In this episode of We Are Vineyard, Jay Pathak talks with Mike and Julie Yoder about each of their early years and how they met, how they’ve navigated career paths in faith, and their process of transitioning into leadership of an established church. They also discuss working through disillusionment, and how character is shaped through risks of faith and obedience.

Mike and Julie Yoder serve as the Senior Pastors of The Vineyard Church of Central Illinois and have recently accepted a role as Regional Leaders for the Midwest Central Region. Mike grew up in Arthur, Illinois as a Mennonite. He came to the Vineyard in the early 2000s and fell in love with the Holy Spirit and a girl. Mike decided to make the Vineyard his home and marry the girl. He graduated with a degree in Business Administration and Christian Studies from Crown College in 2002. Mike went on to spend 13 years in the business sector before joining the staff at The Vineyard Church of Central Illinois in 2015. Mike has a passion for organizational clarity, community partnerships, tackling tough conversations, and doing Holy Spirit ministry. He is currently getting his Masters of Divinity from Global Awakening Theological Seminary. Julie grew up in Champaign, Illinois, and was raised in the Vineyard. She earned a degree in Elementary Education from Olivet Nazarene University in 2004 and spent 4 years as a public school reading teacher. Julie is a 2009 Vineyard Leadership Institute graduate. She has spent over 15 years communicating, leading, and developing others. Julie is passionate about helping people encounter Jesus and partner with the Holy Spirit in their everyday lives. She leads the preaching team and is committed to helping communicators find their voice. Together, Mike and Julie are committed to building and cultivating the Kingdom culture of family in their church. They love partnering in ministry and in parenting their four children; Ty, Tate, Maggie, and Molly.

Show Notes:

The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni

Sign up for a regional gathering near you!

Vineyard Church of Central Illinois

School of Kingdom Ministry (SoKM)

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In this episode of We Are Vineyard, Steve Nicholson shares about the process of deciding for himself to follow the Lord, his early evangelism experiences, and the Holy Spirit encounter that changed it all! He and Jay also talk about what Steve sees happening in the church today amongst different generations.

Steve Nicholson began ministering as a college student through InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in the early 1970s. After graduation, he moved to the Chicago area where he and several other twenty-something leaders founded a church. That fellowship, begun in 1976 in Evanston, Illinois, placed a high priority on contemporary worship, biblical teaching, openness to the Holy Spirit, and committed relationships as a church family.

In 1981, Steve and a team from the fellowship established a new church in Humboldt Park, a neighborhood in Chicago’s inner city. Both churches joined Vineyard USA in August of 1985, and Steve transferred leadership of the Humboldt Park Vineyard to one of his team members in 1986.

The Evanston Vineyard is a diverse congregation from over 50 nations of the world with no majority racial or cultural group. Since 1986 the ministry of the Holy Spirit has been a regular and ongoing strength and emphasis of the Evanston Vineyard.

Steve and his wife, Cindy, live in Chicago. They have three adult children and eight grandchildren.

Show Notes:

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In this episode of We Are Vineyard, Jordan Seng shares the tumultuous story of his younger years and growing up as a “wild Christian”, his first experiences in the church and how always feeling different may have been a hidden blessing. He and Jay then talk about Jordan’s experience of doing ministry in a rough neighborhood, his perspective on living out faith, and some of what the Holy Spirit is doing in his church today.

Dr. Jordan Seng and his wife Sonya are lead pastors of Bluewater Mission, a creative, justice-oriented church in Honolulu, Hawaii. Jordan is author of Miracle Work: A Down-to-Earth-Guide to Supernatural Ministries, and the upcoming Life of Try. He has ministered broadly through church-planting, teaching, healing and prophecy, and has led training conferences for every major Christian denomination and numerous para-church and missions organizations in North America, Europe, Latin America, East Asia, South Asia and the Caribbean. Jordan holds a degree in political theory from Stanford University and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He was a National Security Fellow at the School of Government at Harvard. He’s an avid sailor and owns two U.S patents for marine technologies. He has two teenage children.

