Resources
What are the “spirits in prison” in 1 Peter 3:19?
You’re not alone if that passage leaves you scratching your head—Martin Luther said, “I still do not know what the apostle meant.” Below you’ll find some discussion, but here’s the short answer: while there’s no solid scholarly consensus on the matter, thankfully there’s quite a bit we can say for sure in the passage’s surrounding context. That being said, let’s get into it.
Talking about politics in CG (?)
It’s tough times out there, politically speaking, and tough to know how to speak about politics without getting it terribly wrong. However, Vintage turned to 1 Peter this fall because we knew God could use it to counsel us through this…
Attendance and Roster in FellowshipOne
Back to all Resources → Below you'll see instructional videos and steps for taking attendance in FellowshipOne, adding a new person to your group, or removing someone from your group. If you need help with anything at all, email Eric: eric.spivey@vintagenc.comTaking...
Hard Conversations: Why have them?
Over a series of posts we’ll be talking about how to have hard conversations in community group. By this we mean both talking about divisive subjects, or disagreement, and addressing an area of disobedience to Scripture, or correction. Here at the beginning we’ll be…
A Summer Slow Down Reading List
Summer is a great time to relax some of your normal rhythms and look for space to rest and recuperate from the rush of spring and fall. In my mind that makes summer a great time to learn more about how to weave rest and restoration practices…
Who wrote Ecclesiastes?
Ecclesiastes is easily one of the most enigmatic books of the Bible, and its mystery includes questions about the suspiciously unnamed author. Or rather, authors. We’ll get into the details below but never fear, by the conclusion you’ll see…
Vintage Church DNA
As community group leaders at Vintage Church, our mission is to create environments in which we can know, live, and advance the gospel together, environments where authentic relationships and spiritual growth can thrive. This mission to know,…
Ecclesiastes: what does ‘hevel’ mean?
“Vanity of vanities,” begins the Teacher of Ecclesiastes, “all is vanity!” In a sense the rest of the book will unpack what exactly he means by walking down various avenues of attempted fulfillment and disappointment. But before we can follow…
Cares Well Training
This spring our Downtown CG Leaders will be working through part of the curriculum from “Becoming a Church That Cares Well for the Abused” put out by Ministry Grid and the SBC. Cares Well is an abuse prevention and response training aimed at…
2024 Yearlong Theme: A Lived Amen
Our 2024 Theme Goal: Seeing the surpassing worth of God and worshiping him with our lives. Banner text For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the…
Divine Community Weekday Study – Part 1
You'll notice the below guide for John 17 is a bit different from our normal Weekday Studies, including a place for sermon notes. Also, throughout the series, we'll have these available in a printed version on Sundays at every Vintage location.[pdf-embedder...
John 17 Weekday Study
You'll notice the below guide for John 17 is a bit different from our normal Weekday Studies, including a place for sermon notes. Also, throughout the series, we'll have these available in a printed version on Sundays at every Vintage location.[pdf-embedder...
Cultural Intelligence with Dr. Harry Li
On May 5-6 we gathered Downtown leaders to hear from pastor and Mosaix leader Dr. Harry Li, who shared on biblically raising our cultural awareness. Below you'll find the video from our time together. You can learn more about Dr. Li's church, Mosaic Church of Central...
1 John Weekday Study
This summer we're trying something new called Weekday Study! These are once-a-week, 15-minute studies you can do after listening to the sermon on Sunday to go a little bit deeper in our journey through 1 John. They're also focused on some of the same heart-work and...
Should my group take summer off?
When I talk to other churches about their groups ministry, a question I often get is, “Do y’all take summers off?” No shade on churches that do, but at Vintage we have a different strategy for summers that I describe as both…
Intro to 1 John
This summer, from April 23 to July 15, we’ll be studying verse-by-verse through the letter of 1 John. Below you’ll find some introductory content on the letter, but first perhaps you’re wondering, why 1 John? John the Elder, as he refers to himself in 2 and 3 John,...
January 2023 Downtown CG Leader Gathering
On January 15 we met for the first of our 2023 CG Leader Gatherings. Coming out of the our year centering on Citizenship of Heaven, we talked a little about our new focus for this year, All of God for All of Us. We discussed how beginning this year with a study on the...
Resource on the Trinity
Hey Vintage Leaders, As you know, we’re going to be spending the year exploring All of God for All of Us. We hope that our people will grow in the understanding of how the Triune God (the Trinity) shapes our experience of life, faith, community, and God himself. This...
