Vinings Lake Church

What is prayer? What is the purpose of prayer? How does it work? Do you pray? What do you pray for? Can prayer change things? If not, why do we do it? Does prayer change Gods mind? Does God answer prayer sometimes but not all the time? Have you ever prayed for someone or something and it didn’t happen? Are miracles dependent on prayer? If so, what is the criteria? How sincere the prayer is? How often we pray? How many people we have praying? Is prayer about convincing, persuading, or manipulating God to do something? Is prayer an empty ritual that exist for a magical/mythical time of consciousness? Is there a way to approach prayer and talk about prayer differently than we have? Can prayer still be a meaning, helpful and transformative practice for us? Today we are simply opening the door to this complicated ancient practice called prayer.

Many of us grew up with a particliuar image of Mary. She appears docile, meek, mild mannered like she is posing for the cover of hearth & home as a voiceless virgin passively sitting amongst fluffy sheep. But this image is not the image we are given in the narrative. It appears we have Mary all wrong. Today we will begin the process of shattering the porcelain Mary we were handed. We will begin to discover a Mary who was in fact the mother of a revolution.

What were you taught about heaven? Many of us were taught that heaven is an ethereal, intangible, & immaterial place that sits somewhere above us. When we die a very small group of people will go there to live in their mansion forever. Once there, we will wear white robes, sit on clouds, play harps, and sing Chris Tomlin songs forever and ever. But these images are the opposite of what the Biblical writers portray to us. For them, heaven is not somewhere else. Heaven is among us, within us, around us, and a present reality.   

Will there be a Judgement Day when we die?  Will all the wrongs be made right?  Will everything that was done in the darkness be brought into the light?  There is a primal impulse within all of us for people to get what they deserve.  But what about the litany of ways we have contributed to the heartbreak around us?  Could the desire for judgement actually be a desire for justice? Could our understanding of justice be limited to a punitive understanding? To get at this we obviously need to talk about sheep and goats first. 

Jesus once said, “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.” Is Jesus talking about eternal conscious torment? Did He talk more about hell than any other subject? And what do we do about the part of tearing are eye  out? Is this hyperbole? Is this literal? Let's get into it.

The English word “hell” is used roughly twelve times in the New Testament. Almost all those occasions are exclusively by Jesus himself. In one place Jesus says, “If you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire” (Mark 9:47). What does Jesus mean by this? To get at it, we must know something about the valley of Hinnom. Never heard of it? Come find out all about it. Today, we talk about Hell + New Testament. 

Is Hell in the Old Testament? Why do some translations have hell in the O.T. but others do not? What did the ancient Israelites believe about the afterlife? Were they concerned about life after death? Is there any evidence they believe in life after death? How did their Egyptians neighbors influence their understanding? This week we talk about Sheol, ancient Egyptian texts, King James, Jerome, and what ancient Israel believed about the afterlife.

Can a loving God send some to eternal torment? One response I’ve heard, “God doesn’t send anyone to hell, we send ourselves there.” Can you feel the strain in this response to absolve God of all responsibility. Why? Perhaps, it's because deep down in all of us, we intuitively know someone burning forever and ever in conscious torment is immoral no matter how evil they might be. Today we talk about the morality and ethics of everlasting torment. What does Hell say about character of God? 

Vision is what you want to accomplish. Mission is how you will get there.  Too many companies have vision but have no idea how to accomplish that vision. Today we will talk about how we intend to accomplish our ONE thing of creating a wake up space for the world. Join us for VL 17.0- How will we do this?

In the past, our collective stretched itself thin trying to conform to all the expectations of what VL should be doing. As a result, we were unremarkable at many things. Over the last year, we have gotten clear on who we are and why we are here. Today, we want to show and tell you this ONE THING. All our energies are dialed in and we are unapologetically focused on the work we are here to do. What is that work? Find out in today’s sermon, What are we doing here?         

