Every year, the Congregation votes on the annual budget and elects a slate of leaders, including officers, elders, and deacons. The Chair of the Congregation, Stephen Moseley, has called a Congregational Meeting for June 25, 2023. The budget proposal and the slate of nominees will be distributed to the members via email. For those unable to attend the meeting in person, an electronic ballot will be available.
June Movie
Vine Street at the Movies is a small group of folks who enjoy watching movies together. Jim Carls, the group’s convener, is also the curator of the monthly screenings. On June 6 at 7:00 p.m. they will gather again, and they invite congregants and friends to join them. On the program is one of Oscar-winner Brendan Fraser's earlier movies: Blast From the Past. It's a "fish out of water" story that is really more of a "fish out of its can" tale. A young boy's paranoid parents have lived "off the grid" in the most extreme way possible and years later, the boy discovers that his world has... expanded. This is a lot of fun from a group of notable actors. Rated PG-13.
"Thanks to a clever script, tight direction, a first-rate cast and the dynamite combination of Brendan Fraser and Alicia Silverstone, ”Blast from the Past” blows away the recent crop of romantic comedies. And it deftly makes a resounding point about the very real cost to society of the baby boom generation’s standards of manners and civility." —Jonathan Foreman, New York Post
Please note that starting with the June movie, the group will meet in the South Meeting Room, a.k.a. the Old Choir Room, to avoid late sunsets.
Summer Book Group
Bill McKibben is an award-winning author, activist, educator. Like many of us, he grew up believing—knowing—that the United States was the greatest country on earth. As a teenager, he cheerfully led American Revolution tours in Lexington, Massachusetts. He sang “Kumbaya” at church. And with the remarkable rise of suburbia, he assumed that all Americans would share in the wealth. But fifty years later, he finds himself in an increasingly doubtful nation strained by bleak racial and economic inequality, on a planet whose future is in peril. And he is curious: What the hell happened?
We invite congregants and neighbors to come together and talk about his book, The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon.
Those of us who, like McKibben, are members of the boomer generation—what are our memories?
Those of us who were born in the generations before or after—what is our take on how we got where we find ourselves? And how do we move forward?
McKibben is not without hope. And he wonders if any of that trinity of his youth—the flag, the cross, the station wagon—could, or should, be reclaimed in the fight for a fairer future. Would you like to be part of the conversation?
We are planning to have two groups: one on Tuesday mornings, the other on Tuesday evenings, beginning June 13. Group members will decide whether to take turns hosting or to meet at church. Please register below.
Women's retreat
Middle Area Spiritual Journey
Saturday, June 3, 2023
New Covenant Christian Church
Nashville
10 am - 2 pm
The Journey to the Next
Resource Leader: Dr. Karren Todd
Mississippi Blvd. Christian Church
Lunch provided
Gun safety legislation
Governor Bill Lee announced that the Tennessee General Assembly will reconvene for a special session to discuss firearm safety legislation beginning August 21, 2023.
As Voices for a Safer Tennessee wrote in a statement in response to the Governor’s announcement, “Polling continues to highlight the substantial common ground among Tennesseans of all political viewpoints for meaningful firearm safety solutions, and this special session will make more room for our elected officials to respond to the voices of their constituents.”
Governor Lee has requested feedback in advance of the August 21 special session. Continue to let your voice be heard! Respond and let him know you support:
Extreme Risk Protection Orders
Universal background checks, and
Safe storage
The grannies’ vision of a ban on assault weapons may still be a dream, but small steps in the right direction make a big difference!
Pentecost Offering
In the beginning, every church was new. It’s right there in the Book of Acts. Early disciples came together, sharing all things in common, breaking bread with glad and generous hearts. God was doing a new thing: creating a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world.
In the beginning, Jesus sent out disciples, two by two, not to “plant” churches, but to proclaim good news, to experience the hospitality and wisdom of neighbors all around.
At New Church Ministry, we believe God is calling the whole Church back to becoming new… back to becoming who we are: a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world.
