Vineyard UK has posted Caleb’s talk (as well as the others)…and as usual, he is thoughtful and insightful, picking up the ‘wintering’ metaphor and bringing it home in a way only God can move a person to do:

http://www.vineyardchurches.org.uk/podcasts.html

The interesting thing for me, Jason, is the way this has suddenly been catapulted onto UK Vineyard leaders from practical obscurity at the conference last week.

Most were unaware of the conversation. I think it is fair to say that there was an assumption from our American visiting speakers that what was affecting them was also affecting us. It seem like overnight it has become a hot issue. Interesting.

So…we are now part of the discussion, which is no bad thing, as an international perspective will enrich things for sure. With the revisiting of the genetic code last week in England, there is now plenty to chew over. And chew we will!

Enjoying the blog, btw.

Hi Andrew - Thanks for the comments. Interesting indeed. I’m very curious to see how it bleeds over into the States where I think there’s more squeemishness about appearing to be negative, so the conversation tends to be quieter.

Thanks for the link on your blog, btw. : )

thanx for bringing this to my attention. I think the whole discussion is still under the radar here (in the benelux) but the Uk is really close (and an influence on us) so that may be changed soon…

bram – i’d be really interested in your perspective on this…does any of this conversation resonate at all in the Benelux Vineyard context?

I was wondering the same thing… I don’t know, And we only have like 5 vineyard chuches in Belgium (there are slightly more and slightly bigger ones in holland, but that’s already a very different culture sometimes)VY Antwerp is very small and not growing that much, but no that we have a new building we are looking forward to new things and a new season, so who knows what God can do…

For the other flemish vineyard churches, I think the english-speaking one in brussels is still growing. But that one is more internationally, minded, and I think the majority of people there is not flemish. But in the end, none of the evangelical and pentecostel churches is really well contextualised to our postmodern post-catholic secularised culture, and I have the feeling that a lot of them are in decline. But I’m not sure, maybe I should ask some people who have more insight in the situation… I don’t even know if any statistics do exist. But it doesn’t look very alive and growing right now… Both the vineyard as the whole evangelical community (and other denominations) could use some renewal…

about the emerging church questions, they are under the radar of a lot people, even though a lot of the more intellectual young evangelicals tend to go that way, the older people sometimes don’t even know such a thing exists… in the end it may become problematic and cause divisions and stuff… Like old ‘evangelical watchmen’ who see in the questioning of creationism the proof of ‘the great endtimes apostacy’ and young people who don’t even see the point…

So I’m curious for the future… And I’m looking forward to the other Jasons re-articulation of the 10 values of the vineyard. Maybe it’ll stimulate me to blog about it…

Bram - I really appreciate what you and the other UK/EU folks bring to these discussions. Your willingness to contribute to the comments is valuable for us on this side of the pond. Thanks.