| Rich Nathan | |
|---|---|
Rich Nathan |
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| Born | New York |
| Occupation | pastor and author |
Rich Nathan (born December 1955) has been the senior Pastor of the Vineyard Church of Columbus since 1987. Nathan came to believe in Jesus at the age of 18.[1] Prior to pastoring, he was an assistant professor of business law at The Ohio State University for five years. He has a Bachelor's degrees in history and religious studies at Case Western University in Cleveland, Ohio. and a J.D. at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law in Columbus, Ohio.. Nathan has served on the National Board of Vineyard: A Community of Churches for more than a decade and is the Large Church Task Force Coordinator for the Vineyard. He is a popular national and international conference speaker and author of two books.[2] Nathan has been noted as one of the strongest voices in favor of the Third Wave Movement.[3][4]
Nathan has also been outspoken on the subject of faith and politics, in an interview with the Columbus Dispatch, he was quoted as saying:
We think the Gospel has political implications, but it's not partisan. And we don't think that either the Republicans or the Democrats have the sole possession of the implications of the Gospel.[5]
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Vineyard Columbus (formerly Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Columbus and Vineyard Church of Columbus) is a church in Westerville, Ohio. It is part of the Association of Vineyard Churches with headquarters in Sugar Land, Texas.
Vineyard Columbus dates back as a church to the late-1970s. Three different churches joined together to form the first church. The church remained independent of any larger group for a number of years, and after investigating a number of groups to join with, the leadership of the church decided on the Association of Vineyard Churches, led by John Wimber. They became the Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Columbus in 1987. Vineyard Columbus has experienced significant growth over the years, drawing over 9,000 people at its weekend worship services and becoming the largest church in the Vineyard movement today. It is a church that is self described as an "empowered evangelical" church, according to the definition in Rich Nathan and Ken Wilson's book Empowered Evangelicals that was published in the mid-1990s.
An "empowered evangelical" is defined by Nathan and Wilson as someone who embraces the best of the Protestant evangelical stream of Christian belief and the best of charismatic/pentecostal stream of Christian belief. Vineyard as a church believes that the Bible is true and infallible, and that truth is the world's only hope. Vineyard affirms that Christians are called to tell others about what the Bible says God is doing in the world, namely transforming it. That work finds its central focus for Vineyard in the person of Jesus and what it is written in the Bible that he accomplished in his death on the cross and through being raised from the dead.
Vineyard affirms the Christian belief that repentance and faith in Jesus are the doorway into the transformation that God is bringing to the world. Without implying that evangelicals are "powerless", Nathan wrote that the "empowered" aspect that Vineyard emphasizes is that God has made his power available through the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, as it was for the apostles of the First Century. This includes a belief in supernatural healing of physical and mental illnesses and miraculous signs. While there are definite disagreements between the mainstream evangelical churches and the Vineyard, the Vineyard believes that there is great unity at the core of two.
The actions of Vineyard in the life of the surrounding community are forged by a belief that God is not just forgiving sins and in doing so making available eternal life, but that he is also actively desiring to fix what is broken in the world. The Vineyard teaches that the Kingdom of God is advancing and transforming the world. According to the theological position that the Vineyard takes, the kingdom of God is God's reign as action and the conformity of a situation to what he desires. Because of this view, the Vineyard Church of Columbus offers a full range of services to the community.
The church offers classes, prayer, sermons, and Bible study groups for growth in spiritual life. It also offers counseling, marriage training, small group communities for growth in relationships. The church is host to a ministry training center known as Vineyard Leadership Institute,[6] as well as a young adult community called Joshua House.[7] Additionally, it serves the poor and overlooked both in Columbus and worldwide to bring social wholeness.
It prays for the sick people asking that God would supernaturally heal them, teaches classes on good health, and offers groups to help people grow in physical wholeness. While the church actively seeks to see moral wholeness in the surrounding culture, it believes that the church is not here to be combative against its neighbors but to be gracious and meek like Christ. This view has been important in the development of many social programs, such as food pantries, day care and after school programs, ESL courses, as well as legal, medical, dental, and optometry clinics. Most of these programs are administered through a community center that Vineyard Columbus opened in 2006.
The original church in Westerville has planted 24 churches in since 1987,[8] including over a dozen in the Columbus area - all included in the Vineyard Movement. Vineyard also supports many Christian missionaries throughout the world.
Satellite Campuses
In 2009, Vineyard Columbus opened their first satellite campus, Vineyard Columbus Sawmill Campus,[9] in Dublin, OH. In 2011, VC opened their second campus, Lane Avenue Campus of Vineyard Columbus (VCLA). Both hold services on Sunday's at 10 am, with live worship and ministries.
Vineyard Leadership Institute (VLI) is a two-year, seven quarter course. It was created to integrate hands-on training, ministry experience, spiritual formation, and academic understanding.
Vineyard Leadership Institute was established in 1995 by Rich Nathan the senior pastor of the Vineyard Church of Columbus in Columbus Ohio. In 1996, Steve Robbins, Ph.D. was hired as Director of Vineyard Leadership Institute. Nathan personally fired Robbins in early 2011 when he learned of an affair Robbins had engaged in with a woman he was counseling.[10]. Don Williams is now serving as interim director.
The host site is in Columbus Ohio. Classes held there are recorded for distribution to other sites. VLI has many "At a Distance" sites, small groups of people that go through the courses and material together with oversight from a site coordinator.[11] VLI-AD sites are located throughout the United States as well as in the United Kingdom, Brazil, Spain, Chile, Amsterdam and other locations.