Meeting the Vinedresser
I arrived early at a vineyard on Old Mission Peninsula in Traverse City, Michigan, hoping for a few quiet moments to walk among the vines alone. The October sky was thick with clouds, and the crisp air rolled in from the bay, carrying the scent of decaying leaves.
If Romans 1:20 is true – that God’s invisible qualities are revealed through what he has made – then surely these vines had something to tell me about God, and perhaps about myself, too.
I wandered slowly, partly to pay attention, partly because I was exhausted from preparing for a ministry conference I was directing the next day. I felt a quiet kinship with these weary vines at the end of harvest, sagging under the weight of heavy, ripened fruit. Their once vibrant leaves had faded to mustard yellow with burgundy creeping in from the tips.
I crouched beside one of the vines, adjusting my camera lens to frame the woody, grayish-brown trunk nestled beneath the canopy of leaves and fruit. The gnarled base, thick and knotted, bore the marks of years of pruning, with remnants of severed branches jutting out sideways in remembrance of past seasons. As the trunk rose toward the trellis, it tapered upward, bending in generous curves, its arms outstretched as if lifted in quiet praise.
And yet, for all my careful study of the deep lines and curves of each vine, the truth embedded in them felt out of reach. It felt more like trying to decipher an ancient language, its secrets lingering just beyond my grasp. I needed a guide. Someone who had gleaned from creation’s wisdom and could interpret her language to me.
That’s when I met Dave, a vinedresser and winemaker from Napa Valley. Like many followers of Jesus, the words in John 15:1, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser” (ESV) had deeply shaped my spiritual life. I was deeply curious about what a vinedresser actually does and what he might be able to teach me about the Father, the Vinedresser. When I asked Dave what he paid most attention to when cultivating vines, his answer startled me.
“Vinedressers don’t pay much attention to the fruit.”
I blinked. What!?
“It’s not that they don’t care about fruit,” he continued. “It’s just that by that point, the work is already done. All that matters to a good vinedresser is the health, quality, and vitality of the vine. If they tend to that, good fruit will be the natural byproduct.”
Something in his words resonated deeply. They gave language to a truth I had long sensed but couldn’t articulate:
The vinedresser’s primary concern isn’t fruit – it’s flourishing.
That day in the vineyard, Dave graciously and enthusiastically answered my questions, but he offered me so much more than this. He invited me to learn not just from his technique, but from the culture he creates in the vineyard – rooted in love and relationship, and so different from our own.
Over the last six years, I’ve become something of a vinedresser’s apprentice. I’ve spent hours in the vineyard with my camera in hand, capturing the beauty of the vine and discovering God’s wisdom woven into creation.
What I’ve learned has freed me from the relentless pace of productivity and helped me find a rhythm of abiding that ripens fruit from a rooted, authentic place.
Here are five lessons I’ve learned from Dave about what it means to flourish in the Vine.
Lesson 1: Flourishing Begins with a Loving Vinedresser
The word cultivation shares its root with culture – the values, practices, and behaviors that shape a community. In a vineyard, it’s the vinedresser who sets the tone for this culture. And one of the clearest ways they do this is by what they choose to measure. Because what we measure reveals what we value.
For Dave, an organic vinedresser, measurement is not about spreadsheets or quotas; it’s deeply embodied and relational. He runs the leaves between his fingers, feeling for subtle signs: rubbery means well-watered, papery suggests thirst. He studies the canopy’s color and shape, reading the story told by tendrils – their presence signaling growth, their absence hinting at stress.
He notices the diversity of life in the ecosystem – cover crops, insects, birds, microorganisms – because the more diverse, the healthier the vineyard. And when fruit begins to ripen, his “metrics” are as personal as tasting berries for the delicate balance of sugar and acidity. His measurements focus on the signs of life, not the pace or scale of production.
But many of us have been shaped by a very different set of values. We live in a culture that measures people like machines – by output, speed, and efficiency. In a world driven by performance metrics and profit margins, where CEOs and political leaders often prioritize accumulation over care, it’s worth asking how deeply these models have shaped our view of God.
