Merry Advent

Merry Advent Everyone,

I know it’s a little different than “Merry Christmas” but if you think about it, there is no Christmas without Christ. Seriously, if the first Christ followers did not create a way to make the birth of their savior important in their own lives then the Christmas holiday would have never existed. The word “advent” is a Latin word meaning “coming” or “arrival”. The first Christians developed the Christmas season to help remind themselves of the continuing arrival of their savior Jesus. Wow, how different is this meaning of Christmas than what it is today?

Last Sunday was the beginning of our Advent season. This advent we, as a church family, are looking to make this Christmas season the most meaningful yet. Vineyard USA has put together a Christmas devotional that will help us recapture the essence of Christmas’ long long ago. Over the 4 weeks leading up to the birth of Jesus, we are focusing on “The Light That Leads Us Home”. This series is full of Hope, Peace, Joy, & Love. This past Sunday we focused on Hope. The birth of God into our world is full of hope for everybody. True hope leads us out of the despair, leads us into promise, and leads us into more hope.

The first Christmas changed the world. I have hope that Christmas still has that power to do just this. Eight years ago I was made aware of the worlds water problem. I was convicted that Christmas has become a season of getting what you want instead of helping people get what they need. People all around the world are suffering and dying from the lack of clean drinking water. It is estimated that this Christmas season the average American will spend $700 on Christmas. This is a grand total of $465 Billion dollars. It is estimated that it would cost $20 billion to bring everybody in the world clean drinking water. Now, I share this with you to put things into perspective, not to guilt you. Every non-profit and charity is asking you for money right now. ‘Tis the season.

We as a church family have decided try and do something about this. We have no idea if this will work but we have to at least try something. We are going to Re-Gift this year. We are going to take one gift and return it. Then we are going to Re-Gift towards Water. Would you please join us in Re-Gifting for Water? Please join us as we literally change the world this Christmas Season. Please see the link below for our water campaign.

https://my.charitywater.org/jason-verduzco/regift-4-water

Finally, this last Sunday we handed out our Christmas devotional and the first of four Advent candles. If you missed last Sunday or were still out of town from your Thanksgiving holiday, these gifts will be available for you every Sunday this month. This coming Sunday we will focus on Peace. It is my prayer that you experience the gift of Jesus that transforms you from the inside out.

Advent Blessings,

Pastor Jason

A Crazy 2 Years!!!

Can you believe it? It has been 2 years since a crazy group of friends and a few kids, believing God for a destiny, moved to Spokane, WA to start a church. Two years later, we have memories that will last a lifetime! The best part is… we are just getting started.

We are all so honored to be here and share life with the men, women, and children that call Vineyard 509 their church. Hopefully you had the chance to watch the video. These people are otherworldly. Their stories will make you laugh, they will make you cry, but most of all they will reflect a God that is real and at work in His sons and daughters.

A couple things to pray for and consider:

We have 2 major events coming up within 2 weeks of each other and we really need your help. The first is our “End of the Summer” party we are throwing in our neighborhood. We are closing off our parking lot, renting some big bouncy houses, playing games, all the while eating popcorn and snow cones.

The second event is our annual “Bless our College Students” outreach. This is where we hold a big raffle where we give away a bunch of stuff that every college student needs with a Grand Prize of an Ipad.

It has been hard work over the past couple of years investing in our college students and our neighborhood. We are still a small church but we have big hearts. So, each person in our church is looking for 5 friends and/or family members to help us invest into our college students and neighbors. We have set up a special one time tax-deductible gift on our giving page for these events. The link is below. Would you consider partnering with us? We invite you to join our church in blessing and prayer for our college students and our neighborhood.

http://www.vineyard509.com/give.html

Peace & Grace to you all,

Vineyard 509

In it...

Well, here we are! Spring is now upon us. The days are longer and the weather is warmer. People in Spokane are coming out of hibernation and starting to become more active. It is crazy how the weather can dictate how people live their lives.

The Verduzco’s

Everybody is doing well. The Verduzco’s are healthy and we have settled into life here in Spokane. Jason’s job provides for the family. We are able to pay the bills and bless others. Praise the Lord! Noah will be 9 years old on April 2^nd and Felicity will turn 5 on April 6^th. Jaicee will turn 7 in August. My, my how time flies. Jesus continues to be the purpose in which we live our lives. Parenting is the single greatest and trying thing we have ever done. Hopefully our kids turn out well. Our marriage is as strong as death. We will celebrate our 14^thanniversary next month. Grandma and grandpa are coming up next month and we are headed to Catalina Island for a couple of days. We are so looking forward to our time together as husband and wife!!!

