New Seasons Transformation Church: forgiving and letting go

New Seasons Transformation Church

Contact: 2300 Bancroft Dr., Spring Valley, 619-775-2994, www.nscsv.org

Membership: 600+

Pastor: Bishop A.B. Vines 

Age: 58

Born: Bronx, NY

Formation: Point Loma Nazarene University; Andersonville Theological Seminary, Camilla, GA; Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

Years Ordained: 28

San Diego Reader: What’s your favorite subject on which to preach?

Bishop A.B. Vines: Forgiveness. One of the biggest issues in society today is that we have a lack of forgiveness of people. We have a problem forgiving and letting go. If there’s something I could do for the rest of my life, it would be to teach people to forgive and let go, and not hold on to so many things to where it damages their thinking, their relationships, and their health.

SDR: What is your main concern as a member of the clergy?

BV: I want to see more of a balance between love and reality in churches. In today’s cancel culture climate, there are a lot of pressing issues that have to be discussed directly, but the church often struggles to mention these topics because we fear to offend those who are part of the church and those who are not. It’s a delicate balance between offering love and reality to a hurting world. Some churches solely emphasize love: God loves you how you are and you don’t need change or correction. The mentality is that I don’t need God to shape my life. On the other hand, you have churches who offer truth and reality without room for doubt, and their position can sometimes be harsh and uncompromising. My biggest struggle is to get people to understand that love and reality are both things that we need.

SDR: What is the mission of your church?

BV: Our mission is to love God through worship, his family through fellowship, his community through service, and his world through the transformational message of Jesus Christ. We do through this through loving people, teaching them to love and serve Christ through our ministries. New Seasons Church stands out by being an outward-looking church, focusing on love and reality, and dedicated to taking Jesus’s message of hope into every community, every street corner, and every person’s soul, to show the world that no matter where you are in your life, Jesus can fill the hope that you need. We have an award-winning food bank called Heaven’s Windows through which we give out 20 tons of food a month to the community. The executive director of Heaven’s Windows, Angela Kretschmar, does an amazing job heading up this ministry, which began in 2009.

SDR: Where do you go when you die?

BV: The Bible explains that heaven and hell are real. Those who declare their faith in Jesus Christ as lord and savior will find themselves in heaven in the presence of God. On the other hand, those who reject this gift of faith will experience eternal separation from God, and this is hell. This is why it is so important to spread the gospel to as many people as possible, offering them the hope that they can find Jesus Christ. God never wants anyone to be separated from him. So he made a way through the death, burial and resurrection of his son Jesus Christ. However, he respects our free will. If someone chooses to turn away from God and reject his gifts, God respects that decision. That’s why one of the greatest gifts God gave us besides salvation is the gift of free will. So, he accepts persons’ choices to say, “No,” and to say, “Yes.”