Your gifts to the 2023 Pentecost Offering, received this year in most congregations on Sundays, May 21 and 28, help ensure our movement continues to embody the Disciples of Christ vision: to be and to share the Good News, witnessing, loving and serving from our doorsteps to the ends of the earth. Half of your gift supports the local new church movement through your region’s ministry. The other half supports New Church Ministry efforts across the United States and Canada to equip, train, and empower new leaders.
So, thank you for participating in the new thing God is still doing — just as in the beginning.
Save the date
Wesley King, a recent graduate from Lexington Theological Seminary, will be ordained to the Christian ministry on August 12, 2023. Congratulations, Wesley!
The service will take place at Vine Street Christian Church, but the time still needs to be confirmed.
All members and friends of the congregation are invited to attend!
We will share additional details as they become available.
Alive is too precious to lose
My friend David Barton, one of the founders of Alive Hospice, asked me to share this note with congregants and neighbors. I gladly do so; I share his concern, and I have signed the petition.
Thomas Kleinert, Senior Minister
Alive Hospice’s Advisory Board members, former board and staff members, donors and supporters have mobilized to keep Alive from being sold to a for-profit corporation. Alive is the only non-profit hospice in Middle Tennessee. Because its mission is to serve patients and not shareholders, donors make it possible for Alive to go above and beyond standard hospice care.
A 2023 RAND Corporation study (JAMA, Feb, 2023) yielded results saying that family caregivers reported worse care experiences at for-profit hospices than at not-for-profit hospices.
In 2000, 30% of all hospices were for-profit. By 2020, that percentage had grown to 73%, primarily due to acquisitions of non-profits. The for-profit hospices care structure likely is influenced by having to answer to stockholders.
The coalition formed to save Alive includes a billboard campaign and petition drive. The petition, “Keep Alive Hospice Not-For-Profit”, now has more than than 1900 signatures and continues to grow. Please add your name to the petition. I would appreciate your help in spreading the word: Alive is too precious to lose.
Alive, was founded in 1975 by myself and the late Dr. John Flexner along with Lynn Barton. It is the nation’s third oldest hospice and the first in the Southeast. It now serves patients in 10 Middle Tennessee counties, with residential facilities in Nashville and Murfreesboro.
Thank you,
David Barton
Thank you, teachers!
Sharing our gratitude for teachers is year round as we experience them in our lives and the influence they have in our learning. This Sunday, May 7, we will conclude our writing notes of appreciation for the faculty at West End Middle School. If you took cards last Sunday to finish remember to bring them Sunday as delivery to the school will be the morning of May 8. Last week they were surprised during testing week with bagels and orange juice!
You are all greatly appreciated by the faculty, staff and students for your support of school supplies, warm winter clothing and occasional treats. Thank You All!
My treat
Plastic-free cards are awesome
During the last Room In The Inn season we passed out more than 140 fast food gift cards to our guests - almost all of them donated by congregants. Thank you! We started the season with a selection of restaurants and card values, and we discovered that McDonald’s was by far the favorite: for most of our guests it was simply the most accessible.
We are planning a sock and underwear drive for the end of the summer, but several congregants suggested that we collect $10 McDonald’s gift cards year-round - you could, e.g., budget one $10 lunch a month, and that would add up to a nice stack of cards by November, when the Room In The Inn season begins. So, we’re starting our lunch extravaganza now, and we thank you for your generous support!
You may buy $10 McDonald’s gift cards at any of their restaurants, or you can go plastic-free by purchasing four paper cards (Kroger on Hwy 100 in Bellevue sells them). Simply drop them in the offering plate on Sunday or give them to Katie or Thomas. If you prefer, you may also write a check, memo: RITI lunch, and we’ll purchase the cards. Whichever option you choose - we are grateful, and so are our guests!
Celebrating Graduates
On May 21, we will celebrate graduates - high school, apprenticeship, college, grad school, you name it! We are proud of you and what you have accomplished. Please use this form to share some details with us, and we hope you’ll be able to join us in worship on May 21 so we can applaud you and wish you well in person!
