Monthly Archives: August 2010

“Pour new wine in old wineskins and the skins will burst.” – Jesus Christ

The skins have burst. 

It’s not going to happen. It has happened.

No, not for everyone. Perhaps not even for the majority of you reading this blog. But for most people, it has.

There is a “new wine” that we are serving. I, for one, am one of the people that have been willing to try to serve it in the old wineskin. It has not been without some success, I can admit. But the success has come in the form of converting current church goers that the new wine is truer & better than the old. And this has been good.

But if success is partially measured (and it is) by how powerfully and effectively we are serving up this new wine to people in our world (outside the church, that is), then we are failing miserably.

The good news is that the church people I run with have at least agreed with (and been energized and freed by) the quality of the new wine.

And it tastes better. It makes more human sense without compromising it’s holiness. It’s not that the old wine isn’t accurate, really. It’s that the old wine isn’t enough. Here’s my best attempt at a simple summary of the old wine vs. the new:

While this new wine (our message) has been delivered to our church through the old wineskin (Sunday morning services), our leadership has decided (after much, much trial, patience, and prayer) that the old wineskin (Sunday morning services) is just not capable of containing and delivering this new wine (our message) to the world we live in that desperately needs it.

So… we are changing the wineskin. We will deliver our new message through a new means.

I’ll tell you what we are doing…but for now, what is your reaction to my summary of the new goal, strategy, teaching, authority, and meeting? Is this accurate? Does the new seem to be truer, as I claim?

“You do not pour new wine into old wineskins. If you do, the skins will burst, and the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. What you are to do is pour new wine into new wineskins. Then both are preserved.” – Jesus Christ

I happen to think that every generation needs (and deep down, wants) the message of life that Jesus Christ offers.

Who doesn’t want life to the fullest? The desire for life explains every single thing a human being does.

But not every generation seems to want to join the group that attempts to live in and live out that message of Christ (the church). According to a Thomas Rainer study:

• 65% of the Builder generation attends church
• 35% of the Boomer generation attends
• 15% of Generation X (my generation) attends
• 4% of the Millennials attend

The vote is in. At an exponential rate, the way we do church is not working as a wineskin for delivering the greatest message the world has ever known.

As you can see, the way we do church worked great for my grandparents generation. Most of them still go!

But 65% of my big brother’s and parents generations have stopped.

85% of my peers have, too. And a whopping 96% of young adults are just not having their hearts captured by the community of Christ the way they are offering it right now.

You can see why, generally speaking, the younger generations of people who have stuck with church are hungry for something new, and the older generation is usually more cautious about changing things.

More to come on this…but let me end this piece with the clear pronouncement that by CHANGE THINGS I do NOT mean anything as superficial as changing the worship style, or preaching style, or name of the church. If that stuff would work, it already would have. There is every worship & preaching style known to man available in the relatively small town I live in and it has NOT put a dent in the stats.

We must change much more meaningfully than that.