Welcome to the We Are Vineyard podcast. In celebration of the Advent season, you will hear a short devotion each week specially crafted for you by a member of one of Vineyard USA’s Associations. Today’s theme is Peace, and Joshua Miller represents the Black Pastors and Leaders Association with a devotion about the variations in our experiences of peace, and the Peace that comes only from being with God. Then we’ll hear Christ the King from Heaven and Earth, featuring Joshua Miller & Tyler Jarvis.

Joshua Miller is a pastor, songwriter, vocalist, musician, and worship leader, currently serving as Associate Pastor and on the Senior Leadership Team at Vineyard Columbus. With a heart for worship and a gift for leadership, Joshua brings both creativity and strategic insight into his role. 

He is the founder of Heaven and Earth, a worship collective composed of worship leaders, vocalists, musicians, and writers from within the Vineyard Columbus community. The collective exists to cultivate authentic worship and foster collaboration among artists and leaders. 

Joshua has been featured in partnership with Vineyard Worship and Integrity Music, contributing to several widely recognized worship projects. His work includes songs such as “Eternal Light,” “This Joy,” “Cherry Blossoms,” “You’re Carrying Me,” “Behold,” and “Roll Like a River.” These songs reflect his heart for the Church and his passion for creating worship that is both spiritually grounded and artistically rich. 

Joshua is married to Alicia, a licensed clinical counselor, and together they are raising three energetic, strong, and beautiful daughters—along with their dogs, Leo and Bettie.

 

Show Notes: 

Black Pastors and Leaders Association 

Christ the King by Heaven and Earth, featuring Joshua Miller and Tyler Jarvis

Welcome to the We Are Vineyard podcast. In celebration of the Advent season, you will hear a short devotion each week specially crafted for you by a member of one of Vineyard USA’s Associations, followed by a song curated by the Vineyard Worship team. Today’s theme is Hope, and Donna Ackermann represents the Hispanic Association with a beautiful reflection on holding fast to the hope of Jesus through the twists and turns of life, after which we’ll hear Padre Nuestro from Vineyard Worship featuring Carlabigail Hernandez.

Since 2020, Donna has co-pastored the Vineyard Longmont with her husband Alex in northern Colorado. They are currently in the process of buying their first church building and having another church merge with them. They planted their first Vineyard in the 80s with 5 small children, and Donna has pioneered worship in two other church plants/campuses. She serves as the Communications & Events Director for the Vineyard Hispanic Association. She has been in various church ministry roles for over 38 years and worked with a nationwide Christian radio talk show. Donna is ordained, a certified bilingual Spiritual Director and a trained Vineyard coach. She has been married for over 40 years to her best friend, has 5 adult children, a daughter-in-law & 2 beautiful grandchildren. Her 89-year-old Panamanian mother lives with them. She is a foodie, loves international food, and has a growing backyard orchard of 5 fruit trees, many berry bushes, and grapevines. She dreams of someday planting a La Viña.

In this episode of We Are Vineyard, Jay chats with Christian Dunn about the importance of the teenage years, and how commitment and time are vital to forming relationships with youth. Christian talks about annual nationwide youth camps, Project Timothy, and the ministry fruit he’s seen in young adults who attended Project Timothy as teens. Christian also shares some encouragement for parents of teens. 

Christian and his wife Mandy pastor CityLight Vineyard Church in Newark DE which they planted in 2017.  He has worked in youth ministry for three decades has had the pleasure of serving as the East Region Youth Task Force Leader and the VUSA National Youth Director. He is the author of “Finding the One: How Dating Prepares You For Marriage” and “More Than Spectators: Empowering Teens for Ministry.” He is excited about imparting to young people a passion for following Jesus, discovering their gifts, and pursuing their ministry callings.

 

Show Notes: 

Vineyard USA’s Day of Giving 2025 

Hear more of Christian’s story

Vineyard Youth USA

Project Timothy 

Alpha Youth

In this episode of We Are Vineyard, Jay and Jason George talk about the gift of generosity, the responsibility of stewardship, and the discipleship opportunities available in this conversation. They also discuss some practical matters such as wills and legacy giving, the outcomes of last year’s Day of Giving, and the goals and focus of this year’s Day of Giving. 

 

Jason George is the Chief Development Officer for Vineyard USA. Jason was born in Toledo, Ohio, but considers himself a Columbus kid because that’s where he survived & sometimes thrived during middle school & high school. Deciding to stay in Columbus, he earned a B.A. in Journalism from The Ohio State University, and also met Jesus. 

