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Vineyard
Cafe
The Vineyard Cafe is our coffeehouse space for
easy social interaction, and engaging exploration. Our baristas
mix equal parts cafe-charm and baked goodies (all free) with an
always-changing menu of topics to spark personal reflection and
good conversation. Sometimes we just like to have a
good time.
Each Cafe has time for relaxed interaction, and time for engaging
in some specific topic. We have a little more freedom in the evening
than we do on Sunday mornings, so the Vineyard Cafe is often a
bit more adventurous.
We hope that the Cafe is an
easy onramp for people outside of the community to come and hang
out with us. We always make time for people to interact
and try to make
the directed
parts of the
cafe easy to participate in (or not), regardless of where you
are coming from.
Here's a sampling of what we've served up at previous cafes:
Stations of Pentecost: modeled
after prayer walks that aid the pilgrim
in understanding (like the 'stations of the cross' at Easter),
we set up a number of stations to explore the presence of
the
Holy
Spirit
in
our
daily lives
to celebrate
the day when the Spirit was given to the church (Pentecost).
After a set of worship, and a visit from a stand-in for
the Apostle Peter, we entered a room where we were challenged
to recognize the way the Spirit moves in environments as
diverse as a corporate boardroom, a messy dining-room,
a cubicle, and a coffee shop.
One station had us face an "Icon of the Other" (below)
and consider how the Holy Spirit translates for us in a "world
foreign to faith" (right).
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"When we encounter others, we are painfully
aware of the effects of our fall from grace -- sin is ever
before us. We choose not to speak because we are afraid of
causing offense or being misunderstood. We read judgment
or anger or impatience in their faces, whether it is there
or not. We have always believed that the Holy Spirit can
help us know what to say, at the right time. Do we also believe
that the Holy Spirit is at work in the other, translating
our imperfect words into words of life?" |
Conversations with the Undecided: Capping off
a two-week teaching series of the same name, this Cafe had as its
highlight a member of the Cafe team interviewing a friend who is
not a Christian. There were two goals for this evening. One was
to
model for the church a peaceful conversation, where understanding—not
conversion—was
the purpose. The other was, simply, to listen. We made a point
not to interrupt, try to
convince,
argue,
or even
to secretly pray
for our guest.
We only listened. We thought we might, in the process, learn how
valuable that gift would be to a person who is still undecided
about God.
It is this same God, not coincidentally, who says, "let everyone
be quick to listen, slow to speak" (James 1.19).
Art Night: on this night, we celebrated the creativity
of the Father and the creativity we have been given
as men and women made like him. Our musical worship was augmented
by a visual presentation of works of art by members of the community.
We got to spend much of the evening creating our own art, under
the care of artists who set up environments where we could explore.
We worked in clay, watercolers, crayon, etc, and even had a giant
lego table so the engineers could make stuff.
Our next Vineyard Cafe
... Was going to be a Rock Night, but unfortunately we've had
to cancel the event (for now). So sorry to all who were planning
to come, and to all who were inviting friends. We are sad!
It woulda been great!
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