Twenty Years In: Preparing Our Hearts
This Sunday we celebrate 20 years as a church family! This is no small milestone... Twenty years of God’s faithfulness. Twenty years of ordinary people carrying the treasure of Jesus. Twenty years of both joy and hardship, and through it all, a loving God who has never left us.
Anniversaries like this are more than history lessons; they’re invitations. Invitations to ask: Are we just repeating the same year over and over? Or are we letting each year deepen us, shape us, and make us more like Jesus?
That’s the challenge of the moment. Look back with gratitude? Absolutely. But also look forward with surrender. The danger of complacency lurks when we rest on what is behind us and avoid the imperative to keep moving forward. The call forward from this historical moment is to step into the next twenty years not as consumers of church, but as disciples of Jesus.
Between now and Sunday, I invite you to practice a simple prayer of surrender each morning as we prepare for our celebration:
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Open your hands before the Lord.
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Read slowly from Isaiah 40:28–31:
“Have you never heard? Have you never understood?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of all the earth.
He never grows weak or weary.
No one can measure the depths of his understanding.
He gives power to the weak
and strength to the powerless.
Even youths will become weak and tired,
and young men will fall in exhaustion.
But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength.
They will soar high on wings like eagles.
They will run and not grow weary.
They will walk and not faint.”
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After reading, pray slowly: “Not my will, but Yours be done. Not my strength, but Yours. Not my kingdom, but Yours.”
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Sit and let God’s presence rest on you.
This practice shifts us from control to surrender, from consumption to trust. It reminds us that the church doesn’t exist just on Sundays, but in the “between times" —in our homes, workplaces, and neighborhoods.
This Sunday we’ll celebrate God’s faithfulness, honor our past, and dedicate the next twenty years to Him! My prayer is that we’ll gather ready not only to remember, but to surrender again and say together, “Lord, the next twenty are Yours too.”
See you Sunday, Vineyard! Let’s come prepared—not just to celebrate, but to continue our formation!
Adam Greenwell
Lead Pastor
Vineyard Church
www.billingsvineyard.org
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