That decision has shaped all of Jason’s life since. Following Christ led him to full-time vocational ministry for 14 years after graduation. That time included serving on a staff with a local Central Ohio church for two years and then 12 years between two parachurch organizations.  Along the way, he also graduated from the Vineyard Leadership Institute (VLI). During his time in ministry, he spent 5 years in Central Asia focusing on bringing the Gospel to local communities so that churches could be raised up. Jason believes living and serving overseas transformed much of his understanding of what it means to live with a Kingdom mindset.

After returning from his last stint overseas in 2015 Jason went through a very difficult season of change and needed growth. That’s when he found his current church home, Delaware City Vineyard (in Delaware, Ohio), and learned how to transfer that Kingdom paradigm, along with his skills, to a career in fundraising. He started that new phase of his career as an Associate Director of Leadership Annual Giving at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center before becoming a Development Officer with Kenyon College. Jason feels that all his experience in ministry and educational fundraising has uniquely equipped him for this role to help support the vision of Vineyard USA to see more churches planted that “Embrace the Kingdom and engage the world.”

Jason is married to Jill and has 4 kids – Vera, Jonah, Seva & Coen. They keep life busy, full, and mostly fun. Lately, their goal together as a family is to choose to cultivate a posture of learning, laughing, and loving… not necessarily in that order.

 

Show Notes: 

Day of Giving 2025

Day of Giving Media Kit 

Vineyard Leadership Essentials 

Sign up for the VUSA Monthly  

In this episode of We Are Vineyard, Jay talks with Kirsten Schwartz about growing up in a military family, cultivating a meaningful career in urban planning, and the family crisis that led her to join a church staff (tw: brief mention of infant loss). Kirsten shares about her research on building a culture of generosity within a congregation, how to raise money without running campaigns, and how generosity aligns with stewardship.  

After years of serving as the Director of Generosity at a large church in Cincinnati, Kirsten Schwartz, our Director of Church Partnerships, is a trusted resource for empowering the church to live and give generously. Kirsten has a passion for helping churches navigate around obstacles and complications to grow a culture of generosity.

Because her father was an Air Force pilot, Kirsten grew up in many places including Japan and Germany. She has two degrees: a masters in urban redevelopment from the University of Pennsylvania and in landscape architecture from Clemson University. She worked professionally in urban redevelopment with a focus in disaster recovery for cities around the country.

Kirsten met her husband, Jason, at a triathlon in Florida. They live together in Cincinnati, Ohio with two children, Asher and Evelyn. Kirsten loves being active, sharing the good news of Jesus, and empowering women to lead in the Kingdom.

 

Show Notes: 

Learn more about JOGs and Generous Giving  

Here’s a video for Pastors on how Generous Giving can help them create a culture of generosity at no cost to them. 

Follow Generous Giving on socials: 

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/GenerousGiving

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/generous.giving/

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/generous-giving

In this episode of We Are Vineyard, Jay chats with Chris Jensen about how a blue-haired punk rock kid ended up in ministry, the prayer that interrupted his life, and learning to be himself in a secular work environment. Chris talks about becoming an organizational health consultant, the role of artificial harmony in the dysfunction of the Church, and markers of health he’s looking for when working with a team. Finally, Chris shares why he decided to work with the Vineyard, and what he’d like to say to Vineyard pastors. 

Chris brings over 15 years of experience to his partnership with The Table Group. Whether he's working with a CEO and their leadership team, addressing groups of leaders during a conference or workshop, or counseling a client one-on-one, Chris brings his passion, enthusiasm and contagious optimism for organizational health to every client he touches.

Currently, Chris works regularly with CEOs and executive teams in quickly and effectively applying the concepts related to organizational health. His clients span a broad spectrum of various industries, including aerospace, consumer goods, health care, technology, education and local churches.

Chris has extensive first hand experience building high-performing teams by implementing the models in his own teams under pressure to produce results. 

Prior to partnering with The Table Group, Chris worked for InsideTrack, a San Francisco based technology and service organization, in the enterprise education segment. Before that, he worked in the ministry for nearly 10 years in California. He received his degree in Biblical Studies from Patten University.

Chris lives with his wife and five children in Portland, Oregon. 

 

Show notes: 

Vineyard USA’s Day of Giving 2025 

The Table Group 

5 Dysfunctions of a Team 

The Advantage by Patrick M. Lencioni