location

Sundays at 10am
Community Hall, 65 Great North Road, Grey Lynn

Church Office
Urban Vineyard Church, 65 Great North Road, Grey Lynn, Auckland

map

Welcome

We are so glad you have found us here, and we would love to meet you in person. Have a good look around our website, and if you can't find what you're looking for, click the contact page, email us and we will do our best to help. We hope this site explains who are are, what we love to do, and where we are heading together. You are most welcome in our church community.

Sunday Gatherings

If you are new to Urban, welcome! We meet at 10am at Community Hall, 65 Great North Road, Grey Lynn. We would be delighted to have you worship with us. Come along from 9:45am for hot drinks and baking.

Our Sunday gatherings start with our worship band leading us in a time of singing together. Then we bless our children to learn and play in their dedicated spaces (more below). Next, we have a time of sung worship, followed by relevant teaching from the Bible and prayer ministry. We conclude our formal gathering with our children joining us to take bread and grape juice for communion. Afterwards, there is time for personal prayer and conversations. 

We hope you will find the meetings at Urban Vineyard relaxed, the teaching and communication relevant and the culture warm.

In order to help new guests connect and participate further, a ‘Welcome to Urban’ event takes place regularly after our Sunday gatherings. These events provide a chance to hear the vision and story of Urban Vineyard, and meet some members of our team. The atmosphere is relaxed, the meeting is short, questions can be asked, and food is served.

If you are looking for a church home or a place to worship this week, we would be honoured to have you visit and look forward to extending a warm welcome. 

Thursday Night Prayer and Worship

At Urban, we love to spend time seeking God together, praying for each other, our church and the city. Every fortnight on Thursdays from 7:30-8:30pm, a bunch of us meet at our building to pray. These times are real moments of refreshing and inspiration. All are welcome to join. Check the calendar for dates

urban Groups

Urban Groups meet during the week at locations around Auckland, often in homes. We think Urban Groups are essential for our sense of connection with each other and with God in a large city. They are so helpful for continuing to grow and develop in our relationship with God and people.

For further details, email the urban office 

Tuesdays 7:30 (biweekly) - Mt Roskill (contact us for further details)

Thursdays 7:30 (biweekly)  @ 65 Great Great North Road, Grey Lynn 
Both groups meet on the alternative week to our Thursday night prayer gathering. 

G3

G3s are groups of 3-4 people who meet for an hour a week to work through some questions focused on spiritual growth, or focus on a topical study/book. There are a number of G3s happening already, so another option is to find 2-3 people and start a new one. If you can't make it to an Urban group a G3 is a brilliant option.

For further details on joining or forming a group or G3  email Urban office

Urban Events

Another way of connecting is to head along to one of our regular events - see the calendar for more details about what's coming up

Vineyard Conference

Urban VIneyard Events Calendar

For Families and Children

Urbanauts

Urbanauts is the name for our children’s ministry. It refers to our children and families being on a journey with each other and with God (like the journey an astronaut would take). 

Each Sunday, in our main gathering. we give out musical instruments so our children can join in with our two praise songs, playing along with the band. 

Then we pray a blessing for our children as they go out to learn and pray, create and play. 

Katie Hutching is our Children’s and Families’ Pastor.

Preschool and Starting School 

Our 0-5 year olds have a special time together with kids worship music, Bible stories, prayer and art. In the same space, there is a play area (crèche) with toys that our youngest children can use as they wish, with couches for the grown ups. As they are ready, we welcome the children to participate in the music, stories and art led by our Urban parents. Often parents help to pack up at the end of the session. 

All parents of children attending are welcome to join us, and parents of children aged 4 and 5 are welcome to go back for the worship and preaching as it suits them and their child. 

As parents, we believe in collectively and intentionally helping our children to grow in God and we take turns once or twice a term to lead or support a session for the children as we are able. 

We have changing facilities next to the children’s meeting space. High chairs are available and you are welcome to bring various snacks to meet the dietary requirements and needs of your child. A microwave and fridge are available in the kitchen, as well as a first aid kit.

Primary School / Intermediate

Our children who are aged 6 years and older meet in the side chapel, next to the kitchen. This is also led by one of our parents and the children spend time in conversation with each other and God. We often do this through sharing our life experiences, listening to stories from the Bible and writing and drawing in prayer journals. Parents are very welcome to ‘sit in’ on these sessions or join the worship and preaching. 

This group of children often help to serve our church by packing up, running games or  hosting a ‘toast cafe’ after the session. Our older children make and serve toast to our younger children (and themselves) with supervision from parents.

 For Our City

We believe that we are blessed by God so that we will bless our city. We want to feel God’s heart for our community and join with Him to meet the needs we find around us.

Over the years this has included working with organisations like Pillars and the City Mission. At a previous location, we organised weekly lunches for those sleeping rough and those who are struggling to “make ends meet.” Part of our story has been helping people into housing and into jobs, and supporting friends as they “get back on their feet.” In this current time and place, we are asking God again how he would have us love our city.

 SUPPORTing urban & its mission

GIVING TO URBAN

All our income comes from the generous regular support of our members. If you would like to be part of supporting Urban Vineyard and its ministries, here is how: Our Urban bank details are: Urban Vineyard 03-0252-0528645-000

1. Please set up a regular Auto Payment from your bank account to ours.

2. Make a one-off payment to the bank details above.

3. Put cash into our communications box by the refreshments table

4. Make a payment via our EzyChurch App. Please use your name in the reference field of the transaction so we can issue you a receipt at the end of the financial year. Or if you prefer a unique giving number, email office@urbanvineyard.church

Urban Vineyard is a registered charity (CC21974), with full reporting to the Charities Services. To find our reports and records search for "Urban Vineyard" on charities.govt.nz

Thanks for your love and support.

