SONGS: 8|29|10
Posted by Will Shinnick on 08/31/2010
Story : Get To Know
Posted by Dave Clayton on 08/30/2010
At Ethos, we believe one of the most effective ways to reach new people with the gospel of Jesus Christ is through planting churches that plant churches. Over the last two years we have helped dozens of church plants financially, through prayer, and with man power. Over the next two weeks, we would like to introduce you to a couple of our church planters from the Vine in Vancouver, British Columbia.
ABOUT US : Greetings to all of our brothers and sisters in Christ at Ethos! David (or Dave as I think you all call him) is always sharing with me about the wonderful things that God is doing among you there in Nashville. Amy and I are thrilled to know that you are thinking of us and partnering with us in prayer in our church planting work here in Vancouver, British Columbia. So let me share with you some about who we are, and what we’re up to in Canada.
Amy grew up in the opposite corner of North America in Port Charlotte, a town on the gulf coast of southern Florida. I was a Navy brat, and my family moved wherever the Navy sent my dad. My last two years of high school landed me in Summerville, South Carolina (where I met this nerdy little 9th grader named David Clayton). Amy and I met at Harding University where Amy was working towards a degree in education and I a Bible degree. We started dating while I was working on a Master’s degree in Marriage & Family Therapy, and we got married the day after I graduated in 2005. Amy also earned a Master’s in Education from Harding.
Our relationship began as each of us was meeting with a group that had a dream of planting a church in the Pacific Northwest. Before we knew it, we fell in love, and we’ve been on an adventure together ever since. After we married we lived in Searcy, Arkansas for a couple of years where Amy worked as a teacher and I worked as a therapist, and our walk with God was nurtured in our life with the Downtown Church of Christ.
In July of 2007 we quit our jobs, packed up our lives and moved to Eugene, Oregon. Our plan was to live there for around 6 months while we waded through the process of getting our visas for Canada. We ended up being in Eugene for 18 months! While living there we worked in campus ministry at the University of Oregon and with a homeless drop in shelter for youth. These experiences were not only life changing but were also good training grounds for our work here in Canada. During this phase of our marriage our faith was continually strengthened as we watched God provide for us month after month.
Finally, on December 15, 2008 we made the move across the border and started our new lives in Vancouver. Since then we have been working with our partnering couple, Paul & Julie McMullen, at planting a new church; Amy obtained a degree from Vancouver Community College for teaching ESL; I’ve been working at starting a part time therapy private practice; and we had our first son, Elijah Hawk Etheridge.
About The Vine : The vision for The Vine, a church of Christ, started over 6 years ago amongst of group of Harding University students and graduates. That group of students was whittled down eventually to two couples (us [the Etheridges] and Paul & Julie McMullen) with a vision for planting a multiplication based network of simple and organic churches in Vancouver, British Columbia. We envision a large network of weekly intimate house church gatherings that all come together once per month for a time of celebration. In February, 2009, the four of us gathered together and asked God for that to be the last time that it was just us four. To this date, He has granted that request.
For the first half of 2009 we met together with another new church plant with a similar vision, LifeHouse Christian Church. In August of 2009 we experienced our first multiplication and LifeHouse and The Vine began meeting separately. We still gather with LifeHouse once per month for our celebration services.
Currently, The Vine consists corporately of one house church usually consisting of 8-12 people. We gather weekly on Sunday evenings at Paul and Julie’s apartment. Since one of our core values is multiplication we try to keep things simple so as to promote reproducibility. Our gatherings are simple and casual. From Sunday to Sunday the flow and order of our time together can look very different. However, every Sunday includes a meal, time spent together in the Bible, singing praise to God, prayer, and communion. Midweek, we gather in small groups of 2-4 which we call Life Groups. Life Groups provide a safe place to explore God’s word together, confess sin, and pray for one another and for friends who do not yet know Jesus.
From a corporate standpoint (meaning if you look at our times together on Sundays and mid-week) The Vine is still very much a small baby church. However, we are still in the gathering phase as a young church, and it becomes very difficult to measure The Vine when you start looking at neighborhood connections. Much of our work here in the first year and a half has been simply adjusting to a new country, city, and culture, and trying to network in our neighborhood. If you were to measure community at The Vine by counting all the people in our neighborhood who have visited, served in service projects, or engaged in vision type discussions about The Vine the number would probably reach upwards of 100. So we view ourselves as missionaries in our neighborhood whose job is to network, connect, volunteer, and vision cast in each pocket of people that we come in contact with. In everything we do we are asking for God’s favor and looking for opportunities to plant seeds for His Kingdom. At the same time we are trying to disciple the group of people that has committed to The Vine already. This group consists of some mature Christians, some brand new Christians, and some who have not yet made faith commitments to Christ.