Show Notes:

Jordan’s Church

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In this episode of We Are Vineyard, Jay and Julia Pickerill reminisce about their younger years together in youth and young adult ministry. They talk about the importance of embodied connection over simply teaching information and how Julia was changed by being exposed to a theology of the local church. Julia also passes on a crucial word about longevity in pastoring.

In January of 2021, Julia Pickerill became one of the Senior Pastors of the Columbus Vineyard alongside her husband Eric, succeeding Rich Nathan, who founded the church in 1987. Julia and Eric have been a part of the Vineyard movement for twenty-five years, during which time they’ve held multiple roles in the Columbus Vineyard and served as church planters and Lead Pastors of Vineyard Amsterdam (Netherlands). They returned to the US in 2015 and transitioned into senior leadership of Vineyard Columbus in January 2021. Julia is a nine on the enneagram, is a really bad cook, dislikes writing speaker bios, has three fabulous kids, and relaxes by reading novels about existential threats.

Show Notes:

The Singer Trilogy by Calvin Miller

The Tower of Geburah by John White

In this episode of We Are Vineyard, Jay sits down with Dennis Liu to talk about his recent transition to lead pastor of Vineyard of Hope church, and some of the conversations and considerations unique to a leadership transition in an immigrant church. Dennis shares about the “silent exodus” of young people from immigrant churches, some of the cultural blessings and challenges, and some of his dreams for the Asian American church, particularly relating to worship.

Dennis Liu is the leader of the Asian American Association for Vineyard USA and the lead pastor of Vineyard of Hope church in Walnut, CA (formerly known as Vineyard of Harvest). Having grown up in a Christian family in NJ, he feels extremely blessed with a rich Christian heritage. It was during his high school years that he began to sense that the Lord was calling him into full-time ministry. At the time, he ignored the call out of selfishness simply because he wanted to make a lot of money and become successful in the world’s eyes. Subsequently, he enrolled at Cornell University in the fall of 1996 with the intention of going on to medical school upon graduation. The Lord continued to work on his heart through his college years, and the calling of full-time ministry didn’t decrease but grew stronger. After college, the door opened up for him to come out to CA to minister after he graduated from college and to begin attending Fuller Theological Seminary. In May 2000, he headed out to CA and began to intern at Vineyard of Hope Church while pursuing a Master of Arts in Intercultural Studies at Fuller. Over time, the ministry grew, and he joined the staff of the church on a full-time basis as the minister to the English congregation. In June 2005, he graduated from Fuller, and in 2007, he was ordained as a pastor. In 2011, he married Evangeline, who graduated with a Master of Divinity from Talbot Seminary. They have two sons named Silas and Levi and a daughter named Jubilee. Dennis and Evangeline are excited about the future of this congregation and envision a church that plants many churches!

Show Notes:

Vineyard of Hope Church

In this episode of We Are Vineyard, Jay talks with worship leader and songwriter, author and National Director of Vineyard Canada, David Ruis. David shares some things he’s been learning about the story of God through his own story of adoption, the work of music in his life, and some stories of his early encounters with the Holy Spirit and his process of reconciling them with his Baptist upbringing. David also shares his heart in seeking the Lord to hear what He wants to do during any gathering or time of worship and his practice of coming with expectation that the Lord is with us.

David and Anita Ruis have lead, encourage, and empowered the Vineyard in Canada as the National Directors since 2014. David is a well-respected worship leader and songwriter (You’re Worthy Of My Praise, Every Move I Make, and much more). His most recent album, When Justice Shines, was released through ION Records. David has also authored two books: The Worship God Is Seeking and The Justice God Is Seeking. As a team David and Anita are also known to be effective church planters and seasoned pastors having established churches in Canada and the US. David has also been instrumental in seeing Vineyard communities established in Nepal and India. Much of the Ruises’ focus has been in indigenous settings, working with people experiencing poverty and subsequent marginalization. They also have significant experience facilitating leadership development and on the creative side David is known for fostering originality in song-writing and the arts in various cultural settings.

