Springtime in the Vineyard

Over and over in God’s creation and in Scripture, He gives us pictures of resurrection: spring flowers out of the seeming deadness of winter, beauty from ashes, and of course, Christ’s victory over death. Coming out of this recent season of brokenness, pain, and loss, I have been so blessed by the new thing the Lord is doing in the greater church in our area. He is breathing new life into the branches that found themselves cut off when the Anaheim Vineyard ceased to exist as the church it had been for the past almost 45 years.

Tonight, those scattered branches gathered together again, this time hosted by what you might call our “grandmother” church. The group that became the Anaheim Vineyard came out of the Yorba Linda Friends church in 1977. When they left, they asked for and received the blessing of that church. People talk a lot about the Anaheim Vineyard as the “mother church” of the Vineyard movement, and certainly the three new local Vineyard groups (which I wrote about previously) that have formed out of those who left the church due to the decisions made by Alan Scott (up to and culminating with his decision to disassociate the church from the Vineyard movement) would consider it so. When the news of that metamorphic decision got out, the pastor of Yorba Linda Friends reached out to Bob Fulton (who had been a part of that group that left YL Friends so long ago), affirming that “we are family,” asking how they could help those who had been left reeling by what had happened. Bob asked if we could use their space to gather together when Mike Pilavachi was in town. Mike wanted a chance to meet with our local Vineyard family and bless us.

So tonight, we gathered in the building of the church that once sent out the group that would later become the Anaheim Vineyard to be blessed by a man from the UK who had felt the ripple of the ministry that grew out of that new congregation. Talk about coming full circle, right? As we worshipped together, there were gentle reminders of times past (such as John Wimber’s “Isn’t He,” as well as an acapella rendering of “I Love You Lord,” as Lance Pittluck led us countless times during the twenty years he led our congregation), but it was just being together and the sweet presence of the Lord as we worshipped that overwhelmed my heart with gratitude.

After Mike’s message, he felt called to pray for those under twenty-five, and along with the teens and young adults, we sent up our younger children so people could bless them and pray over them. That was when my emotions got the better of me. All I could think of was how much I hope they will fall in love with Jesus as passionately as I did when I was fourteen and first walked into the Anaheim Vineyard. Capture their hearts, Lord. Pour out Your Spirit on this next generation. I couldn’t stop tears from flowing for the rest of the evening.

I remember sometime back in the 1990s, a visiting pastor was telling a story about his church feeling called to bless another local church, and at our Sunday service that night, John Wimber said he felt like God was telling us to take an offering and give it “to our friends,” which he immediately knew meant Yorba Linda Friends. As a baby Christian, it was one of the first opportunities I had to see that the church is really one large family that extended far beyond those I spent each Sunday with. Tonight, we were so blessed by the generosity of YL Friends in opening their building to us because “we are family.”

Behold, how good and pleasant it is
    when brothers dwell in unity!
. . . For there the Lord has commanded the blessing,
    life forevermore.

(Psalm 133:1,4)

Vineyard Anaheim no longer exists, and many of us felt pretty broken and shaken up by its demise. Yet through its death, many seeds were planted in new soil. Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). I love seeing how the Lord is taking the small seeds of these three new churches and is breathing life into something new. It is springtime in the Vineyard.

My beloved speaks and says to me:
“Arise, my love, my beautiful one,
    and come away,
for behold, the winter is past;
    the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth,
    the time of singing has come,
and the voice of the turtledove
    is heard in our land.

Song of Solomon 2:10-12