food shelf – La Iglesia Saint Paul

We are changing our name! – Estamos cambiando nuestro nombre!

To the La Vina de Saint Paul (the “LVSP”) family and extended community as well as other interested people:

Having just celebrated our fourth anniversary, we find our church is entering a new season. We are excited to see where God will lead us next. As a healthy church community, comprised primarily of Latino immigrants, we remain focused on what God’s doing and following Him. Our congregation and discipleship groups are growing, and our outreaches impact 75-120 families each week. LVSP is also rapidly growing in maturity. Our welcoming community reflects love in the ever-expanding Kingdom of God.

While our church is doing great, there is some unhealthy, unjust and grievous things going on in the greater Vineyard area leadership that have affected us deeply and due to that, the LVSP’s leadership team, and board of directors has decided to withdraw from the Vineyard association of churches and consequently change our name. Making this decision was hard, we have sought counsel from other pastors and Christian leaders familiar with our region and area and determined this is the right decision for our community. We want to share our reasons for making this decision, while being as respectful as we can to the parties concerned.

LVSP joined the Vineyard association of churches as a church plant 4 years ago. When a church joins the Vineyard association, they are assigned an area leader. The assigned area leader is to support the local churches of the association. An offense has taken root in the heart of the area leader to which reconciliation has not been able to be achieved. Unfortunately, the offense has grown and led to more grievous actions that have caused the leadership of LVSP to no longer feel it is safe for our congregation to continue as part of that leadership and its practices. A local vineyard church, its pastor and council, as well as the area leader has caused our concern. This group chose to turn in a Vineyard ordained immigrant pastor and his family to the USCIS with the intent of removal. This family was an important member of our church planting leadership team. We feel the hurt and suffering caused by the actions against this family. Copy of the two letters are available by emailing admin@lavinasp.org.

Instead of continuing to operate under this area leadership we have decided to disassociate from these leaders and the Vineyard association and stay focused on the Kingdom of God and His calling for our community.

In God’s timing we look forward to a time of reconciliation. We know that unity is what we are called to in the body of Christ, for they will know we are Christians by our love.

We will change our name and other references to the “vineyard”. Our core value and beliefs remain the same, as well as our vision and mission. The disassociation from Vineyard will have no affect or impact on our community. We are seeking the Lord to establish a new name for us at this time.

We are very excited about what the Holy Spirit is doing in our community and ministries and want to stay focused on this calling. It is our privilege to serve our community and grow in maturity in His Kingdom.

Article on Vineyard USA

La Vina Saint Paul was established to not only serve the Spiritual needs of our communities in Saint Paul, Minnesota, but also the physical needs of our at-risk neighbors. In fact, we started a food shelf prior to opening our church plant.

In 2017 our location had the highest poverty and lowest income levels in the state, which is when we first started meeting with our launch team. This trend continued into the pandemic and we found ourselves in a more concentrated food desert; continuing to serve the food insecure through different means. A large part of our diverse service population is multi-ethnic, unemployed or under-employed.

What stands out to me, is that many of our hundreds of food shelf participants also consider our food distributions as a form of church service. Eddie (name changed) told me, “This is where I come to receive groceries, talk about some of my issues and I get prayed for! I appreciate that the people here actually care about me and my family.” We also heard, “I can’t make Sundays for church because of work, I think the food shelf is my church.”

La Vina Saint Paul has continued serving the public through the pandemic by changing our food distributions from an inside choice method to a drive-up service in our parking lot. Now our parking lot volunteers are also ministry hands and feet of the Holy Spirit. Our volunteer force has become an extension of the communities we serve and includes people of many different spiritual walks and ethnicities. This became a ministry target as our church volunteers live out John 17 showing our love for each other as a powerful statement to the world.

We will continue to expand His Kingdom through compassionate services and building a strong community of faith.

In His name, Pastors Ulises and Reyna

Fruit of the Vine Food Shelf Saint Paul

Our call to be compassionate neighbors necessitates action that prioritizes the safety of each and every person and the mitigation of the spread of this corona virus so we continue to practice a modified food distribution by asking our neighbors to do a drive-up service. We have implemented state of Minnesota and recommended guidelines for the safe distribution of groceries to the public during the pandemic.

If you are visiting the Fruit of the Vine Store indoor, please enter the east entrance to the Community Room and Store area. You will be given a number upon entry, please enter the community room and take a seat at one of the social distancing tables and await your number to be called. After intake, you will be given an order sheet and directed to the food shelf store and shop for your groceries. At checkout you will turn in the order sheet to the weighing station. After checkout, take your cart to your car and return the cart to the entryway.

If you are gathering your groceries by curbside pickup please follow these steps:

Please stay in your car and park in a handicap parking area to practice social distancing.

You will receive a “Take Down” form and instructions from the parking lot attendant.
PLEASE PRINT CLEARLY USING YOUR DRIVERS LICENSE OR YOUR PASSPORT:
If you are NEW please complete the form including your Name, address and names and birthdates of family members in the household section.
If you are RETURNING you only need to write your Name as listed on your Driver’s License or Passport.
STAY IN YOUR CAR and the Parking lot attendant will pick up your form to be processed by the Intake/Registration volunteers.
When your order is ready your name will be called and the parking lot attendant will direct you to a table for you to load your grocery order.

Thank you for your patience and your cooperation!