Is anyone familiar with Vineyard churches?

[ButterflyBlood]

Looking for a bit more info since I have such conflicting ones now. There's one in my area which I think is simply awesome, great message, great style, great people. It has a bit of a progressive focus but also tries hard to be apolitical (in a pre-election sermon about Jesus and politics the pastor even mentioned "Yes, I do have a side here and there is no way you're going to find out who it is." Then made a joke about how he had to make sure to not wear one of his red or blue shirts to appear to be giving a coded message.) Considering that this one has a rather young crowd in a very liberal city it's easy to see how most would tilt. The message has always been positive and never condemning, in fact when I went this morning the sermon was about how we too often assume God is angry at us and feel unworthy when that's not true.

But I've heard all sorts of mixed things otherwise. They're an evangelical denomination founded by a guy who was a bit of a nutjob, they've done some crazy "charismatic" things (I haven't see anything here beyond people waving their arms in the air during worship songs.), they've been quite hostile to women and started out teaching some very backwards things about gender roles (nothing of that sort I've ever seen here, which also sometimes has women preaching.) and a bunch often end up being kind of cult-like.

So any personal experiences?

[Divine Discontent]

1. no personal experience with them, but I think it's important that your 'home' church

be what you're looking for, regardless of what the main denomination believes. If you like it, and they don't change, enjoy the place to praise the Lord and make friends. Glad you have a good place, but yeah, don't hesitate to leave but tell them why if they go off the rails.

God bless

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. No personal experience, but they seem a bit cult-like

Try them out, but stay a bit detached and don't hesitate to leave if you don't like what's going on.

I left two churches for different reasons:

1. The whole vibe just irritated me, especially the assumption that everyone was either part of a married couple with 2 children OR a senior and belonged in either the kiddie Sunday School, the couples club, or the senior citizens' social group

2. The pastor seemed primarily interested in getting his picture in the paper and was always doing grandstandy sort of things that had nothing to do with the spiritual health of the congregation

[wryter2000]

3. I have no information

The anti-woman stuff may be in their past. That would be a turn off for me if they still believed women were inferior. I guess as long as you're comfortable there, you should stay.

[ButterflyBlood]

4. Women's ordination is kind of a dealbreaker to me

I was raised Catholic and even though I was neither female or much of a feminist as pre-teen/teenage male the fact that women couldn't be priests just drove me crazy. The only response my mom could give to my concerns was basically "I don't agree with it either and hopefully it'll change some day" which wasn't enough for me. It's pretty high up on the laundry list of reasons I abandoned Catholicism and don't even associate it with it in a cultural sense (culturally I identify with the Lutheran side of my family, as I went to Lutheran churches growing up too and during my post-confirmation teen years that were most formative probably more often. Catholicism is just some weird ritual from childhood to me now.) I simply won't go to any church that isn't completely egalitarian in ordination and administrative policies.

But about half the pastoral staff at this one are women and the two lead co-pastors are a married couple. The man usually gives the sermon, but his wife is more involved in administrative stuff and is often out visiting conferences and stuff like that. She's given a few herself though, and I think she's my favorite speaker of all the people who have ever conducted the service there. She's actually from a family of Vietnamese immigrants and was raised Buddhist before becoming a Christian in college, so she has a really unique background and perspective. You usually won't hear personal anecdotes about things like being mean to an outcast student 7th grade and having to deal with the personal guilt in sermons, but that's the type of thing she brings up.

[wryter2000]

5. Me, too

One of the reasons I wanted to go back to the Episcopal Church was because a woman is in charge. :)

We recently ordained a woman priest in my church. Really cool. Last year, I went to a Catholic service with friends. The service was very similar to ours, but it was weird seeing only men at the altar.