COMMUNITY PANTRY
We have a 'community pantry'. Bring along cans of food and place them in the basket for redistribution to Auckland City Mission, or come and take from it if you have a need.

URBAN'S STORY

Like a lot of our Vineyard churches, Urban Vineyard started with a group of friends meeting in a lounge over a meal and sharing their dreams. From that simple start, the group grew too large for a house and moved to a building in Wellesley St, Auckland CBD.

We launched as a church in April 2001. We continued to grow and moved to an empty warehouse in Newton Rd (a previous location) at the end of 2002. Since that time we shifted to Uptown Auckland and multiplied to four churches - Urban Vineyard (Ruru St, Eden Terrace), Vineyard City Church (St Pauls College, Ponsonby), Link Vineyard (New Lynn) and our newest plant North West Vineyard (Northwest Auckland). In 2021 we relocated to our current location - 65 Great North Road, Grey Lynn.

Our Sunday gatherings are focused around worshipping God passionately, teaching biblical, practical truths and practices, and prayer. We believe the presence of God changes everything for the better, so we pursue and enjoy His presence whenever we meet.

We also really love people from all walks of life, and all ages and stages. We love good coffee and baking, which you can enjoy for free at our Sunday gatherings.

Our desire is to continue to reach people with the great news of Jesus, to build new congregations as well as growing our existing ones.

It has been a great adventure so far, and we can't wait to see what Jesus will do with us next!

OUR VISION

Developing Followers of Jesus through Authentic Kingdom living

At Urban Vineyard we are committed to the mission that Christ left us: 'to make disciples (or followers of Jesus)'. We want to do this by simply living authentically as Kingdom of God people and equipping people to live as Christ would have us live.

We value simplicity and reality, so we try our best to cut through religiosity and pretence, making it as easy as possible for people to fully experience Jesus without cultural barriers.

Committed Christians, curious seekers, the worn-out and burnt-out are warmly welcomed and embraced at Urban. 

The Urban TEAM

Everyone who makes Urban their home is part of the Urban Team. We also have a kaitiaki /leadership team to lead, serve and strengthen the mission of Urban, and a Trust board to oversee the governance and compliance of our operations.

Pastor

Jonathan Rankin

the URBAN LEADERSHIP TEAM / KAITIAKI

Pastor: Jonathan Rankin

Children’s and Families’ Pastor: Katie Hutching

Urban Administrator: Annabel Cossey

Urban Kaitiaki/Overseers (in below photo) : Simon Cossey, Jonathan & Sarah Rankin, Lloyd & Victoria Rankin, Lisa Fletcher, Lance & Claire Meiklejohn, Peter Huskinson, and James Hennings

For all enquiries: email here.

TRUSTEES

Robert Bycroft (Chairman),  Claire Meiklejohn, Hayden Porter, Nikolai Santamaria, Jonathan Rankin & Lloyd Rankin.

Urban Vineyard is a registered charity (CC21974), with full reporting to the Charities Services. To find our reports and records search for "Urban Vineyard" on charities.govt.nz

FINANCES
contact accounts@urbanvineyard.church

VINEYARD HISTORY

International

The Vineyard Movement originated in the United States in 1974, with the first Vineyard Church growing rapidly and attracting a wide range of mostly young people with a desire to know, experience and share their faith in God. Before long several other Vineyard Churches were planted in California, with priorities of fostering worship, evangelism, relationships, healing, training and church planting.

In 1982 John Wimber and several other pastors led their existing churches into the Vineyard Movement as their visions were complimentary and before long John became leader of the movement. Initially Vineyard restricted its church-planting to North America, limiting its operation in other countries to renewal conferences and training. However Vineyard has now recognised a clear call to plant churches throughout the world including New Zealand.

Aotearoa New Zealand history

Vineyard’s first impact in New Zealand came when John Wimber held the ‘Signs, Wonders and Church Growth Conference’ in 1986, which had a significant effect on many denominations in this country. It provided an alternative theology and practice for healing and other Holy Spirit empowered works through emphasis on Kingdom theology and ‘only doing what you see the Father doing’.

Vineyard Churches New Zealand was launched in March 1995 when the 10 New Zealand Harvest Christian Centres became Vineyard Christian Fellowships. Harvest had been styled on the purposes, values and priorities of Vineyard Churches since its inception in 1989, but had not been given permission to use the Vineyard name, nor formally be part of the movement until March 1995.

The first Harvest Christian Centre was planted in Mahurangi in October 1989 by Lloyd and Victoria Rankin. It quickly grew and was instrumental in the planting of the next nine Harvest churches. The growth has continued with more churches being planted, and more people finding a living faith in Jesus Christ. We are committed to taking our place in the body of Christ in NZ and the world. To fulfil the calling that God has given us as a ‘tribe’ within the family of God – to bring our flavour, and in so doing enriching the body of Christ and being enriched by the body of Christ. Vineyard Churches typically emphasise:

• Biblical teaching

• Contemporary music

• The centrality of Jesus Christ

• Mercy, compassion and grace

• Care for the poor

• Prayer for the sick

• Respect for the whole body of Christ

• Connect groups

Resources

SUNDAY TEACHING ARCHIVE

Teaching

We have relevant Biblical teaching every week at Urban, and you are welcome to download the podcasts archive by clicking here.