Try as we might, we can’t make a seed grow.

But we can cultivate an environment where growth can happen. It works the same way with God. While we can’t make our spiritual life happen, we can learn to recognize, welcome, and cultivate His presence in our lives. Cultivating the spiritual life, like farming, is a vigorous task.*

Sometimes, we can approach our faith like a factory worker. Punch the right combination of numbers on the machine and out comes a perfectly formed product. Do the right combination of bible studies, prayer times and Christian activities and out comes the perfect  “Christian.”

 But we all know, intuitively, that this does not work. The spiritual life is a much messier and much more complicated life-long process. It’s also an incredibly beautiful and deeply profound process that does not so much involve formulas as it does cultivation, kind of like farming. We can plant seeds. We can water. We can cultivate the soil so the seed has a healthy place to grow… but God is the one who does the growing.

One of the most vital aspects of this lifelong process of “farming,” of learning about and becoming more like God, of transforming into a worshipping, community of missional theologians, is intentionally opening up to and deeply engaging with others who are on the journey with us.

Vintage Faith Church Community Groups create spaces where cultivating an environment for growth can happen… where we can plant the seeds and plow the soil so that acceptance, accountability, belonging, care, vulnerability, connection, commitment, challenge, friendships, prayer, learning, and support can all grow beautifully and naturally among those who are seeking to know and serve God together.

It is our hope that as we grow together, we will be able to shine the light of Jesus more brilliantly to the world around us.

click here to find out what Community Groups are like

 The value of Community

We value community. In fact, without community, we wouldn’t be a church. The word used for “church” in the New Testament literally means a “called out assembly.” So when we talk about church, we are really talking about a community of people called by God, called from the world, called to reach the world. When most people think of church, they think of a building or a Sunday morning service; at Vintage Faith, we understand the Scriptures to teach that the church is not actually a building or location, but rather that the church is the people of God on a mission.

We believe the people of God are those who profess faith in Jesus the Messiah and seek to demonstrate their beliefs in daily life. We believe the mission of those who follow Jesus is to be representatives of the ways, words, and life of Jesus in the world he loves. As followers of Jesus, we define our community by our relationship to Jesus and our attempts to live out his teachings among those around us. Therefore, we are not just a community, but specifically a community of people who follow Jesus on a mission.

One of the mysterious characteristics of God is his communal nature. God has revealed himself to the world as one unified God in three persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), who operates in a perfect, singly unified community. Because God is by nature a unified relationship, we believe that as humans made in the image of God, that we also reflect this communal nature. God created us to reflect His image, and this is demonstrated beautifully when we participate in unified relationships. Ultimately, when the church is unified in her diversity, the image of God in humanity is rightly reflected (Ephesians 4-5, Jesus’ prayer in John 17 and Revelation 7:9-12). This is why we believe community is such a vital characteristic of Vintage Faith Church.

Our desire is to see all people experience all the benefits and challenges of community. Things like acceptance, accountability, belonging, care vulnerability, connection, commitment, challenge, friendships, prayer, learning, support and growth all occur in the context of community. It is very difficult to participate in a real community without being stretched. Relationships serve as mirrors into our own lives and challenge us to grow.

Authentic community is also very messy. No amount of structure or planning can accommodate the unpredictable and mysterious ways that people interact, change and grow. No one is perfect, thus coming together as a group of imperfect people will have its difficulties. Despite the difficulties, we believe that having this type of community among those who follow Jesus is absolutely worth any of the challenges because it is one of the primary means by which God transforms our lives.

*above quote from theodysseygroup.org