole life surrender to God’s will. This kind of whole-life worship reshapes our lives to look radically different than the patterns of this world. This week, in the second installment of our teaching series on worship, we’ll be exploring what it means for us to lead fully submitted lives of worship, beyond our communal singing and our religious services, and what Scripture has to say about how this kind of whole-life worship can set us free.W- Series Description -Our Fall 2024 series started with healing and continued with enemy love. It’s hard to admit we’re sick, and we need healing. It’s hard to love our enemies. It’s also hard to submit ourselves to God and worship God alone. Yet, if we worship God fully, healing comes easier as we are oriented around the Healer — not just our wounds. If we worship God fully, we’ll know we’re lifting someone up who loves us…and our enemies. This short three week series will be a primer on how to notice God and be invited to worship, understand obedience as worship in all areas of our lives, and form habits of formation — even in the every day — that help us worship God for the long haul.

Do we live slow enough to notice invitations from God to worship? We don’t ever start worshipping God ex nihilo, out of nothing. We join in. We respond to an invitation. During our short series on WORSHIP before Advent, we are taking time to see worship as more than music. Worship is the site of our noticing God and drawing near. Worship is obedience. Worship is the place we establish habits of spiritual formation. This Sunday, we’ll look at how noticing God is the beginning of this path and how God can help us overcome distraction, confusion, and self-centeredness. Worship, because of God’s generosity, can even become a place where not only notice God but receive an invitation from God for the rest of our lives. What’s yours?- Series Description -Our Fall 2024 series started with healing and continued with enemy love. It’s hard to admit we’re sick, and we need healing. It’s hard to love our enemies. It’s also hard to submit ourselves to God and worship God alone. Yet, if we worship God fully, healing comes easier as we are oriented around the Healer — not just our wounds. If we worship God fully, we’ll know we’re lifting someone up who loves us…and our enemies. This short three week series will be a primer on how to notice God and be invited to worship, understand obedience as worship in all areas of our lives, and form habits of formation — even in the every day — that help us worship God for the long haul.

This Sunday, we have the privilege of hearing from Julia Pickerill, co-senior pastor with her husband, Eric, at Vineyard Columbus, a flagship Vineyard church and the largest Vineyard church in the world. Julia and Eric have been part of Vineyard for many decades, led Joshua House, a rich and rooted young adult community at Vineyard Columbus for many years, and spent seven years in the Netherlands planting Vineyard Amsterdam, a vibrant urban Vineyard church in one of the most secular cities in Europe. Julia is an accomplished poet and preacher and is committed to humbly building faithful and relevant Vineyard churches that bear winsome witness in the 21st century world. She and Eric have three grown children, a dog named Cosmo, and a hairless Siamese cat. Come hear what she has to share with us from the Lord!

During our series on Enemy Love, it may have been easy to wonder…but what about the Pharisees - the religious teachers that strongly oppose and eventually help kill Jesus? Jesus doesn’t seem too chummy with them. How is that love? Jesus does have a strange way of showing this group love. But by putting the pieces of our series together - creative engagement, proximity, and forgiveness, Jesus somehow manages to call his enemies in vs. cut them off. Come learn more on Sunday.- Series Description -If your sworn enemy asks you to love those who hurt you, you should run. If God asks the same, you should lean in and listen. Most people nod and agree with the teaching to love your neighbor — even if we don’t. But to love our enemies? Most laugh. Why love people who will hurt us? Why prioritize people who want to harm us? This seems foolish, unwise, even abusive. Yet, loving one’s enemies is the foundation of Jesus’ teaching…and his life. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us….For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” (Romans 5:8,10) Jesus starts his enemy love — with us. In turn, God’s love for us —not our natural love for our enemies - is the foundation of this radical teaching and practice. But what does it look like? For some of us, we’re confused if we even have enemies. For others, we know exactly who they are and we are not excited for Jesus’ words on these matters. For all of us, Jesus has a good and powerful invitation as we respond to his transformative witness in a time of division, cancelation, and violence.

