The first 10 years, taking STEPS on the journey

David Flowers

This morning we want to reflect on the last 10 years of the journey, STEPS we have taken, some things we have learnt, hard times and highlights.

As Alison and others have continually reminded me, the no. 10 is an approximation.
Alison and I moved back to Leeds from London and the SW London Vineyard in 1997, 12 years ago, and with some wonderful self-sacrificial people, began to meet as a Vineyard housegroup. It was a period of low intensity, relative obscurity and fun. We met in each other’s homes, in the parks and countryside and occasionally booked a larger venue for one-off events and parties.

But it was on 2 May 1999 that we went public with Sunday Church on the 1st Sunday of each month at the David Lloyd Club.

1999: Scotland had won the grand slam and St Helen’s beat Bradford Bulls in the Super League final. Mika Hakkinen was the F1 champion and Manchester United won the Champions League beating Bayern Munich 2-1.

Stockmarkets round the world were blowing into the technology bubble and the Matrix, Star Wars 1, the Phantom Menace and SpongeBob Square pants were released. They were trying to finish the Millennium Bridge, the Dome and the Eye whilst we were starting to get worried about the Millennium Bug.

And just to keep us humble not only was TWV started – so was Hill Songs Europe. They are also celebrating 10 years. Not by hiring a big school but the O2 Arena in London. Huh. This is a celebration of the 1st 10 years of TWV but of course there are many other churches doing equally wonderful kingdom work all around us and we are not in a competition! It is all about Jesus!

Our Vision

We believe God has called us to establish a growing, regional, biblically based community of faith in Leeds. We will worship God, communicate His love and mercy to all people and commit to living out our faith in Jesus in a creative and contemporary way, and in the power of the Holy Spirit.

We believe that there is good news for this generation in the Kingdom of God and we long to share that news, particularly in Leeds and the North.

We aim to make, train and equip followers of Jesus to be effective in the extending of God's Kingdom, to develop leaders, to plant new churches, to contribute to the blessing of the whole church and to minister with the poor in practical ways.

God has given us a vision for growing a Vineyard in this region, of making a difference for his kingdom. Today we celebrate the way that God has fulfilled his vision for us – so far.

One of the things we have learnt is that church-planting is all about people. An African proverbs says:

If you want to travel fast go alone,

If you want to travel far, go together.

We have been called to go far and we have been blessed to be able to go together with many wonderful people.

First of all we need to thank those people who took the risk of taking that first STEP on this journey when none of us knew where it would lead.

1. Josh and Sam, our sons were still in junior school when we moved to Leeds. We are really grateful to them for the way they have put up with our mad lifestyles, the mistakes we have made, the time we have given to others when we should have given to them, the financial sacrifices that have affected them, the labels they have had to wear.

God called us as a family. Josh and Sam have been a significant part of our planting of this Vineyard and much of its essence has been influenced by them. We owe them thanks and we thank God for giving us such fantastic sons of whom we respect and of whom we are ridiculously proud.

2. Then there were the Robinsons. Members of our housegroup at the SWLV; Nic and Sara came North with their eldest two, Eleanor & Hannah, to get away from London and threw themselves into this from the beginning. Sara was one of our first trustees and an immensely wise woman. Nic is an accomplished musician and was our first worship leader. Together, for many years, they led the first housegroup we planted out of ours. Subsequently we had the joy of christening two more of their children, Tom and Grace. They eventually moved down South with Nic’s work and are currently in Derby. They send their love and best wishes.

3. The Browns, also from SWLV. Simon & Carolyn, along with Mark & James their two young sons, moved from London to join us. Carolyn was our first administrator and also a wonderful worship leader. Simon was Mr Sound. He oversaw the purchase of our first PA kit and instruments and drove the sound desk. For longer than I care to remember he lugged PA kit back & forth from their home to various venues in the back of a Peugeot 205. Simon handed over the PA a few years ago and takes a well earned back seat these days. Carolyn Facebooked me last week to send her very best wishes for today. Mark & James are regularly part of the life of the young people’s group here.