Anchors : Generosity
Posted by Dave Clayton on 08/29/2010
Tell Everyone …
Posted by Dave Clayton on 08/25/2010
This Sunday will mark the launch of our 3rd Worship Gathering at 10:30 am. To find out why we we are adding a 3rd Worship Gathering read here. All three Worship Gatherings will be identical so pick a time and invite your friends. Regardless of which Gathering you will call your home, we need your help spreading the word about our new times.
Here are a few practical ways you can spread the word.
1.) Tell everyone you know personally.
2.) Post it on Twitter and Facebook.
3.) Send a smoke signal.
4.) Text your friends that have been out of town the last few weeks to let them know.
5.) Write a note and tie it to a real live pigeon.
6.) Invite someone by talking to them face to face.
7.) Knit a Scarf with the new Gathering Times in bright colors.
8.) Ask someone personally.
9.) Tell Everyone You Know
10.) Spread the word any way possible.
How will you spread the word?
Story : Palestine Update
Posted by Dave Clayton on 08/23/2010
This blog is written by Jonathon Valentin, who spent time in Palestine this summer.
Well, I’ve been spending a lot of days lately working at Al-Basma with my new mentally handicapped friends. I’ve especially been helping make the recycled paper from which they make notebooks and Christmas cards. I also helped put up some curtains in their guest house over the last week. Sharing in the joy and the smiles has been incredible. I wish I knew how to adequately put into words what it is like to see music speak to them in such a powerful way, or to explain how intensely the presence and grace of Jesus is revealed here through these people.
I have also been working at the Paidia climbing wall on the weekends. Many nights we go to the park and watch the World Cup game that they project onto a big screen each evening. It seems weird to think that something that is such a big deal here is hardly cared about in the US. It is a beautiful thing that this place, which was once a Jordanian military base and then an Israeli military base, is now such a nice park and a place where the community gathers to celebrate the excitement and participate in the atmosphere of the World Cup.
Last night I walked halfway down the valley that sits behind our apartment. Even after 4 weeks here, the view still takes my breath away. I haven’t yet gotten used to it or begun taking it for granted. The night before that, Paul and I walked down into the valley. We saw a shepherd leading his sheep in front of us. I told Paul I wondered how different this place looked in the time of Jesus. It is easy to imagine that it looked then quite similar to how it looks now. Perhaps the shepherds were here in this valley when they heard the announcement that Jesus had been born. It seems likely that 1000 years before that David may have brought his flock here, right outside of his hometown of Bethlehem. Maybe he sat on this very rock and wrote a psalm here, long before he ever became king.
I walk back there today. I enjoy the stillness and the quiet. Everything seems so peaceful. I look around and I can see so much of this great world. I see the houses up on the hilltops, the fields down in the valley. There are some children at the bottom, playing under some olive trees. I see a shepherd with his flock over on the side of the mountain. I close my eyes. And I simply listen.
What strikes me first is what I do not hear. I hear no cars, no traffic. Back home, when I try this exercise, even out in the midst of cornfields, it seems I can almost always here traffic in the distance. But here, it is different. I hear children laughing. I can’t even see them, but their voices carry from the hilltop on the other side. I hear a soccer ball being kicked. I listen to the sound of sheep and a dog is barking somewhere in the distance. Now I hear a bee buzzing around my head and music, coming from somewhere far off, reaches my ears. The sun sets. The moon is almost full. I see the Big Dipper and the North Star. The same moon and the same stars and constellations that I look at back home. I look toward Bethlehem and I see a particularly bright planet or star that seems to be resting right above it.
A few minutes later I stop at the store to buy some water. Right as I leave a shepherd brings his flock across the street and steps into the store to buy some things. As I make the short walk back to my apartment from the store, the shepherd’s dog walks beside me and about 60 sheep and goats follow us. The shepherd catches up in a few minutes, but apparently the sheep dog knows where to guide the animals entrusted to his care. I walk down the dusty road, carrying my groceries, I hear the evening call to prayer in the distance, the fifth and final call of the day, I exchange glances with the dog walking at my side, and look back at our unusual entourage. And we walk on together, under the bright moonlight, down the streets of Palestine.
Anchors : Sabbath
Posted by Dave Clayton on 08/22/2010
Story : Haiti Update
Posted by Dave Clayton on 08/16/2010
Back in June I spent a two week period in Cap-Haitien, a city on the northern coast of Haiti. After the earthquake many of the victims were sent to hospitals in Cap- Haitien to receive wound treatment as the Port-Au- Prince area was basically reduced to rubble. While in Cap, I worked in a Catholic Hospital and another small clinic in the area. Dave asked me to do a small write up on what I saw God doing in Haiti. The truth is it was very difficult for me to decide what to write about. I saw desperate people everywhere I looked, but finding God in that place was not easy. The people of Haiti are outwardly desperate for food, jobs, and clean water, but most of them don’t even realize what they are truly desperate for. They are desperate for Jesus Christ. While there are many Haitians they do know Jesus, the majority are engaged in the Voodoo culture, and this group includes the 80 % of Haitians that are professing Catholics. It’s difficult for me to wrap my head around, but while they attend mass almost every morning and proclaim Jesus, their ultimate authority is almost always a Voodoo priest or priestess.