Some of you may already know this; on our honeymoon we bought a picture frame of the place that we visited. When we got home we put a picture in it from our trip. This tradition has carried on every year since. So we now have 15 picture frames with 15 pictures that capture us changing over the years. When we got married Jason was 20 and Amber was 19. We were just babies! Over the years, we look a little older and wiser. Some pictures show Amber with a baby belly and some pictures have our little ones because she was breast-feeding and they were too little to leave with family. It is awesome that someday when our grand kids come over they will be able to look at a wall of picture frames from around the world where grandma and grandpa have traveled. More importantly, they will see a journey of love!

Kao

Kao is doing well. He is looking into going back to college. He continues to be a source of great joy to our church. He always has a positive outlook and a hope that is contagious. God will continue to grow him and use him in mighty ways here in this City.

Tanya

Tanya is a Godsend to those with mental illness here in Spokane. She is literally the hands, feet, and mouth of Jesus to those that need help. She works in a profession where faith isn’t the primary driving force of life. She continues to bring a toughness and a tenacity to our church community.

Vineyard 509 Update

Our church is amazing! We have a core group of people gathering and it really is special. We have 2 unbelievable women (Cathy & Lindsey) that are leading worship for us. They are great musicians and even better human beings. We are creating a great sound and enjoy worshiping God in song. We’ve had some powerful times in singing that has produced greater faith for all those present. We also have a young college student that has just blossomed over the past year that he has been with us. I have seen him grow in his faith, character, and his manhood. He is extremely intelligent and is going to make an impact on many people in his lifetime. There are many others that are just starting to connect and we look forward to deepening all these relationships. Much more to come on this.

Partnership!

When we made the decision to go ahead and sign a 2-year lease on a building that we could not afford, we were freaking out and yet excited to see what God was going to do. We had enough money to cover the cost of the building for a few months. Well, as the savings account dwindled we saw God start to move. I was dreaming of moving our gathering to a Sunday night and I had a connection with a group of church planting pastors. One of these pastors has a church plant that is in the same stages as us and was starting to look for a space to rent but wasn’t sure how they could afford it. I told him that we were thinking about moving to an evening gathering and that if they wanted to they can have Sunday mornings for their church to gather. Amber and I got together with the pastor and his wife and a beautiful partnership has started. So, we are 2 churches in 1 location. They are an amazing couple and they have an awesome community. They are a 2^nd/3^rd generation Russian/Ukrainian community. So, it has been a blast getting to know their culture.

What’s Going On?

This past weekend we handed out 5,000 door hangers around our neighborhood for an event we are doing this Saturday in a park just blocks from our church building. We are having a BBQ and a big Easter Egg hunt. We are partnering with the other church that gathers in the building and blessing all of our neighbors. Then, the day after the BBQ we are having an Open House at our church building where we hope and pray many of our neighbors will come to meet with us as we ask questions about life, faith, and God. Then to top it all off we have an awesome Good Friday and Easter event planned. It is going to be a full week! If you want you can see more about these events you can check out our website, under the upcoming events tab.

How You Can Pray

Even though we have lots of great stuff going on we are still a small and young, fragile church. We are still a church in its infant stages and we are learning, growing, and maturing. There is a big difference between a 2 year old, a 10 year old, a 20 year old and so forth. Please pray that unity would abound. Please pray for all of our events coming up this week. Pray that the weather would be good. Pray for God to bring all those that He wants us to come in contact with. Please pray that God would break the spiritual bondage and barriers that keep people from becoming a part of either community. Please pray that our neighborhood is blessed beyond belief. Please pray for our finances so that we can pay all the bills and bless our neighbors.

A Closing Thought

The other day I stopped by the church building for something. Everything was quiet and I stopped what I was doing and paused. I took in the immensity of the present moment. You know what I am talking about. The moment that nature catches your eye. The moment you take to breathe after you watch something inspirational. The moment you take to hold a loved one that you haven’t seen in a while. It is the moment in which time from your busy life just stops. In this moment, I paused from all that I was doing and I had this thought, “This is my church.” The thought wasn’t a possessive one, as if I owned it. It was more so that God has given me such a beautiful gift and that He said, “Here son. I want you to have this. It is a gift. Enjoy it. Cherish it. Take care of it. It is precious and it means so much to me.” I don’t have the right words to express all that I felt in that moment. It was/is holy, sacred, and full this thing we call life.

