Elm City Vineyard Church Talks

On this first Sunday in our new post-Easter series, “We Have Seen the Lord,” we will consider a remarkable encounter at his tomb between the risen Lord and Mary Magdalene, a most unlikely witness in …

“Hosanna in the highest!”

Each year, we celebrate Palm Sunday as a way to remember when Jesus triumphantly enters into Jerusalem. Using this story, we’ll take a deeper look at the concept of humility.…

As we finish out the Conviction and Embrace series, we will consider what it means to practice conviction in community. What kind of people must we seek to become if we are to speak words of convicti…

What happens when we come to the end of ourselves? What can we do when self-improvement isn’t enough to change a destructive or unhelpful habit? Does Jesus still love us, even when we feel incompeten…

Among God’s greatest gifts to his people is the gift of the Holy Spirit, our Helper and Advocate, as Jesus refers to him in John’s Gospel. As we continue with our Conviction series this week, we will…

God’s love for us like a father or parent takes many forms, one of which is discipline. When we receive conviction or discipline from God, this is only and always a way our Heavenly Father is loving …

In the first talk of our Lenten series, Conviction & Embrace, we will uncover the power light has to reveal sin and darkness. Do we fear that light? Or do we trust that light also comes with the warm…

So many of us live trying to do enough to prove that we are enough. But what if we didn’t need to prove anything? What if our value and worth weren’t things we had to prove, but rather gifts from an …

At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus was attacked by an angry mob simply for speaking well of the enemies of his own people, and he later taught that God would bless us when people hated and mistr…

As we love our neighbors beyond our comfort zone, this includes neighbors who have recently arrived to our country. Scripture has a long witness of blessing the stranger in our midst and showing them…

What does it mean to proclaim liberty to the captives? How can we neighbor people that are locked up? When it comes to loving incarcerated people, we have to be intentional to even see folks who are …

In Matthew 22, when asked what the greatest commandment is, Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest comm…

In Luke's account of the birth of Christ, an angelic herald proclaims to a group of shepherds "good news of great joy for all people." ECV exists to call all people to revolutionary lives of action t…

Joy is a major theme of the Christmas story, and for good reason—Mary rejoices with her cousin Elizabeth as she carries Jesus in her womb, angels announce the birth of Jesus as "good news of great jo…

It’s that time of year. It gets dark before 5pm. It can seem like darkness is all there is. While that is true for December in the northeast, that can also feel real for our souls. But what if we rem…

On this first Sunday of Advent and of the liturgical year, we reflect on how Jesus was born to humble people in quiet village places, and not in a great city or to the rich and powerful. In our own t…