New Wineskins in the New Testament

I have made it clear that I think that the most pressing need for the CGGC is, and has been for a long time, to create a new wineskin or, as I most often have said it, repentance on the macro, big picture, level, of who we are.

I am very well aware that some people who, at one time, read my blog(s) with great interest have long since tired of my continual negativity in the face of everything the CGGC does.  And, so, let me take one paragraph to comment on why I am so continually negative: 

My conviction is that it is the CGGC wineskin that needs to change, not the wine that we produce.  All the CGGC has done in the past 80 years is tamper with the formula for the wine.  As long as our efforts to change are with the grapes and not with the vessel the grape juice is stored in, I will continue to call what our leadership does folly and foretell that it is doomed to failure.

Think back on just the most recent wines that our leaders have produced with great blind hope:  Transformational Church, Hear the Call, MLI. 

Those first two have already been relegated to the graveyard of failed CGGC brainstorms. 

MLI, while it is still operating, is a shell of what it was in its early days.  I was present for its first appearance.  I remember the early dream because I bought into it.  I recall Reggie McNeal using the violent nuclear metaphor, "critical mass," to describe his personal vision for MLI's end product.  Nothing like critical mass has been achieved and it certainly will not be achieved.

McNeal's critical mass, as I understood it, would have been change on the level of the wineskin, not the wine, and the truth of the MLI experience is that the CGGC mountaintoppers, early on, declared that the wineskin was untouchable.  They would produce missional wine but not a missional wineskin.

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Anyway, to the point...

...as I've said, the Lord has been talking to me a lot lately about this metaphor, parable, of the wineskin and I am blessed to be hearing what I'm hearing.

As of this moment, it seems to me that the changing of wineskins actually happened quite a few times in the New Testament, beginning in the Book of Acts and continuing past the time covered by Acts.

Not counting the first Kingdom wineskin, the one in Acts 2, I currently see four New Testament New Wineskins, three in Acts and one coming later.  Two of them impacted the entire community of disciples, the other two impacted smaller portions of the Kingdom community.  Very importantly, these new wineskins were created as a result of differing circumstances.

If God is willing, I will describe, on this blog, all four of them--and the circumstances that made them necessary--and any others the Lord shows me.

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The first, post-Acts 2 new wineskin, appears beginning in Acts 6 with the arrest and martyrdom of Stephen and in the scattering of disciples.

Interestingly, in terms of recent events, this new wineskin was created by events that took place in the world in the Christian community existed. 

Up through Acts 6:7, the world in which Christians operated was generally friendly to it.  In fact, Acts 6:7 says, "The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith."

Beginning with the next verse, the world in which Christianity existed changed radically and for the worst, as far as disciples were concerned.

And, disciples, living in the power of the Spirit, immediately embraced a new wineskin and, as a result, the Kingdom began to expand even more rapidly than it had been with the earlier wineskin.

The parallels to the American church today and the recent Supreme Court decision legalizing same sex marriage are stark to me.

The context in which American Evangelicalism exists changed suddenly and dramatically with the publication of that court opinion, not, of course, as dramatically and violently as was the case in Acts 6ff.

The difference between what the early Christians did and what today's American church is doing is that, today, Christians are still holding tenaciously, to their old, brittle and unusable wineskin.

Specifically, again, as I have already said, apparently to many ears that are hard of hearing, what the CGGC has actually done is only to grab more tightly on to that old, trusty wineskin and, as an institution, to insulate its congregations, sanctuaries and the members of its clergy from sinners who need to be loved, shown grace and mercy and to be preached the good news that Jesus Christ saves all who repent of their sin and believe in Him. 

None of that love, grace, mercy, gospel-preaching, repentance and belief stuff has been put into CGGC mountaintopper action as of yet and there is no evidence that any of that action is about to be taken. 

All we get in action is the hugging of that old, institutional wineskin along with some characteristic "to talk is to walk-ism" about God's love for all people: a love that no mountanintopper is living out, in my line of sight, at least.

The truth is that we will not walk in the power of the Spirit as long as we cling to old ways that always have failed.

This is, I believe, a special time for the American church.  This is a moment in which we really do have to made a choice. 

We can choose repentance.  We can allow the Spirit to produce a new wineskin and we can drink the wine He pours into it.

Or, as we have to this point, choice to cling to the old wineskin and crush our own grapes to put into it.

I hope.  I pray that that we will throw away the old wineskin and walk in the Spirit.