It can be easy to avoid our enemies, but it may be even easier to be offended by them. Jesus calls us to do something different: to love them. When we give up being offended, opportunities for love abound…even love that gets close. Jesus demonstrates this in his ministry. He gets close to people that his own community would consider enemies. When a tax collector shows up to see Jesus, Jesus doesn’t get offended by his swindling ways. Instead, he gets proximate in a surprising way. Come and learn more this Sunday. - Series Description -If your sworn enemy asks you to love those who hurt you, you should run. If God asks the same, you should lean in and listen. Most people nod and agree with the teaching to love your neighbor — even if we don’t. But to love our enemies? Most laugh. Why love people who will hurt us? Why prioritize people who want to harm us? This seems foolish, unwise, even abusive. Yet, loving one’s enemies is the foundation of Jesus’ teaching…and his life. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us….For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” (Romans 5:8,10) Jesus starts his enemy love — with us. In turn, God’s love for us —not our natural love for our enemies - is the foundation of this radical teaching and practice. But what does it look like? For some of us, we’re confused if we even have enemies. For others, we know exactly who they are and we are not excited for Jesus’ words on these matters. For all of us, Jesus has a good and powerful invitation as we respond to his transformative witness in a time of division, cancelation, and violence.

If your sworn enemy asks you to love those who hurt you, you should run. If God asks the same, you should lean in and listen. Most people nod and agree with the teaching to love your neighbor — even if we don’t. But to love our enemies? Most laugh. Why love people who will hurt us? Why prioritize people who want to harm us? This seems foolish, unwise, even abusive. Yet, loving one’s enemies is the foundation of Jesus’ teaching…and his life. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us….For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” (Romans 5:8,10) Jesus starts his enemy love — with us. In turn, God’s love for us —not our natural love for our enemies - is the foundation of this radical teaching and practice. But what does it look like? For some of us, we’re confused if we even have enemies. For others, we know exactly who they are and we are not excited for Jesus’ words on these matters. For all of us, Jesus has a good and powerful invitation as we respond to his transformative witness in a time of division, cancelation, and violence. Learn more this Sunday.- Series Description -If your sworn enemy asks you to love those who hurt you, you should run. If God asks the same, you should lean in and listen. Most people nod and agree with the teaching to love your neighbor — even if we don’t. But to love our enemies? Most laugh. Why love people who will hurt us? Why prioritize people who want to harm us? This seems foolish, unwise, even abusive. Yet, loving one’s enemies is the foundation of Jesus’ teaching…and his life. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us….For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” (Romans 5:8,10) Jesus starts his enemy love — with us. In turn, God’s love for us —not our natural love for our enemies - is the foundation of this radical teaching and practice. But what does it look like? For some of us, we’re confused if we even have enemies. For others, we know exactly who they are and we are not excited for Jesus’ words on these matters. For all of us, Jesus has a good and powerful invitation as we respond to his transformative witness in a time of division, cancelation, and violence.

In this fourth week of our teaching series on Healing, we’ll be looking at what scripture has to say about the healing of our cities. The brokenness in our connections to one another can be so easy to see in the city around us. But real hope for the healing of our city can be harder for us to grab hold of. Do we hope in our own striving? Or is our hope in Jesus, the wounded healer who loves our city and longs for its wholeness more than we do? This Sunday, Tina will walk us through what it means to lives of hope and lives of worship, tethered to the restored and healed city that is to come at the end of all things, as we join God’s spirit in the work of healing our city.- Series Description - God heals. We see this in scripture. Jesus performs miracles and then his disciples do the same work of healing people from sickness and setting people free from dark forces. We see this in church history. Saints do healing work and communities rejoice. Hundreds of years later, do we see God’s healing in our lives? In our community? This Fall, we’re going to look at who Jesus is as a healer, but also what it means that God forms healing communities in and through us. This is not merely about physical healing though we’ll learn how that, too, is a powerful sign of the Kingdom. This is healing for our minds, emotions, our cities, and our worlds. If you are tired of sickness and eager for health, check out this entire series and ask God for more healing in your life, in our church, and in the world.