I can only pray that each and every one of you is experiencing this God-bathed life.

Peace & Grace to you all!

A Church On A Journey

I begin with a question… Have you ever pondered the thought, why do I have the rhythms of church life that I do? In other words, why I am I doing church this way? It wasn’t until I church planted and removed myself from the habits of church that I had come to know, that I realized my church life can go on auto pilot. Now, I am not talking about my discipleship to Jesus. My Jesus journey has always been about becoming like Jesus. My internal questions are from deep reflections over the past year of developing and growing a community of people that live life with Jesus at the center. If this is the goal, then what does that look like? Great question! And that is exactly the point! Sorry, I have no definitive answers for you. I just have some stories of where we are at on this Jesus journey.

Here are some of them…

Our Building

Since the last time I wrote all of you there have been some pretty amazing things take place. The first of which, is that the community of people known as Vineyard 509 has a gathering place within the Nevada/Lidgerwood neighborhood of Spokane, WA. It is an amazing opportunity to be in this neighborhood. I recently started going to our neighborhood council meetings to see and hear what is going on in our neighborhood for the sole purpose of being a blessing to our neighbors. The first meeting I went to I was told by one of the neighbors that our building location was at the center of the neighborhood. Coincidence? I think not. I was also told, that our neighborhood was the poorest and most diverse in the city. My response to this was, “Sounds, like a great place for a church.” So, we are engaging in a community and being good neighbors. I have attached a short video tour of building. We spent the entire month of September renovating. Our first gathering there as a community was September 28^th. Our goal is to do a community event once a month for the purpose of drawing the neighborhood together. Our first event that we did was a “Candy Bash” for Halloween. It was a great time of games and candy for the kiddos and a safe place for our neighbors to come together. We got to meet about 50 of our neighbors. We are in the process of planning the next events! More to come…

Trip to Nicaragua

A few weeks ago I got back from a trip to Nicaragua. I had the honor and privilege of traveling with 3 other pastors from the Pacific Northwest to visit our partnership churches in Nicaragua. There are 4 Vineyard Churches in the capital city of Managua, 1 Vineyard church in Puerto Cabezas, and 1 in Bluefields. It was nothing short of heavenly to see the work of God in these places. It is easy to forget sometimes that God is so much bigger than our church we go to, or the city we live in, the State or Country we live in. God is in the people business; the business of restoring, reconciling, and redeeming all people. As always, it is a good reminder of all the things we as Americans think we need as opposed to seeing people live on much less. I was reminded that wealth and poverty always begins and ends with the matters of the heart.

Our Community

Per capita, we are the most diverse church in Spokane. Spokane churches are known for being predominately white. We have peoples from Native American, German, Mexican, Mein, Chinese, and Nigerian ethnic backgrounds all gathered together. It really is a beautiful site. We have some visitors here and there so far but the small group that we have gathered is growing in community together. This definitely takes time. I told Amber recently that I have been ruined by the Redding Vineyard! We were so close and in such a loving relationship for such a long time this was the reason we knew we had to plant a church. We had to go give away what we have been given. The only hard part is that I want it now. I want what I had but this takes time to learn to eat together, laugh together, serve one another, sacrifice for one another and trust one another. The people that I am Vineyard 509 with are really unbelievable and I am so excited to see how God brings us all together all the while reaching out to our neighbors.

Our Supporters

Over the last 17 months we have gone from the birthing of a church plant to an infant church. We are small and fragile. We are no longer an infant but we still need love and support to grow into a mature and productive church. We just want to say “thank you” to all of you who pray for us! Whether we are a part of your normal prayer life or you pray for us occasionally when God puts us on your hearts, we just want to say thank you. It is nice to know you are with us. We still have a handful of financial partners that faithfully give every month even though they don’t have to. The reality is your support pays for the diapers! Amber and I are like struggling young parents just doing everything we can not to kill this beautiful new creation that God has given us! Our young community does the best it can to partner in investing in the neighborhood but we aren’t there yet. That is still part of our maturing process. Our financial partners are our life line. Every little bit helps in paying for the diapers, the formula, the clothes, the burp rags, the diaper rash cream, etc., etc., etc. Thank You for being the God-Parents of our church! For those that have helped in the past or those that couldn’t before and now are in a position to help, please know that every little bit helps. I mean it $5, $10, $15 per month adds up. All donations a tax deductible and can either be mailed or set up through our online giving.