I quickly realized that Satan’s stronghold over Haiti is greed and a lust for money. The few Haitians that truly know Jesus are free of this greed, but most Haitians are consumed by it. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to meet but a few Haitians that aren’t driven by greed, and for this reason I had a lot of difficulty trying to see God’s work. But the more I think about it, the more God reveals to me that He is at work in that place just as He is anywhere else in this world, though it may be a little more tainted in Haiti. I felt God pushing me to write about Shada, the other clinic that I worked at while in Cap-Haitien, so here it is.
On the first Wednesday that I was in Haiti, we gathered some supplies from the Hospital and made our way to Shada. Right in the heart of the city, Shada is more or less a picture perfect description of the meaning of the word “slum.” We stopped on the side of the road, grabbed our bags, and a young boy met us and walked us through a maze of cramped alleys back to the clinic. Many of the alleys were smaller than shoulder width, and we had to turn sideways in order to get through. We also had to be mindful not to step in the water that was flowing through every alley. This water, in which children with swollen bellies and reddened hair due to malnutrition walk barefoot through every day, is actually the sewage system for the community. The backside of the community runs into an inlet from the sea, and the shore is darkened muck literally covered in trash. The water directly off of the shore is black, and it’s not uncommon to see people bathing in it.
Madam Bwa, the overseer of the community, runs the clinic. Madam Bwa is a midwife who has delivered probably every baby in that community. She’s pretty much in charge of that area, and I heard from many people that we would not have been welcome in Shada without her permission. Currently, this clinic is funded by a group in Florida. They provide enough money to the clinic for one Doctor to come to the clinic one day each week. If someone is sick on a day other than when the doctor is in, they’ll have to wait another week for her to come back. It’s really a terrible situation, especially considering some of the patients that we saw. Tuberculosis is rampant in this area, and due to the close living quarters, more and more people are getting it all the time. Though we could write prescriptions for TB medication, we couldn’t actually give it to them and knew that they would never be able to afford it. That was a tough situation to get past considering we saw at least 3 children under the age of 2 that probably had TB. Since being back, I’ve gotten word that a few children that we saw have died because they couldn’t afford to go anywhere else and because it wasn’t the day that the doctor was in. Again, it’s a truly awful situation. I know this all seems very much like a downer, but like I said before I am now seeing how God is working in this area.
I went to Haiti with Randy Moore, an RN from Atlanta. He’s been back and forth ever since the earthquake, working mostly out of the Catholic Hospital. Randy felt God’s call to go to Haiti, quit his job, and went with it, and I can see now that God is using people like him to bring the message of Hope to the Haitians. The greatest thing that God has revealed to Randy about why he should be in Haiti is not to just help people, but rather to teach them how to help each other. Most importantly, Randy is loving these people. He is kind and generous to them and actually tries to invest himself in their lives. That is something that shocks most Haitians, and it really only causes them to ask questions about why Randy is the way he is. The only answer Randy can give, the only answer any of us can give when good comes from us, is that it is from Jesus and not ourselves. And that is what God is doing in Haiti.
I do not believe that God caused an earthquake in Haiti. I do not believe that God was punishing the Haitians for their enslavement to Voodoo. I do believe that God allowed the earthquake to happen and is now using it to awaken His people to a part of the world that we have seemingly forgotten. He is using people like Randy. He is using people from all over the world to lift up these broken people. However, we can send food, clothes, water, and anything, but like I said before, the Haitians are desperate for Jesus Christ. They are desperate for His Spirit to flow through them and give them the peace, hope, and love that is Jesus. I have read articles talking about the “Hope of Haiti” being their resilient nature and drive to get back on the feet. In reality the Hope of Haiti is the Hope of all people and all nations. Their Hope is Jesus Christ. God is using His people in that place, and He is moving in ways that I couldn’t see until He opened my eyes to it. He is using ordinary people like you and me, just like He always has, to bring the Glory of Jesus to the Haitians and all peoples of the world. It’s really a beautiful thing. I am thankful to be a part of it.
God bless you all,
Burton Wood
Randy is heading back to Haiti in September, and he’s going to be working more closely with the clinic in Shada. He’s raising money so that they can expand their clinic and have doctors for several days each week rather than just on Wednesday. If you have any interest in helping out financially or even going down to be a loving presence to these people you can contact Randy at ramoo76@gmail.com. And if you have any questions about anything else feel free to contact me at woodcb@mail.lipscomb.edu or come find me at the 5:00 pm service!
Anchors : Prayer
Posted by Dave Clayton on 08/15/2010
Anchors: Community
Posted by Dave Clayton on 08/08/2010
Directions to East Park for Kids Day
Posted by Luke Flener on 08/06/2010
East Park is located at 700 Woodland Street, Nashville, TN 37206. Get directions below.