How do I conduct a membership interview?
Intro A membership interview might sound intimidating or overly formal, but the opposite is true—membership interviews are a low-pressure, informal way for us to welcome new members into our church in a way that best communicates who a Vintage Church member is and...
Deep Dive: “What is lacking in Christ’s afflictions”?
All discussion guides in this series →This Deep Dive goes along with our September 4 discussion guide on Colossians 1:24-29. If you go and read Colossians 1:24-29, verse 24 might not exactly stop you in your tracks, but there’s some serious theology to sort through...
Spring 2022 Downtown CG Leader Gathering
On May 17 we met for the first of our twice-a-year CG Leader Gatherings. Coming out of the past two years, plus having finished Abound last fall, we talked a little about processing what many of our groups have gone through, what's next for Vintage Downtown in 2022...
Revelation Resources
Contents: Intro Outline 5 Interpretive Views Revelation's Repetition The Number Seven + Seven Spirits Intro Below you’ll find some helpful tools and frameworks for reading the book of Revelation together in community. To start out, though, I’d like to set before you...
Deep Dive: Lent Feasting Liturgies
This year our theme for Lent is Feasting in the Wilderness, a motif that recurs in the Bible (think manna, or the feeding of the 5000), and the liturgy for Wednesdays in this year's Lent Guide is a liturgy for Feasting (though by that we just mean eating together)....
What do I do if someone sounds suicidal?
By Andrea Pratt, LCSM, MSW → Related resource: Recommendations for Biblical CounselorsIntroThoughts of suicide can be a jarring thing to talk about. Yet, it is more of a common human experience than we may realize—National Institutes of Health ranks it as the...
Sabbath and Work-Rest Rhythms with Kayla Pleasants
The way you work determines the how you rest (or don't rest). In this one-night class, Kayla introduces us to the Sabbath, gets us to ask thoughtful questions about our work and rest rhythms, and provides crucial tips on how to get started—and keep growing—in your...
Deep Dive: Acts 16:11-34
The baptism of Lydia and the jailer's householdsI'm not going to be able to answer the real question here, but hopefully some information will help you talk about it if it comes up. Twice in our text this week we see whole households get baptized, first with Lydia...
Gospel-Centered Discipleship with Jonathan Dodson
On February 24 we gathered Downtown community group leaders to hear from author and pastor Jonathan Dodson, who discussed how to keep the gospel central in the ways we minister as community group leaders, particularly in the kinds of hurt and grief that we have...
Walking Wounded Recap
Before we get too far from our series in Job, Walking Wounded, I wanted to take a brief moment to look back and think about what we've learned. Coming out of 2020, a year in which many of us experienced deep, prolonged periods of grief and loss, we turned to the book...
Deep Dive: Who was the fourth person in the fiery furnace?
As I said in the full discussion guide, there's some debate as to who or what this fourth being in the fiery furnace was. The answer we're given in the passage is an angel, at least according to Nebuchadnezzar.(3:28) Spiritual beings like angels were known to Jews in...
6 steps to take in the wake of George Floyd’s death
Sunday, May 31 - 11:55am All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the...
The Witness of Waiting: Being still in the midst of crisis
The culture that created fast food and two-day shipping is not emotionally prepared for a quarantine. The American way thrives on immediacy and access - markets capitalize on it, social media runs on it, and our restless selves feed on it. But COVID-19 isn't going...
Tips for virtual gatherings
Updated March 30, 12:55pm In the interest of everyone's safety we have canceled all in-person gatherings or events until further notice. This was a tough call for us; we don't want to cause any panic, and as one news article put it this week, it's hard for any...
Deep Dive: What happened to the end of the Lord’s Prayer?
As we've been going through our series on the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6, you've maybe noticed a section of the prayer that seems missing (depending on your Bible's translation). Here's Matthew 6:9-13 from the English Standard Version: 9 Pray then like this:...
Can I do a book study with my CG?
We get this question all the time at Vintage: “Can my community group do a book study?" The short answer is yes, with answers to the details in the FAQs below:1. When is a good opportunity to do a book study with my group? Typically when multiple people in your group...
Kids in CG Workshop Audio
This post is part of a series from our Kids in CG workshop, which was all about helping families thrive in community group. You can find other posts and audio from that workshop by clicking here.Part 1: How to welcome families In part 1 I give an overview of how to...
