Changing… Quickly

“And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins.  And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’” Luke 5

“Changing….  Quickly”

My wife Jackie and I were at Sears last night…. for the store closing. Closing! How can this be? For over half my life Sears was the largest retailer in the world. Now, even with Kmart added to it, Sears doesn’t make the top ten. Dwarfed by places like Walgreens and Amazon, not to mention the omnipresent Walmart. What is happening to the world we grew up in? The answer is simple: it is changing… quickly. My neighbor in Florida gave us the paper while we were there. He didn’t need it. He gets the paper so he can read it online. This article will appear as a blog online and may be read by more people than in print.

The church is changing… quickly. 2016 was a good year for the church. We brought new people to Christ, reached out in amazing ways to help those in need, and made a serious impact instilling the Word of God into the next generation. We paid our bills and enhanced our ministry and facilities. But it is changing… quickly. A few years ago, going to church meant attending Sunday worship. Churches were all but closed during the week except a few meetings and preparations for Sunday. We are healthy as a church Sunday morning, but we are not growing in Sunday worship. However, we easily have more people involved in our ministry Monday through Saturday than Sunday morning. Now we have ministries happening off site in other locations.

New music, new activities, new worship services, new ways of being the church as God pours new wine into new wineskins. It is exciting, but also destabilizing and difficult. The passage from Luke says that those who have tasted the old wine don’t want the new wine. So we end up duplicating our efforts and weakening our impact. Walmart has to sell online and in stores. We produce a newsletter and a blog. We sing old songs and new. Choirs and bands. Bible studies and worship. New locations and old. In all things, God will give the blessing if we remain faithful to His purpose to bring Christ to the world. It will be an interesting ride.

Now let’s see, would you like a glass of Ripple, Pino, or Nebbio with that?

Pastor Tom