The Vine Project by Tony Payne and Col Marshall is an excellent book that I’d commend to you. Let me share with you, three unusual things about it plus some reflections
The Vine Project is more like “The Force Awakens” (2015) than “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” (1986) in two ways.
Firstly, The Vine Project is a sequel. Context is everything, so let me share with you the “why” of the book. Tony Payne and Col Marshall wrote The Trellis and the Vine in 2009. It was a call to Christian leaders to commit again to the vine work of prayerfully preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ to people personally. To focus more on people than programs. It called on people to make the “ministry mind shift that changes everything”.
Tony and Col created a two day, face to face, course called, “The Trellis and the Vine Workshops”. They ran these courses all over the world for about 6 years. Very quickly they noticed a problem. A big problem. Listen to page 11:
“We’d been talking together for the best part of a day. There were about 60 of us in the room, from a range of different churches in America’s Midwest. And then one pastor (a Chicago Baptist) stood up and asked the question that we have been asked countless times in the past six years.
“Look, I’ve read the Trellis and the Vine. I thought it was great. It expressed what I have always thought and believed about Christian ministry. So bless you and thank you for writing it.
“But as I kept reading, I also had this sinking feeling in my gut. I just know that what actually happens in our church is a long ways from the kind of disciple-making ministry vision you outline and that I totally believe in. I’m not really sure how we came to be so far from it. But the thing is: I don’t really know where to start or how to make progress. It’s like all the existing structures and ministries in our church are made of concrete.
“So here’s my basic problem: How can I change the whole culture of our church in the direction of disciple making?”
The Vine Project is designed to answer that pastor’s question. It is a book about “shaping your ministry culture around disciple making”. Or as Tony says on page 27, the book could be called, “The Trellis Strikes Back”:
The second way that TVP is more like “The Force Awakens” than “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” is that it is a book about hard work, it is about a battle between good and evil. The by-line of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” is “one man’s struggle to take it easy”. I think many Christian leaders want to bring about change, but they think it will be easy; they get surprised when there is opposition to that change.
TVP is realistic about the tsunami of opposition that will hit a pastor when he seeks to bring about real and lasting change in a church.
The book outlines a 5 phase way of managing change.
1. Sharpen your convictions
2. Reform your personal culture
3. Loving honest evaluation
4. Innovate and Implement
5. Maintain Momentum
After “Sharpen your convictions”, I think phase 2 is perhaps the most important part of the whole process. If the Pastor wants his church to be outreach focussed, but he himself is not; then there’s going to be long term problems. It’s like the father who says to the kids, “Do as I say, not as I do”. If Pastors want to change the culture of their churches, they have to lead by example.
This book is all about hard work. As a friend of mine recently said, “If you want to travel in the direction of Jesus, there are two train tracks that must always go together. The train track called gain and the train track called pain.” Tony and Col’s book gets this. They are practitioners themselves. They get the gospel indivisibility of pain and gain. The pages drip with their real life experience.
The Vine Project is more like Microsoft Project than Pride and Prejudice
TVP is a project plan to be used by a team, not a book for an individual to read alone on a couch.
I cannot emphasise this enough. TVP is designed to be used by a team wanting to work toward some Kingdom growing goals, for example 4 men might get together to work out how to bring the Gospel of Jesus to the 43 factories that operate within a 2 km radius of the church building. TVP may also be used by the Council/Session/Parish Council to do a major review of ALL the Church’s ministries and culture. It is extremely versatile.
It is a workbook, with a plethora of helps and tools. Let me list just a few:
· Page 31-33 gives a detailed real life case study of culture change carried out in an Australian cricket club
· Page 37 has a 5 Phase project plan (like an annual planner)
· Page 179 “Evaluation Exercise #1: Getting our hearts ready for evaluation”
· Page 192 “Evaluation Exercise #7: Roadblocks”
· Page 231-237 details three testimonials of the change management work of real pastors (their names have been changed to protect their identity).
· There are addendums peppered throughout the book e.g. p291 Virginia’s story regarding “Equipping Parents for Ministry”
Not only is the book a fantastic project plan, but there is a website that has been built to support those Vine Project teams embarking on the frightening journey called, “shaping your ministry culture around disciple making”.
The website, thevineproject.com features Pastor interviews, resources and an online community.
The Vine Project is more like a Spurgeon Sermon than Louis Berkhof’s Manual of Christian Doctrine
Don’t get me wrong, I love Louis’ stuff, but it can sometimes be a tad dry. TVP is more like a fantastic sermon.
Tony and Col mine the scriptures deeply and bring these wonderful truths to bear on the teams reading their pages. The book has fantastic exegetical insights, great illustrations and really helpful suggested applications.
I was a bit worried when I first picked it up though.
Chapter 1 begins with 102 pages on the topic of “Sharpen your convictions”. Before I started reading I sinfully thought to myself, “102 pages on disciple making! Really? I’ve thought about that topic a lot. I’m not sure I will learn a lot here.” But I was so wrong. It was riveting. It was a balm to the soul. A deeply enriching experience.
Tony and Col know God’s Word so well and teach things in really simple ways. They talked about disciple making as “Learning Christ”. The book is littered with pictures of people with “L” plates above their heads. What a brilliant description. It works so well. If you are not yet a follower of Christ, what do you need to do? You need to “Learn Christ”. If, like me, you’ve been a Christian for 27 years and trained as a Christian leader – what do you need to do? “Learn Christ”. The other reason I love this definition is that we are learning a PERSON. Not just a body of knowledge, not just an ethical framework, not just a pattern of behaviour.
May I commend this book to you whole-heartedly.
It is 353 pages long and costs 24.95 AUD from Matthias Media.
Some reflections:
- This book is not only for pastors. If you and a couple of friends who have a heart to see your children’s ministry (or any other ministry) grow; this book will serve you well.
- I am still feeling uneasy about the priority Tony and Col give to the Sunday gathering. They write (emphasis mine):
- “Sunday is the prime time for disciple making. It is the key flag ship time for making learners of Christ through the prayerful speaking of God’s word. It sets the tone and teaches and reinforces our convictions. More than any other single activity, the regular Sunday gathering forms and shapes the culture of your entire congregational life. It’s the heartbeat. If Sunday is not aligned with your convictions – if it is not teaching and exemplifying and reinforcing what you essentially believe about ministry – then there is little chance of meaningful culture change ever happening.”
- It may be because I became a Christian through one to one Bible reading that I feel uneasy. Tony and Col are probably dead right. But I’m still mulling it over in my mind.
