Vineyard Justice Network - VJN

TODAY! VJN Equip: Online Training Wed March 11, 5pm EDT.

Compassion and mercy are key Vineyard values. These gifts teach us about God and direct us toward people he loves: the marginalized, the weak, the stranger, and the vulnerable. God's compassion directs us to care for the most vulnerable people involved in the complicated issue of immigration: kids. Many children from immigrant and refugee families have loved ones at risk of deportation. For these children, immigration enforcement operations in a community can pose a risk to mental health and development. Simply put, these kids are scared and need God's love to be secure. Fortunately, supportive adults in a child’s life can play a large role in protecting children’s mental health, promoting positive development, and having kids know their sacred worth in God. The Church is full of these adults, and we want to provide training for the Vineyard in order to love kids well whether they are in our churches, our schools, or our wider communities.

This training offers concrete strategies that adults can use to support children during periods of uncertainty and fear. Drawn from the field of developmental resilience science and informed by clinical practice, these strategies leverage ordinary resources around a child — most importantly, the presence of caring adults — and can be applied by anyone in service to children, including parents, kids' ministry leaders, teachers, and community leaders. Attendees will learn skills for communicating with children about immigration enforcement, restoring predictability and safety, promoting agency, and, most importantly, listening well and letting kids know that God is near with lots of love and care.

This training will be led by Hopewell Hodges, a Ph.D candidate at University of Minnesota. She serves as a leader at the River Heights Vineyard in the Twin Cities, and she has been in the Vineyard since she started college in New Haven, CT. This training is co-sponsored by Vineyard USA Evangelism and Justice, the Hispanic Association, and Vineyard Justice Network.

To register, link in bio.

Get Proximate: How Vineyard pastors and leaders recently offered a Kingdom response in Minneapolis.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

SUPPORT the work of Source. Your resources go to food delivery and prayer efforts to people hiding in homes at this time. Lord, provide protection and send your Spirit to those in need.

EQUIP yourself and your church by learning Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Principles of Nonviolence. will offer a 6-week training webinar that begins Friday, February 6. Go to https://events.humanitix.com/principles-of-nonviolence-a-discipleship-framework to register.

World Relief offers individuals and churches a way to practice advocacy for refugees. Check out their letter.

There’s still time to register for our Lab Day to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center next Friday! To register, link in bio.

“Look around you: Everything you see is God’s—the heavens above and beyond, the Earth, and everything on it. But it was your ancestors who God fell in love with; he picked their children—that’s you!—out of all the other peoples. That’s where we are right now.

So cut away the thick calluses from your heart and stop being so willfully hardheaded.

God, your God, is the God of all gods, he’s the Master of all masters, a God immense and powerful and awesome. He doesn’t play favorites, takes no bribes, makes sure orphans and widows are treated fairly, takes loving care of foreigners by seeing that they get food and clothing.

You must treat foreigners with the same loving care— remember, you were once foreigners in Egypt.

Reverently respect God, your God, serve him, hold tight to him, back up your promises with the authority of his name.

He’s your praise! He’s your God! He did all these tremendous, these staggering things that you saw with your own eyes.”

‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭10‬:‭14‬-‭21‬ ‭MSG‬‬