Ideas for Childcare
This post is part of a series from our Kids in CG workshop, which was all about helping families thrive in community group. You can find other posts and audio from that workshop by clicking here.Two-list approach When thinking about hosting families in community...
How to Make Your Community Group Kid Friendly
This post is part of a series from our Kids in CG workshop, which was all about helping families thrive in community group. You can find other posts and audio from that workshop by clicking here.Welcoming families with children into your community group is no small...
Planting Vintage West
One of our great passions at Vintage is planting churches, and we're incredibly excited to be launching our fourth Vintage church location, Vintage Church West, in January of 2020. We've had an eye west of 440 for a while now, specifically out towards Morrisville,...
Meeting a Need with your Community Group
Below is a guide adapted from a resource put out by Fellowship Raleigh that will help you determine if a service project or opportunity is a good fit for your community group. This is not meant to be a rigid, heartless assessment. Our prayer as a church is that the...
Loving Strangers: April 2019 CG Leader Gathering
On April 2, 2019, we met for our twice-a-year Downtown CG Leader Gathering. For the past few years Vintage Downtown has been picking a church-wide yearly theme, and our theme for 2019 was "Love God, Love Neighbor," taken from the two Great...
May 2019 Discipleship Coaching
Intro Throughout the month of May we're providing opportunities for folks at Vintage Downtown to take the next step in their personal discipleship. Our hope is to identify and challenge one another towards growth in one specific area of knowing, living,...
Deep Dive: The Marys
There are a bunch of Marys in the Gospels (four to be exact), so it’s tricky to keep them separate. As you can guess, Mary was a really common name in Jesus’s day; supposedly one in five women in first-century Palestine was named Mary! With all the Marys out there you...
April 9 Members’ Night Content
On April 9th we gathered our Downtown members to hear from Ryan Burger and Tyler Jones. Ryan shared some of his life story, how the Lord has worked in his life, and his involvement with our Intersect ministry. Tyler shared a handful of things, including some...
Deep Dive: Notes About John 9:39-41
Note about v.39-41After healing the blind man, Jesus gives insight into part of his purpose on earth; Jesus came both to pronounce God’s favor on the far off (Matt.5:1-11; Luk.4:18-19) and to pronounce judgement on those whose lips honored God but whose hearts were...
Deep Dive: Textual Concerns in John 8:1-11
Textual Concerns To start, you should know that tons of research has been done about this specific passage, and plenty of faithful Christians see this story as either the authoritative Word of God (such as RC Sproul) or, at the very least, as an account of an actual...
Recommendations for Biblical Counselors – 2024
Last Updated: February, 2024 Counseling at Vintage Church takes several forms—much of the informal counsel people receive at Vintage occurs in the context of Community Groups, or with one of our pastors. For formal counseling, and especially therapeutic counseling, we...
Advent 2018: Advent Conspiracy
Advent 2018: Advent Conspiracy Our Advent series starts December 2! In preparation for Advent, check out the video below for leader-specific details. For more details about the Advent Conspiracy, check out adventconspiracy.org.
The Gospel and Race Part 2: Audio
Audio from Part 2 with Leonce Crump, Jr. Audio from a Q&A with Leonce and Michael Darbouze, pastor of Vintage Church Durham
TG&R: Next Steps for CGs
TG&R: Next Steps for CGs Last week pastor Leonce Crump, Jr. spoke at our Conversation on the Gospel and Race about how Vintage, as a predominately white church, can be a more diverse church, support minorities in the public sphere, and erode the effects of racism in...
TG&R: Book Recommendations
Following our time with Leonce, maybe you’ve asked yourself, “What do I do now? How do I learn more?” There are quite literally thousands of podcasts, books, news articles, TED talks, and blog posts on the topic of…
The Gospel and Race: Part 1
Below you’ll find the audio and video from The Gospel and Race: Part 1, February 13, 2018. Leonce Crump, Jr., along with Phabienne and Aaron Anderson, led our church in a conversation on how the Gospel affects the way we view…
Deep Dive: What does Paul mean by “work with your hands”?
In v.11 Paul starts to list out some instructions he has for the Thessalonians: aspire to live quietly, mind your own affairs, work with your hands, walk properly, and be dependent upon no one. To us this maybe sounds like a crotchety old man telling some hippie to...
Justifying Rahab
Rahab turns up a surprising number of times in the bible. After helping the two Israelite spies (Judges 2) and being spared in the downfall of Jericho (Judges 6), she’s mentioned on three other occasions, the third providing the real question for this discussion. As...