Church: New Wine

I know of a church agency that has adopted the slogan “new wine, new wine skins” for their institutional makeover, certainly a deliberate choice over the option of “cut down the old stump so that something new will grow.”

It’s nice that that particular agency is taking some looks at transforming itself, but for me it really is Church–not just any one agency or denomination–that needs a makeover. One of our former pastors commented to us last Saturday that young people are going to change the way church is done and how church looks. I started to mention how I’ve been thinking a lot about that sort of thing until M dug her elbow into my ribs to remind me that we’re not those young people anymore.

But we’re still people, and ones who have been church scouting for a year, at that. We’ve pondered time and again what church has been or might–or mightn’t–be:

1. A social club where we get to hang out with friends and other like-minded folk.
2. A cohort focused on a particular mission to make the world a better place.
3. A time for internal reflection and holy uplifting.
4. A venue where our talents can be used to their fullest extent.
5. A weekly event involving passive entertainment.
6. A place where our comfort zones–theologically, socially, economically, etc.–are stretched and trespassed upon.
7. A forum for intellectually stimulating theological discussion and debate.
8. A self-help support group.

Stumps aside, the new wine skins that Jesus was talking about might be just what young people and even old farts like me are going to end up looking for–or creating, if no one else has done so already. They will not be a refashioning of the church model of large Sunday morning gatherings, sermons, sharing time, offering, Sunday school, vacation Bible school, committees, policies, resolutions, and statements of faith, and whatnot, but a more holistic and organic something. And I don’t mean Facebook congregations or Twitter tweetdoms–I’ll leave those to the truly young, if they want them–but something real and modeled after what makes the most sense wherever such sense is to be had.

Before any replacement model can be set up (and I’d say house churches are a pretty appealing way to go), I need for myself to know what I’m hoping to find in Church–and whether or not even looking for anything in particular is at all compatible with letting new wine ferment.