4. Richard & Ruth Littlehales were friends of friends from our time in Nottingham in the 80’s. In 1988, when we were at Ashburnham together one summer, I felt the Lord tell me that we would one day work together. We were amazed to see that fulfilled when Richard & Ruth took the crazy STEP of uprooting from their hometown of Nottingham with Jo & Emily to join a family they hardly knew doing this thing. We had our first meeting with these two sitting in my parents’ hot tub, crazy! Ruth was the queen of ambience and set the tone of hospitality for much of what we did. It was she who came up with the name “Vine” for this event some 5 years ago. Richard was one of our early trustees and guided us through some financially tricky times. For many years their garage was the store for our kit and they lugged boxes of kids’ toys and miscellaneous equipment back & forth. Jo & Emily became close friends of Josh & Sam. Richard & Ruth led several wonderful housegroups and now lead their own group in Leeds.

These 3 families took risks to make these STEPS. They were the “turf turners”, going onto hard, dry ground and helping us turn it until it became fertile. They all had to find new jobs and houses, settle into schools, build relationships and learn the hard way about planting a church together.

We love these 3 families deeply and are so grateful for the sacrifices they made and the way they so graciously put up with our mistakes and blunders along the journey. So wherever you are, thank you, and may God bless you with double of what you sacrificed to help plant the Vineyard here. Many others have run with us over the years, we can’t mention all of them of course but we thank God for them.

So in May 1999 we started meeting once a month at David Lloyd for worship, teaching, prayer, food, football, swimming and chat. Over the following years we added a different event each month: We tried a once a month event called Saturday Night Live in a local pub. That didn’t work so well so hasn’t survived today (so far). Much more successfully Sunday 3 was an all age, multi learning style meeting where the focus was teaching and learning subjects of faith and discipleship. Finally, we added a once a month Sunday evening in a local hotel and called it the Gathering. Then we launched the Vine, like this, once a month and tried to roll into one all those different events. And a few years later we went to a regular, weekly worship on Sunday mornings – at Carr Manor High School – and this year have added Sunday evenings each week with the Gathering at the Vineyard Centre.

A major thrust forward on our journey came when the North Leeds Vineyard closed in 2005. It was a big STEP but Alison and I often reflect that Steve & Caroline Restrick who had planted and led NLV, had raised up, trained and nurtured an absolutely stunning bunch of Vineyard people, some of whom it is now our privilege and honour to lead.

The heart of this community of faith has always been the housegroups. The first housegroup started others which in turn started others and now many people meet, worship, learn, and Reach Out weekly in people’s homes all over the region. Groups where we aim to “know and be known”.

And then finally there has been the immense privilege of marking the STEPS in peoples’ lives: of births (so many babies!), dedications, christenings and baptisms. Marriages and funerals.

And, I think you have to accept that there have always been skateboards.

Each change along this journey was driven by the desire to express our faith as a community in relevant and culturally current ways whilst coping with growth.

As you can therefore imagine, one of the lessons we have learnt is that we simply can’t do this on our own. So we want to say a big thank you to two particular sets of people outside of this church:

1. My many colleagues over the years at Ron Blue and then Flowers McEwan, the businesses I run side by side with this. In particular, my fellow director Murray McEwan who has given absolutely crucial support to my bivocational status. He and his family have taken a risk & paid a cost to enable us to plant the church. He has been satisfied as much with kingdom dividends as with financial ones and for that Alison and I are extremely grateful.

2. And then there have been other leaders in the Vineyard who have given, supported and fed into us over the years. Most frequently: Jeremy & Elaine Cook who lead the Vineyards in the North; the John & Debby Wright our overseers and John & Ele Mumford who were our pastors, sent us out from SWLV and who are the National Directors. Although we have been somewhat unorthodox in the way we have gone about this, they have been unfailingly supportive and encouraging. We are privileged to be able to serve with them and we thank God for the Vineyard.

Alison Flowers

We have learnt that we have a limited amount to offer and much that could drag us down and we have had to conclude that it is all due to the grace of God. An important scripture for us has been 2 Samuel 7:18-21.

Then King David went in and sat before the LORD, and he said:
Who am I, O Sovereign LORD, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far?
There is no-one like you, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with our own ears. Now be pleased to bless the house of your servant.

What an adventure, what a journey! Growing a church is something that God does. It is a sovereign work of God in which we are invited to play our part. We can’t do it but God can. It was on that understanding that I felt I could say yes to the incredibly scary-but-exciting prospect of returning to Leeds to plant this church.

