New Wine is becoming the Old Wine

As I lay on the floor of an agricultural exhibition hall near Newark this summer soaking up the love of my heavenly Father there was a stray thought in my head. Why is it that only thirty out of the 2500 people in this hall are making use of this multi-sensory worship area? I love this. Why can’t church be like this all the time? Let’s get the pews out and have cushions and comfy sofas!

The “traditional” New Wine evening celebration was different that evening. Now you have to bear in mind that 90% of New Winos are Anglican (and you all know how Anglicans hate change). Normally we have 40 minutes of singing whilst standing too close to someone who hasn’t had a shower for three days (which is really bad news in a charismatic setting where armpits are exposed). Instead on this particular evening we had a couple of songs and then some prayers and a couple more songs and some more prayers. It was led by Alex and Hannah Absalom from St.Thomas Philadelphia in Sheffield along the lines of what they might do in their Sunday evening Kairos service.

I loved it. The congregational prayers were led using the Lord’s prayer as a framework (as in the Hexagon Lifeshape). Powerpoint pictures on the projector screens were used to visually stimulate our prayers. In the multi-sensory areas there were cushions and a number of prayer/meditation stations. There was a picture of the prodigal son being welcomed home by his Father to help us to meditate on the Father’s love. There was bread to eat to remember that God provides our daily bread. There were bowls of water so we could symbolically wash away our sin as we were forgiven and as we forgave others. There were little scrolls of St.Patrick’s Breastplate to use as we thought about being delivered from evil.

Over the next couple of days I heard mixed responses to the evening. Some people felt cheated. It wasn’t what they had come for! It struck me that Jesus was very wise when he said “You can’t put new wine into an old wineskin” … and even wiser when he said, “and no-one after drinking the old wine wants the new, for he says, “The old wine is better.”” (Luke 5:37-39).

New wine needs a new wineskin where it can mature. As wine matures it becomes old wine, and for those who like it it does indeed taste better than the new. Whilst Jesus was probably having a go at the Pharisees with his aphorism I believe it can be read in a positive way. ie Don’t criticize the good new thing that God is doing. Allow it to co-exist with your way of doing church. In time it too will mature and become old wine and something else new will come along. Let’s not break the old wineskins, and let’s not lose the new wine with all its enthusiasm and lack of finesse. In God’s mixed economy there is a place for both.