“Our obligation as His ministers is not only to invite and encourage souls but to oblige them to enter into the great banquet of the Nuptials of the Lamb. If we act otherwise we are traitors or at least disloyal servants, depriving Him of the delights He finds in dwelling with the sons of men.”

Juan Gonzales Arintero

• We are a church that engages in prayer. As a pastor, I know prayer is essential to each believer’s individual relationship with Jesus. I’ve had to admit it is not possible to pastor people who do not pray. I believe fruitful ministry, if it is to glorify God, MUST be born of prayer. And before we can pray “everywhere, all the time, we must pray somewhere, some of the time.” I don’t think transformation or victory over the fleshly stuff we all struggle with can happen without it. Currently, our mandate is one hour of prayer a day for those who are members.

• We are a church that has membership. When my wife and I moved here in the summer of 1991, we were committed. We left Kansas, took our kids out of the schools they were in and planted ourselves here in Central Illinois. Our attitude was not one of hoping everything worked out, We felt God had called us here and we would do what was required to serve Him well.. I guess we expect the same of any of those who join us. We want people committed to a common purpose, willing to work through the joys and difficulties that come as part of being the light in a dark world.

• We are a church that has common values. When you sign a certificate of intent here at VCC you will be agreeing with those things that we believe to be of value in this community of Christians. Some of these shared directives are: Spending one hour each day with God in some form of silence, solitude and prayer, being a servant and demonstrating that service by being in some form of ministry here or elsewhere, loving the unity of the brethren and seeking unity in our midst by curtailing rebellion, grumbling, complaining, and murmuring, and last but not least, tithing.

• We aren’t as concerned about growing in numbers as we are about growing into a local holy temple. Since every local church is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Jesus Himself the Chief Cornerstone, we desire to build slow and build well.

• We are young (a baby boom seems to be underway) and old (oldest member is 70something) and everything in between. Any community is filled with diversity, and as a small slice of a Much Greater Kingdom, we always want to be all ages.

SOME THOUGHTS ON PRAYER FROM THE PASTOR

As a pastor for 30 years, I have come to know that a prayerless religion is a treadmill requiring constant activity with no progress. The narrow gate and the hard way of prayer is how we each come to an intimacy with Jesus, how we find the peace that surpasses understanding, and how we keep ourselves in the love of God with hearts burning. For me to deny this would make me a traitor to Him and His Calling on my life. He deserves and requires more of me, thus as a pastor I must require more of the people I serve in order to lead them to Him. I am also under obligation, to Him, to lead people where they may not want to go.

What the average American calls prayer is not really prayer, Prayer isn’t something we tack on to our Christianity. We must, each one of us, have a prayer life. Prayer is the most exciting, wonderful, transforming, frustrating, difficult, heavy work a Christian will ever do. That’s probably why we don’t do it. As a pastor, I’ve had to admit it is not possible to pastor people who do not pray.

Prayer is where we discover the real enemy - us, the old man, the natural mind, the flesh. This is the first enemy our spiritual warfare should target, not principalities, powers, or spirits in the heavenlies.

Prayer is where we are purified, where we stay in His Presence to examine ourselves and allow Him to search our hearts. We learn in prayer to carry our cross daily. It takes more than five minutes or fifteen or thirty to walk up Golgotha. We keep falling under the weight of the cross, or stopping for rest, or throwing it down. A daily, consistent prayer life keeps us on the path, the path Our Savior described as narrow.