Bundle: The Vine Project and Trellis & The Vine

About The Vine Project

In The Vine Project, Marshall and Payne provide a roadmap and resources for this sort of church-wide culture change. The book guides your ministry leadership team through a five-phase process for growth and change, with biblical input, practical ideas, resources, case studies, exercises and projects along the way. You will be helped to:

• clarify and sharpen your convictions (Phase 1)
• reform your own personal life to express these convictions (Phase 2)
• honestly evaluate every aspect of your current church (or ministry) culture (Phase 3)
• devise some key plans for change and put them into effect (Phase 4)
• keep the momentum going and overcome obstacles (Phase 5).

The Trellis and the Vine proposed a "ministry mind-shift that changes everything". The Vine Project shows how that mind-shift can and must shape every aspect of what you are doing as a congregation of Christ's people to make disciples of all nations.

About The Trellis & The Vine

The image of the trellis and the vine raises all the fundamental questions of Christian ministry:

• What is the vine for?
• How does the vine grow?
• How does the vine relate to my church?
• What is vine work and what is trellis work, and how can we tell the difference?
• What part do different people play in growing the vine?
• How can we get more people involved in vine work?
• What is the right relationship between the trellis and the vine?

In the following chapters, we will be suggesting that there is an urgent need to answer these questions afresh. Confusion reigns. Everyone wants their churches to grow, but most are unsure how and where to start. Church growth gurus come and go. Ministry methods fall in and out of favor like women’s fashion. We troop from one new technique to the next, hoping that this one (at last!) may be the secret to success.

Even among those godly, faithful pastors who avoid the trendsetting fads of Christian marketing, there is confusion—most especially between what Christian ministry is in the Bible, and what Christian ministry has become in the particular tradition or denomination of which they are part. We are all captive to our traditions and influenced by them more than we realize. And the effect of tradition and long practice is not always that some terrible error becomes entrenched; more often it is that our focus shifts away from our main task and agenda, which is disciple-making. We become so used to doing things one way (often for good reason at first) that important elements are neglected and forgotten, to our cost. We become imbalanced, and then wonder why we go in circles.

Titles Included in This Bundle

The Vine Project

by Marshall & Payne

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The Trellis and the Vine

by Marshall & Payne

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About the Authors

Colin Marshall has spent the past 40 years training men and women in the ministry of the gospel, both in university and local church contexts. Since the publication of The Trellis and the Vine he has been heading up Vinegrowers, a ministry aiming to help pastors grow churches that are focused on disciple-making (see vinegrowers.com). Col is married to Jacquie, who has shared with him in this lifetime of ministry, and they have been blessed with three now adult children and four grandchildren.

Tony Payne has worked in Christian ministry, focusing on writing and publishing, for over 25 years. He is the author of many books, Bible studies and other resources, including The Trellis and the Vine, The Course of Your Life, and Islam in our Backyard. He is currently the CEO of Matthias Media, the Director of the Centre for Christian Living at Moore College, and a member of the staff team at St Paul’s Anglican Church, Carlingford. With his wife, Ali, he has five children and two grandchildren.