Small Group Companion Guide
2020 is a year of significant transition at Vineyard Columbus. Our beloved Senior Pastor, Rich Nathan, will be stepping down from his Senior Pastor role (but not retiring 🙂), and Eric and Julia Pickerill will be taking on the shared role of co-Senior Pastors beginning in January 2021. During that same time, we will be walking through significant restructuring in the church, moving toward a more campus-centered ministry model, seeking God for how and where to add several new campuses in the years to come, and continuing to follow his lead into the broader missional calling he has placed on us as a church. And even in the face of all of this, we are now pressing into a momentous and long-overdue racial justice movement in the midst of a global pandemic. Much is changing – far more than we had ever imagined it would be on every front, and as a church we all experience the impact of this change.
But change and transition have been a central part of what God has always invited his people into, and now is no exception. This sermon series, entitled “Are We There Yet?,” is meant to lead us as a church into reflecting on the transition we are in the midst of in biblically rooted, practical, and realistic terms. It is divided into three 3-part sections:
- Part 1 – “Setting Out” focuses on the challenges we face in the early stages of journeying with God in adventure and change.
- Part 2 – “Lift Up Your Eyes,” focuses on the ways God consistently encourages his people to look ahead to the opportunities and calling he places before them.
- Part 3 – “Passing the Mantle,” looks more specifically at three biblical case studies of leadership transition and the passing of responsibility to the next generation.
As you walk through this series with your group, and as we walk through this transition together as a church, may God meet you, strengthen you, and give you hope and good courage to press into the fruitful labor and hopeful future he intends for us all.
Grace and more grace to you all!