God heals broken bodies. God heals troubling thoughts. But what about hearts? Broken hearts are not just the stuff of junior high drama. A broken heart steals our joy, robs our peace, and leads us to numbness. God isn’t only invested in our spiritual lives. God is invested in healing our hearts and emotions. We can ask God for full hearts in order to receive deep healing in our very emotional lives. God is near to the brokenhearted, he saves those crushed in Spirit. Learn and experience more this Sunday.- Series Description - God heals. We see this in scripture. Jesus performs miracles and then his disciples do the same work of healing people from sickness and setting people free from dark forces. We see this in church history. Saints do healing work and communities rejoice. Hundreds of years later, do we see God’s healing in our lives? In our community? This Fall, we’re going to look at who Jesus is as a healer, but also what it means that God forms healing communities in and through us. This is not merely about physical healing though we’ll learn how that, too, is a powerful sign of the Kingdom. This is healing for our minds, emotions, our cities, and our worlds. If you are tired of sickness and eager for health, check out this entire series and ask God for more healing in your life, in our church, and in the world.

God desires an integrated healing for us — body, mind, emotions, communities, and the world around us. In the Gospels, Jesus heals bodies. Does he heal minds too? With our increasing awareness of anxiety, depression, and trauma, it would be great if Jesus’ healing was more than skin deep. This Sunday, we’ll talk about how God does heals us through meditating on truth, rejecting lies, and receiving freedom for a sound mind.- Series Description - God heals. We see this in scripture. Jesus performs miracles and then his disciples do the same work of healing people from sickness and setting people free from dark forces. We see this in church history. Saints do healing work and communities rejoice. Hundreds of years later, do we see God’s healing in our lives? In our community? This Fall, we’re going to look at who Jesus is as a healer, but also what it means that God forms healing communities in and through us. This is not merely about physical healing though we’ll learn how that, too, is a powerful sign of the Kingdom. This is healing for our minds, emotions, our cities, and our worlds. If you are tired of sickness and eager for health, check out this entire series and ask God for more healing in your life, in our church, and in the world.

God heals. We see this in scripture. Jesus performs miracles and then his disciples do the same work of healing people from sickness and setting people free from dark forces. We see this in church history. Saints do healing work and communities rejoice. Hundreds of years later, do we see God’s healing in our lives? In our community? This Fall, we’re going to look at who Jesus is as a healer, but also what it means that God forms healing communities in and through us. This is healing for our bodies, minds, emotions, our cities, and our worlds. This Sunday, we’ll lay out this big picture of healing with special attention to Jesus’ power to heal our bodies. Come with curiosity or expectation about how God can take our sickness and pain and transform it into something so much greater.- Series Description - God heals. We see this in scripture. Jesus performs miracles and then his disciples do the same work of healing people from sickness and setting people free from dark forces. We see this in church history. Saints do healing work and communities rejoice. Hundreds of years later, do we see God’s healing in our lives? In our community? This Fall, we’re going to look at who Jesus is as a healer, but also what it means that God forms healing communities in and through us. This is not merely about physical healing though we’ll learn how that, too, is a powerful sign of the Kingdom. This is healing for our minds, emotions, our cities, and our worlds. If you are tired of sickness and eager for health, check out this entire series and ask God for more healing in your life, in our church, and in the world.

This week, for the final message of our summer series on the book of Ephesians, we will be looking at what it means to live as children of light. In a world like ours, with forces at play that are neither safe nor kind, it can be easy to keep parts of our lives hidden in the dark. But when we hide from God and from others, shame grows, and we become less of who we were made to be. This Sunday, we’ll look together at God’s invitation for us to bring everything into the light of Christ, to be transformed in that light, and to stand in the power of God to overcome darkness as children of light.- Series Description -How often do we lose sight of God’s character? We rupture a relationship and feel guilty. We sin and justify ourselves instead of seeking forgiveness. We lose our job and feel devastated. We need to remember who God is. God is powerful. God is alive. God is a unifier who makes us one. God is love. God is generous. God is light. The letter to Ephesus declares who God is, and we will ask God to help us not only believe these truths but walk them out in our lives.