A burning passion for the Ruises is both practical and theological integration of creative worship in church community, and deep life engagement with issues of poverty and social injustice. The Ruises currently reside in Kelowna, BC. In their down time they love to be creative and hang with their grandkids.

Show Notes:

The Worship God is Seeking by David Ruis

The Justice God is Seeking by David Ruis

Miracle Work by Jordan Seng

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This episode of We Are Vineyard is the second in a 2-part conversation between Jay and Tish Harrison Warren. Tish shares some of her best practices and tangible steps for writing, along with wisdom about how to know what conversations will benefit from contributing your voice. Tish and Jay then discuss the impacts of social media on our thinking, and the damage done to the witness of Jesus by how Christians treat each other online. Finally, Tish shares how her book Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work, or Watch, or Weep came to be, how she discovered she was using theology to avoid real faith questions, and her thoughts on suffering and joy.

Tish Harrison Warren is a priest in the Anglican Church in North America. She is the author of Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life (Christianity Today’s 2018 Book of the Year) and Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work, or Watch, or Weep (Christianity Today’s 2022 Book of the Year).

Currently, Tish writes a weekly newsletter for The New York Times, and she is a columnist for Christianity Today. Her articles and essays have appeared in Religion News Service, Christianity Today, Comment Magazine, The Point Magazine, The New York Times, and elsewhere.

For over a decade, Tish has worked in ministry settings as a campus minister with InterVarsity Graduate and Faculty Ministries, as an associate rector, and with addicts and those in poverty through various churches and non-profit organizations. Now, Tish serves as Writer in Residence at Resurrection South Austin. She is a founding member of The Pelican Project and a Senior Fellow with the Trinity Forum. She lives with her husband and three children in the Austin, Texas area.

This episode of We Are Vineyard is the first in a 2-part conversation between Jay and Tish Harrison Warren. Tish shares about her youthful realization that she was called to ministry and how she walked that path as a young woman in the Baptist church. They then move into discussing how to navigate marriage and parenting roles when each spouse has a similar calling, and celebrating each other’s wholeness in vocation while balancing the practical needs of the family, travel and work schedules. This is a beautiful and honest conversation about gender roles, faith and family. Come back next week for part 2!

Tish Harrison Warren is a priest in the Anglican Church in North America. She is the author of Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life (Christianity Today’s 2018 Book of the Year) and Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work, or Watch, or Weep (Christianity Today’s 2022 Book of the Year).

Currently, Tish writes a weekly newsletter for The New York Times, and she is a columnist for Christianity Today. Her articles and essays have appeared in Religion News Service, Christianity Today, Comment Magazine, The Point Magazine, The New York Times, and elsewhere.

For over a decade, Tish has worked in ministry settings as a campus minister with InterVarsity Graduate and Faculty Ministries, as an associate rector, and with addicts and those in poverty through various churches and non-profit organizations. Now, Tish serves as Writer in Residence at Resurrection South Austin. She is a founding member of The Pelican Project and a Senior Fellow with the Trinity Forum. She lives with her husband and three children in the Austin, Texas area.

In this episode of We Are Vineyard we meet John Elmer, one of the Super Regional Leaders for Vineyard USA. Together Jay and John comb through John’s story to explore themes of leadership, caring for the poor and marginalized, the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit, working through rejection and loss of dreams, and how John’s early experiences have shaped the way he now guides other leaders.

John grew up in Syracuse, New York. Right before his senior year in high school, he had a supernatural encounter with Jesus and was radically saved. He began a Bible study within a couple of months and never stopped. John went to college at Messiah College, where he majored in Biblical Studies and it was there that he met his wife, Gwen. Gwen and John planted the Syracuse Vineyard 30 years ago and have grown it into a multi-site church that has planted 13 other churches. John has also participated in translocal leadership, serving the Vineyard as an Area Leader, National Church Planting team member, Mission Partnership Leader, and as a Regional Leader for the last 10 years. John and Gwen have been married 38 years and have lived together in NYC, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, the squatter slums in Bangkok, as well as Syracuse. They have three children and five grandchildren that they love to be with. John is a big Syracuse University sports fan, as well as a lifelong Yankees fan.