Please Pray?

We are on the journey of a lifetime and we need the guidance of Jesus every step of the way. Please pray for the Vineyard 509 community to grow and mature. Please pray for the marriage of Amber and I. Please pray for the children of our church. There are a few now. Please pray for the opportunities to be good neighbors in the Nevada/Lidgerwood neighborhood. Please pray that Vineyard 509 would be a home to the orphan and widow, to the hurt and broken, and to those that need a revitalization of their faith in Jesus.

No one better to follow than Jesus,

Pastor Jason and all of Vineyard 509

 The photos below show the work we did to the building and some of the events that we've held at our church building!

One year and some change!

Update

I wanted to write everybody when we celebrated our 1-year anniversary but I also wanted to hold off because I was waiting for God to solidify some things so that I had some concrete things to report back to you all. Well, I am happy to report back to you that Vineyard 509 has signed the lease on our 1^st building. We move in September 1^st.

We are crazy excited and a little nervous. We have so many great things going for us. We have a new family plugging into the church. We have a young couple that we will be partnering with in college ministry on a couple of the college campuses. We have a neighborhood to establish roots in for our church. Our first few Sunday’s we meet at the building we will do a big pancake feed in our parking lot. Tanya is establishing an emotional/psychological healing ministry. Kao is stepping further into his prophetic gifting. And this is just to name a few.

More than anything, I can feel it in my spirit and in my bones that God is doing something here in this great city and He is inviting us to partner with him in shaping and molding heaven in this place.  I other words, we are beginning to see all the reasons why we chose to plant a church. At the same time though I know that because we are partnering with God, Satan (the great distorter of reality) is trying to distract us from this amazing work. In the last week alone my children, Amber, and Kao have all had bad dreams night after night. Tanya has been fatigued. And I had a gentleman call me out of nowhere, arguing that Jesus was created by the Father and there is no such thing as the Trinity. Craziness I tell you, Craziness!

Prayer/Needs

Friends and family, we need you more than ever before. As our level of intensity is turned up to follow God so our level of prayer against our enemy has to be stepped up. Please pray that God would send his angels to watch over and protect us.

Last month I mentioned that we needed 10 financial partners who would commit to give $100/mo so that our first year of rent is covered. So far we have 2 of those 10 commitments. We have 1 individual and one church from Oregon that has stepped up to help us. With the handful of Vineyard 509’ers that faithfully tithe we can cover the set up of the church, church supplies, and utilities but we really need those other 8 partners to really give us a fighting chance this year. Please pray and give if you can or if you feel led. If you can’t, no worries, but could you ask those around you on behalf of our church plant?

We have been blessed to have a projector, sound equipment, and some other costly expenses provided for us. I have talked with some people about chairs. If you know of any spare chairs taking up space, let me know.

We are still looking for a worship leader that would step up to help lead and guide us in our worship of Jesus in this amazing city. If you know of any folks, please give them my number.

I have been given an amazing opportunity to go to Nicaragua at the end of October to go and see what God is doing between the Vineyard NorthWest and our partnership with Nicaragua. I am so excited to have this opportunity.

In Closing

There really is so much that is going on here in Spokane, with this city, with Vineyard 509, and with many other amazing churches. We are so blessed to get to live this life we have. Thank you so much for your part in all of this. We really could not have done this with you all in our lives. I’ll wrap this update up with just a few photos and faces of people that you are having an opportunity to bless.

Muchos Gracias,

Vineyard 509

The day we arrived.

One year later! (And we are missing a handful of friends still)

We call these "Family Rules"

11 Months! 11 Months! Yes, I wrote 11 Months!

We have been in Spokane 11 months. It is crazy to see how life has changed for us. God has been up to some amazing things so I am going to do my best to share what has been going on the past couple of months.

