Hanging of the Greens

Thanksgiving dinner - the recipe for the stuffing is from grandma, uncle Phil always takes care of the turkey, the pumpkin pie travels about 500 miles, and everybody at the table knows the story about aunt Rachel's squash casserole.

We know the traditions, and when the children are old enough to sit at the "big" table, they have learned the stories that go with every dish. Yes, it was Jan who introduced the cranberry sauce whith horseradish in it - must have been 1987 or 1988. She heard it on the radio.

At Vine Street, we have a beautiful tradition to mark the beginning of Advent. On the Wednesday night after the first Sunday of Advent, we gather in the sanctuary for the Hanging of the Greens. We sing some of our favorite carols (before we get tired of hearing them in every mall, bank lobby, and gas station); we hear stories about bells, stars, evergreens, and poinsettias; we deck the sanctuary with wreaths, garlands, and candles; we watch the great star as it rises over the baptistery; we say a prayer or two that our hearts may be prepared to welcome the birth of Christ. And afterwards, we enjoy some cookies and cider.

This is a festive and yet quite informal service we all enjoy - from our little three-year-olds to our eighty-three-year olds. It's a great way to enter the gates of Advent. It's a great way to learn the stories behind some of our Chrismas traditions. And it's a great way to make new friends. Come and join us on Wednesday, December 2, at 6 PM for the Hanging of the Greens.

Every Single Person

These are remarks Greg Bailey, Chair of the Board of Elders, shared with the congregation on Sunday, November 8.

Two summers ago, we engaged in a spiritual strategic journey to create a vision for Vine Street Christian Church. Our prayer triplets talked and prayed and conversed about our church and who we would be in 2019. We captured the ideas and thoughts of every single person and created a future story through a journey of 100 days of prayer.

As we speed towards 2010, it is now time to further our dreams. The Official Board is considering a budget that does not merely tread water, but moves our congregation forward. Our 2010 budget includes partial-year funding for an associate minister position, giving us six months to identify the right candidate to join our faith journey.

Our 2010 budget will likely include the creation of a property maintenance fund. For the first time, we will set aside money on an annualized basis to end a legacy of deferred maintenance. This will allow us to create and maintain a 20-year property maintenance plan.

Coupled with a recently approved Congregational Strategic Plan, our Journey is gathering steam. Every single person in this room, and those who considers himself or herself a member of this community has a stake in these dreams.

On November 22, the path of our Journey will come right down this center aisle as we make and dedicate our financial commitments to the church for next year.

Every single person who makes a pledge in our campaign is saying,  “This is the journey that I wish to take. This is the time to move forward, to realize the future of this congregation.”

Every single person who comes on board will be a witness to the fulfillment of our future.

Every single person who steps forward and gives just a little extra in 2010 will be charting the next steps of this historic congregation.

But it will take every single one of us - every single person - to make this happen.

Come on along, every single one of you, and live our dream.

Homelessness & Peace

District 7 Councilman Erik Cole

NASHVILLE, Tenn. –Metro Nashville District 7 Councilman Erik Cole will present the 2009 Roger T. Nooe Lectureship on World Peace at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 8 at Vine Street Christian Church, 4101 Harding Road.

Cole—drawing from his experience as a low-income housing expert and as the chair of the Metropolitan Homelessness Commission—will speak toward improving synergies among government services, nonprofit organizations and religious communities to address the causes and consequences of homelessness.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

New for 2009, the Nooe lecture is tied to the Vine Street’s current Homelessness: 360 program. Through this integrated approach, the congregation utilizes education, advocacy, service and worship to increase its awareness of homelessness issues, specifically, and poverty issues, in general. Inviting the public to join its efforts, there is hope for providing relief to local persons in need. 

“For the world to know peace, it must address the problem of poverty,” Vine Street Senior Minister Thomas Kleinert said. “Poverty is a systemic issue—here in Nashville and around the world—and a lack of housing makes all other problems related to poverty worse. So, housing is a good point of entry into the complexities of loving and serving the poor among our neighbors.” 

