Vineyard Church | Weekly Update December 13, 2023

After a few weeks of weighty topics, I like to fall into an easy, more breezy subject to lighten the air and have the opportunity to stretch out into the warm and fuzzy and take a deep breath. Usually, a topic without controversy or political angle works best for this type of blog, so in that spirit, let’s talk about vaccines. No controversy here; just light and breezy.  

Inoculating a community from a deadly disease is a fascinating application of scientific knowledge. Using vaccines to eradicate certain diseases has changed the way the modern world approaches health, wellness, and even society engagement. In the realm of disease eradication, inoculation is a positive scientific innovation.

In the cases of smallpox or polio, inoculation means life.… There are several areas of our lives where being inoculated actually leads to the death of influence, a movement, or a community. In the context of the missional role of the church, inoculation is death. This reality is present in almost every context of our daily lives, but I would argue that it is most dangerous to a follower of Jesus and, by extension, the church. 

Consider the speed limit signs on Airport Rd.… Those of you who are asking yourselves, “are there speed limit signs on Airport Rd?” have just made my point. Another example from the gutters of Billings automobile operators’ praxis would be the casual relationship many observe between red lights and actually stopping. Speed limit signs and red lights hold real authority in our community, but they have been disregarded by so many for so long, their actual authority is minimal at best.

How a culture becomes inoculated to speed limit signs is not a difficult mental exercise; anything that we collectively ignore long enough becomes meaningless to our daily lives. Last week, as we discussed the effects of context on our relationship with God and our lived expression of Christ, we saw the dangers of the prosperity gospel, seeker sensitivity, and individualism to the missional work of God. These postures also lead to the inoculation of church goers to doing the stuff that Jesus did. 

A self-focused religious expression offers things to consume and experience without the mandate to share, build, or expand the experience to anyone else. The consumer is the end user, programs are meant to serve rather than create servants, and the consumers become inoculated against the economy of God, that we get in order to give. At the community level, this inoculation leads to insulation, a paradigm that a mentor of mine refers to as the Christian Ghetto, the self-contained Christian community that rarely engages those on the outside. 

If the danger first manifests in ignoring mandates, we have our first defense against being inoculated to doing the stuff that Jesus did. Consider the potential we have with our Between the Sundays Liturgy, a call and response written by Larry Severa and a regular part of our Sundays together. Each week, we begin the time between the Sundays by being launched into our contexts with this benediction. We affirm our call to love God, love our neighbor as ourselves, and do the stuff that Jesus did…. We affirm the Great Commission that Jesus gave us for evangelism and discipleship. We have been doing this call and response long enough that it warrants some evaluation. Does it mean anything, or have we become inoculated? If we are inoculated, it begins an Airport Rd speed limit sign that is barely noticed as we race to the roundabout so we don’t get stuck behind a slow driver between 27th and Zimmerman Trail.

One remedy, an inoculation against the inoculation, occurs this coming Friday. We take our celebration of the season into the city. Rather than celebrate with Christmas carols in our own building, a place where most of the city will never go, we are bringing the party to Thirsty Street Brewery. Here, we have the opportunity to be outside of the Christian Ghetto and celebrate with people who have not yet known the invitation to the Table of the Father.

If we are feeling the effects of inoculation, we can push back together and re-enter the economy of God as we get to give. In this case, we get the hope, peace, joy, and love of the season and we get to express it back in celebration. As we celebrate, we can look to build relationships with the people we encounter: other patrons, staff, people we see through the week we can invite.… And we can use relationship to demonstrate the love of God. Moving from consumption to invitation, we can reject inoculation of the missional purpose of God with beer (or kombucha; they have that too!) and Christmas carols. See you Friday!

Adam Greenwell
Pastor  |  Billings Vineyard Church
www.BillingsVineyard.org