One of the things that I asked you to be praying about was my job situation. The last update I shared with you that I got a part time job that paid just under what we needed to survive. Well, that part time job has turned into a full time job that is super flexible when it comes to my schedule. I am so blessed and thankful to have the position that I do. Just as a reminder, I am a right of way agent for the Department of Energy here in the Pacific NorthWest. One of the biggest tensions I have wrestled with has been the fact that I am pretty much doing the same job I did for Caltrans. I thought that with this leap to plant a church in a new place God would have opened up the door to impact college students by blessing me with a job that would align with the very reason I moved here. For all those needing a reminder, God can and will use you to build his kingdom no matter what your employment status is. So, it appears that we will be staying in Spokane since I now have a job that pays the bills. I have heard of the 11^th hour but seriously, the 11^th month. C’mon Jesus. I guess God isn’t through with us here J

Which leads me to the biggest thank you I have ever written. Thank you to all our financial supporters and prayer warriors over this past year. If it wasn’t for your financial generosity and praying for God’s provision we would not still be here. It is because of you that my family survived and we were able to bless many people here in Spokane. Many of you will never know how much you have touched the lives of those we spend time with but God does. He knows how you have been the body during this season of Vineyard 509. Because of this I write, “Thank You” from the depths of my soul. I cannot ever repay you for your generosity. I can only press on towards the visions that God has established in my heart.

Now, to share with you what the next season of Vineyard 509 and what God has in store for our church. As many of you have either finished or you are finishing up the yearlong commitment of supporting us, we bless you and say you are released to be free to bless others as God puts them on your heart. You fulfilled your commitment! We are still a long ways from the vision God has put in our hearts for this church and we still need partners for the next leg of the journey.

The people that have gathered and call Vineyard 509 their church are excited for what is in store. I have shared with you in past updates how Spokane is a very event centered culture. People here like to go to a place and have the event. When it comes to the religious culture, church happens at a building. While we all know this is not reality, the reality is that we have to meet the culture where they are at and bring them along on the journey. So, we have found an amazing deal in an amazing area. It is a 2000 sf building in and around differing neighborhoods in an area of the city we spend a lot of time. Two of our college gals just moved into an apartment complex 2 blocks from this building. We put an offer in and we got the building for $0.50 a sf. That is unheard of in the city, on a main frontage road. The only problem is, we don’t currently have $1,000 a month right now for a building. We have the tithes to do the outreaches and bless the community but not the money to give the community a house of worship.

This is where we still need partners. We need 10 people to commit to $100/month or 20 people to commit to $50/month. If you have been a financial supporter previously, you are not obligated to give. This building fundraiser would allow us to pay the rent on this property for a year and give us the opportunity to become a beacon of hope in this area of the city of Spokane. Everyone in Vineyard 509 is asking for all of our friends and family to help us in this crazy and wild adventure. Also, if you know of any construction people, we could use your help doing a little remodel on the bathrooms and building some children’s Sunday school classrooms.

The people of Vineyard 509 continue to build many relationships. I have attached some photos of different events we have had over the past couple of months. The best of which was our Cinco De Mayo party. It was tons of fun with great food. Good Mexican food is hard to come by in Spokane. We recently went to the air show that was at the local Air Force base. Tons of fun! Oh and did I mention, Spokane is having a terrible heat wave. It actually hit the low 80’s here a few times this past week. While it might be cold here in the winter, the spring and summer times are absolutely beautiful.

Well, there is definitely more to come. We really are just getting started. Establishing a church takes much time, energy, and patience. We are overwhelmed that God would use us in this place at this time. We miss you all dearly and hope that your lives are full in everyway!

Blessings,

Pastor Jason and Amber and Vineyard 509

Prayer Requests

10 partners @ $100/month or 20 partners @ $50/month for a total of $1,000/month

The remodel of the bathrooms and children’s classrooms

Vineyard 509 would become a beautiful church in the community

A worship leader would arise and lead us as we worship Jesus in music

We would bring glory to god in everything we do

People in and around our new building would come to know Jesus and they would be set free from all that binds them in their lives

Cinco De Mayo Party. Great Food. Greater People!

Amber had a free night for a hotel. This is where we got to stay. Its only a couple hours from our house. Needless to say, we are going back soon!

We had a coupon for a chinese buffet. We went to check it out and the owner thought we looked cute and wanted to take a photo.

This is us and some friends CrossFitting in our box.

Pictures of the building!

Just a couple photos of the kids at the air show. Most of it was video :)