A house for all
As a congregation, we are committed to sharing our building with our neighbors. We look at it as God’s house, entrusted to our care and stewardship. Many groups meet at Vine Street on a regular basis, and we celebrate this dimension of our ministry:
Nouvelle Alliance Christian Church: a Disciples congregation with roots in the Democratic Republic of Congo;
All Saints Church of Christ: a weekly gathering of members of Churches of Christ who want to explore liturgical forms of worship;
Insight Counseling Centers: we’re proud to be one of several locations in Middle Tennessee, where Insight therapists provide excellent mental health care for clients of all income levels. Room 4 in the education wing is dedicated for their use;
Moms at prayer: Four groups of mothers meet to pray for the students and teachers of Montgomery Bell Academy;
MBA Bible Study: a group of MBA students meet weekly before school;
AA groups: three AA groups and a Double Winners group meet weekly;
Brass Band of Nashville: the band uses our building for weekly rehearsals and several concerts each year;
Penuel Ridge Retreat Center: the board of directors enjoys meeting monthly in the chapel.
These are the groups that use our building weekly or monthly. In addition, there are other groups and non-profits, e.g. Senior Ride Nashville, who have met here for board retreats and other events. We are grateful for the opportunity to provide this service to our community!
Bagels for teachers
The end of the school year is approaching, and ‘t is the season to be … well, nobody gets too excited about state standardized tests. To show our love for our teachers, Carol Doidge and Laura Miller will surprise the staff at West End Middle School with a bagel breakfast from Vine Street. Thanks to our teachers, and thanks to Carol and Laura for coordinating this gesture of appreciation!
A Word from the Chair
Our annual stewardship campaign is coming to a close.
Have you made your pledge of financial or time resources yet? If not, it’s definitely not too late.
As we’ve explored the necessity of this year’s theme, “Come Together,” we’ve heard from a number of our members and friends about how and why giving of time, talent and resources is important to them:
Jeff talked about the church’s vital role in providing safety and hope through the past few years as the world was turned upside down.
Ed and Pat talked about the impact of past members’ commitment to Vine Street on the life of the church and community today.
Gayle talked about feeling welcomed by the members of Vine Street, and loved and cared for.
Liam and Gia talked about their leadership roles in the church, and how Vine Street is such a loving and supporting community.
Our younger children talked about (and sang about) how the church leads them to know they are loved by God, and by the members of the church.
Doug talked about the ways in which our time commitments to the church are vital to sustaining the Spirit, in addition to the ways our financial gifts support our continued commitment to following the teachings of Jesus.
Lydia and Dair reminded us of the many big and small loves that make up our church at Vine Street, and how important each is to the wholeness of our community.
And Abi wrote Come Together, a special hymn we will sing for the first time in worship on Sunday, April 16.
Love, care, support, impact, guidance, commitment and wholeness. These common themes ring throughout and are a large part of what makes Vine Street a deeply special community.
Your financial gifts, and your gift of time, help ensure that this community continues to be a place that nurtures and supports believers of all ages as well as continuing to be a light in the darkness for our Nashville community at large.
How did we end up here?
Bill McKibben is an award-winning author, activist, educator. Like many of us, he grew up believing—knowing—that the United States was the greatest country on earth. As a teenager, he cheerfully led American Revolution tours in Lexington, Massachusetts. He sang “Kumbaya” at church. And with the remarkable rise of suburbia, he assumed that all Americans would share in the wealth. But fifty years later, he finds himself in an increasingly doubtful nation strained by bleak racial and economic inequality, on a planet whose future is in peril. And he is curious: What the hell happened?
We invite congregants and neighbors to come together and talk about his book, The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon. Those of us who, like McKibben, are members of the boomer generation, what are our memories? Those of us who were born in the generations before or after, what is our take on how we got where we find ourselves? McKibben is not without hope. And he wonders if any of that trinity of his youth—the flag, the cross, the station wagon—could, or should, be reclaimed in the fight for a fairer future. Would you like to be part of the conversation? Let us know of your interest in this book group and some of your schedule preferences, so we can confirm additional details soon.