Cole knows this to be true in his day-to-day work. A well-known local justice advocate, the District 7 councilman serves as the Executive Director of the Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services, a statewide network of low-income civil legal service providers. TALS works to ensure that every low-income Tennessean has timely access to the justice system.  

On the Metro Council, Cole has served as chairman of the Budget and Finance Committee and President Pro Tempore of the Council, having been elected by his peers in 2006. He chaired the Council Health, Hospitals and Social Services Committee. Cole also serves on several community and non-profit boards and committees focused on affordable housing, sustainable development, and equal rights.

A native of Nashville, Cole grew up attending Vine Street Christian Church. Cole is married to Jennifer Gilligan Cole and is the father of two children. He is a graduate of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. 

In response to Cole’s lecture and Homelessness: 360 program, Vine Street Christian Church will kick-off another season as a host for Room In the Inn on on Sunday, Nov. 15. Room In the Inn is a local outreach working with 151 area congregations to provide food and shelter for 185-225 people each night during the coldest months of the year.

Vine Street Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is one of Nashville’s oldest congregations and the community’s oldest church of the Stone-Campbell movement. The congregation traces its roots to a Nashville church that formed in 1826 and formally adopted the principles of Disciples of Christ founder Alexander Campbell in May 1828. The church occupied several locations in downtown Nashville before building a sanctuary on Nashville’s old Vine Street (now Seventh Avenue North) in 1889 and formally adopting the name Vine Street Christian Church. The congregation moved to its present location at 4101 Harding Road in 1958 and is affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), a Protestant denomination of about 700,000 members in the United States and Canada. 

Vine Street established the Roger T. Nooe Lectureship on World Peace in 1988 as a memorial to Dr. Nooe (pronounced Know-ee), the church’s senior minister between 1925-1951. Nooe’s ministry reflected a lifelong commitment to promoting world peace and religious ecumenism. The lectureship perpetuates Dr. Nooe's hope of a universal peace and a unified church.

For more information, call the church office at 615/269-5614 or contact Thomas Kleinert, senior minister, at thomas@vinestreet.org. 

New Ministry Project

homelessness : 360 is a ministry project that brings together what belongs together.

Too often we treat ministry like a pizza: a slice of worship, a slice of education, a slice of service in the community… But ministry is more like a circle where all points are defined by the common center.

Our worship, our study, our work, our fellowship, all share a common center in the God who meets us in Jesus Christ.

homelessness : 360 brings together all dimensions of our ministry around just one issue, homelessness.

At Vine Street, over the course of approximately four weeks

• we pray every day, guided by a simple question like, “What do I look forward to when I go home at night?”
• we visit places like the Oasis Center and Campus for Human Development;
• we listen to speakers who have left behind easy answers a long time ago, but won’t stop pushing for better responses;
• we learn together how and why women, men, and children lose their homes;
• we build little houses for our hopes and our sorrows;
• we watch movies that help us imagine and understand the reality of not having a home;
• we bring the little houses we have built and filled with our prayers to worship and we build a city with them;
• we make beds, prepare meals, open the doors, and invite homeless men to spend the night and tell their stories.

No, we won’t look at the complexities of homelessness from every angle, but we will go full circle in engaging with them: with all our heart, mind, and strength. This is how we love and serve our God. This is how we love and serve our neighbor.

If Grace Is True

As part of our Forum for Adult Christian Education (FACE), Ami Faenza is leading a 6-week book study at Vine Street on Sunday mornings, 9:30 AM, that began on October 11.

The study group is based on the book If Grace Is True: Why God Will Save Every Person by Philip Gulley and James Mulholland. One reviewer wrote, "hell fire and brimstone have really never made sense to me," and recommended this "kind and gentle argument for Christian universalism ... for those whose childhood Christian ideology no longer seems to fit."

For additional information see this page.