And as I reflect on this journey over the years I am brought back to David’s prayer, "Who am I, O Sovereign LORD, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far?... How great you are, O Sovereign LORD! There is no-one like you, and there is no God but you".

That just sums it up for me as time and time again we have seen God’s amazing faithfulness, mercy and goodness – and that is what we are celebrating today with tremendous gratitude.

What is astonishing in what we have witnessed over the last 10 years, through some extremely challenging times and through some incredibly inspiring times (and everything in between), is what happens when ordinary people make space in their lives and in their community and then respond to what they think God is calling them to do. Ordinary people, the walking wounded. I love seeing what happens when God mingles his presence and power with our best efforts, clumsy and flawed though they may be. This is the result. This is what happens. He doesn’t have a plan B. This is his chosen way of bringing heaven to earth, the church.

Highlights and hard times

There have been hard times. Times when we have been at the end of our resources: physically, financially, emotionally;
The sheer hard work of the bi-vocational calling;
Loss is hard - when we have had to say goodbye;
Learning about giving and receiving forgiveness when mistakes are made;
Continually asking God “what is the lesson here?”
Learning not to defend ourselves when others speak poorly of us.

And there is also the anguish, although it is also a great privilege, of walking alongside people in pain – and the reality that some of those journeys lead to death or disaster.

Coming to terms with how little we understand and how few are our resources, we have been thrown on our knees to God who has richly provided. Some of the outcomes were not what we sought and hoped for. But that is what we have learnt about faith; to let go of our need to control and leave the outcome to God. I am still learning this.

But I have lost count of the times when we have said, “If it all goes wrong tomorrow, it was worth it just for that.” Not least was seeing Pauline in her Mama Mia fancy dress at the Women Rock weekend this year. Priceless!!

We could be here for hours talking about these kingdom STEPS, these moments – but a few highlights:

The early days: Sunday Church at David Lloyd, swimming and hanging out in the café afterwards. The sheer fun of the Christmas party at Lineham Farm in 2002. Music, food and laughter have been ever-present;
Festivals. Weekends and weeks away in various forms: women, men’s & children’s weekends, the Northern Vineyards Revive weekend, Ashburnham and many others. This all started with a short week’s break in the summer of 2001 at Wydale Hall where we found, in hindsight, that we had established some core values;
Seeing creativity blossom in people who just needed a small encouragement to paint or write: Beryl, Cindy, Michele, Stewart, Julia and many others expressing themselves artistically;
Seeing people sacrificing time, money, energy and holidays to go on missions around the world. It started with Dennis who has been followed by scores of others – including 18 young people who went to Sierra Leone over Christmas and New Year in 2003/4. Over time we have been more effective in Reaching Out – whether mission overseas or acts of kindness closer to home. We love being able to touch thousands of people each year in ways that somehow demonstrate God’s love;
Elaine inviting her friend Sue to the Women Rock weekend: she is someone early in her journey toward Jesus and new to church. She had a load of fun and engaged enthusiastically with worship and teaching. Then she chose to come with a group of us onto the streets to minister and pray for people as we felt led by God. And she decided, that weekend, to follow Jesus;
A local landlady, Caroline, in whose pub, the True Briton, we had been able to do all sorts of ministry over several years. When she moved to a new pub out of our area she said how much difference the Vineyard’s involvement had made and wanted to partner with Christians near the new pub;
Karen, the Centre Manager for Browning House where some of us have served the parents being assessed over recent years. She said that what made the Vineyard people special was that they treated the parents, mainly from very deprived backgrounds, as complete equals and without judgement. These are people who are used to being called scum by the middle classes. The fact that followers of Jesus accept them speaks more of Jesus’ love than any amount of preaching;
The STEPS campaign to raise funds – watching people’s desire to go with what God is doing, seeing them take financial risks and watching God’s blessing on them and on our community. People sacrificing today for what could be tomorrow. And we ended up with the Vineyard Centre and a resource that allows us to do so much by way of building his kingdom in this region;
We have been able to watch the process as people who feel inadequate nervously step up to leadership. We watch in awe as they receive an anointing, grow, change and flourish. We have begun to see an even greater manifestation of this through Leadership School;
Being able to work alongside selfless people with compassionate hearts and sacrificial lifestyles – especially the anonymous ones, working quietly behind the scenes: visiting people, repairing houses, looking after children, giving generously, buying drinks for a homeless person. Much of which we never discover – they are doing it for Jesus, not for us;
Just having so many children and young people around. Being able to include all ages. They seem to be having so much fun. Watching them learn to pray and worship. And at the same time having people even older than us – and all ages in between, being inclusive, I love it, it’s family isn’t it? We always sought to enable the children to experience and enjoy everything the adults did and, as much as possible, to pursue all age events too. The Taxiclub, Minicab groups and Out and About were (and are) expressions of this. The people leading these over the years have built up a wonderful ministry which is already reaping dividends in the lives of our young people here and around the country;
Seeing people who didn’t know that they were loved and accepted now firmly belonging and worshipping in the family.