Linking Arms for Change
In the current political climate, big change may have to come in small steps, former Governors Bredesen and Haslam recently argued in a column. Voices for a Safer Tennessee embraces that approach, and invites Tennesseans to come together to find common ground. You can show your support by signing up for this event on Tuesday. On the sign-up form, list Vine Street Christian Church as your group, so we can stand together.
Summer Camp
In Defense of Kindness
Book groups to launch April 25 and 26
These days many of us view kindness as an inert act based on the absence of being a jerk, or we see it as heroic and herculean, beyond the reach and capability of mere mortals. But what if kindness was a practice we could each choose, every day, as a way to experience community and wholeness in new, life-giving, world-changing ways?
In his insightful book In Defense of Kindness, leadership coach and pastor Bruce Reyes-Chow shows how being kind (which is different than being nice) has the power to transform our relationships in all arenas of our life – from the internet to the public square, from those closest to us to those we find it hardest to be kind to, from justice work on the streets to meetings in the boardroom, and from the line at the coffee shop to the line for school drop-off.
To join one of the two book groups, please sign up and get your copy of the book (both print or e-book versions are available). For each of the five sessions, participants read approximately 20, easy-to-read, pages.
Tuesdays at 5pm, April 25 - May 23
Wednesdays at 9am, April 26 - May 24
Easter Special Offering
Several times a year, congregations receive a special offering to support the ministries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). These gifts are given above and beyond the regular core support of Disciples Mission Fund.
The Easter Offering, received by most congregations on April 2 & 9, 2023, supports college students in leadership development programs, global mission partners, health and social service ministries, the formation of new congregations, support for pastors and chaplains, and so much more.
Thank you for your support! Contributions may be made online as well as by mailing your check to the church, memo: Easter Special Offering. In worship, we provide envelopes that can be dropped in the offering plate.
Gift to Support Community Ministry Grants
Several weeks ago, Thomas received a phone call from a former member of Vine Street who said she wanted to send a gift to support the Community Ministry Grants she had read about. The donor wishes to remain anonymous but agreed to speak with us about her gift. Pat Cole, who chairs the Community Ministry Grants team, talked with her.
When were you in Nashville?
I lived in Nashville for 35 years and worked for Metro Government, HCA and MNPS as a physical education and Lifetime Wellness teacher. I came to Vine Street in the late eighties.
How did you connect with Vine Street?
My parents were active in the Disciples of Christ church in Kentucky where my dad served on the boards of local and national church committees. My mom played the piano for our local church. At first, I would attend Vine Street and sit in the back. One day, an older woman spoke to me and said, “Love to have your friendship.” We became friends, and I will never forget that I knew this church welcomed me.
Any special memories of Vine Street?
I joined a group that Linda Parker led and met people like Joyce Crowell and Sherri Blair. Joe Keith was a lifesaver for me on several home projects!
What prompted your current gift of $50,000 to the Community Ministry Grants?
I always wanted to give 10% to the church and non-profits that support kids, older adults and animal welfare. I have a heart for those three groups. I saw in the e-news that Vine Street had given grants to several organizations and ministries in Nashville that provide shelter, food and assistance to several groups I would like to support, so I called Thomas.
What is your vision for the use of this gift?
I would like to see grants made to smaller non-profits that support young people, older people and animals, especially animal groups that take in pets from women in domestic violence situations, or the unhoused, or rescuing pets from older people who can no longer care for the pet. Pet overpopulation is a concern for me, so perhaps a center that does spay and neuter. There used to be a summer camp at Nashville Humane Society for youth and I would be happy to see some kids from Vine Street be able to participate. I know that Vine Street will use the money wisely and that my church will help those out there who are doing good things in the Nashville community.
Pat Cole again conveyed our gratitude for the donor’s gift of stocks valued at more than $50,000. “I will relay your vision to the Community Ministry Grants committee. Thank you for your generosity to help children and youth, older adults and animals through Vine Street Christian Church.”