Vineyard Church | Weekly Update October 16th, 2024

Exodus 20:8-11:8 “Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 You have six days each week for your ordinary work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock, and any foreigners living among you.

Yup, still talking about the 6+1… Not an oppressive restriction or proscription on our lives, but a description of how we were designed to function by the Intelligent Designer. Less “follow this rule” and more “understand how you are made.”

In our third blog on this sabbatical rhythm, we tackle the “6” one last time before we give way to the sabbatical rest found in the “1” of the 6+1 Manufacturer’s specifications. Building upon the last few weeks talking about God’s missional plan and our vocation versus calling, today is for contemplating how this applies to the Body of Christ.

The language Paul uses in his New Testament letters demonstrates that God has chosen to unfold His plan by utilizing the church as His activity on earth. This is both an immense honor and an immense responsibility. The Creator inviting His creation into the working out of His plan. I am tempted to be flip and ask, “What was He thinking?!”, but in trusting His wisdom I am left with another question, “What should the Vineyard be and do?”

Part of the work in our “6” part of the rhythm is the working out of our vocation and calling in service to and through the church. Together, functioning as our several parts, we create a body that has much more missional potential than when we try to do things on our own. Take a moment and read Nehemiah 3 in the Old Testament… Go on, read it, I’ll wait right here.

At first glance, this chapter might feel like one of the genealogies, the list of this guy that led to that guy, and on and on… I “read” those lists rather than read those lists as my mind usually wanders because the importance of those lists is not self-evident. The list in this chapter is crazy important, especially for our purposes today.

Did you notice how everyone had a unique task in rebuilding the Wall of Jerusalem? Completion of the rebuild relied upon each person doing what was theirs to do. Some repaired the valley gate, others the fountain gate, and still more repaired the dung gate! The commonality between the groups of people involved in the rebuild is that they showed up to serve, and that service led to the good of the community.

There are several valley gates, fountain gates, and even some dung gate jobs required in building and rebuilding the church to be the activity of God. This service is a vital part of the sabbatical rhythm, and participation in this service is not presented as optional but instrumental in our relationship with God. This has been lost on most churches in the U.S., where we find that 20% of the congregation will do 100% of the work. If this is how rebuilding the wall was approached, I wonder how long it would have taken to get to that dung gate…

Rebuilding the Wall of Jerusalem in Lockwood, Billings, Shepherd, Huntley, and beyond requires each of us to engage in the call to serve in the church as a piece of the 6+1 rhythm. The activity of God in our time moves through the church, and Yellowstone County is ripe to experience the Holy Spirit.

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