What is the main thing I have learnt?

I have learnt to value EVERY aspect of the journey – the challenges, the heartbreaks, the great times – the whole thing, not just the “good” bits. Early on there were times (very occasionally) when David & I would say to each other “shall we quit now while the damage will still be limited?” Most church planters have times like that when the only thing that keeps them going is the certainty of God’s call on their lives. Looking back I have come to cherish even those moments. They have all been woven into the tapestry of this first decade. The ups and downs of the journey so far. They are part of the picture, part of the story. They are what make us us and God loves it.

What has God said to me about planting this church?

This is just the beginning. We haven’t arrived yet. There is a sense in which we ain’t seen nothing yet - there is a way to go. I feel excited for what is to come. King David didn’t get to see the temple getting built and we personally don’t expect to see everything that God has in store for the Wharfedale Vineyard and the difference it is going to make for God’s kingdom in this region.

I have often had a picture of our house, a picture which has subsequently been repeated for our various venues – Carr Manor High School, the Vineyard Centre. What I see is the physical building but then an invisible but still real building, a crystal building, that extends from ours. It is a picture of the supernatural over the natural, a building we can’t see but which represents the spiritual work of the kingdom. It goes out much wider than our buildings and much higher. Goes on and on, east wings & west wings but mainly upper stories, going up and up out of sight. We have no idea of the extent of what God is really doing in people’s lives through this community of faith.

David

It was back in 1986 that I felt God first give me a vision for what this might be like. We weren’t in the Vineyard, we had never heard of church planting, we lived in Nottingham and I ran a business. But we happened to be in the old Leeds Grammar School assembly hall for a Vineyard conference and I had a picture of that hall full of people doing church.

Later, when we moved back to Leeds we felt God gave us a series of instructions about doing church in a different way. Not to say that it would be a better way, just different and a way that matched our personalities and style. We aimed toward building a community of people, rather than a building or programme, where it was OK to come and go as you pleased so that your relationship with Jesus was not described by your attendance at a meeting. We took the view that if people didn’t get involved, either they were not meant to be with us or we had to change – not them.

We described it as being more like a regular in a pub or a visitor to a shopping mall. We want there to be a bunch of things going on in which people love to get involved and which help them in their faith and discipleship. Nevertheless, it isn’t about a consumer environment of providing choice for me, me, me.

Equally, we wanted to focus outward to the lost and the lonely, to those who materially or spiritually experience poverty which Jesus calls us to address by expressing his compassion in practical ways.

What now? Where do we go from here? What will the Vineyard look like in 10 years? What will it look like in 100 years?

From a practical point of view, in 10 years’ time I would love to see the HUB as described in our STEPS campaign 3 years ago. A centre which provides resources and support to several churches or congregations around the region. We will have our own buildings, which we will adapt to serve our purposes and values. We will continue to grow and to have a greater and greater impact for the kingdom, mainly in Leeds but elsewhere too.

From a spiritual point of view, there are so many people who need to experience God’s love and hear about his offer of new life that we will spend ourselves on sharing what we have with as many people as we can. In 100 years’ time I would love to think that the Wharfedale Vineyard would be effective in reaching 1000’s of people for Jesus and would have a heritage of serving with the poor and fighting for righteousness and justice. Together with other churches we will have made a radical difference in Leeds. In 10 years’ time, why not the same?

We started this journey with 4 families and we start the next 10 years with 100 families. We feel that this is what God has called us to and we would love to share that with you.

David and Alison Flowers, 15/11/2009