Immersion trip

On Sunday, a group from Vine Street will be traveling to Tucson, AZ for an immersion trip.

Participants are Dair Grubb, Meda Miller, Liam Dixon, Quinn Moseley, Calin Trabue, Margie Quinn and Jeff Miller.

The trip is planned and coordinated by Be the Neighbor, a ministry affiliated with the Disciples of Christ and the United Church of Christ; Allison Lanza, a former Vine Street intern, is one of the founders and co-directors. 

“Tucson, Arizona is 60 miles from the border of Mexico. …  Groups have the opportunity to explore what loving and welcoming our neighbors looks like through interactive experiences dedicated to growing your understanding around immigration, refugees, and persons seeking asylum. Weekly opportunities include desert walks, humanitarian aid, preparing and serving meals, building projects, learning about the immigration process, activism and advocacy. …  Each day includes a morning gathering with a biblical reflection and videos to learn more about immigration and the partner organizations for the day, hands-on activities with non-profits, connect time and free time. Connect time is our justice based curriculum that will help your group connect what you are doing on your trip with how your will put your faith into action in new ways with immigrants when you return home.” —from the trip description

Your gifts to Vine Street and the generosity of leaders like Jeff Miller make transformative experiences like this possible. Thank you!

During the summer, Vine Street is hosting groups who come to Nashville with Be the Neighbor to explore homelessness and housing.

Welcome, Margie!

Margie’s first day with us, before she takes off on the immersion trip to Tucson, is Thursday, June 15. Let’s surprise her with a basket of welcome cards and letters! Please mail your envelope to the church or drop it off in person, in time for the basket to be assembled on Wednesday morning. Feel free to include a picture or photo, or your favorite poem (Margie loves poetry).

We are making plans for an installation service during worship on July 9, with a reception to follow, as well as for other informal opportunities to get to know Margie.

Congregational meeting

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:

1. Extreme Risk Protection Orders

2. Universal background checks, and

3. 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.

Please consider making your pledge today.

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