vinea.church: meditations from the vineyard
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit.” ~John 15:5
In 2015, I did a year long apprenticeship in the vineyard, volunteering a day a month that year to work in the vineyard and learn from the vineyard more of what it means to be human, more of what it means to love God, more of what it means to love others. That year, 2015, Cannon Beach Community Church (where I have served as Lead Pastor since 1993) and I were awarded $50,000 through the Lilly Foundation, a grant with the theme of Cultivate the Vineyard: A Journey Together into Fruitful Spiritual Growth. Because of this grant, my wife and I were able to travel in Europe for three months, where I studied viticulture, worked in vineyards harvesting winegrapes, visited sacred pilgrim sites such as Lindisfarne, England, Alsace, France, and St. Hildegard Abbey, Germany. During that pilgrimage, I studied ten of my favorite medieval fruitful heroes of the Christian faith, including Aidan and Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, Hilda of Whitby, Hildegard of Bingen, Bernard of Clairvaux, Francis and Clare of Assisi, Jan Hus, Johannes Tauler, and Martin Bucer. I think of hhis blog as some of the clusters of fruit harvested from that year of apprenticeship in the vineyard.

Unplugging
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The Gift of Rest
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Practicing the Presence of God
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Contemplating
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Communion
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The Sacred Art of Marriage
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Celebrating
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Gratitude Journaling
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Life in Community: Making a Spiritual Retreat
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To Autumn in the Vineyard
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Homecoming
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Roman Holiday
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Assisi Pilgrimage
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Journey through Umbria
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The Best of Tuscany
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Journey through northern Italy
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Becoming Even More Fruitful: Silvaner Harvest
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Walking in Freiburg
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Vineyard Walk
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Spätburgunder Harvest
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Abiding: A Word Study
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Weissburgunder Harvest
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Bernard of Clairvaux & Roger of Taize
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