The CGGC Needs a New Wineskin

Each of the first three New Testament Gospels records Jesus speaking a parable about new wine and old wineskins.  Here from Mark 2:22 ESV:

...no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.

Entire books have been written exploring Jesus' meaning but, in general terms, His intent can't be missed: It is not possible to put what new is new and dynamic into a container that is old and rigid.

Based on what I am reading and hearing, there are many in the CGGC who are extremely hopeful that, through the leadership of the new G.C. E.D., change for the good will take place in our body.  And, I also wish only the best to Lance and our body.

However, I am not optimistic.

I have little hope over the issue of the CGGC wineskin. 

I am certain that we need to use a new wineskin, yet it has been the practice of our body, for several generations, to demand that the old wineskin is perfectly adequate to contain any wine we choose to put into it.

And, any CGGCer who is honest has to admit that every time we've tried to change programs and strategies, i.e., the wine, we have insisted on not changing core values and organizational structures, or the wineskin. 

And, we always fail.

As I read Lance, and as I have known him over the last twenty-plus years, I have known him to be a new wine kind of guy.  He is bright and creative.  He has already demonstrated the courage to boldly assess the state of the CGGC union as failing, one that, without change, has a bleak future.

Here's what I hope for and pray for as far as Lance is concerned:  That he begin with the wineskin, or, as I've usually said it, at the macro level.  That he courageously look straight into the eyes of the mountaintoppers, those who have prospered from the old wineskin, and demand that change begin at the level of our values, that he demand that nothing of the old structure, including well-compensated staff positions, even his own, can be considered sacred.

It, as I say, clear to me that Lance is a new wine guy.  I don't know, however, that he is a new wineskin guy.

Can we all agree that no changed rooted in failed values and merely based in a new program or strategy is likely to succeed?  Can we agree that we need a change of heart?

The truth is that these are truth we have not agreed to in practice for a long time.

We must repent of the wineskin.

Then, we can buy some new wine.