The Problem of Wineskins

Jesus talked about the importance of putting new wine into new wineskins.  "Otherwise," he said, "the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed." The Gathering is one modest attempt to create new wineskins for the new wine (i.e. living water) God is pouring out to those who are thirsty.

Jesus uses wineskins as a metaphor for the church.  He suggests that just as wineskins become dry, cracked and unable to hold wine, the church can become hardened and fractured, empty and all but it's memory of the old wine.

Reggie McNeal puts an interesting spin on the old wine/new wineskin problem in his book, The Present Future.  Empty of all but memories of old wine, the weary North American church attempts to deal with the challenges of the future by asking the wrong questions and seeking the wrong solutions.  Here are a few excerpts from The Present Future: 

The current church culture in North America is on life support. It is living off the work, money, and energy of previous generations from a previous world order. The plug will be pulled either when the money runs out (80 percent of money given to congregations comes from people aged fifty-five and older) or when the remaining three-fourths of a generation who are institutional loyalists die off or both...

 Those with a refuge mentality view the world outside the church as the enemy. Their answer is to live inside the bubble in a Christian subculture complete with its own entertainment industry. Evangelism in this worldview is about churching the unchurched, not connecting people to Jesus...

 The North American church is suffering from severe mission amnesia. It has forgotten why it exists. The church was created to be the people of God to join him in his redemptive mission in the world. The church was never intended to exist for itself... 

McNeal claims God's people can create new wineskins to carry new wine to the world by rediscovering God's mission:

The movement Jesus initiated had power because it had at its core a personal life-transforming experience. 

The correct response, then, to the collapse of the church culture is not to try to become better at doing church. This only feeds the problem and hastens the church’s decline through its disconnect from the larger culture. The need is not for a methodological fix. The need is for a missional fix.

The appropriate response to the emerging world is a rebooting of the mission, a radical obedience to an ancient command, a loss of self rather than self-preoccupation, concern about service and sacrifice rather than concern about style.

God is raising up a new generation who understand his redemptive mission and are willing to create new wineskins able to carry God's redemptive mission into the world.