cup a joe

Once upon a time, blogging was the cool thing to do. You weren't a post modern / gen x church planter unless you had a blog.  And so, twenty-one years ago, I started this.  This was my one of my first posts in early May, 2003:

Hi, my name is Joe Holda and this is my blog! My wife Cindy and I are simple church planters here in DeKalb, Illinois (actually, we live in Sycamore, but that’s another story). I thought I would start this blog to attempt to keep track of the trials and tribulations in the planting of a church. I hope that in time, this little bog will turn into God’s story of what he is doing with us, as well as miscellaneous thoughts and ramblings on what it means to be a Christ follower in the 21st century. Idle thoughts about community, leadership, church and relationships are sure to be plentiful.

So as the title of the blog goes, feel free to sit back and enjoy a cup a joe with me while, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we stumble through this thing called life. Enjoy!

Cindy and I were young, adventurous, and idealistic church planters. We felt we had a calling from God. And while we knew it would be challenging, we figured that since God had called us here, the challenges would be minimal, or at least easily overcome. Like I said, idealistic.

Saying the last twenty-one years have been challenging is an understatement. The challenges and issues that we've dealt with have been far greater - and more costly - then we could have ever imagined. But, we're still here.  I've been told that Cindy and I have the gift of perseverance. While I love all of the gifts God has given us, I wish he would have given that one to someone else.

Almost four years ago, I posted that I was going to start this blog up again. Four years ago we were in the early stages of COVID lock downs. We all though that we'd get through this - that we'd be at the other side of this after Easter. Or after the summer. Or after the second wave. Or after the election. Remember those days? God had just blessed us with a building. After wandering in the desert for nearly a decade, moving from one temporary location to another, we finally had a place to call home. God's hand had moved. There were prophetic words, and signs, and breakthroughs. We closed on the building on March 1, 2020. This was a new beginning. The church had momentum and was growing. This new space was going to re-launch us. And then - everything stopped.

We made it thought the first wave unscathed. But then, the bleeding started. People moved away. People got mad. People simply disappeared. We had an outbreak in our church right after we celebrated it's 25th birthday in late October, 2020. We were forced to shut down because all leadership team got sick. We didn't re-open until after Christmas. But very few returned.

How do you define the gift of perseverance? Simple: when God gives you lemons, you make lemon-aid. An opportunity presented itself to be apart of several learning cohorts sponsored by Multiply Vineyard and NewThing. We brought a team to the first meeting, only to discover that we were the smallest church in the cohort. At times I wondered why they let us in. We were small an inconsequential - barely on life-support. However, by that point we had nothing to lose. So we threw ourselves into it. We learned as much as we could and tried everything. We figured that God had given us a blank piece of paper and invited us to re-imagine with Him what the Vineyard in DeKalb could look like. We've been on this journey for over two years. And this Sunday, we rolling out and implementing much of what we discovered and learned.

Because of all that, it felt like this might be a good time to reboot this blog. I have absolutely no expectations that anyone will actually read it. Blogging is so early 2000's. But I felt like the Lord was challenging me to document what we're doing - and this seemed like as good of a place as any to do that. And so, it is my hope and prayer to start writing again and perhaps actually accomplish my original goal: to tell the story of what God is doing in and through us in the Vineyard Church DeKalb. 

If you've stumbled across this - welcome. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions. I don't consider us in any way to be experts in any of this. We're just trying to follow and obey the leading of Jesus.