I’m New

Our Story

In the summer of 2000, we both volunteered to be part of a city-wide social action initiative in Manchester. During the evenings we gathered at the Manchester Evening News Arena to worship God together. It was at one of these meetings that, individually, we had the most profound encounter with the Holy Spirit than ever before. For each of us, it was a life changing moment as we committed our lives to God afresh, desperate to live uncompromising, passionate lives of surrender and followership to Jesus. The very next day, we met each other and five years later we got married!

We have had the pleasure of being part of a number of Vineyard churches over the years and served on the staff team at Trent Vineyard before moving to Manchester. Before working for the church, we each held a number of other roles, including Paul’s seven years as a firefighter. We have two young daughters and we love the blend of family life and ministry.

Over a number of years, we felt God calling us to return to Manchester to plant a Vineyard church. If we could put our desire for Manchester Vineyard into one sentence, it would be that we want to gather a group of people who will love Jesus and love Manchester. We want to focus on prioritising intimate worship with God, being shaped and restored by Him, and proclaiming the Kingdom message and ministry of Jesus, through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.

We’d love to meet you!

Paul & Steph Lowe
Church Leaders

@paul_lowe

paul@manchestervineyard.org

@Steph_a_Lowe

steph@manchestervineyard.org

The Vision

If you are exploring joining us, there will be a number of things you may want to know and you will find our core values outlined below. However, we believe that who we are will always communicate louder than what we say. We’d love for you to get in touch so that we can meet you!

Why We Exist

We believe we are called by God to establish an authentic, relevant, growing and biblically-based church. Purposed by a passion for Jesus and empowered by the Holy Spirit, we intend to worship God and extend compassion, as we live on a mission to love, serve and call into the fullness of life, the people of Manchester.

We aim to identify, develop and equip leaders. We also believe we are called to plant new churches, some of which will be in Manchester, and to encourage and resource the wider Church.

Simply put: We want to build a community that will live the way that Jesus did, seeking to shape the culture of Manchester, one life at a time.

The Vineyard Movement

The Vineyard Movement is a worldwide network of over 1,500 churches, led in its earliest years by the late John Wimber. The Vineyard Movement is committed to seeing each generation reached by the power of the Gospel. With a view to embrace integrity in Christian character, along with the activity of the Holy Spirit, each Vineyard church seeks to be an outpost of God’s compassionate love in a broken world.

The genetic make up (the DNA) of the Vineyard significantly influences who we are and what we prioritise.

Jesus

We aim to centre everything we do around Jesus. We believe He is the head, owner and operator of His church. Jesus always obeyed His Father’s voice and did His works, and we aim to do likewise.

Kingdom

The lens through which we see things is the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is the future reign of God breaking into the present through the life and ministry of Jesus. We are committed to proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom of God and bearing witness to the ‘now and not yet’ of the Kingdom.

Compassion

Worship leads us into the presence of Jesus and by His Holy Spirit He stirs compassion within us. We expect to generously spend time, money and resources on others.

Church Planting & Development

We are a recent church plant but we are expectant that one day we will be sufficiently resourced to be able to plant churches ourselves, including other expressions of the Vineyard in Manchester itself. We also long to work with, learn from and honour the wider church.

Bible

The Bible is central to our teaching, life and faith. We aim to hear and obey God’s Word and try to do what it says as we are continually transformed into people who reflect the life and character of Jesus. It is not enough to be biblically literate, we want to be biblically obedient too.

Worship

This is our highest priority. Worship changes us. We cannot encounter God’s presence in worship without being changed as we move our focus from us onto Jesus.

Local Church

We long for Manchester Vineyard to be a church that acts like a hospital, school, community and army:

Hospital – to find healing, freedom and wholeness.
School – to be trained and equipped to do the stuff Jesus did.
Community – to be known, belong and know others.
Army – a group of ordinary people seeking to do extraordinary things, empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Training

We want to equip people to live out their faith in a way that changes their lives, the lives of others and resets the very culture of this city. We believe that this will be a resourcing church. We want to resource people to practically live out their faith.

Core Values

We also have a few core values that give meaning to all that we do. Our core values help to establish the culture of who we are.

Passion For God

We are hungry for the presence of God, to hear His voice, to follow Him and become more like Him.

Healing

We long to create an environment and practice of healing. We hope to see people experience spiritual, physical and emotional freedom and wholeness as they spend time in God’s presence. People are healed and made whole by moving their attention from themselves onto Jesus. We place a high value on the Holy Spirit capturing people’s hearts and producing a change in them.

Power of the Holy Spirit

We want to live with a sense of expectancy and foster an environment of growth. Spiritual growth is a product of the initiating, empowering work of the Holy Spirit and of our active cooperation with Him. He engages our minds, wills and emotions and He expects us to respond.

Team

We believe in and will seek to foster a very strong team focus and emphasis throughout the church.

Being Relevant

We intend to continually adapt to and embrace change to ensure we do not stagnate. The church is not an organisation but an organism, and we place high value on being the church rather than just going to it.

Doing The Stuff

We want to do the stuff that Jesus did and to be intentionally looking to serve the needs of the city and it’s people. We want to be noticeable in this city. We want to be a light on a stand that shines truth and hope into the city.

Prayer

Prayer is at the heart of all we do as we actively communicate with God and express to Him our thankfulness.

The Individual

All people matter to God, so all people matter to us! We want to be people who extend grace and mercy to each other. We are committed to nurturing an atmosphere of mutual acceptance, open communication and trust, which encourages each person to work towards their full potential in Jesus. We want to create opportunities and a community that is open to anyone, whatever their past, wherever they are at in their journey of considering or pursuing Jesus.

Healthy Relationships

We want to build a community that develops open, honest and genuine relationships, enabling us to support each other as we seek to be more Christ-like.

Community

We believe an aspect of our role is to teach, train, equip, and model how family members participate and how healthy families function. Church is not just a place to attend but it is a community to be part of. Like-minded people forming a family bond through friendship. We believe the church will be multigenerational and multicultural. We also believe we will have a specific focus on reaching the emerging generation.

Servant Leadership

Jesus came to serve, not to be served. We believe that the things our leaders model will be reproduced among the community and we long for that to be serving and preferring others. We see leadership as functional rather than positional.

Everyone Gets To Play

We believe that everybody who follows Jesus gets to participate in the Kingdom work! This is a place to come and try things, to have a go and to take some risks. This doesn’t necessarily mean everybody can do everything or would even be best at everything, but instead that Jesus intended for us all to be active participants.

Vision Talks

Hear Paul & Steph’s personal story and their vision for the future of Manchester Vineyard.

Exploring Faith

Is there more to life than this? Why does suffering happen? Does God exist? Everyone has questions and we would love to welcome you to come and explore them at Alpha.