Vineyard Church North Phoenix | VCNP Leadership Monthly for January, 2008

Brian's Corner

Greetings!

I hope you had a great Christmas and a wonderful holiday season! We had some fantastic Christmas services, and many people made decisions for Christ this year! Thank you for all you did to help new people feel welcome!

As we begin 2008, the thing God is impressing upon me - - the thing He wants us to focus on as a church family this year - - is deeper discipleship as well as greater leadership of our current members.

When we open our new auditorium in the early part of 2009, we are going to have a lot of new people (many of them unbelievers) begin attending our church. Therefore, we need a lot more leaders than we currently have to care for, love, encourage, lead, and disciple these new people.

As a leader in our church, I want to encourage and challenge you to make it a personal goal of yours in 2008, to invest your life into 2 or 3 people who you believe you can help move along into deeper discipleship and greater leadership.

What that looks like for you, and how you are going to do that, is totally between you and God. It can be done a thousand different ways.

This is the direction I feel God is pushing us in as a church family for 2008. I pray God will capture your heart for this as well.

To this end, I am planning on doing several preaching series in 2008, which I believe will help accomplish greater discipleship and leadership development in our church family.

I am going to do a series called, "Following the Master," which is going to be a higher learning teaching series enabling us to learn much more about Jesus, and following Jesus, than many of us currently know and understand.

Another series in 2008 will be on the Book of Revelation, which I hope will help us understand the Bible better than we currently do, and help us know how to interpret Scripture better than most of us currently know.

I will also do a short series about Leadership in 2008. Please pray with me for it to inspire many people in our church to get into some kind of leadership here at the Vineyard.

Anyway, I wanted to take this opportunity to inform you about what I believe God is saying to us as a church family for 2008. I hope you will get on board with this direction and begin praying about how God wants to use you to help accomplish this task of deeper discipleship and leadership development among our church family.

Again, thank you so much for all you do to help make the Vineyard the church that it is!

One other bit of news I want to make sure you are aware of (I did mention this at our leadership meeting in December, but in case you weren't there, I wanted you to know about it) is that we are going to have one huge Easter service this year at the Jobing.com arena in Glendale (where the Phoenix Coyotes hockey team plays).

I think it is going to be a great time having our entire church family together for one huge service!

You will hear a lot more about it in the upcoming months leading up to Easter (Easter is on March 23rd this year), but I wanted you to know about it now so you can begin planning for it and praying for it! I am hoping it will be the biggest service we have ever had in the history of our church, with lots of guests coming for the very first time.

So, please begin praying about who you can invite to this service! It is going to be a lot of fun!

Blessings,

Brian

Update on Recent Events

Thanksgiving Food Basket Give Away

We had an incredible Thanksgiving Food Basket Give Away event. We gave away over 550 turkeys and food baskets to families in need. We cooked food and fed 1200 hot dog meals to families on the night of our event. We also gave away hundreds of clothing items. Nearly 150 volunteers helped to make this event possible. Probably the greatest part of this evening was seeing people react to God’s provision for their families’ needs.

-Mario Fernandez, Associate Pastor

Christmas Gift Wrap Outreaches

Thank you to all of the wonderful volunteers who helped wrap gifts at Cabela’s, Wal-Mart, and Big Lots last month. Our Vineyard team wrapped hundreds of presents, blessing many families in the process! Thank you for being “the church” and blessing our community with the love of Christ!

-Dave Johnson, Associate Pastor

Events and Highlights

Here are some major events that we can expect to see soon:

• Updraft, January 11, 6:30 pm
• Musicians’ Night, January 13, 6:00 pm
• Momentum, January 14 and 28, 6:30 pm
• Child Dedication, January 19, 4:30 pm
• Cry Out, January 19, 7:00 pm
• Illuminate, January 20, 6:00 pm
• Women’s Conference, January 25 – 26
• Compassion Block Party, January 27, 12:30 pm
• Illuminate, February 3, 6:00 pm
• Women’s First Wednesday, February 6, 9:00 am
• Women’s Evening Bible Study (WEBS), February 6 – 27, 6:00 pm
• Valentine’s Dinner, February 8, 6:00 pm
• Water Baptism, February 10, 6:00 pm
• Momentum, February 11 and 25, 6:30 pm
• Celebrate Recovery, beginning February 14, 6:40 pm
• Cry Out, February 16, 7:00 pm
• Illuminate, February 17, 6:00 pm
• Family Fun Night, February 24, 6:00 pm
• Small Group Fair, March 1 – 2, during weekend services
• Illuminate, March 16, 6:00 pm
• 50 + Event, March 17, 6:00 pm
• Easter, March 23
• Women’s Breakfast, March 29, 9:00 am
• Men’s Ministry Expo, March 29 – 30, during weekend services

Upcoming Classes:

• Abide in Christ Class, January 13 – February 24, 8:30 am (Meeting Room)
• Small Group Leader Training Class, January 13 – February 3, 10:00 am (Room B)
• Newcomers’ Class, January 20, 9:45 am (Rooms A and B)
• Small Group Hosting Class, January 20, 10:00 am (Meeting Room)
• History of Christianity Class, January 27 – March 2, 8:30 am (Room B)
• Mentoring Training, January 27 – February 10, 8:30 am (Conference Room)
• Reducing the Risk Class, January 27, 10:00 am (Room A)
• Contagious Christianity, January 27 – March 9, 11:30 am (Room A)
• Parenting is Heart Work Class, January 27 – February 3, February 17 – March 9 (Room B)
• Water Baptism Class, February 2, 4:30 pm (Meeting Room)
• Marriage 101 Class, February 3 – March 9, 8:30 am (Room A)
• Colossians Readings, February 3 – 24, 10:00 am (Room A)
• Women’s Leadership Training, February 3 – 10, 10:00 am (Meeting Room)
• Holy Spirit and the gift of tongues Class, February 3 – 17, 11:30 am (Meeting Room)
• Water Baptism Class, February 10, 10:00 am (Room B)
• Water Baptism Class, February 10, 11:30 am (Room B)
• One Day Budget Seminar, February 16, 9:00 am – 1:00 pm (Youth Auditorium)
• Introduction to Leadership Class, February 17, 10:00 am (Room B)
• Reducing the Risk Class, February 23, 4:30 pm (Meeting Room)
• Discovering My SHAPE For Ministry Class, February 24 – March 9, 10:00 am (Room B)
• Food Bank Interviewer Training Class, February 24, 11:30 am (Meeting Room)
• The Real Story of Easter Class, March 2 – 9, 10:00 am (Room A)
• Alpha, March 5 – May 7, 7:00 pm (Main Auditorium)
• Experiencing God Class, 9 – June 8, 8:30 am (Meeting Room)
• Reducing the Risk Class, March 9, 11:30 am (Meeting Room)
• Newcomers’ Class, March 16, 9:45 am – 12:45 pm (Rooms A and B)
• Healing the Wounded Person, March 3 – May 19, 6:30 pm (Super Church Room)
• Building Intimacy in Marriage Class, March 30 – May 4, 8:30 am (Room A)
• World Religions Class, March 30 – April 27, 8:30 am (Room B)
• Servant Outreach Class, March 30 – April 6, 10:00 am (Room A)
• Ministry Training Class, March 30 – April 20, 10:00 am (Room B)
• What is Christianity Class, March 30 – April 27, 11:30 am (Room A)
• Surrender Worship Class, March 30 – May 4, 11:30 am (Room B)