In Acts 21, Paul is asked, "Aren't you the Egyptian who started a revolt and led four thousand terrorist out into the wilderness some time ago?” Paul’s response… um no, where did you hear that? How great is that story? Paul then goes on an extended riff about who he is. In today’s sermon, we cut through all the ambiguity and give you as much church clarity as we know. This is the final installment of question one- Who is VL?  

The worlds largest religion is declining on an epic scale.  Religious organizations are doing everything they can to keep it all alive.  Clever marketing, compelling language, good music, great coffee, and top notch kids programs are an attempt to turn the tide.  But many religious leaders feel as though they are doing hospice work for the church.  Maybe they are on to something? Maybe it feels like a death, because it is a death? Maybe the work is to let it die?  Today, we are talking about new wine + new wineskins. 

In 1955, New Hope Baptist Church began on the outskirts of Atlanta.  In 2006, New Hope Baptist Church became Vinings Lake Baptist Church. In 2008, Vinings Lake Baptist Church became Vinings Lake Church. We were a traditional Baptist church We were a contemporary Baptist church  We were a non-denominational church We were a progressive christian church. We are not who we were.  We are an ever-evolving spiritual collective.  Whether this is your first time, you've been around VL since its origins, or you have a curious skepticism about organized religion, you are welcome to join us as we hit the reset button yet again. Welcome to VL 17.0

Fear is the epicenter of the religious industrial complex. Remove fear and you bankrupt the business. Demolish many churches and you will discover it's built on the foundation of fear. Fear as a motivator is in more than just the religious realm. We see it in politics, click-bate tweets (now threads), and finance. Everyone knows the power of fear. But what does using fear as a weapon say about the message, person, or institution peddling the fear? It tells us how uninteresting the actual product, message, or person is. Is the reason we rely on fear is because we have forgotten about the intoxicating transforming power of love? Today we talk about a perfect love that cast out fear.

Fear is the epicenter of the religious industrial complex. Remove fear and you bankrupt the business. Demolish many churches and you will discover it's built on the foundation of fear. Fear as a motivator is in more than just the religious realm. We see it in politics, click-bate tweets (now threads), and finance. Everyone knows the power of fear. But what does using fear as a weapon say about the message, person, or institution peddling the fear? It tells us how uninteresting the actual product, message, or person is. Is the reason we rely on fear is because we have forgotten about the intoxicating transforming power of love? Today we talk about a perfect love that cast out fear. 

Fear is the epicenter of the religious industrial complex. Remove fear and you bankrupt the business. Demolish many churches and you will discover it's built on the foundation of fear. Fear as a motivator is in more than just the religious realm. We see it in politics, click-bate tweets (now threads), and finance. Everyone knows the power of fear. But what does using fear as a weapon say about the message, person, or institution peddling the fear? It tells us how uninteresting the actual product, message, or person is. What is the reason we rely on fear is because we have forgotten about the intoxicating transforming power of love? Today we talk about a perfect love that cast out fear. 

Our own Katie Mair shares her thoughts with the VL tribe.

Our good friend, pastor, and author Josh Scott joins us at VL.

What is faith? Is it something we think? Feel? Intuit? Apprehend? Is it a verb or a noun? Is it something that takes place in my heart? Mind? Soul? Can faith be strong? Weak? Can we have little faith? Big faith? Medium faith? No faith? Are there different kinds of faith? Is faith the same as belief? Is faith the same as certainty? What does it mean to KNOW? Is faith necessary? What is doubt? Is doubt weakness? Bad? Necessary? In this series we will discuss faith, doubt, and everything in between.

What is faith? Is it something we think? Feel? Intuit? Apprehend? Is it a verb or a noun? Is it something that takes place in my heart? Mind? Soul? Can faith be strong? Weak? Can we have little faith? Big faith? Medium faith? No faith? Are there different kinds of faith? Is faith the same as belief? Is faith the same as certainty? What does it mean to KNOW? Is faith necessary? What is doubt? Is doubt weakness? Bad? Necessary? In this series we will discuss faith, doubt, and everything in between.