Ancient-Future

Click here to hear a podcast by Aaron Klinefelter about ancient-future expressions of faith as a guiding value of VC.



Fixed Hour Prayer
In July of 1995, Vineyard Central purchased the St. Elizabeth property from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. The Nixon family moved into the rectory, which was where the priests used to live. The priests who had lived there over the years left many books and other reference materials in the basement of this house. Dave Nixon found them and began reading. This led him to take a trip to the Abbey of Gethsemani in Trappist, KY, where he attended their many prayer meetings throughout the day. As Dave shared about his experience, others discovered The Divine Hours, a series of prayer books developed by Phyllis Tickle. In August of 2000, Kevin Rains and Dave decided to try having Fixed Hour Prayer with their community. We gathered at 7:00 a.m., noon, and supper, and 9:00 p.m. using The Divine Hours as our prayer book. On the hour we'd light candles, stand, and recite these beautiful prayers together. These 15 minute prayer gatherings became touch-stones throughout our day – a time to collect ourselves, remember our maker, and be thankful.

Currently, we gather every weekday morning (Monday through Friday) from 7:30-7:45 and midday from 12:00-12:15 in the St. E building for fixed hour prayer. We recently just added evening prayers at 9-9:15 pm as well! We continue to use The Divine Hours, and we pause before the final prayer to lift up our own intercessory prayers for our friends and neighbors.

The Divine Hours can be purchased on Amazon.com. These prayers can also be accessed daily, throughout the day, on the web at the Ann Arbor Vineyard's web site.

Discover Your Hidden Monk: Inner Life Retreats with Sustainable Faith
This retreat is designed as an introduction to the ancient practices of fixed-hour prayer, centering prayer, and lectio divina. The history of Christianity in general and monastic movements in particular demonstrate these three practices are effective at helping us learn the language of historic prayer (fixed hour prayer), deepen our conversation with God via reflective reading of scripture (lectio), and find true rest in God (contemplative prayer).

A regular engagement of these three practices are proven tools to sustain us for the long haul of ministry. In Jesus’ words, they are ways of keeping us “connected to the vine.” Dave Nixon will teach on these ancient practices, connecting them to contemporary life and guiding you to engage them in your context. However, the uniqueness of this particular retreat is that you’ll also be practicing these modes of prayer and reading over the course of 3+ days.

Fixed-hour prayer will occur upon rising, around home-cooked meals, and before retiring each night. At other points in the day there will be opportunities for learning about and practicing both lectio divina and centering prayer.

Copyright 2008 • Vineyard Central
1757 Mills Avenue, Norwood, OH 45212 • 513-396-7202