Marbleton, Georgia is a city 15 miles northwest of Atlanta. With a population of 78,000, they are the largest community in Cobb County. They are also home to Vinings Lake Church.
The church made national news in December because it is one of the growing number of “churches” that prefer to be recognized as a collective. What are they collecting? They are a collective of “nones,” those who are considered exvangelicals and have become a part of the deconstructionist movement. “These collectives reject dogma, prefer questions over answers and have no intention of converting anybody to anything. Here, LGBTQ inclusion is not up for debate, people of all and no faiths are welcome and Jesus can be a savior, a radical rabbi or a metaphor, depending on your spiritual inclination.”1 Those who belong to the collective are still in search for something to which to belong that still has the flavor of a church without being overtly religious.
The pastor, Cody Deese, was raised in a home with a Southern Baptist pastor for a dad. Vinings Lake started as a Southern Baptist Church before breaking away. “Shaped by their evangelical roots, these communities tend to adopt “low church” formats. Pastors wear sneakers, lobbies are equipped with coffee carafes and to-go cups, pulpits are rare and liturgies — where present — are minimal. At Vinings Lake, Communion is simply “the table”: a time during services where participants are invited to ingest the bread, gluten-free wafers, juice or wine displayed on a table in the center of the room. There’s little to no preamble and attendees can interpret the event however they wish.”2
The church “values” statement (not doctrinal statement) says, “At Vinings Lake everyone has a seat at the table. Every person is encouraged and empowered to serve at any capacity in all leadership roles regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, age, education, sexual orientation, socioeconomic, or marital status.
“We are not centered around a particular set of beliefs. We seek to grow in our love for God, neighbor, self, earth, and our enemies, and to follow in the way of Jesus and his teachings. His way is that of full inclusion, sacrificial love, non-violent peacemaking, non-anxious presence, non-judgmental disposition, radical generosity, limitless forgiveness, and inexhaustible grace…
“…Vinings Lake is unequivocally LGBTQ affirming…”
Sadly, these kinds of collectives are growing throughout the U.S. More and more people are rejecting the “faith of our fathers” and embracing something that resembles NOTHING taught in the Bible while using (misusing) the Bible to support it.
Jesus made His stands very clear. Just consider some of the things He said that go against the values statement of Vinings.
John 17:17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
John 8:31-32 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; (32) And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
Matthew 10:34-36 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. (35) For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. (36) And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.
Matthew 19:4-6 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, (5) And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? (6) Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
We could continue throughout the entirety of Scripture pointing out the truths that denounce the “values” of the spiritual collectives.
As we enter church today, let’s look at what we say and do through the lens of Scripture and not culture. Let’s guard our hearts against the waves of the world that constantly crash against our faith. Hold strong to the Word of God, hunger for it, and settle for nothing else but the rule of Scripture in our lives.
Truth does not evolve but is a constant, steady absolute that can be trusted.
1https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/church-for-nones-meet-the-anti-dogma-spiritual-collectives-emerging-across-the-us/ar-AA1lOom1?ocid=msedgntp&pc=LCTS&cvid=9d6d40cf0ba147b6b661d359078138ff&ei=12
2Ibid.
3https://www.viningslake.com/