But God is not like these models.
Of all the plants Jesus could have chosen to describe our relationship with Him, He chose the vine; one of the most high-maintenance plants around. Unlike trees that need little attention, a vine demands constant care. What does this tell us about God?
It tells us that He wants to be an active participant in your life and formation. He leans in. He gets close. He visits often. Why? Because He loves you.
Vinedressing is hard work that yields meager results in the short term. But good vinedressers don’t do it for the money. They do it because they love vines.
When I watch Dave in the vineyard, I never get a sense that he is in a hurry or trying to speed up the growth process. He isn’t anxious about the harvest – when it will arrive and how much it will yield. Instead, I get the sense of his complete and utter delight in simply being there in the vineyard with these vines and watching them grow.
Can you believe God attends you with the same kind of care? Unhurried and attentive? Beholding you in loving contemplation?
When the motivation is love, vinedressers gladly invest their time. Yet, love is not just the motivation behind good vinedressing, it is the method and the means as well. Love is the founding principle of flourishing in God’s vineyard.
Lesson 2: Flourishing is Slow Work
When Dave moved back to Old Mission Peninsula from Napa Valley in 2017, he had a dream to transform the local farming industry through organic, relational, and sustainable practices. In a culture largely shaped by industrial farming which prizes productivity and efficiency, he had his work cut out for him.
Yet, he is slowly changing the culture one vineyard at a time. Like one 30-acre field that is being transformed from a cherry orchard to a vineyard. For several years, instead of rushing to plant vines, Dave has been preparing the soil by layering rounds of cover crops that enrich the soil with nutrients.
“I’ll keep planting different cover crops over and over until it’s ready to plant,” he tells me. “Because the whole process is building health into the soil. The cover crops release nutrients that feed the microbes, which in turn feed the vine’s roots.”
Unlike industrial farming, which extracts as much as possible from the land in the shortest amount of time, Dave and the vineyard owners are investing in what can’t yet be seen: the microbial life beneath the surface and the biodiverse web of interdependent relationships that will one day support the vine.
This process will take years, and they may never fully see the fruit of their labor, but that’s not the point. Their work is motivated by a love for the entire community of creation in the vineyard for decades to come.
In a world obsessed with speed and scale, what does it mean to be shaped by the slow, loving hands of a Vinedresser who works like this? One who tends the hidden life beneath the soil of our souls with a long-term vision?
What if He’s less concerned with quick results and more invested in the deep, unseen work of lasting health and transformation – in you and in your community?
The most beautiful things in this world take time to grow – and your formation is no exception. God is cultivating you to bear fruit with eternal value – fruit that reflects His beauty and glory to the world. Growth in the Kingdom is slow and cannot be measured by buckets spilling over with grapes. Its value is revealed in “fruit that will last.” Our obedience may not produce visible outcomes that we will see in our lifetime, but it contributes to an eternal harvest, nonetheless.
Lesson 3: Flourishing is About Quality Over Quantity
We live in a culture obsessed with output. Bigger numbers. More programs. Greater reach. In ministry, the temptation to measure our worth by visible results is constant. But, as Dave explains, “Grapevines are glorified weeds. If you don’t prune them back, they’ll produce a lot of grapes, but they won’t be quality. In so many areas of our culture, we think more is better. But not in a grapevine. That mindset doesn’t work if you’re trying to make a really nice bottle of wine.”
Dave taught me that vinedressers aren’t primarily concerned with how much fruit a vine produces. They’re concerned with whether the fruit is quality.
The same is true for our lives with God. Jesus doesn’t call us to produce more fruit, but to bear fruit that lasts. And the kind of fruit He desires is not measured in spreadsheets. It’s measured in character.
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Gal. 5:22-23)
God is not sitting on his throne fretting about the yields we produce.
He doesn’t have a profit margin that He needs to make every year.
He doesn’t take a churn and burn approach that produces barrels of cheap wine from our lives.
He isn’t interested in making something lucrative out of us.
He is after something far more compelling – He is interested in making us whole. He is interested in making us like Him. And as such, He takes the long view, patiently nurturing us to bring forth our very best.
