Each year Vineyard hosts either a national leader conference, or a regional conference. This year's regional conference theme was A New Christianity: Rediscovering the Center. It's a time of ferment across the church landscape in North America as an ancient faith struggles to find fresh expression. You know the buzzwords: emerging church, post-modernity, and the like. It's time now to flesh it out. Vineyard churches are positioned to do just that. We believe the New Christianity involves a rediscovery, a new convergence toward the center, drawing from the treasures of the whole church. The conference addressed some major themes, such as contemplative prayer, social justice, and Spirit empowered and outward focused ministry. I believe this is core content for the emerging Christianity of the 21st Century. It is also central to Vineyard's contribution to the emergent church conference will be aimed at leaders at all levels in local vineyard churches, but it is wide open to anyone who wishes to attend.
Some of the audio from the conference is available online and is also available as a Podcast .
by the way, the conference deeply affirmed for me so many of the reasons i feel privileged to be part of a church in the community of churches called the Vineyard.while you're at it (visiting Donnell's blog, that is), check out his link on an interview with Brian McLaren re: the DaVinci code - expresses eloquently what i've felt on a gut level but never thought about with enough focus to put into words.