God is more interested in who we are becoming than what we produce.
Quantity can impress, but quality is what endures. Flourishing means shifting our measure of success from output to character, from numbers to love.
Lesson 4: Flourishing Is Cyclical, Not Linear
But Psalm 1:3 reminds us that the righteous person is like a tree planted by streams of water “which yields its fruit in season.” (emphasis mine) Even the healthiest tree does not bear fruit all year long. When we live as though it is always harvest time, we suffer under the pressure to always be “on.” No wonder anxiety is rising. Our souls were never meant to bear the weight of endless harvest.
Like trees and vines, we are not machines that only need a steady stream of electricity or gas to power us to go. Our lives are not linear progressions upward. We are living beings, bound to the wisdom of cycles.
As the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery describes, “Out of nothing came not randomness or chaos, but a divinely ordered progression of time, through segments called seasons, which in themselves show the pattern of life, death, and resurrection.”[1]
Each season is necessary for the vine’s long-term vitality.
I think of seasons in my own ministry when seasons of dormant waiting felt like failure. Opportunities closed. Numbers dropped. And yet, in hindsight, I can see how those dormant seasons allowed for the growth to happen beneath the surface of the soil in my roots.
Jesus Himself lived these rhythms: 30 years in hiddenness before public ministry, 40 days in the wilderness before stepping into His calling, three days in the tomb before resurrection. Why would we imagine our growth would look any different?
Flourishing means releasing the myth that we can constantly produce. It means welcoming rest, allowing seasons of dormancy and pruning, and trusting that God brings resurrection life in His time.
Lesson 5: Flourishing Is Relational
During a lecture at the Elk Rapids Garden Club, Dave explained the practice of cover cropping: “It’s the idea of using a living plant to heal another living plant. A hundred years ago, this was just a given. Healthy and diverse relationships between vines and other crops make them more resilient to diseases like black rot and mildew, and they heal faster. Cover cropping is a cornerstone of what we’re trying to do to bring health, quality, and vitality to the plant.”
Different plants contribute in different ways. For example, legumes enrich the soil by infusing nitrogen, a key nutrient for growth. Mustard plants, with their deep taproots, help prevent erosion, and make buried nutrients more accessible to future crops.
After the talk, Dave pulled me aside and said, “Isn’t it amazing how deeply relational our Creator made all things? He is no less intentional with us.”
When Jesus speaks of fruit in John 15, He isn’t describing measurable achievements or outward success. He speaks the language of attachment, the language of relationship:
If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit;
apart from me you can do nothing …
This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit,
showing yourselves to be my disciples.
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.
Now remain in my love.
According to Jesus, we cannot grow fruit on our own effort or performance. Fruit comes from abiding. When we remain in Christ, His life flows into ours, producing the fruit of His character that overflows in love for others.
We live in a culture that prizes independence and self-actualization. But flourishing doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens in connection – with God and with one another.
For women in ministry especially, this is vital. Too often, leadership feels lonely. But the vineyard reminds us that branches flourish when they grow together, when they are supported and strengthened by one another.
God has woven a web of interdependent relationships throughout creation. Each of us is a unique masterpiece, carrying gifts meant to sustain and bless others. And we, too, have needs we cannot meet alone. This is mutuality – a foundational principle in God’s vineyard.
But this kind of ecosystem doesn’t grow by accident. It requires partnering with the Vinedresser to cultivate connection, interdependence, and shared purpose. Without intentional relationships, especially across differences, there is no lasting fruit. Yet when people of varied backgrounds and experiences come together within the body of Christ, new life emerges – new ideas, new dreams, and fresh vitality that multiplies the fruit of the Kingdom.
An Invitation to Flourish
Walking with Dave through the vineyard taught me lessons that continue to shape my life and leadership. Flourishing begins with a loving Vinedresser. It is slow work that is about quality over quantity. It embraces the cyclical rhythm of life, death, and resurrection. And it happens in community, not isolation.
Notes
- [1] Ryken, Wilhoit, and Longman, Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, 767.
